WotLK PVE Arms Warrior DPS Guide (Quick)

Welcome to our PVE Arms Warrior guide for WoW WotLK. This guide will show you what you need to know to play the Warrior class as Arms. If you follow this build you should be at the top of the DPS chart in no time!

Talents

This first build is for newer players with low gear scores. It assumes you don’t have any of yours stats capped. This build focuses on rage generation with Unbridled Wrath and Anger Management. It also includes Weapon Mastery to make up for not being hit or expertise capped. Slam gets excluded from our rotation making us more mobile but capable of less damage.

This build does the most single target DPS. It also assumes you have hit your stat caps and have close to BiS gear.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

• Execution
• Mortal Strike – Can be changed if using the 1st build
• Rending

Minor Glyphs

• Charge
• Enduring Victory
• Bloodrage

Gems

Gems can change based on your build, equipment and caps. You may need to adjust your gems to account for your gear.

• Meta: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
• Red: Fractured Cardinal Ruby or Bold Cardinal Ruby
• Blue: Nightmare Tear (1x max) or Bold Cardinal Ruby
• Yellow: Inscribed Ametrine or Etched Ametrine

Enchants

You may need to adjust your enchants based on your gear but these are the standard enchants.

• Head: Arcanum of Torment
• Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Axe
• Back: Major Agility
• Chest: Powerful Stats
• Bracers: Greater Assault
• Gloves: Crusher
• Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
• Boots: Cat’s Swiftness or Greater Assault
• Weapons: Berserking

Stat Priority

1. Hit Rating (8%)
2. Expertise (18+)
3. Armor Penetration (1400 max)
4. Critical strike
5. Strength / AP
6. Critical strike

You need 8% hit rating to be melee hit capped.

Expertise cap is 26, so if you have no expertise, it’s a very valuable stat. Some warriors don’t cap expertise to increase the number of Overpower procs. There is a point where having your main attacks dodged outweighs Overpower procs, so a safe bet is to stay above 18.

After you are hit capped and have the expertise you were aiming for, Armor penetration should be your next stat. You want to eventually reach 100% without a Proc but at first aim to get it to 100% while your trinket procs are up. Also keep in mind that battle stance increases your ArP by 10% and mace spec gives another 15%.

Here are a list of ArP caps:

• 1400 rating without Battle stance & Mace Spec (Not relevant to Arms since you’ll spend most of your time in Battle Stance)
• 1260 with Battle Stance
• 1050 with Battle Stance + Mace spec
• 1177 with 2p t9
• 967 with 2p t9 + Mace Spec

Strength is always a nice DPS increase. Once you have your Armour pen sorted, you can gem for strength or strength + Crit (with a socket bonus of +6 str or more).

Rotation

Arms doesn’t really follow a rotation, you use abilities when proc’s happen.

• After Sudden Death procs, you use Execute
• When Rend procs Taste for Blood, you use Overpower

Priority List

1. Execute 
2. Overpower
3. Mortal Strike or Heroic Strike