1.What is fury?
It's the spec Blizzard described in the Class Q&A last year as "screaming barbarians in woad" and that still remains the best way to think of the spec. For in game examples of warriors who seem to embody the fury playstyle, both Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream fit the bill. (Sorry, guys, Saurfang is arms. We all know this to be true.) Fury warriors can offtank in a pinch or even tank a five man, but they're not designed to be tanking in raids. The spec is designed at present to equip two huge weapons and smash them into things. It's refreshingly simple in concept, really.
2.What are the benefits of fury?
Well, do you like two handed weapons?
What about hitting things with two handed weapons?
In all sincerity, fury is as simple and pure as it gets. Get two big weapons and hit things with them. If this sounds fun to you, then congratulations, fury is the only spec in the game that can allow you to dual wield two handed weapons.
Since fury is a warrior spec, it's dependent not on mana, energy or runes/runic power, but rather on rage, a resource that scales as damage increases. The harder your white hits (any attack that doesn't require use of a special ability, also known as 'auto attacks') the more rage they generate. The more rage you have, the more you can do since most warrior special attacks (also known as 'yellow hits' because their damage is reported in yellow colored text) cost rage. Fury, in essence, feeds on itself: the more you do the more you can do.Plus, we look ridiculously cool. Go ahead, try and say we don't.
3.What about drawbacks?
Fury has a few. First off, few talent trees are so thoroughly dominated by their 51 point talent as fury is by Titan's Grip. If you are a fury warrior, you're taking Titan's Grip: there's no reason to do so otherwise, even with repeated nerfs the talent is always a DPS increase over any other possible fury build. Secondly, I think it's fair to say that absolutely no spec in the game is as ridiculously depending on absolutely rigidly specific gear selection to get the ultimate best performance. While it's true that a prot warrior in bad gear can't tank at all while a fury in bad gear can DPS poorly without instantly dying, the margin for error in fury gearing to get the highest possible DPS is exceedingly small. Finally, DPS warriors in general and fury warriors in particular are remarkably fragile for a DPS class that wears plate. While you can talent and glyph for slightly higher survivability, such choices always come at a cost to DPS, and since DPS is what fury is all about, it's a hard tradeoff to make. In general, survivability/regen talents and/or glyphs are better suited to the leveling process than they are to endgame.
4. What stats do fury warriors like?
Generally, fury are looking for stats that allow them to kill things.
* Strength. This is raw smashing (or chopping or cutting) power. Strength converts to Attack Power which adds directly to weapon damage per second (or DPS). The talent Improved Berserker Stance adds another 20% of your total Strength when you are in Berserker Stance. 1 Strength = 2 Attack Power for a warrior.
* Hit Rating. Since fury warriors dual wield, they require hit rating to reduce the chance that they will miss an attack. I've generally changed my mind about the Precision talent since then, but the basic argument that we need 263 hit rating (without Precision) to push yellow attacks off of the miss table is still sound. Precision gives 3% chance to hit with melee weapons and is basically always worth the points. (Raid bosses are skull level, effectively always three levels above a player.) With Precision, you only need 163 hit rating to effectively hit 8% for specials.Hit differs for Arms and Fury in that Fury simple cannot afford to try and gear for total miss removal on white attacks. The miss chance for a dual wielding warrior on white attacks is roughly 27% (assuming a level 80 warrior with maxed weapon skill against a skull level, functionally level 83 mob). So for a fury warrior, it's sufficient to aim for complete miss removal on special attacks, because in order to totally remove the dual wield miss penalty you would need over 800 hit rating. It's possibly achieveable but the sheer amount of hit you would need to shoot for would completely gut your attack power, critical strike rating, and other beneficial stats. You would be hitting with every auto attack but doing effectively no damage.
* Armor Penetration. As you get better and better gear it becomes easier to reach what is known as the hard ArP cap (currently 1399 ArP rating,if I'm doing the math right): most leveling fury warriors don't need to concern themselves with ArP at all, it only becomes a viable stat once you begin accumulating Tier 9 or better gear. It's easier to start working towards the soft ArP cap (roughly 50% armor reduction, 699.5 rating) which in combination with an ArP proc trinket like the Grim Toll, Mjolnir Runestone or Needle-Encrusted Scorption will reduce armor to very close to 100%.
* Expertise. Expertise is the stat that diminishes the chance a mob will dodge or parry you. Mobs in WoW can dodge when you are behind them (players cannot) but cannot parry unless they are facing you. Expertise, unlike hit, has no talent in the fury tree to help warriors cap it. Also unlike hit, it's easier for a fury warrior to completely cap out the effective value of expertise. After 26 expertise there is no effective value to any further points in the stat. (My fury set is 1 point over, which is effectively wasted expertise. However, it's better to be over than low, if those are your only two options.) 26 expertise is 214 expertise rating. You do not need to gear for the hard cap of 56 expertise as a fury warrior. (That hard cap pushes parries off of the table as well, but since as a DPS warrior you should always be behind the boss or mobs, there's no value to pursuing more expertise.)
* Critical Strike Rating. Really, crit never gets bad. It's good to hit harder. White critical hits will generate more rage, allowing you to use more special abilities. You don't want to stack crit above all else, but neither can you ever really 'cap' crit: the more, the better. Plus, it activates Flurry.
Stamina is neither to be courted nor shunned. Armor Value helps your attack power from talents like Armored to the Teeth, but it's not worth going specifically after. The talent just exists to keep warriors out of leather or mail. Similarly, defense, dodge, parry and block are of no interest to you. You're not a tank. You can pinch hit for a few seconds or tank content you outgear, but don't go confusing fury warriors for dedicated tanks. Avoid tanking stats for your DPS set, although by all means, collect a tank set and use it to tank. We're hybrids, after all, and since you'll be paying the hybrid tax on your DPS you might as well get some hybrid benefits too.
* Gems.
Always have 1 Nightmare Tear in a blue socket, it's better than any blue gem and helps meet your socket bonus and meta requirement of 2 blue gems. Make sure to have 2 blue gems socketed at all times(blue/purple/green all work). Stamina is useless. Make sure to remember that when you think about putting a Sovereign Dreadstone(+10str, +15sta) in a socket to get a +6str bonus. Instead, think that you're only getting 16 str for socketing that gem(10 + 6) instead of the 20 you could get by socketing a bold cardinal ruby.
* Rotation.
Your rotation priorities should be...
* Single Target.
1. Bloodthirst (keep on cd)
2. Whirlwind (keep on cd)
3. Slam (only when proc bloodsurge buff)
4. Heroic strike (only if u have enough rage,spam when u have over 50 rage)
5. Heroic throw (keep on cd)
* Multiple Targets.
1. Whirlwind (keep on cd)
2. Bloodthirst (keep on cd)
3. Slam (only when proc bloodsurge buff)
4. Cleave (only if u have enough rage,spam when u have over 50 rage)
5. Heroic throw (keep on cd)
Recklessness (keep on cd, use on nice proc)
Deathwish (keep on cd)
Bloodrage (use on rage problems)
Berserker rage (use on rage problems,only if u have this talent)
What these priorities mean is that if 1 is ready and 2 is ready, use 1. If 1 and 2 are on cooldown and 3 is ready, use 3. If 1,2,3 are on cooldown(or in slam's case, you don't have the bloodsurge buff) use 4. etc.
Dont use instant slam over bloodthirst or whirlwind,even if your slam proc is about to expire. Heroic strike and Cleave do not use a "global cooldown" which causes all skills to not be available for 1.5 seconds. They fire when your main hand swings at the enemy. Spam them when the requirements above are met.
Once you are comfortable with your rotation, you may find that you have times when you are waiting on cooldowns before you can do anything. To get a small DPS increase(less than 5%) you can sneak in a rend if you're quick. See the macros section of this post for an automated way to stance dance and use rend. Keep in mind that if you mistime this skill it can hurt your DPS rather than help it.
* Macros.
Stance dance + rend
Code: Select all
#showtooltip Rend
/cast [stance] Rend; Battle stance
/stopcasting
/cast Berserker stance
Stance dance and retaliation(for fights like Marrowgar just before bonestorm)
Code: Select all
#showtooltip Retaliation
/cast [stance] Retaliation; Battle stance
/stopcasting
/cast Berserker stance
You can take these macros and combine them as well. One of my favorites for the Marrowgar fight is, just before he bonestorms, cast rend + retaliation all before jumping back into berserker stance and continuing rotation. These sorts of macros can increase your dps substantially and automate some fairly complex tasks.
It's the spec Blizzard described in the Class Q&A last year as "screaming barbarians in woad" and that still remains the best way to think of the spec. For in game examples of warriors who seem to embody the fury playstyle, both Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream fit the bill. (Sorry, guys, Saurfang is arms. We all know this to be true.) Fury warriors can offtank in a pinch or even tank a five man, but they're not designed to be tanking in raids. The spec is designed at present to equip two huge weapons and smash them into things. It's refreshingly simple in concept, really.
2.What are the benefits of fury?
Well, do you like two handed weapons?
What about hitting things with two handed weapons?
In all sincerity, fury is as simple and pure as it gets. Get two big weapons and hit things with them. If this sounds fun to you, then congratulations, fury is the only spec in the game that can allow you to dual wield two handed weapons.
Since fury is a warrior spec, it's dependent not on mana, energy or runes/runic power, but rather on rage, a resource that scales as damage increases. The harder your white hits (any attack that doesn't require use of a special ability, also known as 'auto attacks') the more rage they generate. The more rage you have, the more you can do since most warrior special attacks (also known as 'yellow hits' because their damage is reported in yellow colored text) cost rage. Fury, in essence, feeds on itself: the more you do the more you can do.Plus, we look ridiculously cool. Go ahead, try and say we don't.
3.What about drawbacks?
Fury has a few. First off, few talent trees are so thoroughly dominated by their 51 point talent as fury is by Titan's Grip. If you are a fury warrior, you're taking Titan's Grip: there's no reason to do so otherwise, even with repeated nerfs the talent is always a DPS increase over any other possible fury build. Secondly, I think it's fair to say that absolutely no spec in the game is as ridiculously depending on absolutely rigidly specific gear selection to get the ultimate best performance. While it's true that a prot warrior in bad gear can't tank at all while a fury in bad gear can DPS poorly without instantly dying, the margin for error in fury gearing to get the highest possible DPS is exceedingly small. Finally, DPS warriors in general and fury warriors in particular are remarkably fragile for a DPS class that wears plate. While you can talent and glyph for slightly higher survivability, such choices always come at a cost to DPS, and since DPS is what fury is all about, it's a hard tradeoff to make. In general, survivability/regen talents and/or glyphs are better suited to the leveling process than they are to endgame.
4. What stats do fury warriors like?
Generally, fury are looking for stats that allow them to kill things.
* Strength. This is raw smashing (or chopping or cutting) power. Strength converts to Attack Power which adds directly to weapon damage per second (or DPS). The talent Improved Berserker Stance adds another 20% of your total Strength when you are in Berserker Stance. 1 Strength = 2 Attack Power for a warrior.
* Hit Rating. Since fury warriors dual wield, they require hit rating to reduce the chance that they will miss an attack. I've generally changed my mind about the Precision talent since then, but the basic argument that we need 263 hit rating (without Precision) to push yellow attacks off of the miss table is still sound. Precision gives 3% chance to hit with melee weapons and is basically always worth the points. (Raid bosses are skull level, effectively always three levels above a player.) With Precision, you only need 163 hit rating to effectively hit 8% for specials.Hit differs for Arms and Fury in that Fury simple cannot afford to try and gear for total miss removal on white attacks. The miss chance for a dual wielding warrior on white attacks is roughly 27% (assuming a level 80 warrior with maxed weapon skill against a skull level, functionally level 83 mob). So for a fury warrior, it's sufficient to aim for complete miss removal on special attacks, because in order to totally remove the dual wield miss penalty you would need over 800 hit rating. It's possibly achieveable but the sheer amount of hit you would need to shoot for would completely gut your attack power, critical strike rating, and other beneficial stats. You would be hitting with every auto attack but doing effectively no damage.
* Armor Penetration. As you get better and better gear it becomes easier to reach what is known as the hard ArP cap (currently 1399 ArP rating,if I'm doing the math right): most leveling fury warriors don't need to concern themselves with ArP at all, it only becomes a viable stat once you begin accumulating Tier 9 or better gear. It's easier to start working towards the soft ArP cap (roughly 50% armor reduction, 699.5 rating) which in combination with an ArP proc trinket like the Grim Toll, Mjolnir Runestone or Needle-Encrusted Scorption will reduce armor to very close to 100%.
* Expertise. Expertise is the stat that diminishes the chance a mob will dodge or parry you. Mobs in WoW can dodge when you are behind them (players cannot) but cannot parry unless they are facing you. Expertise, unlike hit, has no talent in the fury tree to help warriors cap it. Also unlike hit, it's easier for a fury warrior to completely cap out the effective value of expertise. After 26 expertise there is no effective value to any further points in the stat. (My fury set is 1 point over, which is effectively wasted expertise. However, it's better to be over than low, if those are your only two options.) 26 expertise is 214 expertise rating. You do not need to gear for the hard cap of 56 expertise as a fury warrior. (That hard cap pushes parries off of the table as well, but since as a DPS warrior you should always be behind the boss or mobs, there's no value to pursuing more expertise.)
* Critical Strike Rating. Really, crit never gets bad. It's good to hit harder. White critical hits will generate more rage, allowing you to use more special abilities. You don't want to stack crit above all else, but neither can you ever really 'cap' crit: the more, the better. Plus, it activates Flurry.
Stamina is neither to be courted nor shunned. Armor Value helps your attack power from talents like Armored to the Teeth, but it's not worth going specifically after. The talent just exists to keep warriors out of leather or mail. Similarly, defense, dodge, parry and block are of no interest to you. You're not a tank. You can pinch hit for a few seconds or tank content you outgear, but don't go confusing fury warriors for dedicated tanks. Avoid tanking stats for your DPS set, although by all means, collect a tank set and use it to tank. We're hybrids, after all, and since you'll be paying the hybrid tax on your DPS you might as well get some hybrid benefits too.
* Gems.
Always have 1 Nightmare Tear in a blue socket, it's better than any blue gem and helps meet your socket bonus and meta requirement of 2 blue gems. Make sure to have 2 blue gems socketed at all times(blue/purple/green all work). Stamina is useless. Make sure to remember that when you think about putting a Sovereign Dreadstone(+10str, +15sta) in a socket to get a +6str bonus. Instead, think that you're only getting 16 str for socketing that gem(10 + 6) instead of the 20 you could get by socketing a bold cardinal ruby.
* Rotation.
Your rotation priorities should be...
* Single Target.
1. Bloodthirst (keep on cd)
2. Whirlwind (keep on cd)
3. Slam (only when proc bloodsurge buff)
4. Heroic strike (only if u have enough rage,spam when u have over 50 rage)
5. Heroic throw (keep on cd)
* Multiple Targets.
1. Whirlwind (keep on cd)
2. Bloodthirst (keep on cd)
3. Slam (only when proc bloodsurge buff)
4. Cleave (only if u have enough rage,spam when u have over 50 rage)
5. Heroic throw (keep on cd)
Recklessness (keep on cd, use on nice proc)
Deathwish (keep on cd)
Bloodrage (use on rage problems)
Berserker rage (use on rage problems,only if u have this talent)
What these priorities mean is that if 1 is ready and 2 is ready, use 1. If 1 and 2 are on cooldown and 3 is ready, use 3. If 1,2,3 are on cooldown(or in slam's case, you don't have the bloodsurge buff) use 4. etc.
Dont use instant slam over bloodthirst or whirlwind,even if your slam proc is about to expire. Heroic strike and Cleave do not use a "global cooldown" which causes all skills to not be available for 1.5 seconds. They fire when your main hand swings at the enemy. Spam them when the requirements above are met.
Once you are comfortable with your rotation, you may find that you have times when you are waiting on cooldowns before you can do anything. To get a small DPS increase(less than 5%) you can sneak in a rend if you're quick. See the macros section of this post for an automated way to stance dance and use rend. Keep in mind that if you mistime this skill it can hurt your DPS rather than help it.
* Macros.
Stance dance + rend
Code: Select all
#showtooltip Rend
/cast [stance] Rend; Battle stance
/stopcasting
/cast Berserker stance
Stance dance and retaliation(for fights like Marrowgar just before bonestorm)
Code: Select all
#showtooltip Retaliation
/cast [stance] Retaliation; Battle stance
/stopcasting
/cast Berserker stance
You can take these macros and combine them as well. One of my favorites for the Marrowgar fight is, just before he bonestorms, cast rend + retaliation all before jumping back into berserker stance and continuing rotation. These sorts of macros can increase your dps substantially and automate some fairly complex tasks.
