Arms Warrior DPS Stat Priority — Dragonflight 10.2.6

Arms Warriors primarily value item level for Strength and Critical Strike, followed by Haste, Mastery, and Versatility. The value of Haste fluctuates greatly depending on how much of it you have, being worth relatively little with low Crit, and a great deal in the 20-30% range, becoming more important to stack as you gain more Rage to spend on abilities. Therefore, the stat priority for Arms Warrior is typically:

1. Strength;
2. Critical Strike;
3. Haste;
4. Mastery;
5. Versatility.

These sample stat weights represent the general relationship of secondary stats compared to one point of strength, although as usual, individual results may vary. It is highly recommended that you regularly sim your own gear upgrades and/or generate personalized stat weights.

While you can use these weights to math out the value and compare individual items by hand, in-game addons such as Pawn will do so automatically.

Strength is your primary stat, found on plate armor, weapons and trinkets. It provides Attack Power, which contributes to the damage of all abilities and autoattacks.

Critical Strikes normally double the damage of attacks and abilities, as well as increasing the Rage generated by autoattack swings by 30%. Thanks to Impale and more specific talents such as Sharpened Blades and Cruel Strikes, the damage of crits is increased beyond the normal +100% multiplier.

Haste compresses the rotation, reducing the time between the autoattack swings, the global cooldown, and the cooldown of the rotational abilities Mortal Strike, Skullsplitter, and Cleave, as well as the speed at which Bladestorm, Ravager, Rend, and Deep Wounds deal damage. It is worth a little more in Dragonflight than it was in Shadowlands, thanks to the increased Rage economy enabling more frequent spending and less empty GCDs, though it still typically falls behind Critical Strike.

Mastery increases the damage taken debuff Deep Wounds, which is applied and maintained by using Mortal Strike, Colossus Smash, Bladestorm, Warbreaker, Cleave, and Ravager. This typically had lower value in multitarget, but has increased thanks to the ease of using Cleave to maintain the debuff.

Versatility provides a flat increase to damage dealt and reduces damage taken by half as much.

Although there are various breakpoints which allow additional global cooldowns during Colossus Smash, Haste remains a consistently strong stat due to its influence on the cooldown and DoT tick rate of Arms' abilities. The earliest breakpoint is around 20%, while the later breakpoint is around 50% and out of reach with regular gearing.

The gems, enchants, and consumables you will use are directly derived from your stat priority and you can find our advice on this topic in our dedicated page.

Racial bonuses have, as a whole, very minimal impact for Arms; anything within 1% of one another is typically considered trivial, and a small enough margin that our recommendation is to simply play what you enjoy the most.