Sucking as Arms - Need some advice!

[ThePatchelist 0]

Hello.

Small introductory explanation..

In previous addons i mainly played fury and never even really cared about arms, so i cannot even compare to changes that have been made in legion. Now with arms being the strongest spec for warriors i also had to go that way, but am failing to deliver in my opinion.

My gear isn't the best and i am missing enchants - sure. But overall those only should account for some of the missing damage, but not as much as i am missing. Main problem being as far as i can see it, that i'm rage starved most of the time. Pull is great, doing huge damage and am able to hold it for a while being around our top mages but then i fall off into ranges of 170k max if at all to the end in different fights, which is totally not what i should be able to do i think.

So, here is my Warrior: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/anetheron/Patcheazy/advanced

And here is the recent warcraftlogs link from our raid tonight: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/8XchZvDt3Cawjk9R#type=summary&fight=15

I linked to the Dragons of Nightmare fight specifically because it was one of the few where i lived through the end since we had some weirdness going on in the raid. Sure, i'm basically the lowest ilvl and as i said my gear sucks, but i feel like i'm missing 30 to maybe 50k dps here? Correct me if i'm wrong ofcourse.

Would be nice if some people were able to help me troubleshoot this issue since i would like to increase my performance ofcourse.

Thanks!

[Kristoff 0]

hey man, you seem to be in the same boat as me with regards to gear. Im 863ilvl but Im crit/haste stacked and like yourself only have about 50% mastery. If you're good with the rotation/prio list all I can suggest to do is remove those crit gems and replace with mastery and try if you can not to take any gear with crit on it unless it's a serious ilvl upgrade. Also make sure you're dumping as much AP into your weapon as possible and choose a smart trait path. All the warriors who are doing insanely well with arms at the min aren't even really bothering with haste cap and will be rocking 90%+ mastery.

 

I'm sure there's a few more warriors out there who can help you over your logs etc. All the best dude. 

[ThePatchelist 0]

Hey, Thanks. I'll try to use that advice and focus on mastery as much as possible and see where that leads me.

Hope there's someone who can help me out with checking the logs still, to see if i'm wrong on the rotation or something that i could improve manually.

[Krush 0]

Hey dude,

I'm also sucking a bit too :) I am by no means an expert but looking at your logs there is a fair bit of execute usage, I think if you're focus rage talented then you cut that out of your rotation all together unless you have the legendary ring.

Stacking mastery is definitely the way forward.

 

Cheers

 

[ThePatchelist 0]

Really? I did not know that. Thanks for the hint, will try without executes then and see how that goes.

Thanks!

[Sajakain 104]

Even if you are using the FR build, you still use Execute sub 20%. Execute is to be your rage spender sub 20% with exception to your Battle Cry window. During that point you will still use Mortal Strike to consume the x3 stacks of FR.

If you have a Shattered Defenses buff, make sure you use Execute at max rage cost. Outside of Shattered Defenses, you can cast Execute at any Rage.

[Zinive 0]

Hello,

I myself am a new warrior and honestly I have barley played arms but I went through your logs and found a "maybe" minor improvement. I assume you are not using Hamstring as it was not in your log, maybe I just couldn't find it.

While Battlecry is up you should use hamstring as it is off global cooldown and can be used in the same moment as you use focused rage. It just 10 rage it "spends" but this will still count for tactition and anger management. Increasing your battle cry uptime and CS proccs just slightly. 

I recommend making a simply macro 

/cast Focused Rage
/cast Hamstring

You want to press it 4 times while battle Rage cause of lag. Just make sure to not press it when Battle Cry has run out.

If your already using hamstring just ignore this post :)

I can't really comment d on the rest of your build however you seem to favor crit quite a bit. While all guides I have seen place crit on last priority and state that a mix of mastery, vers and hast is the way to go.

[Sajakain 104]

Tactician no longer procs from the use of Hamstring. (9/26/2016 Hotfixes)

While one could still argue the use of the macro for "free damage" (from Corrupted Blood of Zakajz), the damage is minimal at best. Take, for instance, the fact that my Hamstring reads "1,644.9 - 1,867.3 Physical damage". We'll use the high end for good measure. Say I get 4 uses with the macro and all 4 hit for maximum damage (excluding crits): that's 7,469.2 physical damage in the window. Twenty percent of that is 1,493.84.

While it is "free damage", it's not as relevant as it once was when Hamstring could proc Tactician. Hamstring will do less than 1% of your damage and contribute even less to your Blood of Zakajz trait (if you've gotten that far in your artifact weapon).

[ThePatchelist 0]

Hey again.

 

I'd like to throw another log into the thread. This time i performed a bit better i think, but still i'm kinda lost. I know that top-ranking DPS on warcraftlogs in this bracket is somewhat wrong due to nerfs to FR after basically all of the top ranks (but i don't know how much that would account for.. it's 30% missing on the biggest DPS skill so i guess it's a bit that's missing?) but still i feel that i could do more. half in the try i was at about 300k still so i was holding decently but then dropöped again.

 

Maybe someone can have a look into the logs and shed some light?

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/BKgF9cmZbkrnwPTV#type=damage-done&source=11

 

edit: thinking about it myself.. does it maybe make sense not to blow everything on slam and rather "wait" so i can use a 3FRstack MS for sure instead of being rage starved because of slam?

Edited October 10, 2016 by ThePatchelist

[Sajakain 104]

Slam's usage is circumstantial. You don't want to spam it and become rage starved. (The rotation will have points where you're waiting; that's normal).

As far as the log goes, here's some things I noticed:

• Your trinkets aren't the best for the spec. They contribute, in total, only 7.15% of your damage (3.83% from Ravaged Seed Pod and the other 3.32% from Ursoc's Rending Paw). While this, in it's own right, is fine, you could get better numbers with better trinkets. (I'm personally in this boat as well). The Chrono Shard, Memento of Angerboda, Gift of Radiance, and even the stat stick from Withered Jim are all viable and preferred trinkets. Go run those Mythic+ dungeons and pray to the RNG titan. May the odds be ever in your favor.
• Your armory shows you with 13.34% haste and 51.13% mastery. The Mastery needs to go up. This is not a big deal or hard to do - you have 5 pieces without any Mastery on them. Get those replaced and your percentage will obviously go up. (Haste breakpoints / gearing for haste / gearing for mastery is another entire subject; for now just assume you want to gear all mastery.)
  
  The follow-up with this is you'll notice your Mortal Strikes aren't hitting as hard as what they could be. It'll go up as your mastery goes up. Looking at the logs you can see your average MS crits were around 769,000; non crits average was only 313,000. This also directly affects your damage from Corrupted Blood; all-in-all your damage will be higher with the more mastery you obtain.

If you're constantly staying above 200K in your encounters at only 51.13% mastery and non-optimal trinkets, I'd say you're on the right track as far as your performance. While everyone can always use to keep practicing and improve, I'll leave you with a few more points:

1. Don't rage cap yourself. (I noticed only a couple of times you did that in your Xavius kill.)
2. Make sure you're tracking Focused Rage. You do not want to cast it again if you're already at 3 stacks.
3. Use Slam if:
   1. You're avoiding rage cap and at 3 stacks of Focused Rage
   2. If Battle Cry is up and you are unlucky in Tactician Procs
   3. You have nothing else to do.
4. Managing your Battle Cry window is the most important thing you can do to maximize your damage output. Ideally speaking you will want to have your x3 FR buff and then start your BC window with Colossus Smash -> Battle Cry -> Mortal Strike. From here you'll either use your Tactician procs on Mortal Strike or cast slam (all while still spamming Focused Rage during the Battle Cry window).
5. Make sure you manage your execute phase appropriately. Check my post above for information on that.

Other than that there are things like making sure you have your consumables and enchants. While 1 or 2 may not make that big of a difference, using them all in combination will. Make sure you're enchanted (ask your guild for help if you can't supply these), make sure you're using a rune (queue as Prot in the Call To Arms dungeon queues; you'll get a lot of them). Use combat potions.

I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[ThePatchelist 0]

Okay, thanks a lot. This really helps.

Gear wise, sure i (now) know that i should stack mastery and haste - but obviously that's easier said than done. Haven't had any luck so far but also haven't been running that much mythics yet. And trinket wise i'm stuck with what i get.. Obviously the tank trinket isn't my first choice :D

Overall thing is that i barely really know/knew how to play arms. I just in the tries on xavius basically 'found out' that it would totally make more sense to not-spam slam but rather wait for BC to use it while getting to 3 FR. Been doing decent in the beginning but then crashing hard. Been #1 in DPS for a long time even one or two minutes after BL ran out, kept it up as best as i could in the 300k+ - but then i crash very hard in mere seconds. I'm not sure if BL's benefit somehow starts to decline in damage meters after a while only or if i'm somehow losing focus/rythm..

But in the end i think i'm getting the hang of it.

One question though, am i right in thinking that current rankings on warcraftlogs are pretty much off due to arms, or better said FR, having been nerfed in the recent hotfixes?

[Sajakain 104]

5 hours ago, ThePatchelist said:

One question though, am i right in thinking that current rankings on warcraftlogs are pretty much off due to arms, or better said FR, having been nerfed in the recent hotfixes?

Yes and no.

While the logs are still up there when FR had it's initial weight, you can also compare yourself to recent logs uploaded (bracket percentage rankings) and, eventually, the "last two weeks" rankings will be all parses with the hotfixed Focus Rage.

[ThePatchelist 0]

Hey, sorry to bother again but one thing just came up while having a look at several logs what is basically what you guys told me about stacking mastery..

I saw that ranking players have 13k to 15k mastery in their fights which is huge compared to my 5k - but they also seem to run on very low end gear even though their ilvl says otherwise. (not sure how accurate the warcraftlogs armory thingy is, but it's showing mostly blue, sometimes green stuff?)

So, would it make sense to prefer lower ilvl stuff, losing strength in the process just to stack all towards mastery?

[Sajakain 104]

13 hours ago, ThePatchelist said:

So, would it make sense to prefer lower ilvl stuff, losing strength in the process just to stack all towards mastery?

The preference is misplaced here; the preference is not in the item level; it's in the stats that come with the item. Your primary stats are what is important.

For simplicity's sake, let's compare two made-up rings:

• Ring 1 (835 Item Level)
  • 1,000 Stamina
  • 550 Mastery
• Ring 2: (865 Item Level)
  • 1,050 Stamina
  • 300 Mastery
  • 275 Critical Strike

Again, for simplicity's sake, these are made up. One ring has 250 less rating in your primary stat in favor of 275 of one of your two worst stats as an Arms Warrior while also being 30 item levels higher. Which one would you take? You take the one with the 250 higher rating in your primary stat despite the item level difference because it'll give you more damage done.

In a "real item" situation, there are other variants here and you could use Simulation Craft to see which would actually do better with your entire equipment set. . . but you get the point. Do not put all your weight into the item level.

Players are taking items with their primary stats and highest benefit to their spec. That is what is getting them their numbers in combination with an overall successful raid team and other contributing factors. They are not looking at the item level of a piece.

[ThePatchelist 0]

Thanks again for clearing that up!