Arms Warrior DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Strengths
  • 5. Weaknesses
  • 6. Viability in the Current Patch
  • 7. Contents
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Spell Summary
  • 2. Main Resource
  • 3. Basic Abilities
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. Offensive Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• ×Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Talent Cheat Sheet
    • 2.1. Open World, Levelling and Questing
    • 2.2. Dungeons and Raids
  • 3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
  • 4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
  • 5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
  • 6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
    • 1.1. Early Progression
    • 1.2. Patch 7.2 Post 35 Trait Path
  • 2. Artifact Ability
  • 3. Relic Choice
    • 3.1. AoE Specific:
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. Optimization between Light/Shadow Tier 2 and Relic Tier 3 Choices
  • 2. Tier 2 Priorities
    • 2.1. Best
    • 2.2. Good
    • 2.3. Weak
  • 3. Tier 3 Priorities
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single-Target Rotation
    • 1.1. Single Target
      • 1.1.1. Deadly Calm with Soul of the Battlelord
    • 1.2. Execute Usage
    • 1.3. Opening Rotation
    • 1.4. Cooldown Rotation
  • 2. Multiple-Target Rotation
    • 2.1. 4+ Target AoE
  • 3. Important Notes
    • 3.1. Tier 4 Talents
    • 3.2. Focused Rage
    • 3.3. Cooldowns
      • 3.3.1. Battle Cry
      • 3.3.2. Bladestorm/Ravager
      • 3.3.3. Colossus Smash and Warbreaker
  • 4. Mastering your Arms Warrior
    • 4.1. Rage Management
    • 4.2. Colossus Smash
    • 4.3. Movement and Mobility
    • 4.4. Advanced: Heroic Charge
    • 4.5. Defense
  • 5. Tier 19 Set Bonuses
    • 5.1. Tier 19 Trinket optimization
  • 6. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
    • 6.1. Tier 20 Trinket Optimization
  • 7. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
    • 1.1. Getting a Better Understanding
    • 1.2. Statistics
    • 1.3. Breakpoints
  • 2. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Warriors
      • 1.1.1. Bladestorm Cancelaura Macro
      • 1.1.2. Pummel Macro
      • 1.1.3. Heroic Leap Spam
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Arms Warriors
      • 1.2.1. Charge Macro
      • 1.2.2. Cooldown Stacking Macro
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Warriors
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.5. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.6. TellMeWhen
      • 2.1.7. Raeli's Spell Announcer
      • 2.1.8. Recount / Skada / Details!
      • 2.1.9. Omen Threat Meter
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Arms Warriors
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List
    • 1.1. Trinkets
    • 1.2. Tier 19 & 20 Bonus Combinations
    • 1.3. Evaluating Upgrades with dynamic Item Levels
  • 2. Racial Bonuses
  • 3. Legendary Items
    • 3.1. 7.1.5 Legendaries
    • 3.2. 7.2 Legendaries
    • 3.3. 7.2.5 Legendaries
    • 3.4. Recommended Choices
  • 4. Loot Competition
  • 5. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Arms Warriors in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Arms Warrior guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author and Reviewer

This guide has been written by Wordup, a frequent theorycrafter involved in a number of class communities. He is also an experienced player who has been in the world top 100 since the days of Sunwell, currently raiding in Echoes. You can also follow him on Twitter.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Archimtiros, one of the best DPS Warriors in the world, who raids in Infinity. You can follow him on Twitter.

1. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
15	✔ Dauntless	✘ Overpower	✔ Sweeping Strikes
30	? Shockwave	? Storm Bolt	✔ Double Time
45	✔ Trauma	✔ Rend	✘ Avatar
60	? Second Wind	✔ Bounding Stride	✘ Defensive Stance
75	✔ Fervor of Battle	✘ Mortal Combo	✔ Titanic Might
90	✘ Deadly Calm	✔ In For The Kill	✘ Focused Rage
100	? Anger Management	✔ Opportunity Strikes	? Ravager

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Talent Cheat Sheet

Whilst tailoring your selections based on the situation and desired content is recommended with the new talents, the following builds are a great starting point and will generally cover most aspects of gameplay well.

2.1. Open World, Levelling and Questing

This will serve you well whilst in the open world, providing a good balance between mobility, healing and consistent damage, and can also be customised for more burst to additional cleave.

• Level 15: Sweeping Strikes
• Level 30: Double Time
• Level 45: Trauma
• Level 60: Second Wind/ Bounding Stride
• Level 75: Fervor of Battle
• Level 90: In For The Kill
• Level 100: Opportunity Strikes

2.2. Dungeons and Raids

This serves as an ideal build for group content, that can include a mix of both AoE and single-target aspects in encounters:

• Level 15: Dauntless/ Sweeping Strikes
• Level 30: Double Time
• Level 45: Trauma
• Level 60: Bounding Stride
• Level 75: Fervor of Battle
• Level 90: In For The Kill
• Level 100: Opportunity Strikes

3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

✔ Dauntless

✘ Overpower

✔ Sweeping Strikes

Tier 1 talents provide different offensive tools.

• Dauntless passively reduces the Rage cost of all abilities by a flat 10%.
• Overpower grants an additional proc ability dealing high Physical damage that cannot be blocked, dodged or parried, with a 60% increased Critical Strike chance that costs 10 rage. All melee attacks have a chance to activate this.
• Sweeping Strikes causes Mortal Strike and Execute to hit up to 2 additional nearby targets.

Dauntless is the clear choice and should be taken in nearly all situations.

Sweeping Strikes provides no benefit in single-target, but is the best choice in cleave and low target AoE situations (between 2-4 targets).

Overpower is powerful, but clutters the rotation too much to be considered and does not contribute to Tactician procs.

4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

? Shockwave

? Storm Bolt

✔ Double Time

Tier 2 talents provide additional control and mobility options.

• Shockwave is an active ability with a 40-second cooldown. It is a frontal cone attack that deals low Physical damage to enemies within 10 yards, and stuns them for 3 seconds. Its cooldown is reduced by 20 seconds if it strikes at least 3 targets.
• Storm Bolt is an active ability with a 20-yard range and a 30-second cooldown. It deals low Physical damage to the target, stunning them for 4 seconds.
• Double Time grants an additional charge of Charge, and reduces its cooldown/recharge time by 3 seconds (down to 17 seconds.)

Double Time is the go to choice in the tier when there is no extra crowd control needed, as it is a significant increase to mobility.

Shockwave is only used for in specific situations that require extra AoE stuns and is a good choice in dungeons. Storm Bolt is only used for specific situations that require extra single-target stuns, but is generally a poor choice.

5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

✔ Trauma

✔ Rend

✘ Avatar

Tier 3 talents provide situational offensive tools.

• Trauma causes Slam, Whirlwind and Execute to deal an additional 20% damage over 6 seconds. Repeated uses increase the intensity of the DoT effect.
• Rend grants an additional active ability that applies a DoT on your target, dealing high Bleed damage over 8 seconds. This costs 30 Rage.
• Avatar is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. You deal 20% increased damage for Avatar's 20-second duration, and activating Avatar removes all roots and snares.

Trauma provides a powerful benefit to your filler spells that rolls over damage when re-applied instead of overwriting it, and significantly increases the power of your Execute phase, making this an extremely powerful choice during these situations whilst not impacting the rotation.

Rend is an equally powerful single target choice and is competitive with Trauma, but the high Rage cost to maintain it clashes with other Rage-spending abilities with which Trauma does not, meaning when additional targets are added into an encounter above the Sweeping Strikes target threshold, it can drop off.

Due to significant buffs to other talents on this row, Avatar has not changed but it now the weakest choice without any strong applications.

6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

? Second Wind

✔ Bounding Stride

✘ Defensive Stance

Tier 4 talents provide additional defensive and mobility effects.

• Second Wind causes you to restore 6% of your maximum health every second when you have not taken damage for 5 seconds.
• Bounding Stride passively reduces the cooldown of Heroic Leap by 15 seconds, and also causes Heroic Leap to grant you a 70% movement speed increase for 3 seconds.
• Defensive Stance grants an additional active ability that reduces all damage taken by 20%, but also reducing all damage you deal by 10%. This has a 10 second cooldown to switch the stance on and off.

Bounding Stride provides a good increase to mobility and is a great choice in raid encounters that require that but have no targets to Charge to.

Second Wind is not useful in any group content due to the time required to activate the heal, but can see great use in the open world. Defensive Stance provides an on demand damage mitigation tool, but the high Global Cooldown cost and cooldown to deactivate coupled with the damage penalty it applies makes it a difficult choice to make use of.

7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

✔ Fervor of Battle

✘ Mortal Combo

✔ Titanic Might

Tier 5 talents grant significant rotaitonal effects.

• Fervor of Battle causes Whirlwind to deal 80% increased damage to your primary target.
• Mortal Combo grants a second charge to Mortal Strike.
• Titanic Might reduces the cooldown of Colossus Smash by 8 seconds, and increases its duration by 8 seconds.

Fervor of Battle has the highest potential on the tier due to synergy with Whirlwind with other talents such as Opportunity Strikes and Trauma, alongside the increased chance to trigger Tactician per cast. This causes Whirlwind to also replace Slam as the filler for Arms. It can however lead to Rage starvation and reduced consistency, which can often cause it to lose out to Titanic Might.

Titanic Might currently allows for 100% uptime on the Colossus Smash effect on one target, and also allows for you to potentially maintain it on multiple enemies. This has good synergy with the Weight of the Earth legendary, and can be a powerful choice in cleave situations alongside being the most consistent single target option, if you don't want to gamble with Fervor.

Mortal Combo has limited benefit due to the already very frequent resets on Mortal Strike through Tactician, but can find good use whilst levelling when coupled with Sweeping Strikes.

8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

✘ Deadly Calm

✔ In For The Kill

✘ Focused Rage

Tier 6 talents grant situational offensive enhancements.

• Deadly Calm causes Battle Cry to reduce the Rage costs of all abilities by 75% while active.
• In For The Kill causes Colossus Smash to grant 10% Haste for 8 seconds when cast.
• Focused Rage grants an additional active ability that deals no damage, but increases the damage of your next Mortal Strike by 30%, stacking up to 3 times. This is off the global cooldown and costs 20 Rage.

In For The Kill increases your damage when you need it most during your Colossus Smash windows, and increasing the likelihood to chain your resets through additional Rage generation, usually keeping at least a 70% uptime; and as such is the best choice on the tier.

Focused Rage has mostly fallen off in 7.2.5 due to it now clashing with Deadly Calm. These can be combined still using the new legendary Soul of the Battlelord however. This talent is still not viable in comparison to the alternatives despite this, due to the significant changes to the flow of Arms Rage and a shift away from Mortal Strike focused damage.

Deadly Calm suffers from the same issue as Focused Rage in that it clashes with the talent that benefits it the most. When considering the Tier 20 4-piece bonus, this talent becomes very poor as you fill your Battle Cry windows with Bladestorm, which costs no Rage.

9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

? Anger Management

✔ Opportunity Strikes

? Ravager

Tier 7 talents provide significant situational damage increases.

• Anger Management causes every 20 rage spent to reduce the cooldown of your Battle Cry and Bladestorm by 1 second.
• Opportunity Strikes causes all melee abilities to have up to a 60% chance (based on the target's missing health) to deal an extra hit for moderate Physical damage, and generate 5 Rage.
• Ravager provides an improvement to Bladestorm, which it replaces. It places a stationary weapon on the ground that deals high Physical damage to targets within 8 yards over 7 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This also generates 7 Rage per swing (for a maximum of 49) if each swing hits a target.

Opportunity Strikes, whilst being entirely passive, deals extremely high consistent damage and can trigger from any attacks both in single-target and AoE making it generally the talent of choice. Due to the Rage generation added in Patch 7.2.5, this also significantly increases your available resources and smooths out your rotation, alongside accentuating your Execute phase due to the ramping chance to trigger the lower the health of your target is.

Anger Management allows for more frequent uses of Battle Cry and Bladestorm, which works very well with the Tier 20 4-piece bonus. This can be useful if you need burst windows more frequently than once every minute, so is situation specific.

Ravager replaces Bladestorm which is already a powerful tool, and the lower cooldown aspect is largely irrelevant given that you can also take Anger Management to directly reduce the cooldown of Bladestorm instead. What this does do however is allow you to freely cast whilst it is active, and generate enough Rage to fuel that period. Because of this, if there are frequent burst AoE situations that you can make use of by combining this and repeated Whirlwind casts, this is an exceptional choice (for example, on fights such as Mistress Sassz'ine and Desolate Host). This loses some value in single target however due to Bladestorm scaling better with the Tier 20 2-piece and 4-piece bonuses, making it a context specific talent pick.

10. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 28 Aug. 2017: Added Lightforged Augment Rune and new 7.3 epic gems.
• 14 Jul. 2017: Updated again to highlight the usefulness of Ravager better, Titanic Might over Fervor, and Rend over Trauma situations.
• 09 Jul. 2017: Updated to reflect Tomb talent choices for fight situations.
• 14 Jun. 2017: Updated to cover new 7.2.5 talent tree, significant changes across the board.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 10 Jan. 2017: Updated for new 7.1.5 talent changes.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 21 Jul. 2016: Further testing showed that Fervor of Battle is now the best Level 45 talent.
• 19 Jul. 2016: Fixed Defensive Stance's description
• 19 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.