Hello all.  Lot’s of happenings in the world of PTD, I have some upgrade stories, new levels of uberness, and a bit of a rant about my 10% less cool Fury Warrior.  Let’s get this started.

The Great Fury Warrior Nerf of 3.1

Titan’s Grip was one of the first "new" talents that sounded really freaking cool.  Be able to use TWO giant, badass 2-handers?  Sign me up!  Since it’s inception, though, it’s gone through a number of changes, tweaks, buffs and nerfs.  Blizzard just doesn’t seem to have a clue how to balance the talent.  I’m almost at the point where I wish they’d quit tinkering and just rework the 51 point fury talent completely. 

If you recall, when we first got to take this talent for a spin, it came with a hit penalty when wielding 2 two-handers.  It’s gone through quite a few iterations, and I’m not even sure where it started out.  I believe it was in the neighborhood of a 15% hit penalty for yellow (special) damage, then a straight 5% penalty to hit, and then finally it was removed completely.  Trying to actually remember the roadmap of changes to Titan’s Grip makes my head spin.

The newest change introduced in 3.1 gives Titan’s Grip a straight up 10% damage nerf. 

Should there be a penalty or nerf to Titan’s Grip?  If so is a straight damage nerf the best way to do that?

The answer to the first question is "yes," while whether a damage nerf was a good idea is more difficult.  If you look at the talent honestly, you would have to think that a penalty-less Titan’s Grip is an overpowered talent.  I think the difficulty, though, is determining just HOW overpowered it is.  You see, the Warrior class is, in my opinion, THE most gear dependent class in the game.  A poorly geared warrior can’t do anything, really, but that also means that we SCALE better than most with GOOD gear.

The issue is that if you looked at the TOP geared fury warriors in the game, they were often blowing other classes away on the damage meters.  Personally, I was consistently in the top 5 in 25 mans, and that was with sub-par weapons.  If I had a couple of BOH’s, I may have been leading the meters.  (Though at this point I’ll never know.) 

With this recent nerf, however, I’ve dropped a good 3 or 4 spots on the DPS hierarchy.  I still do solid DPS, and with some recent upgrades I’m sure to be climbing the meters again (more on those upgrades later.) 

My issue is this.  Were fury warriors nerfed based on the performance of the top geared warriors in WoW?  I’m a little afraid that just might be the case.

I’ve also heard the argument that warriors are a hybrid, and therefore should not be tops in damage.  Well, that makes sense, but where is the explanation for the Ret Pallys and Feral Druids I see at the top all the time post 3.1? 

Like I said, though, I’m happy with my damage output.  I guess I just don’t quite understand the reasoning, and in some ways feel a straight damage penalty was a lazy way to fix the problem.

Lucky Night With the RNG

On a lighter, happier note, my terribad luck with weapon drops came to a merciful end last week.  I was online doing some questing when a call went out for a DPS to fill Naxx 25, where they were on KT.  I had no plans to run it later that week, so I piped up and got ported in. 

It turned out to be the most profitable single, fill-in boss fight I’ve ever been a part of.    It was the first time that KT dropped the Betrayer of Humanity for our group, and guess who was on top of the SK list in that particular raid.  Wahooo!  It’s about freaking TIME I got rid of my crap Naxx 10 mace, Demise.

Now, I felt a tiny pang of guilt, having only gotten on for that one kill, but at the same time I had run Naxx many, many times with this group previously.  And we do use SK for a reason!  I am also a believer that if you took part in a boss kill, you have the right to roll on any loot that he should drop. 

And, just to make things even more profitable, I picked up my T 7.5 helm at the same time. 

80 Number 3

This is a testament to how much easier leveling is in Wrath than it was in BC.  I now have THREE, count them (3), level 80 toons.  My Druid, my Warrior, and now my Hunter.  Heck, it wasn’t until the tail end of BC’s reign that I got my 2nd level 70, and here I sit with 3 level 80s.  I know I could easily get more, as well!

But, as a more casual player, I’ve always been pretty heavily invested in alts.  If I only have a half hour, the best thing for me personally is to log on an alt and do a few quests.  I just can’t stand dailies, I’ve never been able to, and I’m not really an achievement junkie, either, so alts are it for me. 

This is another cross-post on Big Hit Box….check it out!

You’re here for info.  I’m here to try to help.  3.1 finally dawned on Azeroth, and there are a couple things I’d like to go over.  I won’t cover dual specs, tradeskills, or anything like that.  I’m cherry picking some stuff that I’m personally interested in, and hope you are too.

3.1 Fury Talents

First, let’s talk Fury specs.  Honestly, I don’t think a lot has changed.  The big, BIG thing to note, though, is the removal of Weapon Mastery from the fury tree.  For us Furies, it means it’s time to boost up that expertise.  In the old cap, you only had to get to 18 expertise, which equated to about 148 expertise rating.  Now, without the benefits of Weapon Mastery, you need to get to 26 expertise, which is 214 expertise rating.  That’s a sizable amount more of expertise you will need, and after getting hit capped for yellow damage, expertise is the next thing you want capped.

Seriously, cap expertise.  Do it now before you forget.

Anyhow, here is what I went with spec wise.  It’s pretty standard up and down.  You have a few play points here and there.  Like if you want to look cool on the trash DPS meters you could get Improved Cleave, but I didn’t bother.  Many of the points in arms are negotiable as well. 

Ulduar Weapon Drops

Now for the fun stuff!  I’ve been hurting a bit weapon wise.  I’ve had terrible luck in Naxx 25, and I’m still running around with Demise and the Titansteel Destroyer.

Thankfully, blizz has come to save the day with a handful of new weapons to shoot for, in both 10 and 25 man Ulduar.

10-Man Drops

Ironsoul – Drops from the Flame Leviathan

Very nice weapon, available from what I believe is the first boss in Ulduar.  Strength has always been a great stat for fury, but now that zerker stance boosts str and not AP, it’s even sweeter.  Armor penetration got a big boost in 3.1 as well, so this is another good side stat to shoot for.  The crit is also nice, and it’s overall DPS is even higher than Death’s Bite from Naxx 10.  I will be gunning for this from the start.  Fury DPS LFG Uld 10.

Stormedge – Drops from Hodir

Another solid weapon from Ulduar 10.  The hit is ok, but again we find a good amount of strength and some Armor Pen as a bonus.  The DPS is also solid.  This may be itemized more for an Arms warrior, but still a good weapon nonetheless.  Especially if you have been unlucky like I have. 

25-Man Drops

Worldcarver – Drops from Ignis the Furnace Master

Here we have our first weapon on the ?next level? in terms of DPS.  232.5 DPS is higher than the previous BIS, the Betrayer of Humanity.  Now, the stats make it more of a DK tanking weapon.  I don’t know a whole lot about that class/spec, but the stamina budget, expertise and haste scream out tank to me.  Still an excellent choice for a Fury Warrior if you’re still carting around old 186 DPS weapons like me.  I would probably pass it to a DK tank, but I’d roll about anyone else for it.  Strength again, some expertise to help us cap out, and some haste, which isn’t bad.

Rune Edge – Drops from the Iron Council

Another big 232.5 DPS.  If this had strength rather than agility, I would be MUCH more excited, but it’s still a great, great weapon.  (Hell, the Betrayer had agi and not str too!)  Crit, AP and Armor Pen are all high and very welcome.  Beware of hunters if this drops, try to distract or confuse them if possible.  Use the ?hey, wait for a spear? argument if necessary.

Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion – Drops from General Vezax

This is the present King of the Fury Hill in terms of weapons.  244.7 DPS, 999 max damage ? I think my head is about to explode.  Strength, 2 sockets, crit, armor pen – it’s a dream come true.  Expect to have lots of competition for this sword, it’s the bee’s knees.  Excuse me a second while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.

So there you have your new weapons to shoot for.  I think Blizz did a much better job of itemizing weapons this time around, the choices in Naxx just seemed a little too limited.  Keep in mind this list does not include loot from the last 2 bosses.  They are still a mystery to all.  I’m sure there’s a big nasty axe in there somewhere, with a DPS number over 250. 

WoW Matrix

To wrap things up, a big BOO to Curse and WoW Interface for blocking WoW Matrix.  Now, I understand there is money involved and whatnot, but can’t they work with WoW matrix in some way?  It really was by far the best updater.  Now I have to use the invasive Curse client, and then manually install my outlier addons that aren’t available on Curse.  I know it’s no HUGE deal, but I have a lot of addons.  WoW Matrix made everything cake, and Curse and WoW Interface have taken that away. 

So Boo to you Curse and WoW Interface!  A Pox on you and both your houses!

That’s all for now ? shouldn’t you be in Ulduar right now?

Yeah, I know.  It’s been awhile.  But you see I promised myself something when I first began writing this blog:  I will try my best NOT to write posts JUST to write posts.  It’s not like I have to clock in or whatnot, this is no job.  I write when I have something worthwhile to talk about, or at least I hope so.  Please don’t now inundate me with examples of crap posts from the past, as I’m sure I have many out there.   

With that out of the way, I can tell you that I indeed have something to talk about.  A couple of things, really. 

Bye Bye Maly

For starters, I’ve beaten WoW.  (Save the accolades for later, really.)  I’ve been raiding once a week for the past couple of months, and Friday night we finally accomplished the last real thing I had to accomplish, downing Malygos in 25 man.  Now I know there are things I have not done on my warrior, like OS25 for instance, but between my warrior and druid I’ve really done it all.  I’m itching for Ulduar now just like many of you are.  But I’ll get back to that in the second part of this post.

Back to Malygos – it took us a long time, and a lot of tries.  Overall the fight really isn’t that difficult.  It wasn’t long before we had phases 1 and 2 pegged.  Anyone who’s done Maly knows, however, that phase 3 is the rub. 

Individually, it’s not all that difficult.  Just keep your stack up, and stack as many as you can.  In a way I have some advantages in this area due to my experience with Resto Druiding.  For a long time I made my living on proper stack/HOT management. 

The problem is you have to get SO MANY people doing the same thing.  In other phases, in other fights, you can carry some people through who aren’t performing like everyone else.  In Maly your room for error is marginal at best.  You need most everyone to be handling their stacks RIGHT. 

In a way, it’s reminiscent of the Teron Gorefiend fight from Black Temple.  To take down Gorefiend, you had to play this itty bitty mini-game that Blizz had thrown in, and you needed everyone to be able to play it.  The same thing goes for Malygos.  At least here Blizz had the foresight to institute some in game training.  There is a daily quest near Transitus Shield, Aces High, that shows you how the drakes you will have to use for Maly work. 

I can’t say I’m a fan of that kind of boss fight, but it was very satisfying when we got it done.  Pics or it didn’t happen, I know?

There you go, proof.  Are you happy?  My apologies for the fairly crappy shot, it’s hard to get anything decent with 20+ drakes in the air and whatnot.  Don’t even get me started on the horrors of trying to loot the stupid chest thingy afterwards.  Ugh.  (On a side note, can we have a moratorium on any loot “boxes”?  I’d much rather always have a big old corpse to click on, where we can ALL get in!)

So goodnight Maly, it was fun?.ish.

Razor Thin Layers of Progression

My Fury Warrior (who is my present main, in case you haven’t heard) has pretty dang spiffy gear.  I finally got done with the dreaded Nobles Deck to get the Darkmoon Card: Greatness, I have several pieces of near BIS gear from 25 man Naxx, and I’m capped in everything useful and sport over 4k unbuffed AP.  But still, I have a pretty big problem. 

My frigging weapons.

I have Demise from 10 man Naxx and the Titansteel Destroyer.  Good weapons, sure, but overall they are really holding me back. 

The problem is that there are very few upgrades in this area.  There are four I’m looking at, to be exact, and to date I’ve only seen one of them drop, and that only once.  In case you are wondering, the four weapons are The Jawbone, Armageddon, Death’s Bite and the Betrayer of Humanity.  3 of them only come from 25 man Naxx, and the last comes from 10 man Naxx.  I can only raid once a week, and I do 25 man Naxx on that one day, and to this day I’ve only seen Armageddon drop, and that only once.  To add to the futility of trying to upgrade my weapons is the fact that I really need TWO in the long run, and there are usually 4 other people in each raid that would like the same drops.

Ugh.

So here I find myself on the narrowest of upgrade paths, and it’s disheartening.  This is why PTD gets bored, and why I find myself wondering what alt to level next.  It gets tough as you approach the upper echelons of gear, and fewer and fewer upgrades are appealing.  I need nothing from heroism badge gear (unless I start looking at tanking gear), and there aren’t many drops left in Naxx 25 that I’m interested in anymore.  I just want a new stinking weapon.  And then one more to boot.

So I keep on heading into Naxx 25, and hope every time that I get lucky.  I do my job, put out very good DPS, and approach most boss lootings as uneventful.

So why are there no good badge weapons?  Back in the BC days, there were some VERY nice weapons you could get with badges.  Now I see nothing at all.  Does Blizz have something against those of us who wield two-handers?  And then, just for kicks, did they say “hey, maybe we should make a class able to use TWO two-handers, and thereby magnify their frustration tenfold!”  I sure hope not. 

Thankfully, there look to be some good choices coming along in Ulduar.  Now where the heck is 3.1??

This’ll be my second cross post on Big Hit Box.  So be sure to check out their site as well, they got’s a good thing going!  I used to say I wouldn’t want to be part of any club that would have me as a member, but that turned out to be a lonely proposition.  Now on with the post!

Before I get to the juice, I’ll give a minor update about my guild situation.  I’m still flying solo, and it’s actually quite refreshing.  I’m still able to raid with the same people I was raiding with before.  Also, I was doing a ton of PUGing before, so this is really no different.  My friends list is really growing, too!  Heck, my first run post guild netted me my stupid epic legs from UK.  FINALLY!

Come Geared, or Don’t Come at All

In my estimation, the Warrior is the most gear dependent class in all of World of Warcraft.  (It’s one of the reasons I rated them at the bottom in my old Casual Class post!)  It doesn’t matter what spec you’re talking about either – Arms, Prot and Fury Warriors all rely on good gear to perform.  The good thing about that is that Warriors also SCALE better with gear than most other classes.  With my Druid, for instance, 20 points in spellpower or spirit here or there didn’t mean all that much, not so with the Warrior. 

There are many gear lists out there for Fury warriors, you can use Wowhead, Elitist Jerks, Tankspot, even the armory.  But if you’re fresh to level 80, and want to hit the ground running with your Fury Warrior, this is the guide for you.  No, it’s not about best in slot, it’s about the quickest route to competency.

You’ll notice a lot of Blacksmithing and other crafted stuff.  Blizzard made things a lot easier on us by making so many good recipes BoE, and largely did away with the old style BoP stuff.  It might be a good idea to take up Blacksmithing if you haven’t already, your extra gem slots will thank me later. 

Lastly, before we get going, remember to think about your overall gear picture as you’re making choices from the below.  You want a MINIMUM of 164 hit, which will make it so your specials (yellow damage) ALWAYS land.  Beyond 164 hit, I concentrated on Strength and AP personally, though there are those that would argue for stacking crit or expertise.  I’m no theorycrafter though, so ask someone else for the cookie cutter way to gear up. 

I’ll go slot by slot, starting at the top.

Head

This is one of those easy, cheesy slam dunk slots.  Blacksmiths make the Spiked Titansteel Helm, which will last you for a LONG time.  Nice bonuses to strength, hit and crit along with a meta and blue gem slot.  Money.  You really can’t do much better for a Fury warrior.  I’ve passed on 25 man drops to hold onto this – it’s that good.  Some day they’ll pry it off my cold, dead head (ewwww).  Have the mats ready at 80, trust me.  Oh, and if you don’t know already, go with the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond for your meta, and you may as well put a blue in that slot for the meta gem requirements.

Neck

You can easily go with more crafted goodness here with the Titanium Impact Choker, but I’ve never really been "sold" on this particular piece.  I like the socket, for sure, and the AP and Agil are nice, but not game changing.  I didn’t personally want to invest the mats in this, and used something easier to get – the Choker of Betrayal from a quest in Zul’Drak- until I got the badge neck. 

Shoulders

The head slot is easy, the shoulders slot just plain stinks.  It’s always been a tough slot to fill, and it was the same with my druid.  Do the guys at Blizz just not like shoulders, or what?  Anyhow, the easiest fill are probably the Savage Saronite Pauldrons, also from your local Blacksmith.  The resilience is essentially useless, but the strength and crit are decent.  They’ll do.  (Another option is the Mantle of Volkhan, if you turn out to need the hit.)

Cloak

Kind of a meh slot all around.  There are a lot of easy to obtain options, but none of them are particularly suited to a Fury Warrior.  But since I’m trying to make this easy, you could either go with the epic crafted Ice Striker’s Cloak, or go with the quest reward Cloak of the Buzzing Swarm.  Unless you’re awash in frozen orbs and primals, go with the quest reward to tide you over until you can pick something up down the line.  Maybe work on Argent Crusade rep at some point for the Cloak of Holy Extermination. 

Chest

This is one of the tougher slots to fill.  There are many, many good options as you start farming 80 instances and heroics, but before that things are a bit on the sparse side.  One option is the Battleplate of Unheard Ovation, a quest reward from Icecrown.  The strength is nice, and expertise is an important stat for a Fury Warrior.  This would tide you over at the beginning, and you should be questing in Icecrown to open up the Ebon Hold faction and dailies anyhow.

Wrist

Easy again.  Vengeance Bindings, no doubt.  Easy to make, weighted nicely for a Fury, and there’s not a whole lot else out there.  Heck, I’m still wearing these while I save for the badge bracers.  Find your local blacksmith.  Again.  Or maybe just take up Blacksmithing yourself, extra gem slots are awfully juicy!

Hands

Another kind of crap choice here in Spiked Cobalt Gauntlets, but at least they’re easy to get.  You can live with a green or two for now.    You could also try to get in a regular Strat group ASAP and pick up the Handwraps of Preserved History, though I may actually lean towards the crafted green in this head to head.  More AP and a little hit to help you along.

Belt

Surprise surprise, we need another blacksmith.  And hence we return for the Spiked Cobalt Belt.  But, if you did get yourself in a regular Strat group for those hands, maybe you’ll get lucky and the Spiked Metal Cilice drops.  Then you can make all kinds of Da Vinci Code jokes if you want to. 

Legs

If a top end guild owes you money, get them to take you on a 2 Drake OS10 for Belabored Legplates.  Otherwise, throw a few cobalt bars at a blacksmith and get Spiked Cobalt Legplates in return.  Oh, and I know what you’re saying about all this green cobalt stuff.  "Where’s the stamina?"  It’s really not all that important, really.  You go down like a cloth wearer if you get aggro from a raid boss anyway!

Boots

Spiked Titansteel Treads will work just fine, and the mats aren’t that bad.  They don’t excite me like the helm does, however, as they are pretty easily replaced when you hit exalted with Ebon Hold.  Boots of Dominance, another quest reward, will work if you want to save your titansteel bars.

Rings

There are so many options here, i won’t bother.  Though I guess picking up the Ring of Scarlet Shadows wouldn’t hurt.  Hit, Crit, AP and a slot.  You could even use this piece for that other blue gem to activate your meta.

Trinket

My first advice for the trinket slot is this:  spend your first 40 badges on the Mirror of Truth.  The trinket slot is quite hard to fill, and that trinket is so good that it’s worth it.  Before that, pick up the Crusader’s Locket from a quest, along with the First Mate’s Pocketwatch.  Underwhelming, I know…hence the Mirror.

Ranged

Hemet’s Trophy Gun is easy enough.  And it looks pretty cool.  I mean come on, it’s made out of some monster’s FACE!  I wouldn’t lose much sleep over this slot in any case.

Weapons

Weapons, weapons, weapons.  Our bread and butter.  I always love to upgrade my big bad 2 handers, the bigger and glowier the better.  It’s not easy to get 2 good ones, though.  For starters, make sure you do the "new" Ring of Blood event in Zul’Drak, as the De-Raged Waraxe is excellent to start out.  This is also an area where a good rep grind will pay off big time.  I didn’t do it this way the first time, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d start grinding Ebon Blade right away so I could pick up one or two Runeblades of Demonstrable Power.  And not just cause they have a long name.  I was using one of these in my off-hand until just last week.  And all you have to do is wear a stupid tabard and do some dailies.  Working on that is also a good idea for the above-mentioned boots.  You could also choose to do Argent Crusade rep first, as the Argent Skeleton Crusher is nice too.  The sword is just better.    An important thing to note about the Runeblade and Crusher is that neither are "unique equipped," so you can use one in each hand!  I really like how 2 Crushers look. 

If you want to jump right into epic weaponry, get a whole crapload of cash and/or titansteel bars and get the Titansteel Destroyer.  It will serve you well, though it is a little unremarkable for me as far as looks.  I like huge, pointy weapons with rotating crap and glowy effects.  The Destroyer looks like it was the leg off some crap throne somewhere.  Meh.  All that strength and a bunch of hit to boot?  PTD likes. 

This is by no means the "ultimate" list.  I have no illusions of some secret code of gear, and I’m sure I’ve left off some good options and posted some stupid ones.  It’s the nature of the beast.  So if you have a suggestion about something, throw it in the comments, I’d love to hear it.  If you follow this guide, you’ll be well on your way to a decent starter set, and can start grinding heroics for the "important" stuff.  Some day you too will be doing 5k+ DPS on Loatheb! 

Warning!!  Warning!!  PTD is spreading!  I’ve decided to do a little guest posting on Big Hit Box, a melee-centric WoW blog, and I went ahead and cross-posted this over there as well.  Be sure to drop by and add BHB to your reader! 

I don’t think I can even split hairs about it anymore.  My Warrior is my main.  It makes the title of the blog a tad bit deceptive, but hell, it’s my blog.  If BBB can spend his time writing about his hunter, I can surely write about my Warrior.  And I’m exceedingly confident that the Resto Druid Blog World has got that corner well covered.  Hell, is there any spec/class with more blogs devoted to it than Resto Druiding?  I really think not.  Maybe there is something about playing a Tree that lends itself to the analytical writing type.  I really don’t know.  I do know that Phaelia, Bellwhether, Leafy and many others have the whole Resto Druid blogging thing down pat.  They won’t miss me.  Much.

Though when I first hit 80 I went prot, a while back I switched to Fury adue to an overabundance of tanks in the guild.  (Strange, I know.)  And I can freely admit that I sucked at first.  I was barely breaking 1k DPS in my sorry Fury gear, as I hadn’t been picking up that stuff at all.  I languished somewhere below the tank on the damage meters my first few runs. 

Well, since then I’ve made huge strides in gear and skill, and can happily pump out 2300 or so DPS in heroics without much of a problem.  I can put out about 3k or so in a 25 man raid, with upwards of 3500 DPS on boss fights.  Not the best, to be sure, but not bad.  So in the interest of helping any other fresh fury warriors out, I’ll list five things you should know to help you avoid some of the problems I had in the beginning. 

1)  Don’t Level Fury

Ok, maybe I didn’t need this one.  I didn’t level Fury myself, that much you’d know if you read regularly.  I leveled Arms, and I’m a big proponent of the spec for leveling purposes.  For one thing, Arms is far FAR less gear dependent than Fury.  All you need for Arms is one good 2 hander.

To add to that, many of the plate DPS quest rewards are geared more towards a DK or an Arms spec warrior.  They normally favor crit over hit, which works great for an Arms warrior, but isn’t as big a priority for Fury.  You need a good deal of hit as a Fury warrior just to get your DPS off the ground.  At a bare minimum you need 164 hit rating, and that only serves to make sure all your specials will land.  A TG Fury warrior with only 164 hit will have very poor rage generation – and there’s nothing worse than a rage-starved Fury Warrior. 

Besides all that, Bladestorm, the 51 point Arms talent, is still perhaps my favorite warrior talent.  There’s nothing quite like mowing down 5 or 6 mobs in about 20 seconds.  Trust me, stick with Arms until 80, you won’t regret it.

2)  Don’t Spec Stupid

You don’t need to kid around as a Fury Warrior.  A lot of classes and specs have a good deal of variance.  Maybe they’ll have a Raid DPS spec or a 5 man DPS spec.  With Fury, there’s a fairly standard spec you can go with from the start.  18/53/0.  The Arms points are basically for Deep Wounds and 2 handed spec.  I’ve seen very small variants, like a 19/52/0 array, but for the most part 18/53/0 is the de facto spec for a Fury warrior.  So don’t go trying to get all fancy with a weird hybrid spec, the standard will give you all you want. 

3)  Learn to Love Your Threat Meter

It doesn’t matter which one you use, but make sure you’re using some kind of threat meter.  Fury Warriors can pump out a LOT of DPS, but at the same time they don’t have a Get Out of Jail Free card.  There are only two aggro dumps for a Fury Warrior, stop attacking or die. And nobody likes to stop attacking. You can’t Ice Block or Fade or Feign Death or even beg for mercy.  If you draw aggro in a heroic or raid, chances are you will die.  And don’t go thinking plate will save you, it doesn’t make you THAT much more resilient than any other DPS class.  You might last half a second longer than a clothie, but not much more.  So don’t be lazy, and watch the threat, Mister.

4)  Learn Your Rotation and Positioning

Like your spec, your skill rotation is pretty straightforward.  Whirlwind and Bloodthirst are your best friends, make sure you can use them whenever they are off cooldown.  After that, watch for instant Slam procs, and use them immediately (UNLESS WW or BT are off cooldown!)  If everything is on cooldown, and you’re sitting on 50 or more rage, go ahead and throw in a heroic strike on single targets or a cleave in multi mob situations.  So the hierarchy is WW –> BT –> Instant Slam –> HS/Cleave.  Rinse and repeat.

Now the Warrior is my first melee DPS class, so I had to learn positioning.  With my Hunter I just stayed at max range and went to town.  With the warrior I have to try to make sure I stay BEHIND the mobs as much as possible, ESPECIALLY if it’s a boss.  They can’t parry if you’re attacking from behind, and you’ll do more damage.  Be careful not to pull extra packs, but try to stay to the side or behind as much as possible.

5)  Don’t Expect Big Numbers Right Away

As I’ve already mentioned, Fury warriors are fairly gear dependent.  Some people consider them THE most gear dependent DPS class. As I mentioned before, my DPS sucked when I first respecced.  I didn’t have 2 good weapons to use, and I didn’t have a lot of hit, not to mention poor AP and crit numbers.  Now a good fury warrior CAN lead the damage meters, but only with really good gear.  You don’t get to pump out 2500 in crap gear like a DK – not everyone gets to be OP you know!    Expect your numbers to slowly ramp up as you gear up.

Now ABOUT that gear.  I won’t get too far into it, but here are a few pointers.  Focus on hit until you’re at least at 164 hit rating.  After that, while you shouldn’t flat out ignore hit, you don’t need to go out of your way to find it, it comes naturally on gear that you’ll want.  You also want a good deal of Strength, as we get 2 AP for every point of strength.   I almost ALWAYS gem for pure strength.  I’ll put +14 str gems in minor upgrades, and I make sure and plug in +16 str gems in the really good stuff.  Don’t focus on socket bonuses, chances are you’ll be wasting your time.  Once you get close to 4000 AP unbuffed, then you can start thinking about gemming for Crit instead of straight strength.  But 4k AP is a long way off at the beginning.   

For some easy upgrades, work on Ebon Hold rep.  They have a nice 2 handed sword at Revered that will serve you well, along with the AP helm enchant.  At exalted they have a very nice set of epic boots you can pick up.  The other easy avenue for upgrades is Blacksmithing.  The Spiked Titansteel Helm is one of the best helms you can get period, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to make.  You also might want the Spiked Titansteel Treads and you will surely want the Titansteel Destroyer.  Get those upgrades, and you’ll soon be rocking the DPS meters.

There you have it.  I’ve found playing a Fury Warrior quite enjoyable, and I don’t regret the switch from Prot spec at all.  In higher end guilds, Fury Warriors are often at the very top of the damage meters, and I can see why.  I’m putting out 3.5k+ on bosses right now, and I still have some significant holes in my gear.  I can’t wait to see what I can do when I REALLY get geared out!  It should be fun!