Arms Warrior DPS Guide — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Arms Warriors are fairly mediocre in current raid content. Despite a strong emphasis on Execute, the spec has a difficult time juggling both single and multi-target capabilities, instead forced to specialize into one or the other.

Many encounters feature short damage phases that Arms' cooldowns are not particularly well suited to. Additionally, dedicated two-target melee content to take advantage of Sweeping Strikes tends to be fairly rare.

That said, Battle Shout ensures that at least one Warrior will still be prioritized in most raid groups.

Arms Warriors' performance in Mythic+ can be very hit or miss. Although not completely restricted by target caps, its many frontal cleave abilities struggle to deal with generally large pulls in which mobs tend to be loosely spread out rather than clumped tightly together. Warriors must also sacrifice a non-negligible amount of single target in order to bring AoE capabilities.

In current pre-patch content, the biggest issue when playing Arms is simply maintaining enough Rage to keep the rotation going, which can make it clunky to play.

Warriors have historically had a very difficult time with utility, having access to several effects which are wholly unnecessary in the vast majority of modern content. Berserker Shout, Shattering Throw, Wrecking Throw, Champion's Spear, and Piercing Howl are all seemingly useful effects, but their mechanics are so under-represented in modern content that they rarely, if ever, get used.

However, Warriors have seen a few improvements in Midnight. Rallying Cry has been buffed in small group content, no longer being as concerned with diminishing returns means stuns can be used more liberally, and the addition of a ranged silence provides circumstantial value.

Finally, Piercing Howl grants allies a short movement speed buff, which is not particularly important for countering mechanics, but useful for reducing downtime between pulls.

Arms Warriors have above average survivability, by way of several short defensive and healing cooldowns, which can be used independently to cover several effects or layered to significantly reduce the threat of large attacks.

Spell Reflection can immune several effects outright and Defensive Stance is possibly the most reliable source of damage reduction in the entire game, though the caveat is that Warrior survivability is very pre-emptive by nature. Die by the Sword gets a special mention for its ability to parry most melee attacks, which can sometimes be used to tank for a short period of time.

This requires players to have a keen awareness and very little room for recovery from errors that true immunity or cheat death classes would survive.

Between Heroic Leap, Charge, and Intervene, Warriors have very good mobility, so long as there is an appropriate path or target.