Arms Warrior PvP Talents and Builds — The War Within (11.0.5)
Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as an Arms Warrior and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Arms Warrior PvP Guide.
Regular Talents for Arms Warriors
The War Within PvP Talent Builds for Arms Warrior in Arena
Slayer - Thunderous Roar Arms Warrior (Recommended)
Slayer Arms Warrior is a build that focuses largely on big sustained damage. It can deliver some powerful Executes and focuses largely on high cleave damage and dps. Slayer delivers very high damage output with Slayer's Strike and Bladestorm becomes greatly enhanced with this build.
There are several talents in the Arms Warrior tree that you will want to change regularly based on matchups, which are:
- Wrecking Throw / Shattering Throw: This node comes down to whether or not the enemy has magical immunities, such as Divine Shield or Ice Block. If they do, pick Shattering Throw, otherwise use Wrecking Throw for shield breaking, and if the enemy team has none of both, skip this node and pick something else in the talent tree.
- Blunt Instruments / Warbreaker: Whether you will hit cleave damage is a simple choice. Warbreaker for cleave and Blunt Instruments for single target.
- Storm Wall / Ignore Pain: The clear winner here is Ignore Pain. As Arms, you have a high amount of excess rage that you can spend, allowing this talent to increase your durability immensely.
- Berserker Shout / Piercing Howl: Both are situational and really powerful. You should default to Piercing Howl, but choose Berserker Shout in situations where you can break fears with cooldowns on your healer, such as Intimidating Shout or Psychic Scream, reliably, or if you're confident you will have full uptime on your target.
- Dreadnaught / Strength of Arms: You will want to pick Strength of Arms in all situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Colossus - Thunderous Roar Arms Warrior
Colossus Arms Warrior focuses on delivering fatal damage with Demolish. This build gains increased durability thanks to No Stranger to Pain and Mountain of Muscle and Scars, and focuses heavily on dealing sustained damage through Mortal Strike and Overpower.
There are several talents in the Arms Warrior tree that you will want to change regularly based on matchups, which are:
- Wrecking Throw / Shattering Throw: This node comes down to whether or not the enemy has magical immunities, such as Divine Shield or Ice Block. If they do, pick Shattering Throw; otherwise, use Wrecking Throw for shield breaking, and if the enemy team has none of both, skip this node and pick something else in the talent tree.
- Blunt Instruments / Warbreaker: Whether you will hit cleave damage is a simple choice. Warbreaker for cleave and Blunt Instruments for single target.
- Storm Wall / Ignore Pain: The clear winner here is Ignore Pain. As Arms, you have a high amount of excess rage that you can spend, allowing this talent to increase your durability immensely.
- Berserker Shout / Piercing Howl: Both are situational and really powerful. You should default to Piercing Howl but choose Berserker Shout in situations where you can break fears with cooldowns on your healer, such as Intimidating Shout or Psychic Scream, reliably, or if you're confident you will have full uptime on your target.
- Dreadnaught / Strength of Arms: You will want to pick Strength of Arms in all situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Colossus - Champion's Spear Arms Warrior
Colossus Arms Warrior focuses on delivering fatal damage with Demolish and locking people up in Champion's Spear to enhance it and guarantee the damage. This build gains increased durability thanks to No Stranger to Pain and Mountain of Muscle and Scars, and focuses heavily on dealing sustained damage through Mortal Strike and Overpower.
There are several talents in the Arms Warrior tree that you will want to change regularly based on matchups, which are:
- Wrecking Throw / Shattering Throw: This node comes down to whether or not the enemy has magical immunities, such as Divine Shield or Ice Block. If they do, pick Shattering Throw; otherwise, use Wrecking Throw for shield breaking, and if the enemy team has none of both, skip this node and pick something else in the talent tree.
- Blademaster's Torment / Warlord's Torment: The most damage you can get here is Warlord's Torment, as you have a lot of other effects that increase your critical damage, and Anger Management benefits greatly from this talent. Blademaster's Torment offers more damage in cleave situations, but you want that extra critical strike chance from Warlord's Torment on your Demolish for the burst damage.
- Blunt Instruments / Warbreaker: Whether you will hit cleave damage is a simple choice. Warbreaker for cleave and Blunt Instruments for single target.
- Storm Wall / Ignore Pain: The clear winner here is Ignore Pain. As Arms, you have a high amount of excess rage that you can spend, allowing this talent to increase your durability immensely.
- Berserker Shout / Piercing Howl: Both are situational and really powerful. You should default to Piercing Howl but choose Berserker Shout in situations where you can break fears with cooldowns on your healer, such as Intimidating Shout or Psychic Scream, reliably, or if you're confident you will have full uptime on your target.
- Dreadnaught / Strength of Arms: You will want to pick Strength of Arms in all situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Mandatory PvP Talents
You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each has uses, but some are better for certain matchups than others.
Sharpen Blade is the only mandatory talent. This ability is essential for landing killing blows. It is a great way to drain Mana from the enemy healer quickly.
Be sure not to use this ability when the enemy is at full health but rather as a follow-up to a CC chain or when you suspect the enemy healer will use bigger healing cooldowns or abilities.
Battlefield Commander lost a lot of power with the nerfs and no longer roots through Piercing Howl. It's still a strong pick if you have Thunderous Roar talented.
Situational PvP Talents
Storm of Destruction received nerfs, but Bladestorm is still very powerful. This talent is a safe generalist pick, and can be used in most situations. Consider picking up this talent if you are going to chase Restoration Druid to reapply the slow for whenever they shift form.
Safeguard is a very strong talent that provides an additional wall for your team, in addition to slightly more short-term mobility for you.
War Banner is compelling vs. teams with a lot of crowd control, like RMP (Rogue/Mage/Priest) or Jungle Cleave (Feral Druid/Hunter/Priest). Timed correctly, this ability alone can completely ruin the enemy team's setup and cooldowns. In Patch 9.2, this ability now also works on Disarm, and has made it, so it is a lot more beneficial to use this ability offensively as well to cover your major offensive cooldowns such as Warbreaker.
Master and Commander got buffed and has become much stronger when paired together with Battlefield Commander. You can use this as an additional defensive cooldown, or as a root breaker for cooldowns like Mass Entanglement + Solar Beam.
Disarm has a short cooldown and can completely ruin the damage of weapon-based classes like Frost DK or Subtlety Rogue. This ability can even be used offensively vs. specializations that require weapons for their defensives, such as stopping another Arms Warrior from using Die by the Sword or a Death Knight from using Death Strike
Duel is a powerful alternative vs. enemies that cannot be CC'd with Disarm. Good times to pick this talent are vs Retribution Paladin, Destruction Warlock, and Feral Druid.
Demolition was changed in Dragonflight to give less of a damage increase and reduce the cooldown of your throws by 50%. It is potent with Wrecking Throw, but not worth considering with Shattering Throw. This talent is recommended to pick up against Destruction Warlock and Affliction Warlock for their Dark Pact and Mistweaver Monk for their Life Cocoon.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4
- 19 Mar. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.6
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5
- 09 May 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 Jul. 2022: Updated for Shadowlands season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 09 Apr. 2022: Updated to reflect the changing meta.
- 28 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 08 Nov. 2021: Page reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 13 Oct. 2021: Adjusted recommended talents.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 16 May 2021: Updated Mandatory PvP Talents.
- 27 Dec. 2020: Rewritten by Karanze for Shadowlands Season 1
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 26 Oct. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
Other PvP Guides
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.
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