Fury Warrior DPS Guide — The War Within Pre-Patch

Fury Warrior cooldown uptime has been dramatically reduced in The War Within, and while the actual speed of gameplay is unaffected, its overall Rage generation and frequency of Rampage casts has gone down. Whether this is good or bad is largely a matter of opinion, as it creates more room for other buttons in the rotation.

Thanks to significant tuning adjustments, Bloodthirst also has a renewed emphasis within the rotation, more closely resembling that of Legion and Battle for Azeroth.

The Warrior Class Tree has received a moderate rework, rearranging the pathing of several talents and removing some of the less desirable ones outright. Overall, the tree has become smaller and more streamlined, with focus on improving access to important crowd control and early leveling abilities, most notably relocating Shockwave to the middle of the tree. Below, you can see some of the most important changes that will affect your gameplay, decision-making, and power in The War Within.

• Defensive Stance is now automatically unlocked.
• Berserker Rage is no longer a talent and now automatically learned at level 12.
• Titanic Throw, Sonic Boom, Blood and Thunder, and Furious Blows have been removed. Furious Blows is one less required damage talent, while the other two were never used.
• Second Wind now restores 1-2% health per second while below 35% health, in addition to its previous effects. This gives it a guaranteed benefit in high damage/low life situations, without changing the previous functionality.
• Honed Reflexes now reduces the cooldown of most defensive and utility cooldowns by 5%. However minor, this removes another damage talent, while offering an interesting if equally minor defensive benefit.
• Frothing Berserker now refunds 10% Rage for Fury, down from 20%.
• Barbaric Training now affects Thunder Clap for Mountain Thanes.
• Seismic Reverberation now affects Thunder Clap for Mountain Thanes.
• Champion's Spear now generates 10 rage, down from 20.
• Champion's Might now affects targets hit by Spear, instead of the player standing inside it.
• Shockwave and Thunderous Roar no longer generate Rage.
• Thunderous Words has been buffed from 15 to 30%, but only increases the damage targets take from bleeds during its effect, rather than passively increasing it all the time. This makes Thunderous Roar more active and condenses some of its damage into burstier cooldowns.
• Crushing Force now affects Bloodthirst instead of Slam.
• Endurance Training has gained a second point, allowing players to increase their stamina even further. While nice, the new pathing makes the talent very hard to take.

The Fury Warrior Spec Tree has undergone very minor change, retaining the same general pathing, though condensing and reworking a few of its talents.

• Improved Enrage is now called Frenzied Enrage and now shares a choice node with a new talent: Powerful Enrage. This gives players a choice between faster-paced gameplay through additional haste, or slower but stronger gameplay through a direct damage buff.
• Raging Armaments, Storm of Swords, and Annihilator have been removed. Originally designed to provide a slower playstyle, Annihilator never actually accomplished that goal, and so Powerful Enrage has taken that role in a simplified format.
• Improved Raging Blow now has a 25% chance to reset its cooldown, up from 25%.
• Frenzied Flurry has been baked into Single-Minded Fury, making that option a stronger and cheaper investment, though ultimately still weaker than using two-handed weapons.
• Wrath and Fury now increases the chance for Raging Blow to reset by 10%, instead of overriding it entirely.
• Improved Whirlwind and Meat Cleaver now affect Thunder Clap for Mountain Thane.
• Bloodcraze now triggers from Raging Blow instead of Bloodthirst.
• Deft Experience now extends the current duration of Enrage by 0.5 seconds per point when Bloodthirst is used. Although seemingly minor, this is now very important for maintaining Enrage uptime.
• Swift Strikes now increases Bloodthirst Rage generation in addition to Raging Blow.
• Tenderize no longer increases the duration of Enrage or triggers Unbridled Ferocity.
• Bladestorm is now a choice with Ravager, giving Fury Warriors a more compressed burst AoE option.
• Hurricane has been replaced by Unhinged, which triggers Bloodthirst every other time Bladestorm or Ravager deal damage. Interacting with all effects which Bloodthirst normally does, this is a very deceptively powerful addition, as it can generating Rage, proc Enrage, heal, cleave multiple targets, and trigger hero talent effects.
• Reckless Abandon now empowers one cast of Bloodthirst and Raging Blow instead of one or the other. This is a powerful addition, which also makes the rotation much more forgiving, and less dependent on specific timing.
• Unbridled Ferocity no longer triggers from Onslaught and its chance to trigger has been reduced to 6%, down from 20%. This is a major nerf to overall Recklessness uptime and Rage generation, resulting in less frequent Rampage casts and more distinct cooldown use.
• Odyn's Fury has been received a major buff, with the intent of making it better than Onslaught in multitarget, though also currently leaving it competitive in single target as well.
• Titanic Rage now increases the bleed damage inflicted by Odyn's Fury

Hero talents are a new system coming in The War Within, giving each specialization the choice between two sub-specs which further diversify their playstyle and capabilities. However, as the points for these standalone talent trees are gained while leveling up to level 80, they are not available during The War Within pre-patch and so specific guides covering them will be released once they become available.