Arms FAQ
How much haste do I need?
It is not currently advised to build for haste to the exclusion of mastery. There exists a haste breakpoint of significant DPS increase @ 20% haste, however it is very difficult to itemize for, and the lost mastery if you don’t get to the haste breakpoint will hurt your DPS significantly.
Furthermore, the 20% haste breakpoint is based on getting a 5th GCD into Battle Cry, which is effected by lag. Therefore, the breakpoint may actually closer to 23-25% haste, depending on your latency.
Image thanks to @Fuze#0992
What is my stat priority?
Mastery > Strength > Versatility > Crit, with haste either being ahead of Mastery, or ahead of Versatility, depending on how close to the 20% haste breakpoint you are.
For the most accurate stat priorities, it’s advised to run your character through Simulationcraft.
Wait, haste over versatility?
Yep. Here’s a chart giving some explanation as to why:
Image thanks to @Fuze#0992
For the most accurate stat priorities, it’s advised to run your character through Simulationcraft.
What neck enchant is best?
What potion is best?
When do I cast Mortal Strike?
Cast MS as soon as you can, do not wait for 3 Focused Rage stacks. It’s less important whether or not you wait for 3 FR stacks, and more important that you NOT use FR if you already have 3 FR stacks. The exception to this is during Battle Cry, when you can hit FR constantly (at this point you’re using the fact that FR is off the GCD to fish for Tactician procs).
What is my rotation during Battle Cry?
The rotation is fundamentally the same as your normal rotation, and follows the same rules as the rotation outside of Battle Cry. The exceptions to this are that you should cast Hamstring (it’s off the global cooldown), and you are allowed to exceed 3 stacks of Focused Rage. When considering Slam/Execute, decide to cast these abilities as if you had full rage, even if you don’t.
The normal rotation can be found on Wowhead’s Arms rotation guide. The “Focused Rage” rotation is the most performant (along with the Focused Rage talents).
When do I cast Execute?
Once your target’s health has reached 20%, you will cast Execute instead of Mortal Strike, and no longer use rage on Focused Rage outside of Battle Cry. If you don’t have a Shattered Defenses buff, you can cast Execute at any rage, however once you obtain a Shattered Defenses buff, hold casting Execute until you can give Execute maximum rage (22).
Note: You will still cast Mortal Strike during Battle Cry to consume 3xFR stacks obtained within Battle Cry, even when the target is at or less than 20%.
Will Arms be nerfed?
Blizzard has said that their DPS tuning during Legion will take the form of buffing underperforming specializations, rather than nerfing top DPS specs.