Arms Warrior PvP Guide for Mists of Pandaria Classic

Arms Warrior is a high damage melee class, dishing out massive damage while having moderately high utility. With multiple gap closers, interrupts, a few crowd-controls, and healing reduction, Arms Warrior remains a powerhouse in any PvP environment.

Strengths

• Extremely high-sustained damage.
• High mobility, sticks to targets well.
• Great utility offered through all 3 banners.
• Fits into many different arena comps easily.
• Strong cleave damage.

Weaknesses

• Very gear reliant, especially early on.
• Pure damage class, has little crowd control.

Recommended option: Juggernaut.

This tier of talents aim to improve your Charge ability, which is your main gap-closer ability in PvP!

• Juggernaut — Reduces the cooldown of your Charge by 8 seconds. This allows you to stick to targets much easier, making this a mandatory talent.
• Double Time — You can use Charge twice in a row; each use has a 20 second recharge time.
• Warbringer — Your Charge roots the target for 4 seconds and reduces their movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.

Recommended option: Second Wind.

This tier of talents brings defensive skills that aim to restore your missing health.

• Enraged Regeneration — Instantly heals you for 10% of your max health, and an additional 10% over 5 seconds; can be used while stunned, and heals for doubled if used while Enraged.
• Second Wind — Whenever you are below 35% health, you regenerate 3% health per second.
• Impending Victory — Upgrades Victory Rush, allowing you to use it any time, healing you for 20% of your maximum health.

Recommended option: Disrupting Shout.

This tier of talents offer you additional crowd-control options, giving you additional means of wrecking havoc on your enemies.

• Staggering Shout — Roots all nearby enemies for 5 seconds.
• Piercing Howl — Slows all nearby enemies by 50% for 15 seconds.
• Disrupting Shout — Interrupts all enemy spellcasting in 10-yards, and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 seconds; shares a cooldown with Pummel. Great for interrupting multiple casters at once, or if your enemy is slightly out of range.

Recommended option: Shockwave.

This tier of talents gives you a new AoE daamge ability, offering you the choice between crowd control and damage.

• Bladestorm — You become a whirlding storm of destructive force, becoming immune to all slows and crowd control while you deal damage to all nearby enemies every 1 second for 6 seconds total; you are able to perform "shout" abilties while this is activated. You are able to cancel this early if desired, geneally to Pummel a crucial heal. We recommend using this for high damage comps where you desire more burst damage.
• Shockwave — Send a wave of force in a frontal cone, dealing damage and stunning all enemies hit for 4 seconds; causing damage to 3 or more targets reduces the cooldown by 20 seconds.
• Dragon Roar — Roar fiercly, dealing damage to all nearby enemies, knocking them down for 0.5 seconds; this ability always crits and ignores all armor.

Recommended option: Mass Spell Reflection.

This tier of talents will give you a new defensive ability that allows you to protect your allies.

• Mass Spell Reflection — Reflects the next spell cast on you, and on all party and raid members within 20-yards for 5 seconds. This is great for saving your allies from crowd-control.
• Safeguard — Replaced Intervene, causing the targeted ally to take 20% reduced damage for 6 seconds.
• Vigilance — Reduce an allies damage taken by 30% for 12 seconds. This is useful if you facing high DPS teams without casters.

Recommended option: Storm Bolt.

This tier of talents will give you a new rotational ability, which can be used either defensively or offensively.

• Avatar — You transform into a colossus for 24 sec, breaking all roots and snares, and increasing your damage dealt by 20%.
• Bloodbath — For 12 seconds, melee special attacks cause an additional 30% damage as a bleed over 6 seconds; bleeding targets move 50% slower. Combine this with Bladestorm when you are playing a high-damage, AoE comp.
• Storm Bolt — Hurl a bolt at an enemy, damaging them and stunning them for 4 seconds; 30-yard range. This offers you amazing crowd-control from ranged, allowing you focus-macro this on the enemy healer and push for pressure while they are stunned every 30 seconds.

Glyphs were changed in a major way during Mists of Pandaria. Primal Glyphs have been removed, whilst minor glyphs have been changed to be mostly cosmentic changes, offering no combat improvements.

• Glyph of Death From Above — Reduces the cooldown of Heroic Leap by 15 seconds. This is one of your best mobility spells, making this glyph mandatory.
• Glyph of Mortal Strike — Whilst a target is debuffed by your Mortal Strike, you will receive 10% more healing. While 10% may seem low, this additional value can easily add up over the course of a game, puting your healer far ahead on resources; only use this if you have a healer on your PvP team.
• Glyph of Rude Interruption — Whenever you successfully interrupt an enemy withg Pummel, you will gain 6% damage for 20 seconds. Only use this if you are facing against a caster that you are able to interrupt.
• Glyph of Blitz — Causes your Charge to hit up to 2 additional, nearby enemies. This glyph is great against melee-cleave style groups that will often

• Glyph of Bloody Healing — Warrior actually has a Minor Glyph that can have some use in arenas, increasing the amount of healing your bandages do.
• Glyph of Mighty Victory — Increases your hitbox temporarily after using either Victory Rush or Impending Victory.

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this section. In PvP you will need to react and adapt to different situations, meaning you will not always follow the recommended rotation below. Aim to do whatever allows you to stick on your target the most while dealing as much damage as possible.

1. Hamstring — Slows your target, keep this up always. This is no longer on the global cooldown and can be used at the same time as other spells.
2. Sunder Armor — If you aren't using the Glyph of Colossus Smash you will need to manually apply three stacks of Sunder Armor and refresh it before they fall off.
3. Mortal Strike — Reduces your targets healing received, and grants 2 charges of Overpower via Taste for Blood. Use this on cooldown.
4. Colossus Smash — Allows you to bypass most of your enemies armor while the debuff is applied. Sudden Death has a chance to reset the cooldown of Colossus Smash, allowing you to use it more often than the 20 second cooldown appears. If the cooldown is reset while your target still has the debuff, wait till it falls off before using this again.
5. Slam — Targets debuffed by Colossus Smash will take an additional 10% damage from Slam. Slam is a higher priority than Overpower when your target has the Colossus Smash debuff, and you have very high Rage.
6. Overpower — Requires a charge to use; charges are gained with the Taste for Blood passive. You can only have five charges of Overpower at a time, be sure to uses your charges and not let them get wasted!
7. Thunder Clap — Applies Deep Wounds to all targets hit; keep this up at all times when you are AoEing. Note that the bleed will break crowd control if you are playing with something such as a Mage.

Arms Warriors has a number of personal cooldowns, mostly focused on increasing your own DPS.

• Berserker Rage — 30-second cooldown, triggers Enrage. Use this to help with Enrage up-time or break out of fears.
• Recklessness — 3-minute cooldown, gives 30% increased crit chance. Use this in combination with other offensive cooldowns.
• Shattering Throw — 5-minute cooldown, reduces targets armor by 20%. Use this in combination with other offensive cooldowns or to break immunities such as Divine Shield.
• Skull Banner — 3-minute cooldown, increases the critical damage of all nearby allies by 20%. Use this in combination with other offensive cooldowns.

• Rallying Cry — 3-minute cooldown, grants you and all nearby allies 20% increased max health.
• Die by the Sword — 2-minute cooldown, Increases your parry chance by 100% and reduces damage taken by 20% for 8 seconds. New defensive added in Mists of Pandaria, use it as needed.
• Shield Wall — 3-minute cooldown, 40% damage reduction. Can be used in any stance and no longer requires a shield to use. Great for surviving major enemy cooldowns.
• Demoralizing Banner — 3-minute cooldown, Throws down a banner than decreases the damage dealt by all nearby enemies by 10% for 15 seconds.

In addition to your main spells and cooldowns, you also have many utility spells that can be game-changing when used in the proper scenario. Make sure you understand each of the spells listed below to fully take advantage of your entire spell book.

• Charge — Quickly rush to an enemy, stunning them and generating some Rage. With the Juggernaut talent, you can use this ability every 12 seconds for Rage, improved further by Glyph of Bull Rush.
• Intervene — Rush to an allies location, causing the next melee or ranged attack made against them to be redirected to you instead. You may need to use this from time to time for mobility or to escape a lethal area.
• Pummel — Interrupts the target, preventing them from casting for 4 seconds. This is an important spell that you should be making use of whenever possible, especially when using Glyph of Rude Interruption. This spell is not on the global cooldown, letting you cast it freely.
• Disarm — Removes your target's melee and ranged weapons for 10 seconds, greatly reducing the damage they deal, and may prevent them from using certain abilities.
• Intimidating Shout — Fears up to 6 nearby enemies for a short duration.
• Heroic Leap — Jump to the targeted location, dealing damage to all nearby enemies. Great gap closer.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Arms Warrior in Mists of Pandaria PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Jewelcrafting — Gives you two powerful gems, Bold Serpent's Eye, giving you a large Strength boost.
2. Blacksmithing — Gives you two additional sockets with Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves, pushing your PvP stats up the most.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for an Arms Warrior in PvP.

When it comes to evaluating Arms Warrior's place within the Arena, we have created a number of guides devoted to listing a variety of popular team compositions which you can find below.