Arms Warrior DPS Guide — 12.0.5

Midnight Season 1 has released, and with it came a lot of new content. It brought with it three new Raids, alongside heralding the start of Season 1 for both Mythic+ and PvP. With all the new things available, we've provided some dedicated hubs covering everything available!

Arms Warriors have several changes in Patch 12.0.5, including talents, both Hero trees, and resulting gameplay. Intended to redistribute damage rather than specifically buff or nerf any particular build, the loss of Deep Wounds damage in multitarget is largely compensated by increased Demolish frequency and Bladestorm damage, though Mythic+ builds should notice a moderate increase in single target boss and priority target damage.

• Rend radius increased from 8 to 10 yards.
• Mortal Wounds now triggers from Slam instead of Cleave.
• Crushing Combo now causes the next 2 cleaves to trigger no cooldown, down from 3.
• Wrecking Throw will now be highlighted when the Warrior targets a unit with an active absorb shield.
• Shattering Throw will now be highlighted when the Warrior targets a unit with an active immunity effect.
• Demolish area of effect increased from 8 to 10 yards.
• Dominance of the Colossus cooldown reduction increased from 2 to 5 seconds.
• Dominance of the Colossus now reduces the cooldown of Demolish by 5 seconds at max stacks instead of 2.
• Practiced Strikes damage bonus reduced from 20% to 15%.
• Reap the Storm now only triggers when Whirlwind or Cleave strike 3+ targets.
• Unrelenting Onslaught now increases Bladestorm damage by 20%.

In addition to this, a variety of open world content releases worth checking out!

• The Voidforge Unlocks!
  The Voidforge is Midnight's take on Bonus Rolls and Turbo Boost, allowing you to target specific big ticket items through a new bonus roll system. You can also further empower trinkets and weapons, and we have recommendations on our Gear page.
• Void Assaults are Unleashed
  Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman are under siege from the forces of the Void. Thwarting their attacks provide a new way to acquire gear all the way up to Hero level, and you can check out more on our Void Assault hub.
• Disrupt Ritual Sites
  Sharing a similar reward structure to Void Assaults, Ritual Sites are instanced content similar to Delves. You can find out all about them on our Ritual Sites page.

Click for Previous Season 1 Hotfixes

On March 23rd, the damage of Mortal Strike was increased by 12%, Execute was increased by 15%, and Cleave was reduced by 10% in order to increase single target performance. On March 27th, the damage of Execute and Overpower was further increased by 20% for the same reason.

Arms Warriors received two notable changes with the start of Midnight Season 1 on March 17th, increasing all damage by 15% and reworking the final Apex talent. Master of Warfare no longer reduces the cooldown of Colossus Smash, which misaligned cooldowns, now increasing its magnitude instead.

Midnight Class Tuning

The first few days of Midnight max-level play have given us data and feedback needed to make our first tuning pass, with the goal of reducing outliers. We will continue to keep a close eye on class balance as both Heroic week and week 1 of the PvP season start, and players continue to gain gear and begin using tier sets.

• Master of Warfare's final rank Heroic Strike now increases the damage you deal to enemies affected by your next Colossus Smash by an additional 3%. Stacks up to 5 times.
• All damage dealt increased by 15%.

Although the core gameplay remains very familiar, Arms Warriors have undergone significant changes in Midnight, reworking or removing and replacing several talents entirely. Below is a general overview of the most impactful changes and how they affect gameplay going into the new expansion.

Each Hero gains three new talents by level 90, though they are fairly straightforward, with no significant change in play style. The most notable update is for Slayer, with Reap the Storm now having an updated chance to proc per ability cast and triggering from Sudden Death.

With the exception of a few new talented effects, the general gameplay remains very similar to The War Within.

• Rage generation has been reduced, which can result in more downtime and a greater emphasis on having a Shaman in the party to provide Skyfury.
• Arms' Mastery has been changed to no longer interact with Deep Wounds, simply increasing damage while using a two-handed weapon.
• Tactician now has a consistent chance to proc from all rotational abilities, including Sudden Death. This results in slightly less, but overall more consistent Overpower procs.
• The removal of Juggernaut has simplified Execute conditions, no longer requiring any complicated tracking or delaying the use of Sudden Death.
• Sweeping Strikes now operates on a charge system, resulting in less waste when using abilities that cannot be cleaved.

A new four-point node of specialization-specific Apex talents is now available. Master of Warfare is an active proc replacing Slam with Heroic Strike, which applies a powerful damage enhancing buff. While it largely takes the place of regular casts of Slam, it will also be periodically weaved into the single target Execute phase, though the ability will always be used automatically in multi-target through Fervor of Battle.

• The first point is a proc which causes Heroic Strike to replace Slam, giving it a much higher priority and triggering a small armor penetration buff. While this buff stacks, each has its own duration, resulting in the buff constantly stacking and decaying, making it easy to treat passively and ignore.
• The second and third points further enhances the Master of Warfare buff, though has no rotational impact, since all of those abilities continue to be used in the same manner.
• The final point causes Heroic Strike to apply a separate buff, increasing the magnitude of Colossus Smash, which can be quite strong, given such a high uptime on the ability.

Warriors have seen several small improvements to their self-healing and survivability, though the removal of WeakAura tracking made Spell Reflection harder to use effectively.

• Field Dressing increases incoming healing.
• Second Wind now heals twice as much when below 35% health.
• Stance Mastery significantly increases the value of Defensive Stance, making it an extremely strong mini-cooldown.

Although no major new effects or abilities, Warriors have seen a few improvements to their group utility in the new expansion.

• Rallying Cry now provides a larger bonus in small group content.
• Enemies no longer becomes immune after several stuns in PvE content, allowing them to be used more liberally.
• Javelineer now causes Wrecking Throw to serve as a ranged silence, albeit on a long cooldown.
• Piercing Howl now grants allies a short movement speed buff, which is not particularly important for countering mechanics, but useful for reducing downtime between pulls.