Fury Warrior DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.2)

Welcome to our Rotation page for Fury Warriors. On this page, you will find everything you need to know about actually playing the spec in Raiding and Mythic+ scenarios.

If you have not already, please read the Spell Summary page. Knowing how each spell/ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

The Season 2 tier set has very little rotational impact, with the Warrior Fury 11.1 Class Set 2pc set bonus passively increasing Rampage damage, while the Warrior Fury 11.1 Class Set 4pc randomly increases either Bloodthirst or Raging Blow. While these bonuses can vary, they also have very high uptime, so they do not need to be explicitly tracked or played around.

Moving into Season 3, players should try to replace their old set as soon as possible. The new bonuses have different effects depending on the selected hero talents, emphasizing the playstyle differences between them.

• The Slayer set bonuses further emphasize Sudden Death, allowing signficantly more procs dealing greater damage, which also leads to more cooldown reduction for Bladestorm. The set also increases the efficacy of Raging Blow, which becomes the main gameplay difference, as it is prioritized well ahead of Bloodthirst.
• The Mountain Thane set bonus is all about Thunder Blast, triggering an extra source of direct damage whenever it is cast, alongside a chance to trigger another use of Thunder Blast and reset its cooldown. This results in significantly increased use, while also allowing the possibility of proc chains that can be quite powerful in multitarget content. Aside from casting Thunder Blast more frequently, the main gameplay change is a greater emphasis on Bloodthirst in order to get more initial Thunder Blast procs.

The Fury rotation is a conditional priority list, which can change depending on talent choice. Use the checkboxes below to make the appropriate customizations and make sure that Berserker Stance is always toggled on! Note that the same toggles are used for both the single and multitarget rotations.

4.

Fury Warrior Rotation

Single-Target Rotation Notes on Opening and Execute Multi-Target Rotation

3.1.

Single Target Ability Priority List for Fury Warriors

Recommended	Other Options
Slayer	Mountain Thane
Thunderous Roar	Champion's Spear
Bladestorm	Ravager
Anger Management	Reckless Abandon
Odyn's Fury	Onslaught
Season 2 Tier Set Bonus	Season 3 Tier Set Bonus

1. Recklessness on cooldown or whenever burst damage is needed.
2. Avatar simultaneously with Recklessness
3. Ravager
4. Rampage if Enrage is not active
5. Champion's Spear while Enraged
6. Thunder Blast while Enraged
7. Bladestorm while Enraged
8. Execute with 2+ stacks of Marked for Execution or 2 stacks of Sudden Death
9. Crushing Blow during Recklessness
10. Raging Blow repeatedly after Bladestorm, to build up Slaughtering Strikes
11. Rampage with more than 115 Rage
12. Execute while the target is below 20% and with at leats one stack of Marked for Execution
13. Bloodbath during Recklessness
14. Execute with 3 stacks of Marked for Execution or 2 stacks of Sudden Death
15. Onslaught
16. Bloodthirst
17. Rampage with more than 100 Rage
18. Raging Blow with Opportunist active
19. Bloodthirst with a combined >85% chance to critically strike
20. Bloodthirst with a combined >85% chance to critically strike
21. Raging Blow
22. Rampage
23. Execute
24. Thunderous Roar while Enraged
25. Avatar while Enraged or with Titanic Rage
26. Bloodthirst
27. Execute
28. Bloodthirst
29. Whirlwind to fill the rotation
30. Thunder Clap

In simple terms, the Fury Warrior rotation revolves around building Rage and spending it on Rampage in order to trigger and maintain Enrage. While not complex, the rotation is generally fast-paced while making use of several procs and cooldowns, which makes the relatively simple rotation deceptively engaging.

• Slayer makes frequent use of Execute, lowering the cooldown of Bladestorm. Despite this focus on Execute however, the build caresmore about Sudden Death and Marked for Execution than the actual execute phase. Because the ability is used under a variety of conditions, using the Sudden Death Conditions WeakAura to provide an audio/visual alert is highly recommended.
• Mountain Thane effectively replaces Whirlwind with Thunder Clap, and its higher priority Thunder Blast proc. While otherwise similar to Slayer, the rotation does not make much use of Execute and focuses primarily on Bloodthirst rather than Raging Blow.

3.2.

Notes on Opening and Execute

3.3.

Opening as a Fury Warrior

Because Charge is off the global cooldown, opening combat with Recklessness followed immediately by Charge will lead to a net increase in Rage generation on the pull with no additional downtime, however, it is crucial to ensure that the target will not be moving substantially, or else you will easily find yourself moving to the boss's former location, and wasting precious buff time trying to reposition.

Although Berserker's Torment causes Recklessness and Avatar to activate one another, using Recklessness first will result in more overall Rage generation. Therefore, Recklessness should always be used before Avatar and Charge in order to cast Rampage immediately on the pull, though their order throughout the rest of the encounter does not matter.

3.4.

Fury Warrior Execute

Whether due to the target being below 20% (35% with Massacre talented) health or Sudden Death proc, Execute usage does not heavily change the priorities listed above; it merely generates extra Rage in order to use Rampage that much sooner. This is true even as Slayer, as its bonuses are tied to more closely to Sudden Death and Marked for Execution, rather than the actual Execute phase.

3.5.

Multi-Target Ability Priority List for Fury Warriors

Multitarget rotations are overall very similar to single target ones, with the added step of prioritizing Thunder Clap (Thane) or Whirlwind (Slayer) to apply their buff and enable single-target attacks to cleave.

Recommended	Other Options
Mountain Thane	Slayer
Thunderous Roar	Champion's Spear
Ravager	Bladestorm
Anger Management	Reckless Abandon
Odyn's Fury	Onslaught
Season 2 Tier Set Bonus	Season 3 Tier Set Bonus

1. Recklessness
2. Avatar simultaneously with Recklessness
3. Ravager
4. Thunderous Roar while Enraged
5. Rampage if Enrage is not active
6. Whirlwind if the Meat Cleaver buff is not active
7. Thunder Clap if the Meat Cleaver buff is not active
8. Champion's Spear while Enraged
9. Thunder Blast while Enraged
10. Bladestorm while Enraged
11. Execute with 2+ stacks of Marked for Execution or 2 stacks of Sudden Death
12. Odyn's Fury while Enraged or with Titanic Rage talented
13. Bloodbath during Recklessness
14. Crushing Blow during Recklessness
15. Bloodthirst
16. Raging Blow repeatedly after Bladestorm, to build up Slaughtering Strikes
17. Execute with 3 stacks of Marked for Execution or 2 stacks of Sudden Death
18. Bloodthirst against 3+ enemies, for more Reap the Storm procs
19. Rampage with more than 115 Rage
20. Rampage with more than 100 Rage
21. Execute while the target is below 20% and with at leats one stack of Marked for Execution
22. Bloodthirst against 6+ enemies, for more Reap the Storm procs
23. Raging Blow with Opportunist active
24. Bloodthirst with a combined >85% chance to critically strike
25. Bloodthirst with a combined >85% chance to critically strike
26. Onslaught
27. Raging Blow
28. Rampage
29. Bloodthirst
30. Execute
31. Bloodthirst
32. Thunder Clap as a filler
33. Whirlwind as a filler

Mountain Thane is preferred for the type of constant multitarget found in Mythic+ dungeons, making use of a straightforward rotation that simply replaces Whirlwind with Thunder Clap and an emphasis on Bloodthirst to affect more Thunder Blast procs.

Slayer instead weaves in Execute, since consuming Marked for Execution is critical for reducing the cooldown of Bladestorm. Less common in Mythic+, it is quite potent in raids due its snappier AoE burst and Marks always affecting the main target, which makes them easier to consume before the target dies. Because Execute is used under a variety of conditions, using the Sudden Death Conditions WeakAura to provide an audio/visual alert is highly recommended.

Combat Assistant, added in Patch 11.1.7, is comprised of two options meant to help players with combat rotations and gameplay.

The first is Assisted Highlight, which recommends the next rotational ability that players should use, in order to help them learn how to better play their specialization. While not a perfectly min-maxed rotation, it is perfectly servicable, losing an average of around 5% compared to manual ones. However, it does not attempt to recommend offensive cooldowns, defensives, utility abilities, or other off-GCD abilities such as Charge, so players must be mindful to use these on their own.

The second option is the Single-Button Assistant, which is a new button placed on the action bar which automatically cycles through each ability in the rotation when pressed. Using the same rotation as the Assisted Highlight, it is serviceable, though an additional 25% penalty is placed on the global cooldown to keep this from being an easily competitive option, resulting in a roughly ~20-25% loss in performance. Therefore, it is only recommended for brand new players, players in trivial content, or those who are otherwise unable to keep up with regular gameplay.

In both cases, using cooldowns such as Recklessness and Avatar can be as easy as macroing them to the Single-Button Assistant or a common ability like Colossus Smash, though players may also opt to continue using them manually, in the same manner as prescribed above.

Fury is a very cyclic and consistently damaging specialization, so there is not a lot of advantage in delaying Recklessness to align with other cooldowns as opposed to simply using it on cooldown as much as possible. In general, no cooldown should be delayed more than a few seconds for any other, outside of preparing for burst AoE (see the multitarget section above) or a timed damage phase, such as Heroism/Bloodlust or specific boss mechanics. This is particularly important when talenting Anger Management or gaining cooldown reduction from the Slayer hero talent, Unrelenting Onslaught.

The moderate increase to critical strike strike from Recklessness is secondary to doubling Rage generation, which amounts to a much larger damage increase due to casting Rampage much more frequently. While the rotational priority does not change; the increased Rage generation also makes it much easier to overcap, so care should be taken when using high Rage generating abilities such as Onslaught or Ravager.

Avatar is a decent cooldown in its own right, but becomes extraordinarily more powerful in combination with the follow-on Torment talents, triggering additional effects that synergize with other talent choices. It should almost always be used closely aligned with Recklessness.

Odyn's Fury is a powerful burst AoE ability, but it also provides a decent single target buff, Dancing Blades. It will most often be used in multitarget, jumpstarting the rotation by applying Enrage and the Whirlwind buff when Titanic Rage is talented.

Bladestorm and Ravager are both strong AoE cooldowns, which generate a high amount of Rage and even contribute meaningful single target damage through Unhinged. The choice between them is largely dictated by Hero Talent choice, with Slayer requiring Bladestorm, and Mountain Thane favoring Ravager for more potential Thunder Blast procs.

The goal of the Fury rotation is a continual feedback loop of generating Rage, spending it on Rampage, and triggering Enrage, which increases Haste to allow more Rage to be generated, feeding back into the loop. Bloodthirst also helps this process, with a 30% chance to trigger Enrage, and it should be kept on cooldown to benefit from this chance as much as possible. All other special abilities generate Rage, making it important to fill global cooldowns in order to always be generating Rage.

Warriors have a great deal of active tools through Charge and Heroic Leap that allow for instant movement across large distances. Finding ways to maximize your uptime on a target through intelligent use of these is crucial, as downtime is extremely detrimental to the flow of Fury's rotation. The talents Double Time and Bounding Stride are particularly useful in any encounter that demands heavy movement.

Fury's defensive ability comes in the form of higher base stamina due to dual wielding two two-handed weapons and several defensive cooldowns in Enraged Regeneration, Spell Reflection, and Defensive Stance, and considerable self-healing through Bloodthirst, Enraged Regeneration, and Victory Rush, as well as various talents that improve those capabilities. The increased health and self-healing make Fury very tanky in sustained combat, although less able to deal with frequent bursts of high damage. In those cases, Enraged Regeneration is best used preemptively, with Bloodthirst cast as often as possible over its duration to benefit from its increased healing.

Warriors also have access to Rallying Cry, one of the few defensive group cooldowns in the game. It is typically used to help the group survive key encounter mechanics rather than as a personal cooldown. Keep in mind that it is on the global cooldown, so be ready to use it when needed.

Fury also brings Battle Shout, increasing all party and raid members Attack Power by 5%, which should be applied before combat begins.

For information about Mythic+ as a Fury Warrior and the rotation you need to use in this game mode, please refer to our Mythic+ page.

WeakAuras can have a tremendous effect on your performance, helping you track important buffs, debuffs, and cooldowns. Since this is a broad topic, we made a page dedicated to it.