Down... But Not Out

If anyone plays a warrior in arena, you know how much it sucks if you don't have a Gurthalak, and even then it still sucks. If you play Fury in raids, you know how frustrating it is to have to depend on said sword for decent DPS. Do you play SMF? I'm sorry, here's a puppy to make you feel better.

Arms hasn't been able to keep up with Fury for a long while, not since the beginnings of Wrath when they were about equal. Finally, again, Arms is beating the shit out of Fury in DPS, and it's not because Arms got better, it's because Fury got worse. The nerf to Dual Wield spec punched us in the face, and the bug fix laid us out. Yes, bugs need to be fixed, but it left the Fury spec reeling with a sense of false accomplishment without compensation. Put that with starved Fury rage regen, terrible AoE (even when specced), the crap Tier 13 four piece for Bloodthirst, reliance on unreliable proc weapons, plus Arms' ability to hit the 24% hit cap where Fury cannot without further gimping itself, and you are left with the worst melee DPS spec currently in the game: Single-Minded Fury.

My old RP partner would probably laugh at me right now as he always favored Arms over Fury, and I could just swap specs and Bladestorm abuse my way back to the top, but I don't want to do that. I play SMF because I've always preferred the playstyle, and when I wasn't tanking in Burning Crusade, I was Fury. It's always been a constant cycle of up and down for every class in WoW, and this is no different. I enjoy my times at the top, and figure out what I can do better or what went wrong while I'm at the bottom. If you're lucky you'll have a raid group that understands and lets you keep your slot just because they love you... Either that or they're dumb and won't kick you out. In the end, if you love to play Fury and have enough alcohol skill and patience, the blow to Fury won't be so severe, and it won't really matter. You can still smash DPS against subpar players (unless it's a subpar Arms warrior... Then you just kind of smash them).

Pop your gum girl. Pop your gum.

5.0 Unofficial Patch Notes - Warrior Edition, Part One

Because we all like different parts and I feel like eating turkey at some point today. Happy Thanksgiving to you Americans.

I could talk about the 4.3 patch notes but I'm not going to just yet because let's face it - The major overhaul to the game that will revolve around an April Fool's joke Mists of Pandaria is way more interesting at the moment. Maybe that's just me. I don't know if I'll be playing seriously in the next expansion as I'm not doing that much in this expansion, but I'll go ahead and talk like I am anyway.

After the jump, I'll get my hooves dirty.

Thoughts on Gear Before Tuesday

Well I finally got my four-piece Tier 9, only a few days until Patch 3.3 is expected to release. Its a great set for Fury, I think. With the two-piece activated, Berserker Stance grants an additional 2% critical strike chance, and Battle Stance grants an additional 6% armor penetration. four-piece increases the critical strike chance of your Slam and Heroic Strike abilities by 5%. Both Slam and Heroic Strike are two bread and butter abilities of Fury, and I use both often. Arms benefits as well, especially since I've been seeing a few builds utilizing Heroic Strike, instead of completely ignoring it. Slam, of course, is the filler when Mortal Strike, Rend, and everything else is on cooldown. 

Anyway, I also managed to get Victor's Call, which finally enabled me to get the Epic Achievement (hah), as well as my T9.5 pants. I think I'll actually gem those with Armor Penetration and use those in my Arms spec. The Legguards of Ascension that my warrior currently uses is much better for Fury, and I'm already over the Expertise cap by 7 points.

I had a glance at the T10 and the set bonuses it provided. I'd have to look at and think about them a bit more before I can really put my thoughts down on stone. At a glance, I'd say the two-piece looks rather weak with only a 3% chance to increase attack power. The four-piece is strange to me, in the fact that it alters your spells instead of straight buffing them. Arms would get a chance to have instant Slams, but then I'm not entirely sure if the effect is activated for both spells in either Battle or Berserker stance. In any case, I think it would add a bit of technicality to the Fury and Arms rotations, and in doing so, make them more interesting and fun to play.


You can check out the T10 set bonuses here and here, and you can look at my warrior and her gear here.