AeroWow

I like buffs. They help me do what I do, better. While you can’t always control what buffs you get from the other members of your raid (Heroic Presence, why do you taunt me so?!), you can control what buffs you give yourself – namely, the consumables that you use to improve your performance.
Food

Dragonfin Filet
Hearty Rhino
Snapper Extreme / Worg Tartare
Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak
Spicy Blue Nettlefish / Spiced Wyrm Burger
Fish Feast

Depending on how valuable ArP is for you at your current gearing level and taking into account your spec, Hearty Rhino is probably your food of choice. If you’re in the very endgame raiding as Fury, or if you are at a basic (moderate) level of gearing as Arms, this is the food you want to be running with. Learn to love Rhino, as you’ll be eating a lot of it.

If your ArP hasn’t quite broken the breakpoint of becoming more valuable than Strength, fear not. Dragonfin Filet is a great option. One quick note: when playing with a spreadsheet, simulator, or calculation program, ensure that you are taking the food buff into account, before deciding to make the switch to ArP or not (many people forget to include the potential 40 ArP into their modeling, throwing off their final Armor Pen calculations).

I’d recommend shying away from the Hit or Expertise foods, though these can be a good option to “fill in the gaps” of your gearing. If you can pick up a big upgrade gearwise and you cannot pick up the Hit or Expertise lost from the piece you upgraded from through swapping in alternate gear, then go for it. It’s generally a lot more hassle than it’s worth, though, to plan around a food buff that contributes a ‘cappable’ stat, and is generally not the optimal approach.

I included the Fish Feast here for one reason – it’s cheap cheap cheap, and generally always available. (In any raids I’ve attended within the last year, I’ve typically always had my choice of 2 or 3 Fish Feasts for any given pull. The more Fish Feasts down simultaneously, the better our chances of downing the boss. It’s a scientifically proven phenomenon.) I’d recommend this for one, and only one situation: the very early attempts on an extremely difficult boss, where the issue is a fight mechanic rather, and there is no serious DPS requirement. Even still, I prefer to stick with my best food, as 80 AP simply cannot match the performance of 40 ArP or 40 Str.

The Crit food is… available. You might be able to make use of it in certain gear situations. I’m not going to recommend it to anybody, but be aware that it exists as an option. Go with Rawr/Landsoul’s spreadsheet/Simcraft on this one, and make absolutely sure that you want to go Crit over Str or ArP. I haven’t seen an instance where I’d choose it yet, but I’m sure there is some situation in which it might be best.

And just… don’t use Haste food. Ever. Please.
Flasks / Elixirs
Flask:

Flask of Endless Rage

Battle Elixir:

Elixir of Mighty Strength
Elixir of Armor Piercing
Elixir of Accuracy
Elixir of Expertise
Elixir of Deadly Strikes

Guardian Elixir:

Elixir of Protection

You almost always want to run with a Flask of Endless Rage. Have 5+ stacks of them made, and be set forever.

If you absolutely insist on using Elixirs, even though the Flask is better from a DPS perspective, I listed the relevant ones above. All the same comments as with the food apply. Note that the Strength elixir is 50, as opposed to the 45 value of the rest, so it may pull ahead for Fury, depending on your particular setup.

There’s also one other Elixir that I intentionally skipped over when initially wrote the article, but am coming back to note on request – Elixir of Demonslaying. While this provides more AP than the Flask of Endless Rage, there are two severe drawbacks to this elixir. First is the obvious “target must be a Demon for it to apply” restriction. Given the rather distinct lack of Demons in Wrath, this is not trivial. For comparison, there were a vast number of fights that benefited from this Elixir in The Burning Crusade: Illhoof, Prince Malchezaar, Magtheridon, Anetheron, Kaz’Rogal, Azgalor, Archimonde, Supremus, Mother Shahraz, Illidan, Stormrage, Brutallus, Eredar Twins, M’uru (Phase 2), and Kil’Jaeden . There’s one in The Wrath of the Lich King so far: Lord Jaraxxus, and none foreseen in Icecrown Citadel. The second drawback is the extremely short duration of the flask, to the tune of 5 minutes.

In other words, I wouldn’t worry about using Flask of Demonslaying, unless your progression is on Lord Jaraxxus. If he’s on farm, the only time you might use it would be if you’re going for a Tribute chest and need to be absolutely certain of success. It’s just not worth it otherwise.
Potions

Indestructible Potion (IP)
Potion of Speed (PoS)
Potion of Wild Magic (PoWM)
Potion of Insane Strength (PoIS)

Here’s where the fun comes in – The Armor potion is your best DPS potion, regardless of spec and gearing level. That’s a consequence of Armored to the Teeth, and the fact that Indestructible lasts for 2 full minutes, as opposed to the others’ 15 seconds. Let’s quickly run over some numbers here – I’ll use my current stats as a point of reference. I don’t normally use SEP too frequently, but it makes sense to use it here as a means of comparison.

Note that the values do slightly change from adding 1 of each stat to adding the larger amounts that are given by these potions. However, the difference in SEP is so small that it’s not worth going out of my way to account for in the calculations, and it certainly doesn’t change the results.
Using Arms SEP values:

Str: 1 (The identity of Strength Equivalency Point, after all)
Haste: .43
Crit: .87
Armor: .012

Using Fury SEP values:

Str: 1
Haste: .66
Crit: .86
Armor: .011

Now, we multiply each SEP by the amount of the stat given with each potion, further multiply by the duration, and then divide by the total fight length (using 6 minutes for my comparisons here). This will give us our SEP for the given duration. I will then multiply that result by a given constant that will convert that SEP into a DPS value.
Arms (SEP to DPS conversion: 1.60)

PoIS: 1 x 120 = 120 x (15/360) = 5 x 1.6 = 8 DPS
PoS: .43 x 500 = 215 x (15/360) = 8.96 x 1.6 = 14.3 DPS
PoWM: .87 x 200 = 174 x (15/360) = 7.25 x 1.6 = 11.6 DPS
IP: .012 x 3500 = 42 x (120/360) = 14 x 1.6 = 22.4 DPS

Fury (SEP to DPS conversion: 1.96)

PoIS: 1 x 120 = 120 x (15/360) = 5 x 1.96 = 9.8 DPS
PoS: .66 x 500 = 330 x (15/360) = 13.75 x 1.96 = 26.9 DPS
PoWM: .86 x 200 = 172 x (15/360) = 7.17 x 1.96 = 14 DPS
IP: .011 x 3500 = 38.5 x (120/360) = 12.83 x 1.96 = 25.1 DPS

Keep in mind that Haste loses its value relative to raw Attack Power or Crit Rating in any sort of multi-mob situation. That is, these values are calculated for single-target damage only. Increasing your Haste with increase your single-target damage some, but will only increase your multi-target damage in the number of Cleaves you are able to use for those 15 seconds. On the flipside, increasing your Crit or your Strength / Attack Power will not only increase your single-target damage, but increase the damage done to all targets hit by all of your AoE moves (including Cleave, Whirlwind/Bladestorm, and Sweeping Strikes), as well as all normal rotational abilities.

In other words, the Indestructible Potion is the clear winner here in the overwhelming number of situations.

Occasionally, there will be instances where a short burst of extremely high DPS is needed, and that this need outweighs the total benefit that can be had from the Indestructible Potion. One example might be XT’s heart phase when attempting to trigger the hard mode, if the timer is close enough where the extra “juice” might help out. In this case, you will want to go with either the Potion of Wild Magic or the Potion of Speed. Which you choose is dependent on your spec and on the type of situation (multi-mob or single-target).

Have fun getting “in the buff”.

Tags: armor penetration, ArP, buff, cap, Crit, Critical Strike, dps warrior, elixir, Exp, Expertise, flask, food, Haste, Hit, potion, rating, Str, Strength
This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 4:09 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7 Responses to “The Well-Buffed Warrior”

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A. Martin Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am

I’m a little confuse about the haste buffs… From the food buff section, you write that haste is bad (which is a general consensus, for Arms, at least), but then you “prove” mathematically that Potion of Speed, which packs a huge amount of haste, is actually quite good for DPS… could you please elaborate on this?
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BWarner Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:10 pm

For Arms, Haste is indeed a poor stat. The saving grace of the potion comes from two things: One, there’s a lot of Haste in the Potion of Speed (500) compared to Crit in the Potion of Wild Magic (200). Two, it stacks well with other temporary buffs (trinkets, cooldowns, that sort of thing).

For Fury, Haste is significantly better, so it’s not surprising that it pulls ahead. It’s still not our favorite stat by a long shot, but it is much, much better.

When comparing food, you’re looking at 40 of any given stat, so you can (and should) choose the best stat point-for-point. When comparing potions, you’re looking at 500 of one stat and 200 of another, so it’s no surprise that a poor stat, in large doses, can be competitive with a much better stat.

I know you put the quotes around “prove”, but remember the limitations of this calculation. This is a single-target, stand-and-deliver style fight.
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Akadia Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 9:51 am

I’m really a big fan of IP, but in you calculations you only use 1 potion. If you’re using IP shouldn’t you be using 2, 1 before the pull and 1 during the encounter? Which basically doubles the the DPS gain of IP.
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BWarner Says:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

Absolutely! I am a huge advocate of pre-potting, as it’s totally free stats. I considered adding in the note about pre-potting, but instead included it in the next article: Aerowow | Tips and Tricks

This doesn’t technically double the DPS gain of IP, because the I’m comparing each potion directly. The two potion usages are totally separate. I’m always going to prepot an Indestructible, as the duration on the other potions is simply too short to make them useful as a pre-pot. The second potion that I use is totally separate from this first potion usage, and that (the second potion) is the comparison that I’m making here.
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Kaldron Says:
September 27th, 2009 at 12:22 pm

Maybe you should mention the Elixir of Demonslaying its superior to the flask in the fight against Lord Jaraxus.
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BWarner Says:
October 11th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

Made a note of it in the article. Realize, though, that the use of this elixir is extremely limited. There’s been a total of one fight in the whole of Wrath where Demonslaying is applicable – Jaraxxus, as you mentioned. Plus, not all targets in that encounter are Demons, which only serves to lessen the benefit of the elixir.
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Orognar Says:
September 28th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

How would the popping of various cooldowns (Deathwish, recklessness etc.) which have cooldowns similar in duration to the other potions affect things. Obviously the cooldowns would have 100% synergy with the shorter length potions, however only 25% of IP’s buff would be amplified by say deathwish. Is this a major factor worthy of consideration?
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