Fury Warrior PvP Guide in Battle for Azeroth (BfA 8.1)
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to play in a PvP environment. The guide will cover everything from talent choices, PvP talents, gameplay and rotation, and useful racial bonuses. It is most applicable to Arena content, but most talents and racial bonuses will work in Rated Battlegrounds and skirmishes.
1. Spec Overview / Place in the Current Meta for Fury Warriors
Fury Warriors are a very unique melee specialization. They lack crowd control and have very little utility. However, they have very strong single-target cooldowns. What makes them scary is how quickly they can deal damage and how short their cooldowns are. Combine their strong damage and short cooldowns with a class with crowd control and they are unstoppable.
1.1. Strengths of Fury Warriors
- Very high burst damage
- Easy to swap targets
- Good mobility
1.2. Weaknesses of Fury Warriors
- Damage can be unpredictable
- Very little cleave damage
- Very few defensive cooldowns
2. Stat Priority for Fury Warriors in PvP
The stat priority for Fury Warriors in PvP is as follows:
- Strength;
- Haste;
- Mastery;
- Versatility;
- Critical Strike.
Strength is the best stat in all situations. Haste is the strongest
secondary stat at all times due to it reducing the Global Cooldown on abilities
and increasing your attack speed. Mastery ( Mastery: Unshackled Fury)
increases all of your damage while
Enrage is active. This is crucial
for increasing your overall damage output.
3. Azerite Traits for Fury Warriors
Azerite traits are unlocked in you helm, shoulders and chest. With each Azerite level in your neck, you get closer to unlocking the center trait in your gear. These traits vary from increasing damage of certain abilities to helping increase your survivability. Depending on what traits you use, it can completely alter your playstyle and what talents you should be using.
3.1. Outer Rings
Below are the best Outer Ring traits.
Fury Warriors do not depend on one single trait to increase their
damage. Instead, they want a mix of the above traits.
Simmering Rage and
Pulverizing Blows both increase
the damage of your next
Rampage. Rampage is a crucial ability in your
damage rotation and these traits will help your sustained damage output.
Reckless Flurry has a chance of reducing the cooldown of
Recklessness. This will result in being able to deal burst damage more
often.
Archive of the Titans increases your primary stat, Strength.
This is an increase to your overall damage.
3.2. Middle Ring
Below are the best Middle Ring traits.
The Middle and Inner Rings are important for additional damage and stat
bonuses. Elemental Whirl,
Overwhelming Power, and
Earthlink give an increase to your stats. These are minor stat
boosts, but still increase your damage.
Gutripper will help
increase both your single target and spread pressure.
3.3. Inner Ring
Below are the best Inner Ring traits.
All of these traits give you additional ways of surviving. These are all passive, but are crucial to have.
4. Gear Recommendations
4.1. General Guidelines
In general, Fury Warriors want to get trinkets that line up well with
Recklessness. These trinkets can have a passive or on-use effect. The
stats you want to be increasing are either Strength or Versatility. The reason
you want to increase Versatility is because it increases both your damage and
healing. Strength is great for increasing your consistent damage output.
To be successful in 3v3 arena, you need to have at least 2 pieces of gear
with the Reckless Flurry trait. You will also want either
Azerite Veins or
Gutripper in the second
tier.
Below, we list the items that have these traits.
4.1.1. Helms
Glaciercrest Helm;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Greathelm;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Greathelm;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Skullguard;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Skullguard;
Dunecrawler Faceguard;
Gridrunner Galea.
4.1.2. Shoulders
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulderguards;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulderguards;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulders;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Shoulders;
Kraken Shell Pauldrons.
4.1.3. Chest
Breastplate of Divine Purification;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Chestguard;
Sinister Gladiator's Plate Chestguard;
Chestplate of Apocalyptic Machinations;
Stormcrash Chestguard.
4.2. Recommended Items
Sinister Gladiator's Maledict is absolutely the best trinket you can
have. The on-use damage and healing absorption is capable of forcing defensives
by itself. This can be used by itself or while you are using your burst rotation
to force multiple cooldowns out of enemy teams.
Sinister Gladiator's Insignia has a good amount of Versatility on it and
has a passive effect. This effect increases your Strength. This increases your
sustained and consistent damage.
Darkmoon Deck: Fathoms is not an item you get from PvP. Instead,
you will have to look at the auction house or find an someone with the
Inscription profession. This trinket also gives a passive effect. You cannot
control the proc, but the damage this trinket can do is substantial. You will
quickly notice a large increase to your overall damage.
Sinister Gladiator's Badge is strong for the Versatility and the on-use
Strength effect. This will drastically increase the damage you deal while it is
active and should be used while
Recklessness is active.
4.3. Weapon Enchant
Enchant Weapon - Deadly Navigation and
Enchant Weapon - Versatile Navigation are the best weapon enchants. You will
be duel wielding weapons and having one of each of these enchants on your
weapons. These enchants give you a strong Critical Strike and Versatility buff
that can be crucial in multiple ways. The Versatility proc increases your
overall damage output and is great if you can line it up with your burst. It is
also good for when you get put in a stun and a team swaps to you. The damage
reduction might be enough to keep you alive.
5. Talent Choices for Fury Warriors
Level | Choices | ||
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15 |
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30 |
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45 |
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60 |
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75 |
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90 |
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100 |
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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.
5.1. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
Endless Rage is the best choice in this tier. This talent allows you
to generate Rage faster. This is a passive talent and works well with
Raging Blow. Raging Blow refreshing
Enrage, resulting in you
generating Rage.
5.2. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
Storm Bolt is the best choice in this tier. This is a great way for
you or your teammates to catch up to a ranged DPS that is running away. You can
also use it on a healer to setup additional crowd control on them.
5.3. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
Sudden Death is the best choice in this tier. This talent increases
your overall damage output and makes your damage seem random to the other team.
This can result in them using defensives when you did not use an offensive
cooldown.
5.4. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
Warpaint is the best choice in this tier. By taking 10% less damage
while Enraged, you do not have to play so defensively. You can continue to push
into the enemy team and stay aggressive.
If you do not think the enemy team will focus you at all,
Bounding Stride is the best choice in this tier if you
want mobility when playing against casters.
5.5. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
Carnage is the best choice in this tier. This talent allows you to
use
Rampage more often, resulting in a large increase to your damage
output.
5.6. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
Bladestorm is the best choice in this tier. Not only is this ability
used for its damage output, it can also be used defensively. If your healer is
in crowd control, you can use Bladestorm to avoid being stunned or put into
crowd control.
5.7. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
If you want to use your burst cooldown, Recklessness, more often
during an arena match,
Anger Management is the best choice in this tier.
This drastically reduces the cooldown of Recklessness. However, if you want more
sustained damage,
Siegebreaker is the better choice. It is up to your
team's strategy.
6. PvP Talents for Fury Warriors
The first PvP talent tier is will give you a choice between
Gladiator's Medallion,
Relentless, and
Adaptation.
Gladiator's Medallion is the best choice in this tier. It is great for
removing crowd control on you that your healer cannot dispel.
You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each of them has their uses, but some are better for certain strategies than others. The top three choices are the most useful, but can be replaced with other PvP talents depending on your team's goal.
Enduring Rage is a mandatory PvP talent. This increases the duration
of
Enrage and
Raging Blow helps extend the buff. This helps you
manage the Enrage buff and works great with
Anger Management.
Thirst for Battle is crucial when playing against a team with multiple
slows. This PvP talent drastically increases your mobility and works well with
Piercing Howl to slow enemies.
Battle Trance is great for increasing your survivability. The
downside to this PvP talent is that you might be switching targets often. If you
do, you will need to use
Raging Blow twice against on the same target
to gain the buff. If your team's goal is to stay on one target, this is a great
choice.
Disarm removes the enemy's weapons and shield for 6 seconds. This
is great versus a team that has a melee on it that will focus you. You can use
Disarm during their burst and negate all of the damage. You can replace
Battle Trance for this PvP talent.
7. Racial Bonuses for Fury Warriors
Racial bonuses can provide interesting PvP benefits. Here are the best races to choose for each faction.
7.1. Horde
Orc is the best race for Fury Warriors, thanks to the passive Orcs
have( Hardiness), reducing all stuns greatly improves survivability.
7.2. Alliance
The Human bonus ( Every Man for Himself) is a great way to escape
stuns and works great with the
Relentless PvP talent.
If you do not want to play Human, the Dark Iron Dwarf racial
( Fireblood) is a great defensive that can also help increase your burst
damage.
8. Playstyle for Fury Warriors
The Fury Warrior has one role when in an Arena: do damage. Fury Warriors lack crowd control and the ability to peel for teammates. Players should focus on maximizing their damage as much as they can. Warriors lack mobility, that is why when you get to the enemy you should deal as much damage as you can to them. Warriors have the ability to single-handedly force cooldowns (trinkets and defensive spells) from enemy players. They have great sustained damage and very short burst cooldowns.
8.1. Before Gates Open
Have a plan for who you will be mainly using your crowd control on.
Although Fury Warriors do lack crowd control, they still have
Intimidating Shout and
Storm Bolt. Stormbolt is great for
setting up crowd control on an enemy healer. For example, you can use Stormbolt
and your Mage can cast a
Polymorph after that.
You should also use Battle Shout to increase the attack power of
all of your teammates.
8.2. Offensive Rotation
8.2.1. The Opener
The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control 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 uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. In the opener, Fury Warriors should focus on sticking to an enemy and dealing large amounts of damage to the target.
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
Piercing Howl to keep the enemies slowed.
- Use
Siegebreaker off cooldown.
- Use
Rampage if
Enrage is not active.
- Use
Execute if you get a
Sudden Death proc.
- Use
Bloodthirst to gain
Enrage.
- There is only a chance to gain
Enrage after using
Bloodthirst.
- There is only a chance to gain
- Use
Raging Blow.
- Use
Bloodthirst off cooldown.
- With the
Thirst for Battle PvP talent, this will also clear all of your snares.
- With the
- Use
Raging Blow.
- This will give you the
Battle Trance buff as long as you used both Raging Blows on the same target.
- This will give you the
- Get crowd control on the enemy healer (you can use
Intimidating Shout, Stormbolt, or have a teammate do this).
- Use your burst rotation.
8.2.2. Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.
Try to be at 100 Rage before using your burst cooldowns. It is not necessary, but for maximum damage, it is recommended.
- Use
Charge to close the gap between you and the enemy.
- Use
Recklessness.
- Use
Rampage.
- Use
Siegebreaker.
- Use
Bladestorm.
- Use
Raging Blow.
- Use
Execute if you get a
Sudden Death proc.
- Use
Execute if your enemy is at low health.
While you are using your burst rotation, you want to always maintain
Enrage with
Rampage or
Bloodthirst. Use
Recklessness to drastically increase your damage output. Use
Bladestorm to avoid incoming crowd control. After this, you want to
make sure you are using
Raging Blow and
Siegebreaker as often
as you can. Use
Bloodthirst off cooldown. Use
Execute if
you get a
Sudden Death proc or if an enemy is at low health.
8.2.3. Sustained damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Use
Charge to close the gap between you and the target.
- Use
Piercing Howl to keep the enemies slowed.
- Use
Siegebreaker off cooldown.
- Use
Rampage if
Enrage is not active.
- Use
Execute if you get a
Sudden Death proc.
- Use
Bloodthirst off cooldown to gain
Enrage.
- There is only a chance to gain
Enrage after using
Bloodthirst. This is why you want to use Bloodthirst as often as you can.
- There is only a chance to gain
- Use
Raging Blow.
- Use
Bloodthirst off cooldown.
- With the
Thirst for Battle PvP talent, this will also clear all of your snares.
- With the
- If the enemy team is stacked, use
Whirlwind.
- This helps with spread damage, but most importantly can generate a lot of Rage.
- You will also gain the
Whirlwind buff. This helps you hit multiple targets with any of your single target spells. You will normally want to use
Execute or
Raging Blow.
- Use
Raging Blow.
- This will give you the
Battle Trance buff as long as you used both Raging Blows on the same target.
- This will give you the
8.3. Defensive Techniques
Enraged Regeneration is your main defensive ability. Use this when
you are low on health and your healer is in crowd control. The Honor Talent
Slaughterhouse works well with this ability. If you are being focused
and you are attacking an enemy at low health, use this and start using
Bloodthirst to quickly heal yourself.
Intimidating Shout is one of the strongest Warrior cooldowns
that does not deal damage. This ability should be usually used on a healer to
try to get a kill on an enemy. The other use for this is to peel for yourself
or your teammates. This is a strong AoE fear that can easily help your team
stabilize when under pressure.
Heroic Leap will mostly be used to run down enemies.
However, there will be times where having to survive is more important than
getting a kill. If you are being focused, you can use Heroic Leap to
leap to your healer and away from the enemy team.
9. Best Team Compositions for Fury Warriors
Now that you have the correct talents and understand your damage
rotation, it is time to step into the Arena with your team. Fury Warriors
want to stay aggressive with their passive ability, Enrage. You
have more mobility than Arms Warriors and can stay connected to a target
much easier.
9.1. 2v2 Arena
In 2v2 Arena you will be focusing on single target damage. You will often
want to use Storm Bolt on your main target so they cannot move while you
are dealing damage. Because your damage is somewhat unpredictable, healers will
struggle to rotate cooldowns properly against Fury Warriors.
Here is a list of the best team compositions for 2v2:
- Fury Warrior + Mistweaver Monk
- Fury Warrior + Discipline Priest
- Fury Warrior + Restoration Druid
- Fury Warrior + Holy Paladin
9.2. 3v3 Arena
Your role in 3v3 is similar to 2v2 Arena. You will likely be focusing
on maximizing your single target damage. When your team has damage, you
will want to use Stormbolt on the enemy healer.
Be careful while Enrage is active because you are taking additional
damage. Save some of your mobility to run away from damage if the enemy team is
focusing you.
Here is a list of the best team compositions for 3v3:
- Fury Warrior + Havoc Demon Hunter + Mistweaver Monk/Holy Paladin
- Fury Warrior + Frost Death Knight + Holy Paladin/Restoration Druid
- Fury Warrior + Outlaw Rogue/Assassination Rogue + Discipline Priest/Restoration Druid
- Fury Warrior + Enhancement Shaman + Restoration Druid
- Fury Warrior + Ret Paladin + Holy Paladin/Restoration Druid
10. Useful Macros for Fury Warriors
Macros are crucial to be successful in PvP. They allow players to use abilities on enemies without having to target them. This helps increase overall damage/healing and general awareness in the arena. Here are a few macros that all Fury Warriors can benefit from.
10.1. Stormbolt 123 Macro
- #showtooltip Stormbolt
- /cast [target=arena1] Stormbolt
Using this macro will use Stormbolt on arena enemy 1. This makes it easier to crowd control an enemy while staying focused on your target. If you want macros for the second and third enemies, simply change the arena1 to arena2 or arena3.
10.2. Disarm Focus Macro
- #showtooltip Disarm
- /cast [target=focus] Disarm
Put an enemy on focus and this macro will use Disarm
on that player while you are still focused on your target.
11. Changelog
- 31 Jan. 2019: Updated Azerite Traits and Gear Recommendations section.
- 13 Dec. 2018: Updated Azerite traits section.
- 12 Dec. 2018: Small changes made for Patch 8.1.
- Updated PvP talents section.
- 13 Nov. 2018: Added Gear Recommendations section.
- 18 Oct. 2018: Updated guide for Patch 8.0.1.
- Added stat priority, Azerite traits sections and talent able.
- Updated all talent sections.
- Updated Racial Bonuses section.
- Updated Burst Damage and Sustained damage sections.
- Removed Gear section.
- Removed Artifact and Relics sections.
- 27 Aug. 2018: Updated Air Drops section.
- 04 Aug. 2018: Updated guide for Patch 8.0.1.
- Updated Introduction and spec overview.
- Updated all talent sections.
- Added PvP (War Mode) talents and gear sections for the new BfA system.
- Updated Racial Bonuses section.
- Updated Burst Damage and Sustained Damage sections.
- Updated Macros section.
- Removed Gear section.
- Updated Artifact Traits and Relics sections.
- 09 May 2018: Added an Arena Compositions section.
- 28 Mar. 2018: Made several updates to the guide and its structure.
- Added sections for Macros, Strengths, and Weaknesses.
- Moved Gear, Artifact Traits, and Relics sections to the end, since they are not that important.
- Updated recommended Tier 5 honor talent.
- 24 Jan. 2018: No major changes needed for Patch 7.3.5.
- 16 Dec. 2017: No major changes needed for Patch 7.3.2.
- 22 Sep. 2017: Very few changes needed for Patch 7.3
- Removed Artifact Trait descriptions.
- Updated description for tier 4 honor talents.
- Updated burst and sustained damage rotations.
- 22 May 2017: Updated the links for Master and Commander and Endless Rage (Honor talent) to correctly reflect the Honor talents discussed in the guide.
- 24 Apr. 2017: Updated recommended talents for Tier 1 regular talents and Tier 6 honor talent.
- 23 Mar. 2017: Guide added.
Other PvP Guides
Fury Warrior PvE Guides
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.

- Wintergrasp 8.1.5 PTR Testing: February 19th
- Rextroy's 40 Vs 40 Events
- Patch 8.1 Hotfixes: February 14th
- Patch 8.1.5: Kul Tiran Human Intro Cutscene
- Patch 8.1.5: Zandalari Troll Intro Cutscene
- PvP Hotfixes: Feb 13th - Massive Mana Regen Nerf
- Crucible of Storms Raid Testing: Feb 21st-25th
- Patch 8.1.5 Build 29352: Highlights


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