Arms Warrior PvP Guide for WotLK Classic

Arms Warrior is a high damage melee class, dishing out massive damage while having moderately high utility. With multiple gap closers, interrupts, a few crowd-controls, and healing reduction, Arms Warrior remains a powerhouse in any PvP environment.

Strengths

• Not limited by resources such as Mana; can fight forever.
• Has high burst damage windows constantly, allowing you to catch enemies off-guard.
• Keeps enemies healing received constantly reduced by 50%, can not be removed unlike other healing reductions.

Weaknesses

• Very one-sided gameplay, does not bring much besides damage dealing.
• Limited mobility, very susceptible to being kited.
• Very gear dependent; requires multiple end-game items from PvP and PvE to perform.
• Reliant on constant support from others to avoid being trivialized.

The talent build listed above takes all of the major talents in the Arms tree, giving you the highest possible damage output. Using procs from both Taste for Blood and Sudden Death, you will be putting out constant pressure, keeping your enemies on their toes at all times.

1. Glyph of Mortal Strike — This is a must-have glyph as Mortal Strike is your main ability in PvP.
2. Glyph of Rending — This is not a mandatory glyph, but it is as close to mandatory as possible. The longer Rend duration is great against Rogues and all ranged classes to keep your bleed up between stuns and slows.
3. Glyph of Hamstring — This will be one of the more commonly used glyphs in PvP as it synergizes well with the Improved Hamstring talent, giving you a high chance to root your Hamstring target.
4. Glyph of Bladestorm — Is another choice you can use, reducing the cooldown on your Bladestorm, allowing you to deal high damage to your enemies more often.

1. Glyph of Charge — Gives your Charge a small range increase, allowing you to close gaps from a little bit further away.
2. Glyph of Bloodrage — Allows you to freely use Bloodrage without worrying about the health cost.
3. Glyph of Command — Use this if you are using Commanding Shout in your PvP environment.
4. Glyph of Battle — Use this if you are using Battle Shout in your PvP environment.

As an Arms Warrior in PvP, there is no real set rotation you should be focusing on. The usage of your abilities will largely depend on multiple different factors in the situation. Becoming accustomed to your main damaging abilities as well as your utility abilities is what will elevate you above and beyond other Arms Warriors.

Dealing damage as an Arms Warrior is your main priority, and these are the most common abilities you will be using constantly.

• Rend — Bleeds the enemy, dealing damage over time. Great for preventing Rogues and Druids from re-stealthing, and needed to gain Taste for Blood procs.
• Mortal Strike — Deals high damage and reduces the target's healing received by 50%. Keep this up at all times on your kill target.
• Overpower — Deals great damage and has a very high chance to crit. Taste for Blood will constantly be giving you procs that allow you to use this, as long as you keep Rend applied to an enemy.
• Execute — Only usable against enemies below 20% health, or if Sudden Death procs.
• Heroic Strike — You will only really want to use this when your Rage is nearly full.

Arms Warrior has powerful utility spells that can be used in many situations, sometimes either offensively or defensively. Knowing when and where to use these abilities is vital to your success in PvP.

• Hamstring — Slows the target's movement speed down by 50%. Be sure to keep this applied to whoever you are attacking to prevent them from getting away.
• Sunder Armor — Reduces the target's Armor, stacking up to 5 times. Apply this to targets you will be attacking for a long time.
• Shield Bash — Interrupts the target's spell casting. Requires a shield to be equipped and for you to be in either Battle Stance or Defensive Stance.
• Pummel — Interrupts the target's spell casting. Requires you to be in Berserker Stance to use. Be ready to swap stances if you need to interrupt a spell.
• Charge — Charge to the target, stunning it briefly and generating some Rage. With Juggernaut you can use this in combat, giving you an additional gap closer.
• Intercept — Charges to the target, stunning it for 3 seconds. Can be used while in combat, allowing you to close gaps more easily. This is one of your few gap closers, so be sure to not waste it.
• Shattering Throw — Removes spells that otherwise can not be removed, such as Divine Shield and Ice Block. If there are no immunity spells available for the enemies, you can use this for the 20% Armor reduction debuff.
• Demoralizing Shout — Reduces the melee Attack Power of nearby enemies. Keep this up on melee attackers. Can also be used to "shout" out nearby stealthed enemies.
• Heroic Throw — Deals damage to an enemy from range. Mostly used to keep the target in combat.
• Intervene — Rush to your ally. Use this either for the mobility or to peel for your ally who is being attacked.
• Berserker Rage — Allows you to break out of Fears, Saps, and Incapacitating effects and makes you immune to them for the duration. Use this to remove any of the above crowd control used on you.
• Spell Reflection — Reflects the next spell cast on you back at the caster. This is a great defensive ability whenever you are being focused by casters or someone is casting a crowd control spell at you.
• Intimidating Shout — Fear your target and other nearby enemies; great for peeling or crowd controlling enemies. Make sure not to attack the enemy you use this ability on or they will break free from the fear.
• Disarm — Removes your target's main-hand weapon; great way to reduce a melee damage dealer's damage output. Requires you to be in Defensive Stance.
• Enraged Regeneration — Regenerates a large amount of your Health over time. Use this whenever you are getting focused.
• Shield Wall — Reduces your damage taken by 60%; requires a shield and Defensive Stance to use. Whenever you are being focused with major cooldowns you will want to use this.

Warrior uses stances to use unique abilities and tactics. Knowing what stance you need to be in at all times is vital to stick to your enemies and keep dealing damage.

• Battle Stance — This is the main stance you will be in as an Arms Warrior. The 10% Armor Penetration it gives is a great damage boost, and it is the only stance you can use Overpower in.
• Defensive Stance — Much like the name, you will use this stance most often when you need to play more defensively. If you are being hard-focused most of the time you will want to play in this stance until you are safe. This stance is also required to use certain skills, such as Intervene and Disarm, so sometimes you will enter this stance just to use one of these abilities and change out right after.
• Berserker Stance — This stance is mostly only used when you need to use either Intervene or Pummel. Aside from that, you will not want to spend much time in this stance.

As an Arms Warrior, your largest focus stats-wise will be Resilience to stay alive, followed up by Armor Penetration and Crit Rating.

You will want to maintain 5% hit rating to land your abilities in PvP. Reaching this cap is crucial as a missed interrupt or slow can decide a game often. Be sure to keep this in mind when choosing gear, gems, and enchants.

With Wrath of the Lich King, the way Armor Penetration works has greatly changed, making it a much more desirable stat than before. In early gearing phases, it may be difficult to reach a high enough amount of Armor Penetration. If you can not get your Armor Pen. up to at least 50% passively, go for Strength instead as it will perform better overall.

Resilience is the largest source of damage mitigation you can get from stats. Resilience is a flat damage reduction from all PvP sources and getting as much of this as possible, especially early on, can help you drastically in most PvP situations.

Strength and Attack Power are great boosts to your damage output overall and should be used whenever you do not need more Armor Penetration.

Critical Strike Rating has fallen to a much lower priority for Warrior in a PvP environment, as there are now much better stats to focus on instead.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Arms Warrior in Wrath of the Lich King PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Jewelcrafting — Gives you 3 powerful gems, Mystic Dragon's Eye, giving you a large Resilience boost.
2. Blacksmithing — Gives you 2 additional sockets with Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves, giving you even more Resilience.
3. Engineering — Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket gives you an additional burst of damage every 45 seconds.
4. Enchanting — Gives you a nice, passive Attack Power boost with 2 x Enchant Ring - Assault.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for an Warrior in PvP.

When it comes to evaluating Arms Warrior's place within the Arena, we have created a number of guides devoted to listing a variety of popular team compositions which you can find below.