Arms Warrior DPS Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.2.5

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. Where the specialization falters is in its defensive toolkit and lack of group utility options. This makes it fine for weekly +10 or higher keys up to around +15, but falters when pushing the highest of Mythic keystones.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Beguiling replaces Reaping as the seasonal affix for Season 3 of Battle for Azeroth. One of three different emissaries will be present throughout the dungeon, either alongside existing groups or on their own. Each adds a new challenge, must be overcome in a different way, and their locations vary from week to week. They cannot actually be killed, and instead teleport away upon reaching 1% health.

The Void-Touched Emissary is the simplest of the three. It is completely stationary and has only one ability, the 9 second cast Queen's Decree: Hide. The damage can be avoided by breaking line of sight, but because the damage it deals is a percentage of your health, it cannot actually kill players in less than three casts. This makes it very easy to deal with when the emissary is alone by simply damaging it down to 1%, at which point it will stop casting and teleport away. In groups, it is a little more difficult, but the general rule is to either burst it down quickly before the damage can stack up, or simply pull nearby mobs back and out of line of sight.

The Enchanted Emissary deals no damage and casts no spells, but instead has a large bubble around it at all times. Other targets inside this bubble will reflect all damage taken back to players. Unlike the Void Emissary, it can also move, but any damage taken will knock it backwards, so the easy solution is to have a player continually attack it to keep it away from other mobs. It starts with 100 Energy and loses 5 per second, teleporting away once it reaches 0.

The Emissary of the Tides is the most difficult to deal with, as it not only moves and attacks like a regular mob, but also causes nearby mobs to be immune to all forms of crowd control including taunts and interrupts until it is defeated. There are two main strategies to dealing with it; the first is to simply use strong damage and healing cooldowns to defeat it as quickly as possible, while the second involves using another player to off-tank the emissary away from regular mobs, so that they may be crowd controlled normally. It is important to note that the Emissary itself is not immune to crowd control, so it may be death gripped, knocked back, or slowed, and it may be stunned upon reaching 1% health to cancel its cast and cause it to immediately teleport away.

• 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 one of the strongest multi-target traits, but it requires the Engineering profession crafted helmet, which may not be worth the investment for many players.