Fury Warrior PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.0.5)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilizes your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Fury Warrior, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Fury Warrior PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Fury Warriors
The Fury Warrior has two roles when in an arena:
- do as much damage as possible;
- disrupt the enemy's attempts at killing your team.
The most important part is to always have uptime on your enemy. Should your target get away from you, it is better to hit an enemy closer to you until you can regain uptime on your kill target. As a Fury Warrior, you should always aim to push out damage, as falling behind on momentum can make it difficult for you to catch up. Maintain Slaughterhouse as much as possible, as it is essential to keep the enemy's chances of recovery low.
In general, PvP comes down to good judgment and decision-making. There are not two matches that are identical, and you will have to use your toolkit differently vs. some enemies than the general guideline. However, the most important part is to master the fundamentals of playing Fury Warrior, like dealing damage, before thinking about how to outplay your opponents, you should therefore focus on the information and rotations listed in this section for starters.
Before Gates Open
Coordinate with your team who your kill target is going to be and any potential swaps you can do. As the Fury Warrior, it is often you who determines who your team is focusing on.
Try to use your Intimidating Shout and Storm Bolt for offensive pressure. As Fury Warrior, you generally do not get a second chance to use these abilities before the match ends, so you should aim to have them aid you in killing enemies.
Offensive Rotation
Understanding Fury Damage
Before going into the rotation, it is best to understand how to maximize damage dealt as a Fury Warrior. Fury Warrior gets their damage from Enrage. Maximizing the damage output of Fury Warrior means having this buff up on you as much as possible. Besides maintaining Enrage, your highest damaging ability is Rampage and becomes usable by building up a large amount of Rage from your other abilities. This will also apply Slaughterhouse and is essential. The only ability that consumes Rage is Rampage. For this reason, you should not worry about spending your Rage wrong.
Recklessness is your major offensive cooldown and provides you with 20% critical strike chance on your abilities as well as double Rage generation. It does not change up your rotation other than letting you use Rampage more often.
Cleaving is done passively after using Whirlwind, if you have Improved Whirlwind talented, so if you are preparing to do cleave damage, make sure you use it right before Rampage.
Sustained Damage
This list serves as your sustained damage rotation priority.
- Maintain Hamstring on your kill target at all times.
- Use Rampage when above 80 Rage.
- Use Recklessness followed by Avatar for when you wish to burst.
- Use Onslaught if talented.
- Use Execute when the enemy drops below the threshold or if Sudden Death procs.
- Use Raging Blow.
- Use Bloodthirst.
The Opener
The opener refers to your team's opening CC chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns. If the enemy healer or your kill target uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. There is no reason to hold onto your cooldowns at the start of the match; apply your team's CC chain and burst to gain momentum.
This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.
- Use Charge to close the gap between you and the target.
- Use Hamstring on the enemy to slow them.
- Use Storm Bolt on your kill target.
- If Shockwave is talented, use Storm Bolt on their healer and Shockwave for the kill target.
- Use Recklessness.
- Use Avatar
- Use Rampage for damage and to proc Enrage.
- Use Thunderous Roar.
- Use Onslaught if talented.
- Use Execute when the enemy drops below the threshold or if Sudden Death procs.
- Use Raging Blow.
- Use Bloodthirst.
- Use Intimidating Shout as a follow-up to any CC applied by your team or to start your team's CC chain. This point takes priority anywhere in the rotation if you judge that you can keep up the pressure to potentially land the kill.
Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control, and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.
- If below 80 Rage, use Recklessness followed by Avatar so you can quickly build enough Rage for Rampage.
- Use Storm Bolt on your kill target.
- If Shockwave is talented, use Storm Bolt on their healer and Shockwave for the kill target.
- Use Rampage for damage and to proc Enrage.
- Use Thunderous Roar.
- Use Onslaught if talented.
- Use Execute when the enemy drops below the threshold or if Sudden Death procs.
- Use Raging Blow.
- Use Bloodthirst.
Defensive Techniques
Enraged Regeneration is your main defensive cooldown and is a powerful one as well. In addition to the 30% damage reduction, you also empower Bloodthirst to heal you for 23% of your health per use. Be wary of enemies using Disarm, as this will completely negate the healing potential of this ability. If you are facing enemies that can do this, do not hesitate to use this ability if you suspect a large amount of damage coming your way. It is better to mitigate the damage than attempting and failing to heal it back.
Because this ability can be used while stunned, it is an excellent ability against compositions that rely on killing you quickly in abilities such as Kidney Shot or Hammer of Justice.
Rallying Cry is a great defensive for you and your team, especially when used in conjunction with Master and Commander and Inspiring Presence. Beware, as the health gained is lost at the end of the duration and can surprise kill you or your teammates.
Heroic Leap will mostly be used to run down enemies. However, there will be times when having to survive is more important than applying pressure. If you are being focused, you can use Heroic Leap to reposition and avoid damage.
Intervene can be used on a teammate, and you will receive all melee and ranged abilities that would be used on your teammate. This should be used when one of your allies is being focused.
Be careful when using this ability, as you are quite squishy yourself and can end up intervening a death sentence. Do not be afraid to combine it with Enraged Regeneration.
Shield Block is not worth using as Fury Warrior since the Rage cost is too high.
Impending Victory is your only on-demand heal and should be taken advantage of when you can.
Good Bladestorm/Avatar usage
Bladestorm and Avatar are great burst cooldowns, but they are just as valuable for their anti-CC components. Against Mage, Restoration Shaman, Druid, and other similar classes with roots, it may be better to use these abilities to break out of these roots instead of for burst damage. We advise learning the cooldowns of enemy roots so you get an idea of when you can use your abilities for burst and when you should use it to cleanse yourself.
Similarly, Bladestorm makes you immune to all CC and can be very effective at ruining the enemy's attempt to kill you with abilities such as Kidney Shot if timed correctly. You have about a 0.25 sec grace period, where using Bladestorm after being hit with CC will still activate it and break you out of the CC.
Good Intimidating Shout Usage
Intimidating Shout is a very powerful ability that can make or break your game. This ability is as strong offensively as it is defensively. For this reason, this ability can be the hardest to determine how to use best. Good way to use it offensively is to use it as a follow-up CC, to an already applied CC on the enemy healer, or to start a CC chain. The enemy team will try to stop your team from applying other forms of CC like Polymorph or Hex. If you can land an Intimidating Shout onto all of the enemy team, your team will be in a prime position to burst and apply CC without having to worry about being stopped. This way, you can turn the tides of a fight by, for example, using it on a Windwalker Monk with Storm, Earth, and Fire during Fists of Fury, to nullify their offensive burst and letting you Storm Bolt your kill target to counter pressure with your team.
Intervene
Intervene is one of the best tools Fury Warrior has for the team. It allows you to quickly reposition to your chosen teammate and then redirect all melee and ranged attacks onto you. Keep in mind that this ability does not do anything against spells. Use it frequently and in response to enemy attempts to kill your teammate. Do not be afraid to combine it with Enraged Regeneration if you suspect the redirected damage is strong enough to kill you.
Macros
It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed 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: Updated 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 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 28 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 08 Nov. 2021: Page reviewed for Patch 9.1.5.
- 03 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.
- 19 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 25 Jan. 2021: Rewritten by Karanze for Shadowlands season 1.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Burst Rotation to include Covenant Ability.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 22 Oct. 2020: Added Understanding Enrage section.
- Updated all Damage Rotations.
- 17 Feb. 2020: Updated all Damage Rotations.
- 27 Jan. 2020: Page added.
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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