Arms Warrior DPS Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1.5

1. Disclaimer

Mythic+ has only just released, so information on this page is subject to change as dungeon specific information is added and new strategies are developed.

1.1. Arms Warrior in Mythic+

Arms is a multi-target powerhouse in Battle for Azeroth, with a multitude of tools to handle various situations, including two target with Sweeping Strikes, three to five target with Cleave, and burst AoE using Warbreaker alongside Bladestorm.

Because the majority of Mythic+ revolves around dealing with multiple targets, Arms follows the basic multi-target priority laid out in the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page. The key difference is in predicting the layout of the dungeon, and knowing when to save cooldowns versus when to use them. Smartly saving your cooldowns when a target is about to die, and instead using it on a fresh pack which will survive the duration of your burst damage is far more efficient and will help your group finish on time.

1.2. Arms Warrior Utility

In addition to the group-wide buff Battle Shout, Arms Warriors can talent the short cooldown stun Storm Bolt, and have access to Rallying Cry to help with high damage spikes.

2. Mythic+ Talents for Arms Warrior

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all groups and keys at the current time.

Level	Choices
15	? War Machine	✗ Sudden Death	✓ Skullsplitter
30	✓ Double Time	✗ Impending Victory	? Storm Bolt
45	✓ Massacre	✓ Fervor of Battle	✗ Rend
60	✗ Second Wind	✗ Bounding Stride	✓ Defensive Stance
75	✗ Collateral Damage	✓ Warbreaker	✗ Cleave
90	✓ In For The Kill	✓ Avatar	✗ Deadly Calm
100	✓ Anger Management	✗ Dreadnaught	✗ Ravager

Arms Warriors have a lot of talent choice when it comes to Mythic+, with the flexibility to bring extra defensives, utility, and tailor their damage to the expected situation.

• Level 15: War Machine has the highest potential Rage generation if you pull quick enough, but Skullsplitter gives Rage when you actually need it, helping fill gaps in your rotation.
• Level 30: Double Time is a staple for both mobility and rage generation leading to more damage, although Storm Bolt can be taken when stuns are needed to lock down difficult targets.
• Level 45: Fervor of Battle is better for raw multi-target, while Massacre offers better single-target and boss damage.
• Level 60: Defensive Stance is an amazing on-demand defensive, especially when pushing into higher keystone levels.
• Level 75: Warbreaker syncs perfectly with Bladestorm for the highest potential burst AoE damage, although Cleave has a higher raw output when consistently facing 3+ targets.
• Level 90: Avatar offers the highest burst potential, but requires more management and is not active as often as In For The Kill.
• Level 100: Anger Management reduces your AoE cooldowns, making Arms that much more effective at clearing trash within dungeons.

3. Mythic+ Affixes

The way Mythic+ affixes are tiered in Battle for Azeroth has changed quite a bit since their launch in Legion.

There are now three weekly affixes and one seasonal affix. The first affix is activated at level two, while the second affix starts at level four, the third affix is enabled at level seven, and the seasonal affix occurs at level ten.

3.1. Tier One Affixes

• Fortified increases the Health pool of all non-boss enemies by 20% and damage dealt by 30%.
• Tyrannical increases the Health pool of boss enemies by 40% and their damage dealt by 15%.

Fortified and Tyrannical are the two affixes every player will see. These affixes shift the focus of dungeons from boss to trash depending on the week. Arms Warriors will generally excel during Fortified weeks due to their strong multi-target options, though many Tyrannical bosses can also be susceptible to extended Execute with Massacre.

3.2. Tier Two Affixes

• Raging increases the damage dealt by enemies below 30% HP by 100% until they die.
• Teeming adds additional trash mobs to certain packs throughout each dungeon.
• Bolstering buffs remaining enemies Health pools and damage dealt by 20% when an enemy dies nearby. To counter this affix, DPS all mobs down evenly and focus your casts into high Health mobs if there are any.
• Sanguine places a pool of blood on the ground when a mob is slain. This pool will heal remaining enemies who stay inside the zone and also damage players.
• Bursting forces enemy mobs to detonate when slain, afflicting the group with a stacking debuff that causes players to suffer 10% of their max Health in damage every four seconds. When handling the Bursting affix, ask how many stacks your healer can handle and try to not mindlessly DPS and exceed your healers stack limit.

3.3. Tier Three Affixes

• Volcanic spawns volcanic plumes underneath and around players when in combat with any enemy. When damaged by Volcanic, players suffer 50% of their maximum Health pool in damage. The more enemies you are in combat with, the more Volcanic plumes that will spawn.
• Grievous afflicts players with a stacking DoT when they fall below 90%. Defensive Stance can help mitigate the damage while your healer catches up.
• Quaking will periodically attempt to interrupt casters by creating a damaging zone around each player. About 3 seconds after the zone forms, it will deal 20% maximum Health in damage to each player caught in the zone, as well as interrupting any hard casts being finished during the shockwave.
• Explosive will occasionally spawn Explosive Orbs that need to be targeted and burned down within a short period of time or they will deal significant damage to the party. Explosive Orbs are not cleavable and the number of orbs that spawn scales with the number of enemies pulled.
• Necrotic debuffs the target of enemy melee swings with stacking healing reduction and a minor DoT.
• Skittish reduces the amount of threat generated by tanks throughout the dungeon. Be especially careful of this in melee, and especially wary of using burst AoE abilities, in order to manage your threat between multiple targets.

3.4. Seasonal Affix

Reaping replaces Infested as the seasonal affix for Season 2 of Battle for Azeroth. Every 20% of enemy forces defeated, the ghosts of those slain enemies will respawn and attack the player all at once. This will happen five times throughout the dungeon, at 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% of enemy forces slain. Additionally, a special buff can be activated by speaking to Bwonsamdi at the beginning of a dungeon to increase damage and healing by 20%, but only after the keystone timer has expired.

The Reaping affix causes a group of enemies to attack all at once, which makes controlling effects such as area of effect stuns, and high burst damage specializations paramount to handling these gauntlets quickly, without being overwhelmed. Because you can see the enemy forces counter at all times, it is relatively easy to prepare for, but care should be taken to ensure the wave will not be triggered at inopportune times, such as while engaging a particularly powerful group or boss encounter. The special buff is fairly straightforward, but because it can only be activated after the timer expires, it is meant to help struggling groups complete their dungeon.

4. Mythic+ Azerite Traits

• Gathering Storm is exceptionally powerful, due to the emphasis on multi-target damage in Mythic+ dungeons. Lord of War pairs very well with it, dealing less, but more frequent burst.
• Seismic Wave is individually weak, but has the highest potential damage when constantly hitting multiple targets, however this cannot always be guaranteed.
• Test of Might is less effective on trash which rarely survives the full 22 second increased damage period, but effective against bosses and other long-lived hard targets, making it a strong choice for Tyrannical weeks or whenever single-target damage is more important.
• Barrage Of Many Bombs is potentially the strongest multi-target trait, but it requires the Engineering profession crafted helmet, which may not be worth the investment for many players.

5. Changelog