Fury Warrior PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / Patch 9.0.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Fury Warrior, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Fury Warrior PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Fury Warriors
The Fury Warrior has two roles when in an arena:
- do as much damage as possible;
- 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.
Before Gates Open
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.
Offensive Rotation
Understanding Fury Damage
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.
Sustained Damage
This list serves as your sustained damage rotation priority.
- Maintain
Hamstring on your kill target at all times.
- If you wish to do AoE damage, use
Whirlwind to cleave the damage of your most potent abilities.
- If talented, use
Siegebreaker on cooldown to amplify your damage. You can spread this effect with
Whirlwind.
- Use
Rampage when above 80 rage.
- Use
Recklessness for when you wish to burst.
- Use
Execute when the enemy drops below the threshold or if
Sudden Death procs.
- Use
Bloodthirst to deal damage, generate rage, heal yourself and have a chance to proc
Enrage.
- Use
Raging Blow to deal damage, generate rage and extend the duration of
Enrage through
Enduring Rage.
- Use
Whirlwind if everything else is unavailable.
The Opener
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.
- Use
Charge to close the gap between you and the target.
- Use
Hamstring on the enemy to slow them.
- Build towards 80+ rage with
Bloodthirst and
Raging Blow.
- Use
Siegebreaker to amplify your burst.
- Use
Storm Bolt on your kill target.
- Use
Recklessness.
- Use
Rampage for damage and to proc
Enrage.
- Use
Execute if you get a
Sudden Death proc.
- Use
Bladestorm if talented.
- Use
Dragon Roar if talented.
- Use
Raging Blow.
- Use
Bloodthirst.
- 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.
Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.
- If below 80 rage, use
Recklessness so you can quickly build enough rage for
Rampage.
- Use
Siegebreaker to amplify your burst.
- Use
Storm Bolt on your kill target.
- Use
Rampage for damage and to proc
Enrage.
- Use
Execute if you get a
Sudden Death proc.
- Use
Bladestorm if talented.
- Use
Dragon Roar if talented.
- Use
Raging Blow.
- Use
Bloodthirst.
Defensive Techniques
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.
Good Bladestorm usage
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.
Good Intimidating Shout usage
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
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.
Macros
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.
Changelog
- 25 Jan. 2021: Rewritten by Karanze for Shadowlands season 1.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Burst Rotation to include Covenant Ability.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 22 Oct. 2020: Added Understanding Enrage section.
- Updated all Damage Rotations.
- 17 Feb. 2020: Updated all Damage Rotations.
- 27 Jan. 2020: Page added.
This guide has been written by Karanze, an experienced Gladiator Warrior player and Stormforged/trusted at the popular Warrior class discord Skyhold. You can watch his stream on Twitch.
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