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!
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Hey man good luck to you! I’ll probably stop reading your blog because I’m not that interested in warriors – I spend enough time on tankspot as it is! Pity coz I like your writing, but all the best and have fun
As John says, good luck with Pummrah, I enjoyed coming here to read about your druids exploits – Written well with humour and intelligence – but the warrior just doesn’t interest me, sorry.
I am even more Part Time than yourself these days I’m levelling a druid – very slowly – only in the mid 50s at the moment and looked to you as a model for what I would like to achieve.
Enjoy your DPS but I am sure the lure of filling those little green bars will drag you back sooner or later *fingers crossed*
Of course no sooner had I thought I was mostly done with the Druid, when I got pulled into heal Naxx the other night. Don’t worry too much, I’m really just trying to make sure I CAN write about my Warrior or my Druid or whatever I want.
You need 33 percent critical, and 180 to hit minumum as a fury warrior. I only play fury 99 percent of the time, so trust me i know. At 33 percent critical you should keep your specials up 90 percent of the time. At 180 to hit, you won’t miss white damage anymore. Fury needs critical, not to hit. To hit is for roques, you’ll get enough to hit from your gear. You should be gemming for critical and strength mainly, followed by stamina. Fury gear is “of the beast” which means it has strength, stamina and agility. You need lots of agility to get your critical up. So look for gear with all 3 specs. Never gem for to hit after 180, your gems are better used for strength and critical. After 33 percent critical only gem for strength or armor penetration. Fury is by far the hardest warrior class to play. It takes alote more knowledge to pull it off, arms and protection is a cakewalk compared to fury. Without the rite gear fury sucks which is why you hear everyone saying arms is better for dps and pvp, but that is false. Before WOTLK the top 2 by 2 team was a fury warrior and a pally, that should tell you something. Played rite, Fury can even out dps a roque. When I hear someone tell me that arms is better for DPS against PVM I just laugh because I know they don’t know how to play fury. One guy even told me had twice my hitpoints at my level, i’m level 65 with almost 9k hiypoints, he would have had to of had almost 18k hp and thats BS. He was fury 2 times but failed both times because hedidn’t understand how to play fury. I asked him what kind of gear he used. He said whatever was best at the time, which is the wrong answer. The right anwer would of been of the beast, or drops with those 3 stats on it. Without critical fury is nothing but dead, and I know he didn’t have the critical because he only had hp and no agility. His HP was useless, as they just had to wear him down while he was not doing enough damage.
I TOLD HIM AND I’LL TELL YOU GUYS, Without critical reroll. Thats like a roque with no to hit. Fury isn’t about hit points, its about killing it before it can take your hit points.
great post! ive been looing for a simple, strait-forward, answer to how to play and gear a fury for days now. you answered them all. i ,almost exclusively, have tanked for the year that ive played wow. dual-speced to use all that leftover greed rolled Nax gear, and couldnt figure out why i was pumping 2.1kdps in heroics… (wearing full Nax gear cept for a ring and badge peices) … sad right?
stacking to 520hit when you have 3200ap is a bad idea….. lol you wont see many misses, but youll hit like a girl!
also i heard of an addon that will give a warrning for when instant cast SLAM is up… (forgot the name) but bout to go get it now. Then go buy a bunch of str+16 reds.
Thnx again,
Tuff
I’ve been Fury for the longest time, my first suggestion, learn Prot. It’s hard to get in runs as melee as most raids enjoy the dps given by DK’s and Druids. As a fury warrior, your DPS is usually lower, I’ve never had highest DPS on Raids. Sucks I know. The depreciation you lose from the duel wield at first isn’t that great but if you never had it, you won’t notice it. (10%) I was reading and I have my hit at 220+ and still get parried on whites on the bosses, you need 7-8% on hit along with the 33% Crit. Some other things I have to say about your posts are the +34 str gem is only if you are a JC which is good to have, however, I believe there isn’t much difference between a JC and BS at lvl 80 as a +2 STR from the JC gems really doesn’t equal that much increase in DPS.(.25) So for lvling, it’s better to be a BS, then when you are able to change and increase your JC fast (lot’s of gold), then I would switch, however, since I have some Ulduar patterns, I feel I’ll keep my BS and just suffer through the 2STR I don’t have. I know I bounced around but I hope this helps out. Listen to the above post by Abovohawk, sounds like they know what they are talking about.