Fury Warrior PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.0.2)

The Fury Warrior has two roles when in an arena:

1. do as much damage as possible;
2. disrupt the enemy's attempts at killing your team.

The most important part is to always have uptime on your enemy. Should your target get away from you, it is better to hit an enemy closer to you until you can regain uptime on your kill target. As Fury Warrior, you should aim to always be pushing out damage, as falling behind on momentum can make it difficult for you to catch back up.

In general, PvP comes down to good judgment and decision making. There are not two matches that are identical, and you will have to use your toolkit differently vs some enemies than the general guideline. However, the most important part is to master the fundamentals of playing Fury Warrior, like dealing damage, before thinking about how to outplay your opponents, and you should therefore focus on the information and rotations listed in this section for starters.

Coordinate with your team who your kill target is going to be, and any potential swaps you can do. As the Fury Warrior, it is often you who determines who your team is focusing.

Though you should save your Intimidating Shout and Storm Bolt for offensive pressure, you should determine and judge for yourself if it is better to save them to aid your team defensively, for an example if you are playing WLS vs Windwalker+Death Knight.

Before going into the rotation, it is best to understand how to maximize damage dealt as Fury Warrior. Fury Warrior gets their damage from Enrage. Maximizing the damage output of Fury Warrior means having this buff up on you as much as possible. Besides maintaining Enrage, your highest damaging ability is Rampage, and becomes useable by building up a large amount of rage from your other abilities. The only two abilities that consume rage are Rampage and the defensive ability Ignore Pain. For this reason, you should not worry about spending your rage wrong offensively.

Recklessness is your major offensive cooldown, and provides you with 20% critical strike chance on your abilities as well as double rage generation. It does not change up your rotation other than letting you use Rampage more often.

Cleaving is done passively after using Whirlwind, so if you are preparing to do cleave damage, make sure you use it right before Rampage or Execute.

This list serves as your sustained damage rotation priority.

1. Maintain Hamstring on your kill target at all times.
2. If you wish to do AoE damage, use Whirlwind to cleave the damage of your most potent abilities.
3. If talented, use Siegebreaker on cooldown to amplify your damage. You can spread this effect with Whirlwind.
4. Use Rampage when above 80 rage.
5. Use Recklessness for when you wish to burst.
6. Use Execute when the enemy drops below the threshold or if Sudden Death procs.
7. Use Bloodthirst to deal damage, generate rage, heal yourself and have a chance to proc Enrage.
8. Use Raging Blow to deal damage, generate rage and extend the duration of Enrage through Enduring Rage.
9. Use Whirlwind if everything else is unavailable.

The opener refers to your team's opening CC 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 or your kill target uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. There is no reason to hold onto your cooldowns at the start of the match, apply your team's CC chain and burst to gain momentum.

This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.

1. Use Charge to close the gap between you and the target.
2. Use Hamstring on the enemy to slow them.
3. Build towards 80+ rage with Bloodthirst and Raging Blow.
4. Use Siegebreaker to amplify your burst.
5. Use Storm Bolt on your kill target.
6. Use Recklessness.
7. Use Rampage for damage and to proc Enrage.
8. Use Execute if you get a Sudden Death proc.
9. Use Bladestorm if talented.
10. Use Dragon Roar if talented.
11. Use Raging Blow.
12. Use Bloodthirst.
13. Use Intimidating Shout as a followup to any CC applied by your team or to start your team's CC chain. This point takes priority anywhere in the rotation if you judge that you can keep up the pressure to potentially land the kill.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

1. If below 80 rage, use Recklessness so you can quickly build enough rage for Rampage.
2. Use Siegebreaker to amplify your burst.
3. Use Storm Bolt on your kill target.
4. Use Rampage for damage and to proc Enrage.
5. Use Execute if you get a Sudden Death proc.
6. Use Bladestorm if talented.
7. Use Dragon Roar if talented.
8. Use Raging Blow.
9. Use Bloodthirst.

Enraged Regeneration is your main defensive cooldown, and is a powerful one as well. In addition to the 30% damage reduction, you also empower Bloodthirst to heal you for 23% of your health per use. Be wary of enemies using Disarm, as this will completely negate the healing potential of this ability. If you are facing enemies that can do this, do not hesitate to use this ability if you are suspecting a large amount of damage coming your way.

Because this ability can be used while stunned, it is an excellent ability against compositions that rely on killing you quickly in abilities such as Kidney Shot or Hammer of Justice.

Intimidating Shout is one of the strongest Warrior cooldowns that does not deal damage. This ability should usually be 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.

Ignore Pain ignores 50% of the damage you are about to take. Use this when you are sustaining damage. Do not use it on cooldown, it will drain your rage quickly if used this way. The rage cost is larger on Fury Warrior than on Arms or Protection Warrior.

Rallying Cry is a great defensive for you and your team, especially when used in conjunction with Master and Commander and Inspiring Presence. Beware, as the health gained is lost at the end of the duration and can surprise kill you or your teammates.

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.

Intervene can be used on a teammate and you will receive all melee and ranged abilities that would be used on your teammate. This should be used when one of your allies is being focused and your healer needs help.

Shattering Throw is a very niche ability that can be used to remove magical immunities. This means that when a Mage uses Ice Block or a Paladin uses Divine Shield, you can use this ability to remove them!

Shield Block is generally not worth using as Fury Warrior, since the rage cost is too big and some abilities requires two 2h weapons.

Victory Rush is not usable often, but it can still be used sometimes. You can gain this ability after killing an enemy or an enemy pet. So if you need a heal, you can quickly try to kill a pet and hit an enemy for a heal.

Bladestorm is a great burst cooldowns, but is just as valuable for its anti-CC component. Against Mages, Restoration Shamans, Druids and other similar classes with roots, it may be better to use these abilities to break out of these roots instead of for burst damage. As Fury Warrior, you should not have too much trouble with roots because of Bloodrage, but using Bladestorm this way can be very good depending on your situation. Again, this comes down to good judgment.

Similarly, Bladestorm makes you immune to all CC, and can be very effective at ruining the enemy's attempt to kill you with abilities such as Kidney Shot if timed correctly. You have about a 0.25-second grace period, where using Bladestorm after being hit with CC will still activate it and break you out of the CC.

Intimidating Shout is a very powerful ability, that can make or break your game. This ability is as strong offensively as it is defensively. For this reason, this ability can be the hardest to determine how to use best. Good ways to use it offensively is to use it as a followup CC, to an already applied CC on the enemy healer, or to start a CC chain. The enemy team will try to stop your team from applying other forms of CC like Polymorph or Hex. If you can land an Intimidating Shout onto all of the enemy team, your team will be in a prime position to burst and apply CC without having to worry about being stopped. This way, you can turn the tides of a fight by, for an example, using it on a Windwalker Monk with Storm, Earth, and Fire during Fists of Fury, to nullify their offensive burst and letting you Storm Bolt your kill target to counter pressure with your team.

Intervene is one of the best tools Fury Warrior has for the team. It allows you to quickly reposition to your chosen teammate, and then redirect all melee and ranged attacks onto you. Keep in mind, that this ability does not do anything against spells unless talented into Overwatch or you have the conduit Safeguard. Use it frequently and in response enemy attempts to kill your teammate. Do not be afraid to combine it with Enraged Regeneration, if you suspect the redirected damage is strong enough to kill you.

Shattering Throw also made a return in Shadowlands and is great for when a Mage uses Ice Block or a Paladin uses Divine Shield/ Blessing of Protection. This ability can also be used to deal a very large amount of damage to absorption shields like Life Cocoon, almost breaking them entirely.

It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.