Warning, HUGE blog.

Name: Get a cool and short name, like Leh or Lemo, so people can armory or remember you easier. Thus, getting some attention and maybe a good healer.

Racials: Gnomes, Orc, Tauren, or reroll. Every little advantage helps… like getting out of the frost nova, resisting the intercept stun, or winning a match with 100 hp.

Hotkeys: You need them. Read previous blogs.

Macros: I personally use only 3 macros.
1. /equip “your shield here” /equip “your 1hander here”
2. /target focus /cast intercept(rank5)
3. /cast defensive stance /equip shield /cast spell reflect /equip 1hander

Internet Connection and Computer: Get good ones because graphical or internet lag will cost games.

Addons: NECB, a cool down count (I use OmniCC), a focus frame mod, and Proximo.

Weapon choice: Mace/Swords for 2s, 3s. Most prefer maces. Sword is probably better with a shaman.

Talents: 35/23/3 or 33/28, I’d socket Crit for either of the build because “burst is king.” I went crit and this is my build http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0xdGbqMhkbZVVzu0xRZc.

Gear/Enchant: Highest item level value per slot. IE 5 strength + 4 crit rating gem > 8 strength gem or 8 critical gem. 24 ap and minor speed meta gem + Surefooted boots enchant. 15 resilience > 6 stats. Executioner for 2hander and Mongoose for 1hander with 12 resilience to shield. I think I’ve covered the important ones.

Gems: I’d like to go over why Critical Strike Rating gems are better in arena than Attack Power gems. First, most of your burst is from intercepting a target, a white swing, then Mortal Striking and Whirl winding. If you take a look at this scenario, attack power helps white swing the most and is reduced on MS or WW because of AP normalization. However, critical strike rating helps all 3 attacks equally. The key word is “burst.” There’s a higher chance of you and/or your team down a target if you get critical hits (especially 2 or 3 in a row) on your target. If your white swing crits then you’d have blood frenzy or flurry for the next few attacks. Critical strike rating helps with other special attack such as hamstring, pummel, and execute. Maybe you’ll do 20 damage less each swing or 500 less damage after a match is over, but it’s the crit that wins games.

Professions: Jewel crafting and Enchanting for 24 attack power and 12 critical strike rating gems along with +4 all stats to each ring. Every little advantage adds up.

Cup of Shut the Beep Up: In case you lose you won’t be able to make up some excuse why you sucked or blame your team mate. Remember, you can’t arena alone. I prefer water in this case.

Duels: Dueling is not PvP? It helps a ton with reflexes, teaches you how to adapt to certain situation, and how certain classes react to you. If you got some time waiting for those 2on2 queues, try dueling. It gives you a better understanding of the other classes you don’t play.

Strategy: You need one against different make ups. For each of those make up you’ll need different strategy depending on what target they are on. For example, as a Arms Warrior/ Holy Priest vs Shadow Priest and Shadow step Rogue
If they are on my priest, I would stick on their shadow priest
Call for dispels whenever power word shield is up
I would pummel the mind blast
Intervene into hamstring / disarm rogue
Intercept back on the priest during a cast

If they are on me, I put on a mace and shield and reflect mind blast
Demoralize/Thunderclap/Mortal Strike/Overpower the rogue
Shield block if you have the extra rage
Go to berserker stance then intercept the priest if he mind blasts if you sucked and reflected something useless.
Disarm only if the rogue’s evasion is off.
Use your battle master’s trinket or fear to save yourself.

Winning = arena points/ratings
Losing = develop strategies, stop queuing because they are your counter-comp, or counter-comp back.
Counter-comp is part of the game, learn to adjust to it.

Counter spelling as a warrrior: (mainly for 2s/3s)
Regardless of what others say, you can lock down healers. We have a counter spell, the macro for it is
/target focus
/cast intercept(rank 5)
Always set a focus target during the match.
Work on your communication with your team so you can lock down a target longer.
Example: Warrior Mage Priest
“I’m going to get the first interrupt” your pummel interrupts holy light
“I’m going to counter-spell his next one” Mage counter spells Paladin’s flash of light
“I got the next one” I would use the focus/intercept macro and interrupt the heal
I then stand right next to the healer and wait for the stun to wear off so I can pummel while my teammates are beating down a target.

Here are some useful arena tips:
Say something when you’re going to pummel so your team don’t waste their interrupt
Spam Hamstring (Mace stuns) if your healer needs to peel off something
Shield reflect something useful
Call out “druid’s innervated, dispel or purge”“going to get sheeped, dispel”
Throw at the caster if you know they are going to drink
Be aware of your/healer’s position, put up raid icons so you can see them easier
Don’t disarm when the rogue is evasion’d unless you’re behind them/they’re stunned.
Innervate your team if you need to reposition/save yourself/teammate
Get anger management / imp hamstring/ imp overpower
Taunt pets to buy time for your healer to drink
Arms warrior can tank almost any heroic instances, being a good tank might help you play better when being focus fired (ie spam defensive abilities/trinket/health stones)
LoS sheeps/entangles if you think it’s coming
The shoulders, gloves, and throwing weapon are poor upgrades, get them last
Predict whether the druid is going to cyclone you or if the paladin is going to heal, run to them and get ready to pummel. You’ll need intuition or experience here
Get known by dueling/performing well in arena/or pay to play with top players and hope they notice you then people will want you on their team
If your target runs right next to a caster, be ready to quickly switch target and pummel
Hotkey everything, including your trinkets and macros
Pummel that frost bolt, lighting bolt, or mind blast. Why? you’re also stopping that ice lance, earth shock, or shadow word death.
Piercing Howl when people are bunched up.
Fear when something is about to die, offensively or defensively
Pummel, intercept, and then pummel can lock down casters

Post advice in comments and I’ll be sure to add to this list. Any other comments, suggestions, requests, or corrections are welcomed.

Leh

Disclaimer: this is another “guest post”, if you also want to share your thoughts on this blog, just let me know in comments and I’ll contact you via e-mail - Terhix

1/2 Improved Overpower or 2/2 Improved Overpower?

Flurry build – Higher chance to getting flurry procs
Tactical Mastery – More overpower usage
Every class can dodge, but it’s most effective vs rogues, hunters, and druids.
Answer – 2/2 overpower regardless of build

2% Blood Frenzy/ 15% Improved Hamstring or 4% Blood Frenzy/ 10% Improved Hamstring?

It comes down to make up. If you’re the only physical dpser, I’d suggest 2% Blood Frenzy and 4% Blood Frenzy if there’s more than one.

Improved Slam?

It’s not very good in “most” PvP situations. No.

Booming Voice, Improved Demoralizing Shout, or Unbridled Wrath?

Booming Voice or Unbridled Wrath. I’d prefer Unbridled Wrath, but Booming Voice can be useful too. I really don’t know what’s better here. Suggestions?

Improved Heroic Strike vs Parry

I haven’t found myself using Heroic Strike often enough to justify 3 talent points.

Weapon Spec?

Swords can be good in 3s and 5s depending on make up, while Mace is good in 2s, 3s, and 5s on any make up. I’d suggest Maces though. Axe is for PvE.

Racial?

Yes, racial IS game breaking. Gnomes for alliance and Orcs/Tauren for horde.

Crit vs AP (aka gems)

Instant attacks are affected by AP normalization.
Crits are affected by resilience.

Crit is better for arena in “most cases” since “burst is king.” Criting your target during a group burst or swap is more important doing 20 more damage. I’d gem mostly for crit.

Edit

Blood Craze vs Commanding Presence

Blood Craze gives you “more” per point of talent points you’re spending. 1 point in commanding presence gives you 8 strength or 5.4 stamina. 1 point in Blood Craze gives you 1% of your health over 6 seconds after a crit. Is 8 strength or 5.4 stamina worth it over blood craze? In situations like double melee, maybe.

Chest enchant 15 resilience or +6 stats

15 resilience is harder to find in items and it’s more valuable than 6str 6 agi and 6 stamina in terms of item value.

I’m planning on giving more details on my reasoning for each section.

Leh

Gladiator Leh from Tichondrius BG9, an American server. I transfered over during season 3 finishing top 10 in 2s/3s in BG1 during season 2. Been playing warrior since WoW came back, but arena was an on and off thing for me. I wanted to share some of my experiences and knowledge since Warriorpwns.com’s post were inactive.

Flurry:
DPS – More white swings = more rage = more specials = more dps
Well not really. Getting 1.5 swings every 10 swing isn’t THAT big of a dps upgrade.
Warlocks and Priests are the only classes where flurry can be good against, but then if there’s a paladin, hunter, or druid on their team flurry becomes irrelevant again. There’s also too many factors against flurry because warriors either get CC’d to death or we get blown up on a quick swap. Factors include: getting stunned, snared, immobilized, target getting freedomed, hunter traps, target swapping, switching to board/1hand, etc.

Imp Execute – Good, nothing wrong with it.

Easy to play –What’s difficult about staying in berserker stance and spamming Mortal Strike and never switching stance?
Not difficult.

Tactical Mastery:

DPS – Some would argue that it produces just as much or even more dps than flurry in most cases as a result of more usage of overpower, blood frenzy, or frequent target swaps. The ability to retain rage retains dps/utility. A team of 2 or more physical dpser would greatly benefit from 4% blood frenzy.

Utility – The ability to disarm and spell reflect is crucial for success. Disarming the warrior to keep MS off for a second or disarm rogues for 10 second could bring their target from death to full health. Spell reflecting that sheep or cyclone can be game breaking.

Harder to play – Anyone can play flurry because it doesn’t require any stance changing… but not everyone can play tactical mastery “effectively.” It just opens a lot of option in arena compared to flurry.

I agree that both specs have its advantages and disadvantages, but in “most cases” tactical mastery is more useful than flurry, which is why most of the top warriors are spec’s 35/23/3.

2s – You’ll probably be facing against a druid plus something. Spell reflecting a cyclone or root can be game breaking while reducing pressure on the druid’s CC as a result of fear of reflecting. Intervene healer into hamstring and disarm melee then intercept and hamstring back on your target works wonder.

3s – Druids druids druids. Read above. This time you can “bounce” around more often. 4% blood frenzy is wonderful in a two physical dps oriented team. Instant spell reflect saves lives against RMP on a swap. Intervening on a sheep cast when pummel is on CD is quite satisfying.

5s – 2345 (warrior priest paladin shaman mage) and 2346 (warlock instead of mage) are the most common make ups according to SK-Gaming. These make up tend to “warrior gib” and instant spell reflect saves lives. Warriors are usually on these make up and target swaps are very common.

Duels – Tactical Mastery owns more except against classes you’ve already lost before the duel starts… priest and warlocks (which flurry is best against).

Answer - Spec Tactical Mastery and learn how to play it effectively. You can always go back to flurry vs optimized make ups or you’re feeling lazy. Anyone can play flurry “effectively”, but not everyone play with tactical mastery “effectively.”

I was flurry since season 1 came out on BG1 and when I transferred to BG9 (most competitive American Battlegroup) during season 3, I spec’d Tactical Mastery and stuck with it because of its utility.

Leh

Noone really knows how, not even if it’s giving too much or too little rage. Blizzard noted that “Endless Rage is not granting the correct bonus to rage generation”, it’s been on since patch 2.3.3. When I first read that note, the first thing that came to my head was that my beer is just about to end and I need to grab another one, the second thing that came to my head was:
 

/care

 
Yea, that’s pretty much all I’ve to say on the topic :P.

Terhix

Execute has became a hot topic on EU warrior forums recently. At level 60 execute was a killer, when your enemy went below 20%, he died. TBC changed everything, facts:

1) People have a lot of stamina today, no one has less then 10k hp, not even mages, meaning that 20% execute range is at least 2k hp.

2) People have a lot of resilience, meaning your execute is going to crit for less damage and do so less often.

3) Execute don’t scale with gear.

Without taking Enrage or armor mitigation into account, execute does 925 damage + 21 per rage point, which means that non improved execute done with 30 rage will do 1240 damage. Full S3 geared warrior will have at least 2k attack power. For the same 30 rage Mortal Strike done with max weapon damage from S3 weapon will deal about 1261 damage (non crit, without enrage or other damage multipliers on 0 mitigation). On average MS still does a bit less damage then 30 rage execute, but come S4 and even better gear, and MS will exceed execute in damage / rage, while execute can become useless with people getting even more defenses and hp. Execute makes you loose all your rage, in arena, especially when you are the only dps, this often means that if your execute is not a killing blow, MS debuff will fade from the guy you are trying to finish and he is going to get healed for a large number, and you can’t afford that.

Execute is our eviscerate, but unlike Rogue’s constant-damage ability, Execute was not changed to scale with gear, which makes it really really bad the better gear everybody around have.

The question you might ask is - how do you scale damage/1 rage point not to make the ability overpowered. My answer is - you don’t. All that needs to be changed is the constant 925 part of execute damage, 925 is fine for blue geared warrior, an S3 warrior should do 1110 (20% more) + 21 / 1 rage damage executes. On the other side, this can be a problem with dps fury warriors, the better gear those folks have, the more rage they generate, so when the boss goes down below 20%, they technically do more damage with execute with better gear, as their rage generation goes up. In PvP it’s a different story, when we often struggle with rage and don’t have time to do 20 executes in a row before our enemy dies, it’s just not happening.

Execute is one of the things that needs to be improved come WotLK, as in my opinion, it’s one of the abilities that define the class and adds a lot of badass factor, it would be a pity for it to become a cosmetic ability that no one use because it’s damage / rage is not good enough to loose the debuff of our primary attack.

Terhix