AeroWow

They’re filler.  They’re all less-than-optimal, and you probably wouldn’t take them, if you had a choice.  But you have to get down the tree somehow, right?  This little two-part will cover your option in how to most intelligently make your way to the meat and potatoes of your respective DPS Warrior spec.

Today, we’re going to cover the options we have to get through the first three tiers of the Fury tree.  I will be using Wowhead’s excellent talent calculator as reference.  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#L  This most applies to Fury Warriors, but can be applied to Arms specs employing an Improved Execute build, as well.

>>Tier One

>Armored to the Teeth (AttT)
Increases your attack power by 1 for every 180 armor value you have.
3 ranks

This is not really considered “trash”, but an obligatory talent that was mostly intended to keep higher armor items (plate) from falling behind the down-armored mail or leather options.  While that goal failed in this talent, here it is today.  It requires buffing at each tier of raiding, due to the fact that armor does not increase as quickly as the other stats do.  Hence, the buff it got when Ulduar was released, and the buff it is getting when Crusader’s Coliseum comes out, and most likely will get with each successive tier of gearing.

>Booming Voice (BV)
Increases the area of effect and duration of your Battle Shout, Demoralizing Shout and Commanding Shout by 25%.

While this is not a direct stat increasing talent, it buffs our ridiculously short shouts.  Its value really depends on how much you are using shouts.  If you are one of three or more DPS Warriors, and are not on Shout duty, then feel free to immediately skip this talent.  However…

If you are tasked to maintain shouts, then this talent may have relevance.  Without this talent, it’s tough to even reach your tank on Malygos with your Battle/Commanding shouts.  The benefit of shout duration also plays a role – 50% increased range and duration on shouts means a few things:
>Increased range means less running around to rebuff, and more coverage per GCD of shouting.  If you are a fan of running all around to buff your allies, spread all about the battlefield, then more power to you.
>The increased duration means less GCDs used on shouting per fight.  This applies for both your buff shout and your Demo Shout.
>Both of these together save energy cost (rage) as well.  Less rage spent on buffing means more rage available for offensive abilities.

>Cruelty
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 1%.
5 ranks

This is another good talent surrounded by the trash talents that we are covering today.  It’s pretty self-explanitory.  You should have this, no question.

>>Tier Two

>Imp Demo Shout (ImpDS / IDS)
Increases the melee attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 8%.
5 ranks

Back in the day, BC era, 2/5 into Imp Demo Shout was the standard for DPS Warriors.  More than that had no effect on raid bosses, and were wasted talents.  In Wrath, however, all 5 talent points are in play.  And, given some recent testing (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18031053148&sid=1), Demo Shout is even better than many had assumed previously.  To summarize the data, you reduce a boss’ physical damage by 10% with the base Demo Shout, and 1% additional per point invested.  These numbers are slightly simplified, but are close enough to provide the guidance necessary as to whether or not you would like to put points in here or not.

Demo shout should be up at all times on a raid boss, obviously.  If you are a Fury Warrior, you have an extremely easy way to lower the tank’s damage taken by 5%.  Speaking from a tanking perspective, that’s worth it.  Add to that the fact that the big moves (Thorim’s Unbalancing Strike is being tossed around as one current example) will get significantly more damage reduction, this is a fantastic way to spend 5 points.

>Unbridled Wrath (UW)
Gives you a chance to generate an additional rage point when you deal melee damage with a weapon.
5 ranks

Using data found here: http://elitistjerks.com/blogs/rezarel/288-3_1_ptr_ppm_test_results.html .  Basically, each point of Unbridled Wrath give you a 3PPM (proc per minute) chance to gain one rage, on up to 15PPM.  While is is obviously good, it’s not great by any stretch of the imagination.  For myself, as Fury, I’m getting UW at about a 40-60DPS upgrade.  As Arms, it’s a whopping… wait for it… 3 DPS upgrade for me.  Earthshattering, I know.

We’ll be generous, and say that I get 65 DPS from 5/5 UW (speaking to Fury, here).  Basing off of 6k dps, that’s just over 1% of a DPS increase, for 5 points invested.  Not worth the investment, given other options.

>>Tier Three

>Imp Cleave
Increases the bonus damage done by your Cleave ability by 40%.
3 ranks

This ability (and therefore, the talent) is purely situational.  It is useful on trash, and on some bosses.  The trash issue is nothing, so it really comes down to: will the bosses you are currently progressing on benefit from Improved Cleave?  If you’re on Mimiron, Imp Cleave works well, just target the middle and go to town.  Freya can benefit from Cleave, arguably.  If you’re tasked to the adds on part three of Yogg-Saron, possibly.  For most everything else, you’re using Cleave to pad the meters.  That’s a bad reason to use Improved Cleave.

If you are using Imp Cleave, don’t forget the cleave glyph, which may or may not be applicable, depending on the situation (it usually is, if you’ve already determined that Cleave is your optimal rage dump).

>Piercing Howl
Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
1 rank

I love this talent.  It’s a half-duration AoE Hamstring, that Dazes the targets (that’s slightly different from Hamstring).  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on bosses, so you can’t really get the benefit to Heroic Strike when attacking a Dazed target.  However, it works great on adds – Freya, anybody – and in pinch kiting situations.  This is pure utility that I always make an effort to pick up.

It’s a great way to get basic PvP capability from your PvE spec, too.  Your fellow Wintergraspians and Battleground buddies with thank you.

>Blood Craze
Regenerates 2% of your total Health over 6 sec after being the victim of a critical strike.
3 ranks

And then we come to a very PvP-oriented ability.  You can generally skip this, except in very extreme examples (3-guardian Freya comes to mind).

>Commanding Presence (CP)
Increases the melee attack power bonus of your Battle Shout and the health bonus of your Commanding Shout by 5%.

And, we’re back to Shouts.  Let’s take a look at some numbers.  Your base Battle Shout is 548 AP, and your base Commanding Shout is 2255 health.  Each point of Commanding Presence increases these abilities by 5%, up to 125% their original value.

Commanding         Battle
2255 hp (base)    548 ap (base)
2367 hp (+112)    575 ap (+027)
2480 hp (+225)    602 ap (+054)
2593 hp (+338)    630 ap (+082)
2706 hp (+451)    657 ap (+109)
2818 hp (+563)    685 ap (+137)

So, in essence, using Commanding Shout, one gives 50 more Stamina to the entire raid, and using Battle Shout, one gives 137 more AP to all physical DPS (and the tanks).  This is a huge deal, raidwide.

>>Putting it all together

So, now that we’ve taken a look at each talent individually, what do we come up with spec-wise?  Assuming Armored to the Teeth (3/3) and Cruelty (5/5), we have 7 more telent points that we must spend to get to the juicy goodness of the rest of the Fury tree.  What sort of “starter builds” can we come up with?

>Buff Shouting Build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZGx00x

This is the base of the Shouting build.  As I am the sole Warrior in my guild, I am currently using a modified version of this build (I take the 5th point out of Commanding Presence to grab Piercing Howl), when I am Fury.

>Demoralizing Shout build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZGE

5% less physical damage on the tank, in addition to the 10% base Demo Shout, and Booming Voice to complement it.

>Personal DPS build

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#LZhxg

This will maximize your own damage output, absolutely, if all the other buffs are being handled elsewhere.  There is no question of that.  However, this provides the absolute minimal benefit to the raid as a whole.

>>But, which is the best option?

This depends on the content being tackled, and on the raid composition.  It really comes down to the value of the improved buff, be it 5% less physical damage on the tank, or 50 stam for the raid, or 50 more personal DPS.

As a loose and fast rule, I prioritize the trash talent selection like so: If you are the sole Warrior, choose a Buff Shouting Build.  If there are two Warriors, the second Warrior takes an Imp Demo Shout build.  However, if there is no Paladin with Imp BoM available, the first two Warriors would both take a build centered around Commanding Presence, one for Battle, and one for Commanding.

>>Glyphs

And don’t forget your glyphs to complement your talent selection!  Cleaving is extremely effective if you’re in a high (3+) mob situation with regularity and need that extra oomph.  Battle is nice, but is kind of assumed, given the limited array of options in the minor glyph department.  And, well, that’s all of the applicable glyhs, sadly.

>>Arms Note

Unbridled Wrath really is that bad.  If you are Arms, you SHOULD NOT have points in this talent.  Really.  If you are running with multiple Warriors, it is better for you to do some sort of shouting, and let a Fury Warrior take UW.

>>Making your spec your own

Don’t be too afraid to play with these base builds just a little bit.  If you’re on Imp Demo Shout, but need Cleave, drop the points in Booming Voice for it.  Personally, I employ a Buff Shouting build as the sole Warrior in my guild, but steal the 5th point from Commanding Presence and pick up Piercing Howl for the raw utility brought by the talent.  The guiding principle in this is twofold – one, the talents are best utilized maximized, so spreading points everywhere is to be avoided.  And two, the talents work most effectively when complimented, so always try to select buffs that increase in effectiveness wih the other talents that are selected.  Booming Voice is a fantastic example of this second concept, as it boosts the shouts, which are being boosted by either Imp Demo Shout or Commaning Presence.  Synergy is a great thing.

PS.  As I was writing this up, we have gotten a slight improvement to our buff durations and range come 3.2.  Our Commanding and Battle Shout ranges have been increased at the base level from 20 yards to 30 yards.  While this is a good thing, don’t think for a minute that it negates any of the positive effects of increasing even the new 30-yard range through Booming Voice.