Arms Warrior PvP Talents and Builds (Shadowlands / 9.2.5)

Despite the nerf to Death Sentence, it is still recommended to pick up this PvP talent, as you can still use it to nearly the same effectiveness if you manage your mobility cooldowns well.

Level	Choices
15	✘ War Machine	✔ Sudden Death	✘ Skullsplitter
25	✔ Double Time	✔ Impending Victory	✔ Storm Bolt
30	✔ Massacre	✘ Fervor of Battle	✔ Rend
35	✘ Second Wind	? Bounding Stride	✔ Defensive Stance
40	✘ Collateral Damage	✔ Warbreaker	✘ Cleave
45	✘ In For The Kill	✔ Avatar	✘ Deadly Calm
50	? Anger Management	✔ Dreadnaught	✘ Ravager

While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.

Sudden Death is the best choice in this tier, because of the raw power Execute and Condemn have at the moment.

Skullsplitter and War Machine both offer additional Rage, but do not compete with the burst potential of Sudden Death.

Storm Bolt gives warrior a much-needed on-demand ranged stun, which is incredibly powerful both offensively and defensively. Storm Bolt is generally the answer to most situations, but depending on both your team composition and the enemy's, it can be swapped out for another option.

Double Time is seeing higher viability in conjunction with Warbringer. This talent is a great answer to enemies that have either more or more frequent mobility cooldowns than you do, or Mage that play with Blink.

Impending Victory help to cover up Arms' lack of self healing, and with the buffs to this ability, it can heal quite a large amount. However, it cannot compare to the power of having an on-demand stun, which is far more flexible offensively and defensively, in addition to potentially being stronger defensively if used to shut down large amounts of damage, such as Combustion. It is recommended to pick up this talent if your team composition has an excess amount of stuns, and you are in need of additional survivability.

Massacre amplifies your already-incredible finishing power by letting you Execute on a higher threshold. This is a very strong talent, especially since Execute can sometimes do more damage than 35% of a player's health.

Rend is another good choice in this tier. This DoT deals a decent amount of damage and amplifies your critical damage against affected targets. This bonus critical damage is additive and not multiplicative, meaning if you have 200% critical damage, it will add up to 210% critical damage. Rend does a strong amount of consistent damage, and will provide more throughput than Massacre will, at the cost of having a more difficult time closing out games.

Fervor of Battle is not viable, as you generally do not want to spend too much Rage on fillers in PvP, and this talent encourages that.

Defensive Stance took a beating in Patch 9.2, but is generally still the best choice in this row. Despite the 20% reduction to damage dealt it applies to you in PvP, this talent is still the best for its defensive applications. Mastering when to be in what stance is the key to optimizing the momentum of Arms Warrior.

Bounding Stride can be good to pick up against targets that are difficult to reach, or have mobility cooldowns you can match with the reduced cooldown. As an Arms Warrior, your uptime on targets is vital and generally outweighs having to sustain a bit more damage, if it means the difference between you doing drastically less damage or not.

Second Wind provides you no benefit at all, as you will be spending the majority of the time taking damage

Warbreaker is the best choice in this tier, replacing Colossus Smash to apply the same effect in an AoE around you. This is incredibly strong in conjunction with Bladestorm, Spear of Bastion and Ancient Aftershock for strong burst AoE.

Collateral Damage offers less burst AoE than Warbreaker

Cleave is not viable because of the heavily reduced damage of your Mastery: Deep Wounds bleed this season, and your other AoE cooldowns apply the effects of your Mastery on their own.

Avatar is the strongest because of the root and snare break, as well as the increased burst damage it provides. As the current meta favors burst and strong one shots, this talent has more value than the sustained DPS of In For The Kill

Deadly Calm favors Condemn the most, but is not a very consistent or powerful option.

Dreadnaught is a major increase to your damage output and filler rotation. This is in general your main talent on this row, and should be used nearly always.

Anger Management provides less consistent damage than Dreadnaught, and its only application is to be able to reduce Warbreaker's cooldown below that of enemy Disarm effects. Alternatively, you can combine this talent with Storm of Destruction and Unhinged for high pressure Bladestorm builds, but this does not beat out Dreadnaught competitively.

There is no reason to play Ravager, it is easy to avoid and you give up the CC immunity of Bladestorm.

You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their 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 and is a great way to quickly drain Mana from the enemy healer.

Be sure to not use this ability when the enemy is at full health, but rather as a followup to a CC chain, or when you suspect the enemy healer is going to use bigger healing cooldowns or abilities.

Storm of Destruction reduces the cooldown of your Bladestorm to 1 minute, which is great to make it line up with Spear of Bastion and makes the Legendary effect Unhinged even deadlier. Use this talent vs compositions where you do not need to play overly defensive or want the shorter cooldown for root breaks. Alternatively, you can switch out Death Sentence for this talent against melee cleaves that have no means of running away from you, such as Warrior + Enhancement Shaman or Warrior + Retribution Paladin.

War Banner is incredibly powerful 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 received nerfs and is at present not worth considering in an arena environment as it offers less defensive power than the other PvP talents. This PvP talent really shines in the Rated Battleground bracket, and you should consider bringing it with you there. Master and Commander also benefits from Inspiring Presence.

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 buffed in Patch 9.1 to do even further damage to shields. Big shields have made a return this season through Fleshcraft. This talent is recommended to pick up against Destruction Warlock and Affliction Warlock for their Dark Pact and Mistweaver Monk for their Life Cocoon.

Death Sentence is incredibly powerful for Venthyr Arms Warriors, but remains really strong for non-Venthyr. The ability received a massive buff coming into Shadowlands by allowing it to once again work with Massacre and Sudden Death. This ability allows you a great deal of mobility, and allows you to hold on to Charge and Heroic Leap in many cases.

Despite the 6-second cooldown added to this ability in Patch 9.2, it is still an incredibly strong ability.