Arms Warrior PvP Talents and Builds — The War Within (11.0.7)
Choosing the right PvP and PvE talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as an Arms Warrior and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Arms Warrior PvP Guide.
Regular Talents for Arms Warriors
The War Within PvP Talent Builds for Arms Warrior in Arena
Slayer - Thunderous Roar Arms Warrior (Recommended)
Slayer Arms Warrior is a build that focuses largely on big sustained damage. It can deliver
some powerful Executes and focuses largely on high cleave damage and dps. Slayer delivers
very high damage output with
Slayer's Strike and
Bladestorm becomes greatly enhanced
with this build.
There are several talents in the Arms Warrior tree that you will want to change regularly based on matchups, which are:
Wrecking Throw /
Shattering Throw: This node comes down to whether or not the enemy has magical immunities, such as
Divine Shield or
Ice Block. If they do, pick
Shattering Throw, otherwise use
Wrecking Throw for shield breaking, and if the enemy team has none of both, skip this node and pick something else in the talent tree.
Blunt Instruments /
Warbreaker: Whether you will hit cleave damage is a simple choice.
Warbreaker for cleave and
Blunt Instruments for single target.
Storm Wall /
Ignore Pain: The clear winner here is
Ignore Pain. As Arms, you have a high amount of excess rage that you can spend, allowing this talent to increase your durability immensely.
Berserker Shout /
Piercing Howl: Both are situational and really powerful. You should default to
Piercing Howl, but choose
Berserker Shout in situations where you can break fears with cooldowns on your healer, such as
Intimidating Shout or
Psychic Scream, reliably, or if you're confident you will have full uptime on your target.
Dreadnaught /
Strength of Arms: You will want to pick
Strength of Arms in all situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Colossus - Thunderous Roar Arms Warrior
Colossus Arms Warrior focuses on delivering fatal damage with Demolish.
This build gains increased durability thanks to
No Stranger to Pain and
Mountain of Muscle and Scars,
and focuses heavily on dealing sustained damage through
Mortal Strike and
Overpower.
There are several talents in the Arms Warrior tree that you will want to change regularly based on matchups, which are:
Wrecking Throw /
Shattering Throw: This node comes down to whether or not the enemy has magical immunities, such as
Divine Shield or
Ice Block. If they do, pick
Shattering Throw; otherwise, use
Wrecking Throw for shield breaking, and if the enemy team has none of both, skip this node and pick something else in the talent tree.
Blunt Instruments /
Warbreaker: Whether you will hit cleave damage is a simple choice.
Warbreaker for cleave and
Blunt Instruments for single target.
Storm Wall /
Ignore Pain: The clear winner here is
Ignore Pain. As Arms, you have a high amount of excess rage that you can spend, allowing this talent to increase your durability immensely.
Berserker Shout /
Piercing Howl: Both are situational and really powerful. You should default to
Piercing Howl but choose
Berserker Shout in situations where you can break fears with cooldowns on your healer, such as
Intimidating Shout or
Psychic Scream, reliably, or if you're confident you will have full uptime on your target.
Dreadnaught /
Strength of Arms: You will want to pick
Strength of Arms in all situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Colossus - Champion's Spear Arms Warrior
Colossus Arms Warrior focuses on delivering fatal damage with Demolish
and locking people up in
Champion's Spear to enhance it and guarantee the damage.
This build gains increased durability thanks to
No Stranger to Pain and
Mountain of Muscle and Scars,
and focuses heavily on dealing sustained damage through
Mortal Strike and
Overpower.
There are several talents in the Arms Warrior tree that you will want to change regularly based on matchups, which are:
Wrecking Throw /
Shattering Throw: This node comes down to whether or not the enemy has magical immunities, such as
Divine Shield or
Ice Block. If they do, pick
Shattering Throw; otherwise, use
Wrecking Throw for shield breaking, and if the enemy team has none of both, skip this node and pick something else in the talent tree.
Blademaster's Torment /
Warlord's Torment: The most damage you can get here is
Warlord's Torment, as you have a lot of other effects that increase your critical damage, and
Anger Management benefits greatly from this talent.
Blademaster's Torment offers more damage in cleave situations, but you want that extra critical strike chance from
Warlord's Torment on your
Demolish for the burst damage.
Blunt Instruments /
Warbreaker: Whether you will hit cleave damage is a simple choice.
Warbreaker for cleave and
Blunt Instruments for single target.
Storm Wall /
Ignore Pain: The clear winner here is
Ignore Pain. As Arms, you have a high amount of excess rage that you can spend, allowing this talent to increase your durability immensely.
Berserker Shout /
Piercing Howl: Both are situational and really powerful. You should default to
Piercing Howl but choose
Berserker Shout in situations where you can break fears with cooldowns on your healer, such as
Intimidating Shout or
Psychic Scream, reliably, or if you're confident you will have full uptime on your target.
Dreadnaught /
Strength of Arms: You will want to pick
Strength of Arms in all situations.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Mandatory PvP Talents
You can choose 3 of the following PvP talents. Each has uses, but some are better for certain matchups than others.
Sharpen Blade is the only mandatory talent. This ability is essential
for landing killing blows. It is a great way to drain Mana from the
enemy healer quickly.
Be sure not to use this ability when the enemy is at full health but rather as a follow-up to a CC chain or when you suspect the enemy healer will use bigger healing cooldowns or abilities.
Battlefield Commander lost a lot of power with the nerfs and no longer roots
through
Piercing Howl. It's still a strong pick if you have
Thunderous Roar talented.
Situational PvP Talents
Storm of Destruction received nerfs, but
Bladestorm is still
very powerful. This talent is a safe generalist pick, and can be used in most situations.
Consider picking up this talent if you are going to chase
Restoration Druid to reapply the slow for whenever they shift form.
Safeguard is a very strong talent that provides an additional wall
for your team, in addition to slightly more short-term mobility for you.
War Banner is compelling vs. teams with a lot of crowd
control, like RMP (Rogue/Mage/Priest) or Jungle
Cleave (Feral Druid/Hunter/Priest).
Timed correctly, this ability alone can completely ruin the enemy team's setup
and cooldowns. In Patch 9.2, this ability now also works on
Disarm, and has made it, so it is a lot more beneficial to use this ability offensively as
well to cover your major offensive cooldowns such as
Warbreaker.
Master and Commander got buffed and has become much stronger when paired
together with
Battlefield Commander. You can use this as an additional
defensive cooldown, or as a root breaker for cooldowns like
Mass Entanglement
+
Solar Beam.
Disarm has a short cooldown and can completely ruin the damage of
weapon-based classes like Frost DK or Subtlety Rogue. This ability can
even be used offensively vs. specializations that require weapons for their
defensives, such as stopping another Arms Warrior from using
Die by the Sword or a Death Knight from using
Death Strike
Duel is a powerful alternative vs. enemies that cannot be CC'd with
Disarm. Good times to pick this talent are vs
Retribution Paladin, Destruction Warlock, and
Feral Druid.
Demolition was changed in Dragonflight to give less of a damage
increase and reduce the cooldown of your throws by 50%. It is potent
with
Wrecking Throw, but not worth considering with
Shattering Throw.
This talent is recommended to pick up against
Destruction Warlock and Affliction Warlock
for their
Dark Pact and Mistweaver Monk for their
Life Cocoon.
Changelog
- 15 Dec. 2024: Reviews for Patch 11.0.7.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4
- 19 Mar. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.6
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5
- 09 May 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 Jul. 2022: Updated for Shadowlands season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 09 Apr. 2022: Updated to reflect the changing meta.
- 28 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 08 Nov. 2021: Page reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 13 Oct. 2021: Adjusted recommended talents.
- 02 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 16 May 2021: Updated Mandatory PvP Talents.
- 27 Dec. 2020: Rewritten by Karanze for Shadowlands Season 1
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 26 Oct. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
Other PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Karanze, an experienced Gladiator Warrior player who has been a Stormforged/trusted member in the popular Warrior class discord Skyhold. You can watch his stream on Twitch.
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