Arms Warrior DPS Easy Mode — Shadowlands 9.0.5

This section is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous priorities and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

Arms is a combination damage dealer that focuses on buffing their Mortal Strike, and debuffing the enemy with Deep Wounds and Colossus Smash. While the base rotation is not very complicated, talents can add extra attacks or replacements allowing players to customize the rotation to their situation or taste. The build showcased here is a simple yet effective play style, good for all types of game content, which is meant to help new players learn the fundamentals of Arms.

If you are completely new to Arms and need more information on the abilities available to you, you can check out our Spell Summary page.

The talents listed below are selected predominantly for ease of use and to mitigate more complex decisions when it comes to resource management. While there are better performing combinations, they also have more room for error. The ones chosen are meant to simplify decision making and resource management while introducing players to Arms' single-target, burst, and AoE potential. Despite being the "easy mode", it is still quite effective for questing, dungeons, and raid content.

• Level 15: Sudden Death
• Level 25: Double Time
• Level 30: Fervor of Battle
• Level 35: Bounding Stride
• Level 40: Cleave
• Level 45: In For The Kill
• Level 50: Anger Management.

If you are looking for the absolute best Arms Warrior talents, which do not compromise on performance for ease of use, you can find a more in-depth analysis on our full talents page below.

Of the four Covenants, three are highly competitive, while only one underperforms. Your choice as to which to take largely depends on what kind of content you want to pursue, although it is important to remember that they will all perform well in all types of content.

• Venthyr has the highest single target damage potential, making it best for players prioritizing raid content.
• Kyrian is the most versatile option, performing better than Venthyr in AoE and therefore the best choice for playres prioritizing Mythic+ content.
• Night Fae is actually slightly stronger than Kyrian across the board, but more difficult to use due to the lengthy ground effect on Ancient Aftershock, which loses an immense amount of value if enemies move out of it. For this reason, it is only better than Kyrian if you are willing to play around that downside.
• Necrolord is the weakest in all content, currently better avoided if performance is your goal. While it provides more of a group buff, the downsides make it more difficult to use and more prone to failure than every other option.

The current Arms stat priority is as follows when using this build:

1. Strength;
2. Haste to ~20%;
3. Critical Strike;
4. Mastery;
5. Versatility;
6. Haste.

Critical Strikes double all damage dealt, and increases Rage generation from auto-attacks, which helps reduce downtime within the rotation. Mastery increases the targets damage taken, while Haste compresses the rotation, increasing auto-attack speed and reducing the time between ability casts. Finally, Versatility is a static damage increase and reduces damage taken by half the amount.

While the stat priority for classes is normally the same for both the Easy Mode page and our full guide, subtle differences can still occur. If you want to see the full explanation of the stat priority, as well as the absolute top choices for the priority, head to our full stats page below.

Arms Warriors will want to prioritize either Judgment of the Arbiter for single target raiding, or Signet of Tormented Kings for multitarget dungeons. If you are looking to craft just one legendary, however, Judgment is the better choice, as it is capable of providing both competitive single target damage and AoE damage when paired with another player.

For more detailed explanations of legendaries, and some alternatives in different scenarios you can always refer to our dedicated legendary page.

If you are looking for more information about what gear to look out for when playing, you can also check our Gear page linked below.

The typical single-target rotation using our suggested talents is outlined below. Whenever there is more than one target, prioritize Cleave over Mortal Strike to both hit multiple targets and maintain Deep Wounds.

• Cast Colossus Smash on cooldown or whenever it will hit multiple targets.
• Cast Bladestorm during the Test of Might buff or Colossus Smash debuff.
• Cast Execute if your target is below 20% health.
• Cast Cleave whenever there are multiple targets.
• Cast Mortal Strike as needed to maintain Deep Wounds.
• Cast Overpower to buff Mortal Strike and Cleave.
• Cast Whirlwind as a filler while the enemy is above 20% health.

While all builds focus on the same principle of resetting the cooldown of Overpower with Tactician procs, using it to buff Mortal Strike and Cleave, and using them to maintain Deep Wounds, other talents add extra abilities, maintenance buffs, and replace other abilities within the rotation.