WotLK Classic Fury Warrior Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

If you have not already, please read the Spell Summary page. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

The Fury Warrior rotation is very simple yet satisfying to play. Your rotation is nearly completely set-in-stone, only varying based on your Bloodsurge procs, which give you instant Slam casts. Overall, Fury Warrior is a fast-paced, high-action rotation that yields great results.

1. Sunder Armor — Sunder Armor remains your best opening ability on bosses, increasing all Physical damage taken. You do not need to do this if someone else, such as a Rogue, is applying an Expose Armor.
2. Slam — You will want to use Slam as quicly as possible whenever you get a Bloodsurge proc. Be aware of your buffs and do not use Slam without a Bloodsurge proc as it will not be instant cast and will pause your melee swing timer.
3. Bloodthirst — This spell is the bread and butter of a Fury Warrior's rotation. It has a very low cooldown, letting you use it constantly. Make sure to use this ability as much as possible. It also has a 20% chance to proc Bloodsurge.
4. Whirlwind — Whirlwind is your highest damage-dealing ability due to you wielding 2 two-handed weapons along with the talent Improved Whirlwind. It also has a 20% chance to proc Bloodsurge.
5. Rend — With Improved Rend and Glyph of Rending, using Rend while all of your other abilities are on cooldown is roughly a 100 DPS increase. Only use this if nothing else will come off cooldown within the next 1.5 seconds.
6. Heroic Strike — You will start using Heroic Strike when you have more than 40 Rage to prevent wasting excess Rage. Heroic Strike is a large portion of your damage dealt, so keeping it queued up constantly is a high priority for this spec.
7. Execute — Execute has dropped from being one of your highest-priority spells to your lowest as it has been nerfed greatly in WotLK. Only use this if you have nothing else available, and enough rage to continue using Heroic Strike.

1. Whirlwind — Whirlwind is your hardest hitting ability in your single target rotation, and this carries over to AoEing as well.
2. Thunder Clap — Thunder Clap is not one of your main abilities, but as it is not limited to 4 targets like Whirlwind is, you will want to use this on large AoE pulls.
3. Cleave — You replace Heroic Strike with Cleave in AoE situations to hit as many targets as possible. This is even better when paired together with Glyph of Cleaving.
4. After this you will go back into your Single-Target rotation until a higher-priority AoE ability is ready.

Fury Warrior only really has one main cooldown, Death Wish. This is a powerful ability, giving a large boost to your damage output. Timing Death Wish with other buffs & debuffs during burst windows is a key part of optimizing your damage output as a Fury Warrior. Be aware of what and when your raid will be using raid cooldowns as well as your own personal cooldowns such as proc trinkets.

• Death Wish — 2-minute cooldown with Intensify Rage. This is a huge 20% damage multiplier and is one of the better DPS cooldowns in the game. You will want to line this up with raid cooldowns like Heroism / Bloodlust, and personal trinket procs.
• Heroic Fury — 45-second cooldown. This is a very minor cooldown for Fury Warriors that removes any roots on you and resets the cooldown of Intercept. This is mostly just extra mobility as you can use 2 Intercepts in a row, allowing you to cover a ton of ground quickly.
• Shattering Throw — 5-minute cooldown. This should be used as a raid DPS cooldown and coordinated with other raid DPS cooldowns like Heroism / Bloodlust. The 20% Armor reduction stacks with other Armor reduction debuffs, such as Sunder Armor. With multiple Warriors in one raid, this will typically be coordinated to keep the debuff up back-to-back for a long period of time.
• Recklessness — 3.35-minute cooldown with Intensify Rage. Makes your next 3 special attacks guaranteed Critical Strikes. Try to line these attacks up with other cooldowns, such as Death Wish or while the boss is debuffed by Shattering Throw.
• Enraged Regeneration — 3-minute cooldown. This will consume an Enrage effect to restore 30% of your max health over 10 seconds. This can save your life during high damage spikes.