Trying a new fury warrior build in PvP

And here it is!  (image from the talent calculator at www.warcrafter.net)

Frustrated with the lack of utility the raiding fury 17/44/0 build provides (aside from decent dps when not controlled), I decided to try something else.  27/31/3.

I’ve never been a big fan of playing my warrior with a 2-handed weapon.  It’s just not nearly as fun to me as playing a bloodcrazed dervish.  So that really puts Mortal Strike out of the picture for me.  I’ve tried it, it can be fun sometimes, but I just like Fury more.  (Normalizing MS to a one-handed weapon is mildly foolhardy.  Now if it were an attack with both weapons, like Whirlwind or Mutilate…)

The problem with the fury tree in pvp is the lack of utility in the lower tiers.  All of them do wonders to increase dps, especially in a raid, but in pvp they just don’t help enough.

Precision (+3% to hit):  Players are not raid bosses.  With the +hit you find on your pvp gear you should be able to negate misses on yellow attacks without issue.  Like increasing your hit chance beyond 9% in PvE, too much hit is a waste.

Improved Berserker Stance (+10% attack power in berserker stance with 5 points, and extra reduced threat):  Mind you, hitting harder is nice.  It really is.  But pvp, despite resilience, still requires some burst.  That AP will help with burst is beyond what I’m trying to get at here, suffice it to say you need more utility than just hitting harder.

Rampage (active ability that increases your attack power via a buff after critting):  Largely a rage dump in PvE, there’s almost no room for this in PvP.  Of everything you need to be spending your rage on, 250 more attack power is nice but is going to be a pain to maintain unless you yourself are being attacked.  This is an ability to work into a rotation and doesn’t suit the needs of a PvP’er.  Needs a rework to be more helpful in PvP.

Improved Whirlwind (decreased cooldown by 2 seconds with 2 points):  I would be inclined to spend points on this ability for extra burst, but I need my points elsewhere.

That (and a couple extra points that would be spent in the Fury tree, like most or all of the ones in Dual-Wield Specialization) frees up 13 points.  Let’s shift the standard 17 in Arms a bit and add on to them now.

Improved Heroic Strike (decreased rage cost by 3 with 3 points):  Another rage dump ability.  Let’s try survivability instead, with 5/5 Deflection for 5% increased parry chance.

Improved Thunderclap (increased damage and increased attack speed reduction):  While decreasing your opponents’ attack speeds by 20% might sound appealing, this remains a tanking ability, or an ability dps warriors pick up to help their tanks in raids.  Let’s go with Iron Will instead, increasing our resistance to stun (and charm, lol) effects by 15%.  Orcs get crazy with this talent, increasing their stun resistance to 20%, but 15% is just fine.  Charm effects include Seduction (via warlock Succubus pets) and Mind Control…this is mostly for the stun resistance.

Anger Management, Deep Wounds, and Impale:  Yeah, let’s keep those.  Impale in particular we need to combat resilience.

Tacking on to that, we pick up Improved Overpower (+50% crit chance)…again, since it’s going to be with a 1-handed weapon it won’t be too amazing, but it will help.  We need to get deeper into the tree, and Two-Handed Weapon Specialization isn’t going to cut it.  You can use personal preference to get there, as long as that doesn’t include Improved Rend.  Rend is weak even with +75% damage.

Get to your weapon specialization, and nab Death Wish.  I’m using swords, so that’s what I took, but mace stuns from a dual-wielder is probably something to behold.  Axe Specialization, as I’ve mentioned, isn’t as effective as the other two in PvP.  4 points in the specialization, as you need the points you have left for the rest of that utility I’ve been talking about.

This should leave you with 5 points.  I messed up and put 5 in my specialization and didn’t feel like buying another respec, so I had 4.  But Improved Intercept is good to fill up.  Mobility is an issue for warriors as we need to be in melee range, being able to close that range as often as possible against those that would try to stop us is paramount.  The 3-second stun is also very useful if you can time it on healers like a rogue would use Blind, but it’s often best to save it as a range-closing ability.  Two points in this plus the 4-piece gladiator set bonus is a 15-second cooldown intercept, meaning it has the same cooldown as Blink.  /grin

Finally, 3 points left.  I put them in Tactical Mastery, having rage around to switch to Def Stance and use Spell Reflect is important.  However, Improved Hamstring might be decent as well.  Or maybe even put them in Fury for Improved Whirlwind.  But there you have it.  You’ll be less kite-able, more survivable…if only there were enough points left to pick up Second Wind… /sadface

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