Let’s face it, patch 2.3 is coming, and as always we have to adapt. There is of course a chance that nothing will really happen and builds that rule now will continue to rule in 2.3, but nothing is set in stone. Average 5v5 warrior is using either 35/23/3 (33/25/3) balanced build or 33/28 - 31/30 flurry build for better rage generation and dps. During the old days the bread and butter of every warrior was 31/20 build, it gave us the best of two worlds - Mortal Strike - for awesome burst damage and healing debuff, and Enrage for massive powerup when someone was foolish enough to attack us. Why I’m mentioning this is because of Enrage, it was always there, always at 20 points in fury, always ready to be picked up, and neither nerfing it to 25% from original 40%, nor moving Tactical Mastery, not even making it not stack with Death Wish has ever made us spec out of it (well, OK, I did not have enrage at level 60 after patch 2.0 arrived, but I knew I’ll get it again few levels later when TBC shipped), it seems however that patch 2.3, with imp. Intercept and Death Wish in Arms can make us leave Enrage to fury warriors (who have to get it in order to get flurry, even tho it’s useless in PvE).

Why 45/5/11? After all, Endless Rage and imp. MS is crap, right? In high end 5v5, life of a warrior usually have two scenarios:

1. You are ignored for the whole fight, no one will hit you not to fuel your rage and not to trigger Enrage, at which point Enrage is useless. In this part, you can find yourself rage-starving, I don’t care how awesome you are, how good gear you have and how skilled you are, you don’t have enough rage when ignored in PvP unless you are 31/30 and don’t have survivability. This is where Endless Rage comes to rescue, giving you the extra rage, while imp. MS and Blood Frenzy gives a boost in dps. Groundbreaking? No? Viable? My bet is - yes - not saying anything for sure before I test it on my skin.
2. You are attacked, being attacked in 5v5 usually doesn’t mean you are going to fight back happily while your rage bar pops to 100, being attacked in 5v5 means the opposite team wants to nuke the hell out off you, at which point you pop def stance, spam spell reflect macro and move the hell out of LoS. Enrage useless again. One of the biggest problems with warrior class on the arena is lack of ‘OH SHIT’ button, we have it in world pvp or BGs (how many times did shieldwall helped you to bring a flag to the base on WSG?), and this is where Last Stand comes to rescue. Sure it’s not Ice Block, but 30% more hp can buy your healer’s time to heal you up, especially when he was just silenced and is praying “come on, stay alive just a bit longer, just a bit…”.

The baseline of this build is obviously 41/5/11 which leaves you with 4 points free to spend. You can get defiance if you are PvE carebear and want to kill those nasty bosses in heroics or even raids, you can invest them in fury to get some extra rage from UW or better shouts thanks to booming voice (or even demo shout if you are up to this kind of stuff). 45 in arms lets you grab everything important, max 2h spec, max weapon spec, intercept and imp. hamstring are all yours, no compromise, and I like that to be honest, always missed those few points in mid-arms.

There can be problems with this build tho, while it can turn out to be terrific 5v5 build, it can be really bad in 2v2 (where Enrage does have a use, and is pretty darn good). Also you will be missing Piercing Howl, which is one of best talents warrior have, the ultimate ranged-aoe-hamstring that can’t be dodged. Having said that, imp. Blood Rage and Tactical Mastery makes you sleep well knowing you can use Spell Reflect, or Disarm (!!!) anytime you will need them… well… almost. The lack of Weapon Mastery can be easily compensated with adamantite weapon chain (damn rogues and their dual wielding, damn those offhand weapon chains). Sweeping Strikes are now going to be really good as well, even with shorter duration, being able to use them in zerker stance and having whole 10 charges is overall a buff, and then there is Slam (read below), all in all it gives enough reasons to stay hybrid specced for me, maybe not in 5v5, but in 3v3 or 2v2?

Terhix