Arms Warrior PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / 9.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as an Arms Warrior, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Arms Warrior PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Arms Warriors
The Arms Warrior has two roles when in an arena: do as much damage as possible and support your team with your broad utility. The most important part is to always have uptime on your enemy. Should your target get away from you, it is better to hit an enemy closer to you until you can regain uptime on your kill target.
In general, PvP comes down to good judgment and decision making. There are not two matches that are identical, and you will have to use your toolkit differently vs some enemies than the general guideline. However, the most important part is to master the fundamentals of playing arms warrior, like dealing damage, before thinking about how to outplay your opponents, and you should therefore focus on the information and rotations listed in this section for starters.
Before Gates Open
Coordinate with your team who your kill target is going to be, and any potential swaps you can do. As the arms warrior, it is often you who determines who your team is focusing.
Though you should save your Intimidating Shout and
Storm Bolt for offensive pressure, you should determine and judge for
yourself if it is better to save them to aid your team defensively, for an
example if you are playing WLS vs Windwalker+Death
Knight.
Offensive Rotation
Understanding Arms Warrior Damage
Before going into the rotation, it is best to understand how to maximize
your damage as an Arms Warrior. Your primary damaging abilities are
Mortal Strike and
Overpower.
Mortal Wounds must be maintained
at all times through
Mortal Strike.
Mastery: Deep Wounds amplifies your
damaging abilities against affected targets, and must be maintained at all times.
Maintaining Hamstring at all times is critical in order to keep up
with your target and continue to land damage.
Warbreaker applies
Mastery: Deep Wounds and further increases damage done.
You should use this for burst damage.
Your filler ability Slam should not be used
too much, as the Rage is better spent on
Mortal Strike and
Ignore Pain.
Use it when you are above 60 Rage and
Mortal Strike is on cooldown.
Sustained Damage
This list serves as your sustained damage rotation priority.
- Maintain
Hamstring on your kill target at all times.
- Maintain
Mortal Wounds on your kill target at all times.
- Use
Avatar and
Warbreaker for when you wish to burst.
- Use
Mortal Strike if
Mortal Wounds is about to fall off on your kill target.
- Use
Execute when the enemy drops below threshold or if you get a
Sudden Death proc.
- Hold onto your
Sudden Death proc if you are about to burst with
Warbreaker.
- Hold onto your
- Use
Mortal Strike on cooldown outside of when
Execute is available.
- If talented, maintain
Rend on your kill target and spread it with
Sweeping Strikes.
- Use
Overpower to deal damage.
- Use
Slam when above 60 Rage and
Mortal Strike is on cooldown.
The Opener
The opener refers to your team's opening CC chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer or your kill target uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. There is no reason to hold onto your cooldowns at the start of the match, apply your team's CC chain and burst to gain momentum.
This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.
- Use
Charge to close the gap between you and the target.
- Use
Hamstring on the enemy to slow them.
- Use
Storm Bolt on your kill target.
- Use
Avatar and
Warbreaker for burst.
- Use
Mortal Strike to apply
Mortal Wounds.
- Use
Execute if you get a
Sudden Death proc.
- Use
Bladestorm.
- Use
Mortal Strike empowered by
Sharpen Blade if the enemy has sustained damage and your CC chain is about to end.
- Use
Rend if you are using this talent.
- Use
Overpower to deal damage.
- Use
Intimidating Shout as a followup to any CC applied by your team or to start your team's CC chain. This point takes priority anywhere in the rotation if you judge that you can keep up the pressure to potentially land the kill.
Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.
- Use
Storm Bolt to stun your kill target.
- Use
Avatar and
Warbreaker.
- If the enemy team is stacked and it will not slow you down enough for the enemy to stop your burst
rotation, use
Sweeping Strikes.
- Use
Spear of Bastion if you are Kyrian.
- Use
Mortal Strike if
Mortal Wounds is about to fall off.
- Use
Execute if your kill targets drops below the threshold or if
Sudden Death procs.
- Use
Mortal Strike.
- Use
Bladestorm.
- Use
Sharpen Blade as soon as the enemy healer leaves CC or uses healing cooldowns.
- Use
Overpower.
- Use
Slam as a filler.
Defensive Techniques
Die by the Sword is your main defensive cooldown. This is a very
powerful defensive against melee teams and offers a decent damage reduction against casters
as well.
PvP is all about trading cooldowns, and you should primarily aim to use this as a response to
either the enemy team landing a CC-chain on your healer/team, or big offensive cooldowns like
Avenging Wrath. In doing so, you will be preventing the most amount of damage possible,
and you will allow your team to catch up to rescue you.
Defensive Stance is a great talent, despite the nerfs to this ability, which can be
the difference between life and death. The general rule of thumb for this ability is to try only
to have it active while sustaining more damage than you can deal, or when you anticipate a setup
from the enemy team. Avoid sitting in it for excessive amounts of time, as the penalty is greater
on you than the enemy team.
It is important to master the ability to preemptively put yourself in
Defensive Stance before you get hit by dangerous abilities like
Kidney Shot.
Heroic Leap has great pursuit potential but can be equally powerful when trying to
survive. Breaking the line of sight of enemies will nullify most of their damage, and is a great
way to prevent being killed by unstoppable cooldowns like
Combustion.
Ignore Pain ignores 50% of the damage you are about to take. Use this
when you are sustaining damage. Do not use it on cooldown, it will drain your Rage
quickly if used this way.
Rallying Cry is a great defensive for you and your team, especially when in conjunction
with
Master and Commander and
Inspiring Presence. Beware, as the health gained
is lost at the end of the duration and can surprise kill you or your teammates.
Shield Block is kind of a niche ability that warriors got back with Shadowlands.
It blocks any non-enhanced melee attack and ranged attack (Hunters). It does not work against
abilities like
Templar's Verdict or
Obliterate that is frost enhanced. This
ability can serve as a last line of defense against Subtlety Rogues,
Feral Druids,
Windwalker Monks,
other Arms Warriors, and Marksmanship Hunters.
If you are hitting into abilities like
Evasion and you
have nothing to use or cannot swap targets, you can switch weapons to
Shield Block.
Victory Rush is not usable often, but it can still be used sometimes. You can gain
this ability after killing an enemy or an enemy pet. So
if you need a heal, you can quickly try to kill a pet and hit an enemy for a
heal.
Good Bladestorm/Avatar usage
Bladestorm and
Avatar are great burst cooldowns, but they are just as valuable
for their anti-CC components. Against Mages, Restoration
Shamans, Druids and other similar classes
with roots, it may be better to use these abilities to break out of these roots instead of for burst
damage. We advise learning the cooldowns of enemy roots so you get an idea of when you can use your
abilities for burst and when you should use it to cleanse yourself.
Similarly, Bladestorm makes you immune to all CC, and can be very effective at ruining
the enemy's attempt to kill you with abilities such as
Kidney Shot if timed correctly. You
have about a 0.25 sec grace period, where using
Bladestorm after being hit with CC will
still activate it and break you out of the CC.
Good Intimidating Shout usage
Intimidating Shout is a very powerful ability, that can make or break your game. This ability
is as strong offensively as it is defensively. For this reason, this ability can be the hardest to
determine how to use best. Good ways to use it offensively is to use it as a followup CC, to an already
applied CC on the enemy healer, or to start a CC chain. The enemy team will try to stop your team from
applying other forms of CC like
Polymorph or
Hex. If you can land an
Intimidating Shout
onto all of the enemy team, your team will be in a prime position to burst and apply CC without having to
worry about being stopped. This way, you can turn the tides of a fight by, for an example, using it on a
Windwalker Monk with
Storm, Earth, and Fire during
Fists of Fury, to nullify his/her offensive
burst and letting you
Storm Bolt your kill target to counter pressure with your team.
Intervene
Intervene is one of the best tools arms warrior has for the team. It allows you to quickly
reposition to your chosen teammate, and then redirect all melee and ranged attacks onto you. Keep in mind,
that this ability does not do anything against spells unless you have the
conduit
Safeguard. Use it frequently and in respond to enemy attempts to kill your teammate. Do not be
afraid to combine it with
Die by the Sword, if you suspect the redirected damage is strong enough to
kill you.
Macros
It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.
Changelog
- 28 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 08 Nov. 2021: Page reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 13 Oct. 2021: Mentioned the importance of maintaining Hamstring.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 27 Dec. 2020: Rewritten by Karanze for Shadowlands season 1
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Burst Rotation to include Covenant Ability.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 22 Oct. 2020: Updated Defensives section.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
This guide has been written by Karanze, an experienced Gladiator Warrior player who has been a Stormforged/trusted member in the popular Warrior class discord Skyhold. You can watch his stream on Twitch.
- Free Character Moves from Firemaw
- Shadowlands 9.2 Season 3 Mythic+ DPS Log Rankings, Weeks 10 and 11
- Eyes of the Wolf Calia Menethil Quest in Patch 9.2.5
- Everything We Know About the Shrouded Affix in Shadowlands Season 4
- New Oribos Portals in Patch 9.2.5
- Patch 9.2.5 Build 43741: Achievement Changes
- Patch 9.2 and Burning Crusade Classic Hotfixes: May 17th
- Patch 9.2.5 PTR Development Notes: May 17th