Arms Warrior PvP Best Arena Compositions (Shadowlands / 9.0.2)

Arms Warrior in 2v2 is all about applying unrelenting pressure and securing as much uptime on your target as you can. For this reason, they excel playing with healers that can stay high on mana and apply pressure with you. There is no general guideline for whether you should focus the DPS or the healer, it comes down to each individual match.

Arms Warrior focuses mainly on mitigating damage, rather than healing it back like a Death Knight would, and for this reason they scale greatly into dampening. Combined with the overall pressure of a warrior, this often leads to the warrior winning eventually through consistently damage output.

It is important to make use of cross CC, meaning you should try to time CC with your healer onto the enemy healer and DPS to not only stop their healing output, but also stop them from disabling your damage output with abilities such as Disarm, Mortal Coil, Polymorph etc. Mastering this strategy is key to closing out games, but you should not focus solely on it, as it can be equally good to stun an opponent out of line of sight of his teammate, or to ruin major cooldowns like Avenging Wrath.

I strongly recommend you learn each and every offensive and defensive cooldown for all specilizations, and get addons like Flyplatebuffs, BigDebuffs, and Gladius, so you have an easier time knowing when and how you should react. Alternatively, weakauras are a good way to customize your UI and alerts. These addons will give you an easier time identifying when an enemy uses cooldowns, that can be difficult to spot visually, like Icy Veins and Vendetta. See our Arms Warrior PvP Macros page for more information on the subject.

This will also help you understand when you should break off from your target, and peel for your healer with Intervene, Disarm, Rallying Cry etc.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:

• Arms Warrior + Restoration Shaman
• Arms Warrior + Discipline Priest
• Arms Warrior + Holy Paladin

Similarly to 2v2, Arms Warriors' main role in 3v3 is to apply unrelenting pressure onto the enemy team. In 3v3, however, it is even more important to know how to play defensively, as you are dealing with 2 DPS opponents instead of 1. In general, healers should not be focused unless they overextend into your range/healer or has no trinket, in which case they can be swapped to with a Storm Bolt.

The playstyle and win conditions of arms changes depending on what composition you are playing in 3v3. The best compositions will each be explained in detail below.

Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:

• TSG (Arms Warrior + Frost Death Knight/Unholy Death Knight + Holy Paladin/Restoration Shaman)
• Arms Warrior + Havoc Retribution Paladin + Restoration Shaman
• Turbo Cleave (Arms Warrior + Enhancement Shaman + Holy Paladin/Discipline Priest)
• WLS (Arms Warrior + Affliction Warlock + Holy Paladin/Restoration Shaman)
• Arms Warrior + Windwalker Monk + Restoration Shaman/Holy Paladin
• WMP (ala) (Arms Warrior + Fire Mage + Holy Paladin/Discipline Priest
• Arms Warrior + Shadow Priest + Holy Paladin/Restoration Shaman)

TSG plays practically like 2v2. You want to maximize your pressure and always be on top of your target. You have different kill conditions depending on if you play with Unholy or Frost Death Knight. Unholy has extremely powerful damage output, and works better vs casters with Spell Eater and Gnaw. Frost Death Knight has unparalleled cleave and is near inescapable with Heartstop Aura and Delirium. Your win condition with Frost Death Knight is to grip the enemy healer and stun them and your kill target with their Frostwyrm legendary, followed by your AoE burst ( Warbreaker+ Bladestorm+ Spear of Bastion/ Ancient Aftershock) and theirs.

Your role as Arms Warrior is to safeguard the Death Knight, while maximizing your pressure, as Death Knight's defensive kit is lackluster vs non-magical damage and is vulnerable to being oneshot.

It is recommended that Storm Bolt is used for the kill target and Asphyxiate is used for the healer.

Similar to TSG, this melee cleave focuses on maximizing pressure and making kills within stun windows. Storm Bolt and Hammer of Justice has almost the same cooldown when Hammer of Justice is talented to have a reduceable cooldown, and can be used for cross CC. Like with TSG, Storm Bolt should be used for the kill target and Hammer of Justice for the healer, since the Paladin's stun is dispellable.

Arms+Retribution complete each other well, in that you safeguard the Retribution Paladin with Intervene and secure both of you uptime on your target with Piercing Howl and Spear of Bastion (if chosen). Likewise, you both draw a lot of benefit from Blessing of Freedom and Word of Glory, making it very difficult for the enemy team to effectively kill or stop you.

Turbo Cleave wants to maximize pressure and survive with the Enhancement Shamans strong off-heals from Healing Surge. Although you have a harder time landing CC on the enemy healer than most other compositions, it is made up for by having arguably the most powerful combined burst in the game. It can be an advantage to play with a Holy Paladin for Hammer of Justice stun onto the enemy healer. You want to hold onto Warbreaker for when the Shaman has Heroism/ Bloodlust.

Unlike a Retribution Paladin, Enhancement Shamans do not respond well to having the enemy team swap to your healer. Be careful not to expend all of your defensive cooldowns too early for the shaman, so you can protect your healer.

WLS is a rot comp that focuses on slowly whittling down the enemy team, until eventually they are drained of mana and defensive cooldowns. As Arms, you are the one who decides who is the best to kill and make the swaps. Your Affliction Warlock will maximize his spread pressure with instant DoTs and kite the enemy team around. In this comp, it is more important to safeguard your team than it is to create the most pressure possible. Played well, you will suffer very little damage while the enemy team slowly withers away.

Because the enemy team will often times chase your Warlock to prevent him from free casting, you can enjoy a lot of time in Battle Stance, and it is easy for the Warlock to peel both you and your healer with Fear.

Like most melee cleaves, this composition wants to keep up the pressure and kill teams through the sheer power in their damage output. This composition does not necessarily synergize that well, it is spawned from the current meta being fast paced and both Arms and Windwalker being top tier melees. Use your unhealable damage to kill targets before they can counter pressure you.

WMP is a high burst and high control comp that focuses on making kill attempts every incapacitate DR and Storm Bolt. The main disadvantage of this comp, is that it is rather difficult to pull off, but on the flip side it is also very rewarding when done well.

Your win condition is to try and push out Polymorph on either the healer or a DPS, while landing another CC on the other, and then aggressively go in for the kill with Warbreaker and Combustion. This composition is often times compared to RMX (Rogue / Mage / Healer), but the main difference is that you take on a more defensive playstyle when you are waiting for the next incapacitate DR. You need to play bodyguard for your Mage, while he/she gets Combustion back off cooldown with Pyrokinesis, and also not fall off in pressure.

This composition plays a lot like WLS does. You want to use your spread pressure and rot damage to wither away the enemy team. The reason why this composition is so powerful, is because of the incredible defensive capability of both the Arms Warrior and the Shadow Priest. Shadow Priest and Holy Paladin / Restoration Shaman combo their CC on healers well and easily with Repentance and Hex, as well as being difficult to kill on their own. As Arms Warrior, you can safeguard your team with Intervene and stall long enough for cooldowns like Greater Fade to come back off of coooldown.