Seeing as how the [Warrior] Future of a DPS Warrior thread is well over 3000 posts now, it's getting harder and harder to find all of the relevant material and frequently asked questions are cropping up again and again, this is the start of my attempt to compile all of the DPS Warrior knowledge that I've managed to obtain:

Other Prominent DPS Warrior Discussions:
I know there's an awful lot of data in these threads, but at least pretend to try and find answers to your questions in them if you don't see it here:
[Warrior] DPS Spreadsheet 2.3 and beyond - DPS Spreadsheet and other related commentary.
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t23083-w...adsheet_2_4_a/ - Updated DPS Spreadsheet for 2.4
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t12386-w...e_dps_warrior/ - DPS Warrior theorycrafting and general discussion.


Talents:
Common DPS specs:
17/44/0 - Dual Wield Fury
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

33/28/0 - PvE Arms
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

21/40/0 - 2h Fury (less common spec, but relatively viable for PvE dps as a second or third dps warrior)
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

Variations of these builds are generally based on guild setup. More than one dps warrior in a guild with Improved Demoralizing Shout/Improved Thunderclap is not necessary so some builds may include more points in Deflection/Iron Will vs Improved Thunderclap or Unbridled Wrath instead of Improved Demoralizing Shout. Other variations can be found based on personal preference, switching Improved Disciplines for Improved Intercept for PvP purposes etc. To be noted however that all guilds should have at least one warrior with Improved Demoralizing Shout and Improved Thunderclap. In general, the numbers stay the same: 33/28/0 for Arms PvE, 17/44/0 for Fury PvE.*

It's believed that 3 points in Unbridled Wrath with a 3.5 or slower weapon is enough to generate 1 additional rage on every attack, or close enough to every attack that the 4th point would not be worth it. Hence 2/5 Demoralizing Shout, 3/5 Unbridled Wrath is "better" than 5/5 Unbridled Wrath for an Arms warrior. (Under investigation)

Two points in Improved Demoralizing Shout is enough to reduce a boss's Attack Power to 0 unless Curse of Recklessness is up. If your guild uses Curse of Recklessness, then 5 points is needed.

Sword Specialization > Poleaxe Specialization > Mace Specialization for PvE.

*Some testing being done on 26/35/0 as opposed to 17/44/0 for PvE.


Stats:
Depending on gear level and current items, stat priority is:

<9% hit and <6.25% Dodge reduction
Expertise/Hit > Crit/AP/Armor Pen > Haste

>9% hit and <6.25% Dodge reduction
Expertise > Crit/AP/Armor Pen > Haste/Hit

>9% hit and >6.25% Dodge reduction
Crit/Ap/Armor Pen > Haste/Hit (Expertise yields no dps increase past the cap)

Expertise caps out at 6.25%* with no talents or racials. Hit soft caps at 9% with no talents.

Higher levels of AP yield more benefit from additional Crit/Armor Penetration and vice versa.

Only reason to gem for hit is if you're under 9%, otherwise take items that have the best distribution of dps stats. Despite what the rogues tell you, leather is fair game.

Under 9% hit, talents included, Hit yields the highest dps increase.

Hit Rating requirements are:

• 142 hit rating with 0 points in Precision
• 127 hit rating with 1 point in Precision
• 110 hit rating with 2 points in Precision
• 95 hit rating with 3 points in Precision

Rating Conversion:

• 15.77 Hit Rating = 1% Hit
• 3.9423 Expertise Rating = 1 Expertise = -0.25% Dodge/Parry
• 22.08 Crit Rating = 1% Crit
• 15.77 Haste Rating = 1% Haste
• 1 Strength = 2 Attack Power
• 33 Agility = 1% Crit

In general Strength > Attack Power purely because of Blessing of Kings affecting Strength and not raw Attack Power.
Crit Rating > Agility, despite the fact that Agility scales with Blessing of Kings. The amount of Agility needed for 1% Crit makes it too expensive to stack in comparison to Crit Rating.

Expertise can be treated similarly to Hit when under 4.25% Dodge reduction (2% free from talents) most players however don't see it as mandatory as Hit under 9% is seeing as it's harder to obtain. Humans using Swords/Maces and Orcs using Axes gain an additional 1.25% expertise, so the "cap" is 3%. Also note that Expertise Rating rounds down, partial amounts of Expertise do nothing. The "cap" therefore would be 25 Expertise.

Expertise Rating "requirements":

• No racial, No talent: 99 Expertise Rating
• Human/Orc racial, No talent: 79 Expertise Rating
• No racial, 1/2 talent: 83 Expertise Rating
• No racial, 2/2 talent: 68 Expertise Rating
• Human/Orc racial, 1/2 talent: 64 Expertise Rating
• Human/Orc racial, 2/2 talent: 48 Expertise Rating

* Expertise still doesn't have a definitive cap per se, but due to extensive discussion on the topic it's been accepted that shooting for 6.25% dodge reduction is optimal. If the cap is slightly over 6.25%, it's not worth itemizing to get that tiny bit less dodge when Expertise only comes in chunks of 0.25%. The other hypothesis is that Expertise is impossible to cap completely and functions similarly to the spell hit cap, where there will always be a small percent chance that the boss will dodge, regardless of your Expertise. In either case, shooting for 6.25% dodge reduction brings you as close to the cap without overshooting, if there is a cap.


Armor and Armor Penetration:
Armor Penetration is a unique stat in that it is the only stat to scale with Increasing Returns as opposed to Diminishing Returns. More Armor Penetration yields more % increase in damage until the target's armor reaches 0. Soft cap for Armor Penetration (ArP from here on out) is roughly 1350 for T6 level bosses with all armor reducing debuffs and Executioner enchant.

The formula for damage reduction via armor for a mob over level 60 is:

DR% = Armor / (Armor - 22167.5 + 467.5 * MobLevel)

Where MobLevel is the level of the attacker. TBC bosses generally have either 6200 armor or 7700 armor*, so I'll use 6200 for simplicity:

DR% = 6200 / (6200 - 22167.5 + 467.5 * 70)

DR% = 0.36998 = 36.998% damage reduction.

Debuffs on a boss reducing armor can be maximized to:

1. 2600 (Sunder Armor)
2. 610 (Faerie Fire)
3. 800 (Curse of Recklessness)

Total: 2190

2190 / (2190 - 22167.5 + 467.5 * 70) = 17.180% damage reduction.

From here, 200 ArP translates to:

1990 / (1990 - 22167.5 + 467.5 * 70) = 15.860% damage reduction :: or a 1.594% damage increase.

A further 200 ArP would translate to:

1790 / (1790 - 22167.5 + 467.5 * 70) = 14.497% damage reduction :: or a 1.620% damage increase.

As you can see, while the amount of ArP gained was the same for both scenarios, the damage increase itself increases as the target's Armor approaches 0. Thus ArP exhibits increasing returns as opposed to diminishing returns.

* Actual Table for TBC bosses:

Hit Table:

1. Miss - 28% (9% for specials or when not dual wielding)
2. Dodge - 5.6% (see below)
3. Parry - 0%*
4. Glancing - 25% (25% vs a mob 3 levels above you, unchangeable)
5. Block - 0%*
6. Critical - Varies (this varies from player to player)
7. Crushing - 0% (players cannot Crush)
8. Normal Hit - [100% – {Miss + Dodge + Parry + Glancing + Block + Critical + Crushing}] (this is the leftover)

*Not actually 0%, but for all intents and purposes mobs cannot Parry nor Block attacks made from behind, which is where you should be dps'ing from.

That's the priority for attacks. Players cannot land Crushing Blows, mobs cannot land Glancing Blows. Mobs can't Parry or Block from behind, which is where your melee dps should be done. Dodge is assumed to be 5.6% for most bosses. Important to note that additional +hit does NOT increase your chance to land a Normal Hit, but rather DECREASES your chance to Miss.

In this fashion, under extreme circumstances you can become "crit capped" where additional Crit will not increase your chance to land a Critical Strike. This occurs if the total value of the options above Critical Strike on the attack table become sufficiently high as to reduce the possible Crit below it's normal value. Example:

1. Miss - 28%
2. Dodge - 5.6%
3. Parry - 0%
4. Glancing - 25%
5. Block - 0%
6. Critical - 50.5%
7. Crushing - 0%
8. Normal Hit - 0%

Under these circumstances, Crit will be capped at 40.5% even though you have a 50.5% listed chance. This is because the total cannot be more than 100%. 100% - (28% + 6.5% + 0% + 25% + 0%) = 41.4%. For most sensible levels of gear and under most circumstances, you will not reach the crit cap unless affected by something along the lines of Recklessness which would grossly inflate your Crit chance.


Flurry:
Contrary to popular belief, 33% chance to Crit will not guarantee 100% Flurry up-time, not even close. A relatively close formula to calculate Flurry up-time is:

1 - ( 1 - c ) ^ x

Where 'c' is your Crit chance expressed in decimal (i.e: 35% crit = 0.35) and 'x' is the number of attacks made in one cycle of Flurry (3 from auto attack swings, and generally one additional from instant attacks; 4 is a commonly used number).

Example: 35% crit yields

1 - ( 1 - 0.35 ) ^ 4 = 0.8215 which translates to 82.15% Flurry up-time.

Crit past 33% will of course increase your Flurry uptime, any amount of Crit under 100% (or the crit cap) is less than 100% Flurry up-time, and therefore additional Crit will increase your up-time. It is important to note that while additional Crit will increase Flurry up-time, it is subject to diminishing returns. The amount of Flurry up-time gained going for 1% crit to 11% crit is much greater than going from 40% to 50% (in both cases an increase in 10% Crit chance).


DPS Rotations:
17/44/0
>20%:
Keep it simple, Bloodthirst and Whirlwind should always be on cooldown. Heroic Strike if rage is over 60 and Bloodthirst and Whirlwind are both on cooldown. Heroic Strike is primarily a rage dump, use it to keep your rage under 100 and still maintain the rage required to keep Bloodthirst and Whirlwind on cooldown. In terms of priority: Bloodthirst > Whirlwind > Heroic Strike. Commonly referred to as 3xBT, 2xWW cycle. (3 Bloodthirst = 18 seconds, 2 Whirlwinds with 1 point in Improved Whirlwind = 18 seconds). Refresh Rampage with as few seconds left on the buff as possible while at the same time not letting the buff run out. 6-7 seconds left is a generally a good time to start looking for an opportunity to rebuff.
<20%:
Execute on every global cooldown if possible, at a certain point of Attack Power (see FAQ for exact values) Bloodthirst deals greater damage per 30 rage than Execute. Under these circumstances, Execute on every global cooldown and if your rage spikes up past 30 while on the global cooldown, use Bloodthirst.

33/28/0
>20%
Slam is an important part of this spec's dps. Slam resets your swing timer so it's best timed directly after a white hit (in order to minimize time wasted on a reset swing). Get an addon such as Quartz to help if you have latency problems, practice on some Blasted Lands mobs for Slam timing. Learn to use Slam. Generally this cycle is:
Auto -> Slam -> MS -> Auto -> Slam -> WW -> Auto -> Slam -> MS -> Auto -> Slam -> Instant
Battle Shout or Demoralizing Shout for example can be used as the last instant in the rotation. This rotation is commonly referred to as 4xSlam, 2xMS, 1xWW. One thing to note about Slam usage, if your attack speed goes below 2.5 seconds, drop Slam from your cycle and use Heroic Strike to manage your rage. Another option is to simply Slam only when Mortal Strike and Whirlwind are both on cooldown. This requires some practice and a feel for the play-style.
<20%
In most cases, your dps will be better under 20% if you continue with the 4xSlam 2xMS 1xWW cycle and ignore Execute, or slap Execute into that last instant spot. Some warriors prefer to switch to two fast weapons and Execute spam as normal. In the end it comes down to personal preference. Mobile fights will likely favor Execute spamming however.

21/40/0
For all intents and purposes this uses the same rotation as 33/28/0, utilizing Slam. The only difference is this build has 5/5 Flurry as opposed to 3/5 thus making it much more prone to dropping your attack speed below 2.5 seconds. Also, of course, this build uses Bloodthirst in place of Mortal Strike.


Cooldowns:
Use them, use them in conjunction with each other if possible. Using short cooldowns such as trinkets or Deathwish as soon as possible in the fight allows them to cool down sooner and become ready for use again later on in the fight. Cooldowns used in conjunction with each other will always yield higher dps than cooldowns used consecutively. Take this example:
Recklessness guarantees most of your attacks for the next 15 seconds will be critical strikes.
Heroism increases your attack speed by 30% for 40 seconds.

Used in conjunction with each other, you get 30% more attacks that are nearly guaranteed by Recklessness to crit if they land .This inflates the value of Recklessness by 30%. Note that Recklessness is still subject to the crit cap and Attack Table.
Used consecutively, each buff yields only it's own dps with no added value. Recklessness is 15 seconds of near 100% critical strike chance, Heroism is 40 seconds of 30% faster attack speed.

If possible, time your Recklessness/Deathwish/Trinket/Haste Potion/Insane Strength Potion with your shaman's Heroism. If you don't have a shaman, try and time your Deathwish/Trinket/Haste Potion/Insane Strength Potion to coincide with each other. While this is true for coinciding Haste and Static DPS increases, it is not true for only Static DPS increases. i.e: Timing Berserker's Call and Insane Strength Potion will yield no additional dps beyond what they provide on their own. This is because both buffs statically add to your Attack Power, neither has a percentage value (like Deathwish, Haste Potion, Heroism or Recklessness).


Consumables:

• [Flask of Relentless Assault]: (2 hours, persists through death)
• [Elixir of Major Strength]: (1 hour)
• [Elixir of Major Agility]: (1 hour)
• [Elixir of the Mongoose]: (1 hour)
• [Fel Strength Elixir]: (1 hour)
• [Roasted Clefthoof]: (30 minutes)
• [Spicy Crawdad]: (30 minutes)
• [Talbuk Steak]: (30 minutes)
• [Spicy Hot Talbuk]: (30 minutes)
• [Elixir of Demonslaying]: (5 minutes)
• [Drums of Battle]: (30 seconds)*
• [Drums of War]: (30 seconds)*
• [Haste Potion]: (15 seconds, shares Health Potion cooldown)
• [Insane Strength Potion]: (15 seconds, shares Health Potion cooldown)
  

Relentless Assault will yield the most dps for the majority of fights. Elixir of Demonslaying can be a better choice for boss fights where the boss is a Demon, bear in mind the short duration however. In addition, Flask of Relentless Assault persists through death whereas the other consumables do not. Roasted Clefthoof is the best dps food you can get unless you are under the 9% hit requirement, in which case Spicy Hot Talbuk can be a better choice. For fights with large amounts of burst AoE damage, either of the two stamina foods can also prove useful. For temporary buffs, Haste Potion is almost always better than Insane Strength Potion. Only if Haste Potion is causing interruptions or problems with maintaining your Slam cycle as 2h dps should you use Insane Strength Potion, however availability is also a factor. Also of note: Elixir of the Mongoose yields better dps for a warrior than Elixir of Major Agility, with or without Blessing of Kings.

*Drums of Battle is a very useful buff, however only available to Leatherworkers. Non-leatherworkers can benefit from the buff but cannot use the item. Also of note, with more than one Leatherworker in the melee group Drums of War can be used in conjunction with Drums of Battle to greater effect. Drums of War and Drums of Battle share the same cooldown and therefore it should be remembered that Drums of Battle will provide a greater dps increase to the party if given the choice between the two.

• [Elemental Sharpening Stone]: 28 Crit Rating (1 hour)
• [Adamantite Weightstone]: 12 weapon damage, 14 Crit Rating. (Mace/Fist, 1 hour)
• [Adamantite Sharpening Stone]: 12 weapon damage, 14 Crit Rating. (Axe/Sword/Dagger, 1 hour)
• [Righteous Weapon Coating]: (1 hour. Only works on Quel'Danas or Magister's Terrace/Sunwell Plateau)

If you have a shaman placing Windfury totem, you should NOT apply a sharpening/weight stone to your main hand weapon. Windfury and sharpening/weight stones do NOT stack. You can however always put a sharpening/weight stone on your offhand weapon. The bonus applies to both weapons, and the damage increase is subject to damage reduction on an offhand (12 x 0.625 for dual wield specialization and offhand penalty = 7.5 actual increase). Both Sharpening and Weight stones persist through death.
Update: The Adamantite Sharpening Stone yields the highest dps increase for an offhand weapon enchant.


Solarian's Sapphire and Blood Frenzy:
This trinket deserve special mention as it's our class specific trinket for TBC and because of it's unique stat. In terms of raid dps gained from a single trinket, this is by far the best trinket a warrior can use. It grants your Battle Shout an additional 70 Attack Power. This is affected by the Commanding Presence talent up to 87.5 Attack Power. 87.5 Attack Power for 5 members of the raid is 437.5 Attack Power. No other trinket comes close to the amount of Attack Power granted by this trinket.

Blood Frenzy should be mentioned here because one of the most frequently asked questions in terms of Warrior dps is whether or not to spec Arms for Blood Frenzy or not. Is the dps loss going from Fury to Arms worth the raid dps increase from the debuff. In short: yes, it is. Blood Frenzy affects all physical damage dealt to the target. This includes Hunters, Hunter pets, Tanks, Rogues, other Warriors, Feral Druids, Bleed effects etc etc. In very simplistic terms:

A raid composed with 8 total sources of Physical damage: 2 tanks, one hunter and 5 melee.

Each tank puts out 300 dps.
The hunter and each melee puts out 1000 dps.
Total physical dps = 6600.
Contribution from Blood Frenzy = 264 dps.

In this case, the one Arms warrior has an effective dps of 1264 instead of 1000. For this scenario, that's over a 25% increase in his own dps. As the physical dps increases, so does the value of Blood Frenzy. Unless the Warrior is very bad at playing as Arms, or he has very poor Arms gear and very good Fury gear, Blood Frenzy is definitely worth it.


Magic Numbers:
There are no magic numbers in terms of how much Attack Power, Crit, Hit you should have going into a certain instance. Get the best items available to you, meet certain requirements such as 9% hit etc.


Gems/Enchants:

• [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond]: (Meta)
• [Bold Living Ruby]: (Red)
• [Inscribed Noble Topaz]: (Orange)
• [Sovereign Nightseye]: (Purple)
• [Jagged Talasite]: (Green)
• [Rigid Dawnstone]: (Yellow)
• [Smooth Dawnstone]: (Yellow)

You should maintain just enough Blue/Yellow/Red gems to have a working meta gem. Purple/Orange/Green gems work as either of their two component colors. i.e: Purple can count as Red or Blue.
Rigid Dawnstone should ONLY be used if you do not have the 9% hit required. The Relentless Earthstorm Diamond will always yield the highest dps of the meta gems currently available.

• Enchant Bracer: Brawn - Enchant Bracer - Brawn - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Gloves: Major Strength - Enchant Gloves - Major Strength - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Boots: Dexterity - Enchant Boots - Dexterity - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Boots: Cat's Swiftness - Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Boots: Surefooted - Enchant Boots - Surefooted - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Cloak: Greater Agility - Enchant Cloak - Greater Agility - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Cloak: Subtlety - Enchant Cloak - Subtlety - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Chest: Exceptional Stats - Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Weapon: Mongoose - Enchant Weapon - Mongoose - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Enchant Weapon: Executioner - Enchant Weapon - Executioner - Spells - World of Warcraft
• Glyph of Ferocity - Glyph of Ferocity - Items - World of Warcraft
• Cobrahide Leg Armor - Cobrahide Leg Armor - Items - World of Warcraft
• Nethercobra Leg Armor - Nethercobra Leg Armor - Items - World of Warcraft
• Greater Inscription of Vengeance - Greater Inscription of Vengeance - Items - World of Warcraft
• Greater Inscription of the Blade - Greater Inscription of the Blade - Items - World of Warcraft
• Glyph of the Outcast* - Glyph of the Outcast - Items - World of Warcraft

These are the best enchants available for dps. Some slots have alternatives. In general the alternatives come down to personal preference. All of the boot enchants are useful in their own right. For pure dps however, Dexterity will yield the highest dps. On the topic of weapon enchants: Executioner is considered better than Mongoose due to the increasing returns nature of ArP. Executioner however, unlike Mongoose, cannot stack with itself. If you have two weapons enchanted with Executioner, the buff will simply refresh. If you have two weapons enchanted with Mongoose you will gain a second buff. For this reason it's generally considered best to enchant your main hand weapon with Executioner, and offhand with Mongoose. For a 2h weapon, Executioner is more commonly used than Mongoose. Savagery (Enchant 2H Weapon - Savagery - Spells - World of Warcraft) can be a cheaper alternative if you cannot afford Mongoose/Executioner on a 2h weapon. Potency (Enchant Weapon - Potency - Spells - World of Warcraft) can be an alternative for a 1h weapon.

*Glyph of the Outcast only provides higher dps than Glyph of Ferocity if you're already hit capped (9% for 2h, 28% for Dual Wield) and have Blessing of Kings.

Shamelessly stolen from Malan's Enhancement Shaman thread:
This same logic can be applied to Warrior dps, time spent out of melee range is time spent not dps'ing. Minimizing the time you're out of melee range increases your dps. Intercept can also be helpful. It should be noted therefore that Dexterity is only a superior dps increase to Cat's Swiftness if there is no time spent running towards a mob. On a completely stationary fight Dexterity > Cat's Swiftness. On even some of the most remotely mobile fights: Cat's Swiftness > Dexterity.


Surviving:
Surviving in a fight is key. Dead warriors don't dps. There are several tools at a warrior's disposal that can greatly increase his chances of survival:

1. Berserker Rage: Bersker Rage breaks Fear, use it to your advantage and avoid being feared into fire. It burns.
2. Defensive Stance: Reduces all incoming damage taken by 10%, the difference between Berserker and Defensive stance is 20%. This is significant.
3. Shields: Warriors can use a shield to mitigate physical damage. Abuse this.
4. Shield Wall: Under dire circumstances, using your cooldown on Shield Wall instead of Recklessness can save your life.
5. Shield Block: A blocked attack cannot crit. If you do manage to pull aggro on some mob, Defensive Stance and Shield + Shield Block as fast as humanly possible.
6. Cancel Auto Attack: Warriors have no reliable way to control threat other than passive buffs such as Blessing of Salvation. If you can't afford to attack a boss/mob without pulling aggro, don't attack the mob at all until the tank gets a lead.
7. Commanding Shout: On some encounters there are expected bursts of damage, aoe or single target, in which case it can be beneficial to use Commanding Shout instead of Battle Shout (if at full hp) until the expected burst is over. Naj'entus/Illidari Council/Mother Shahraz come to mind.

The biggest life saver is to make friends with your local paladin and beg him politely for a single buff of Blessing of Salvation. Under no circumstances do you do anything that jeopardizes the Raid. Do nothing that jeopardizes your own health. Leave your e-peen outside the instance.


Weapon Speeds and Attack Power Normalization:
Attack Power Normalization:
In patch 1.8, Blizzard modified the way Attack Power affects instant attacks. The formula pre-1.8 was:

damage = base_weapon_damage + (weapon_speed * Attack Power / 14)

As you can see from this, instant attacks gained a significant portion of damage from having a slow weapon. In 1.8 Blizzard modified this so that each weapon type has a set weapon speed for the purposes of instant attacks. So despite whether you have a 1.8 speed one-handed sword or a 2.7 speed one-handed sword, the contribution from Attack Power would be calculated as if the weapon speed was 2.4 seconds.

The list of weapon normalization speeds is:

• Daggers: 1.7
• One-Hand Weapons: 2.4
• Two-Hand Weapons: 3.3
• Ranged Weapons: 2.8

The formula therefore after 1.8 is:

normalized_damage = base_weapon_damage + (X * Attack Power / 14)

where X is the listed value for the specific weapon type. While the normalization of Attack Power greatly reduced the impact of having a slow weapon for instant attacks, slower same-dps weapons still produce a slight dps increase for instant attacks. This is because a weapon with 100 dps and a fast attack speed has a relatively low damage range, while a 100 dps weapon with a slow attack speed has a higher damage range. Therefore the increase in base weapon damage used in the formula makes the slower weapon come out slightly on top. In short: instant attacks still benefit from slow weapons, just the difference is not as large as it once was.

Weapon Speeds:
Based on the previous information about Attack Power Normalization, it comes to mind that there would be certain weapon setups/speeds that would be more desirable than others for dps.

Dual Wield:
Dual wielding when the boss is >20%, the weapon setup that generally yields the highest dps is a slow Main-hand weapon and a slow Off-hand weapon (slow being 2.6+ generally). This is because of the changes made to Whirlwind in patch 2.3. Whirlwind previously hit with only the Main-hand weapon, however now Whirlwind attacks with both weapons instantly. Due to this change, dual-wielding slow weapons will yield a slight, but noticeable dps increase as opposed to dual-wielding slow/fast or fast/fast (Main-hand/Off-hand) weapons. Bear in mind that dual-wielding slow weapons will also result in a streakier rage flow, which can be detrimental to your play-style and your dps. Use whatever you feel most comfortable with at your gear level, aiming for slower weapons where possible. Also note that while slower weapons are slightly better, dps and stat allocation are also important factors of dps and should be accounted for. Under 20% of a boss-fight, it can be beneficial to switch to two fast weapons to maximize rage generation in a short period of time. The goal under 20% as dual-wield Fury is to Execute on every global cooldown, Bloodthirsting whenever rage spikes past 30 rage over the duration of a global cooldown (see FAQ for exact values). Therefore switching to two fast weapons can help guarantee Executes on every global cooldown, or at the very least get you closer to this point.

Two-Hand:
For two-handed dps, there are a couple things to note about weapon speed. First off, the use of Slam as a dps tool impacts the desired weapon speed. Secondly, Mortal Strike and Whirlwind are both normalized attacks, while Slam is not. While using the 4xSlam, 2xMS, 1xWW dps rotation, the closer you can get your weapon speed to 2.5 seconds the better. At a weapon speed of 2.5 seconds, you're constantly using abilities as soon as the global cooldown is up thus maximizing dps. Haste can help you reach this point however it should not be explicitly aimed for as a goal. Take the gear that is the largest upgrade for you at the time. While it is preferable to obtain a 2.5 second weapon speed, deliberately picking faster weapons for this purpose will likely decrease your dps because of Attack Power Normalization. Slam and Heroic Strike are not normalized at all and therefore receive the full bonus from slow weapons, Mortal Strike and Whirlwind are normalized but still gain a slight benefit from using slow weapons. This being said, the weapon dps and stat allocation are the most important factors in picking a weapon. [Cataclysm's Edge] is a superior weapon to say, [Torch of the Damned] because the weapon dps is higher, despite Cataclysm's Edge being 0.3 seconds faster.

Disclaimer: Please remember that 90% of how well you dps is going to be based on your own experience and play-style. Cater to yourself and do what you find to work best.

Anything you can think of to add to this, feel free to post. It's obviously a work in progress as there's so much information on Warrior DPS, it's hard to get it all together in one post in one go.

"143 hit rating with 0 points in Precision"

It's actually 142 because you've rounded the hit rating conversion up to 15.8, where 15.77 would be more accurate.

-edit- Done reading now, and I highly appreciate putting all this info into a single place. Good post, and well-organized.

Very nice post imo

I just wanted to add that it is intresting to mention that WW is a normalized attack.
The disadvantage of this is that using a dagger in the offhand is a dps loss since the coefficient in the formula for normalized attacks is 1.7 instead of 2.4 for all other 1H waepons.

linky - Normalization - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Very nice post, thank you!!

Just one thing I'm really looking for (and still haven't found) would be a diagram of the effectiveness of AP increase vs. hit, crit, haste and armor pen increase.

Right now, I'm sitting at 900 armor pen and I just don't know if getting 30 Haste is better than 60 Armor Pen for example.


As to your survival section:
You might want to add that in specific situations it can be lifesaving to change from Battle Shout to Commanding Shout, example: the moment when Naj'entus puts up his shield, when you get poisoned in the Council fight, when you get ported by mother, during Illidan Phase II, etc.

You might also add a section with the best available gear for each slot - or even different versions for a haste build, crit build, armor pen build.

Thanks,
Bronwynn

great post, it sums mostly all up.

I would add one ting which is mostly forgotten. The Headenchant from lower city "Glyph of the Outcast" will yield more DPS than "Glyph of Ferocity" for 2h-Warriors if you are hit capped from items in terms of raids with blessing of Kings. I know this is hard to achieve, but it is possible.

Very nice guide and initiative indeed. I've been looking for this for a while now. What I was not able to find so far on the forum was the influence of weapon speed for different builds.

you mention it here
and here
but maybe you can capture it in a single section? Maybe it is not such a big issue at all, but then that would also be nice to mention somewhere clearly in your compendium.
A second suggestion is that you might link to some other prominent dps warrior topics, such as the spreadsheet for instance.

Very good job covering most aspects of DPSing. One thing that bears mentioning that seems to go overlooked frequently is the AoE aspect of Warrior DPS. Especially since the changes to Sweeping Strikes and Whirlwind, warrior AoE is a formidable force when properly applied, and I've found in my own experience that it can vastly improve trash clearing, as well as provide a valuable boost on the few boss fights that feature adds that can be AoE'd down.

There are really only three main AoE abilities a DPS warrior has. Whirlwind, Sweeping Strikes, and Cleave. When applying any of these it's important to keep in mind foremost any CC that could be potentially broken by carelessness, and if the tanks are going to be able to output sufficient threat on All the mobs that will be hit by the AoE, or if not, that the mobs are weak enough individually that you do not run the risk of death from the resultant aggro.

The first concern is best addressed by a simple check. When in doubt, don't AoE. If you've lost track of that sheep in the flash of spell effects and player models it's probably best to simply let Whirlwind lie dormant and pour more rage into heroic strike. However, if you can see CC that is potentially in hazard range, it's a good idea to have a fairly strong idea of the area of effect that your AoE will have.

Whirlwind has an 8 yard range, and hits up to four targets within a 360 degree radius of the warrior. In general, unless a sheep is right on top of the mob simply moving yourself to the far side of the creature's hit box is sufficient to put the CC out of harm's way. This is more effective on larger mobs, with commensurately larger hit boxes. Depending on current weapon DPS and AP, Whirlwind will do more damage than a Bloodthirst or Mortal strike. This has to be evaluated on a case by case basis, but in a mix of s3 and badge gear with [Dragonstrike] MH and [Fury] OH my Whirlwind does more damage than bloodthirst if there is even one additional target to hit. It's highly unlikely that in three or four target situations any very reasonable gear set would have bloodthirst doing more damage than whirlwind, therefore you should adjust the above noted attack priorities as appropriate to the AoE situation at hand.

Cleave doesn't have a specified range, but personal experience says that it's at least 5 or 6 yards, possibly more. It will hit your current target, and one other in a 180 degree frontal arc. When in an AoE situation, cleave takes the place of heroic strike in your cycles, as a place to dump excess rage when other higher priority abilities are on cooldown.

Sweeping Strikes has a very short range, no more than a few yards, and seems to function within the 180 degree frontal arc that cleave does. With this in mind it's important to try and be as close as possible to both mobs when using Sweeping Strikes, or targets may end up out of range. On the plus side, this means positioning for Sweeping strikes in CC laden pulls is easier, as a sheep almost has to walk through you to take a hit. With it's 30 second cooldown and relatively high rage cost, it's best to time the first sweeping strikes usage of an AoE pull with enough rage to immediately deliver a whirlwind, as well as using any possible short duration cool downs, as SS offers the greatest damage amplification short of Recklessness for the ten swings that it is active, effectively doubling most of your damage. If the AoE pull or phase will last long much longer than thirty seconds it's better to simply pop sweeping strikes as soon as possible, so as to have it available for a second use before the end of the AoE.

There is one more key AoE ability that warriors have, that should be liberaly applied to any heavy AoE pull(Any pull really, but it can matter more for AoE), and that is Demo Shout. With squishy clothies, or deathwishing warriors in leather potentially grabbing aggro from untanked mobs in an AoE pull, lowering the damage potential of the entire group with a single shout is an incredible boost for the survivability of the fragile AoEers across the raid, and in most cases should be the first thing you do during an AoE pull.


edit: As to your point above about cooldown stacking, it should be mentioned that not all cooldowns scale each other, popping [Berserker's Call] and an [Insane Strength Potion] at the same time doesn't make either effect more potent in and of themselves. However both benefit from being timed with a heroism or recklessness. This mostly only matters if you run into a situation where you know that a fight won't last an additional two minutes for an extra use of a trinket or pot, and you have a choice of waiting to use it now, or saving it to coincide with a potential proc. In general, stacking like bonuses together won't result in an increase beyond the basic bonus, The exception to this is of course armor pen, as it grows in potency as armor approaches zero.

second edit: Minor as well, but it pays to ensure that you use your trinkets, pots and other cooldowns just when BT/MS and WW will be available. Take for example the aforementioned [Berserker's Call], which grants an AP boost for 20 seconds. If this trinket is used just when BT and WW become available a full 3xBT 2xWW cycle can be completed before the duration ends, if it's carelessly popped just after BT and WW are used you will end up losing the buff before the third bloodthirst and second whirlwind can be executed.
Likewise, it is best to keep a close eye on timers for any ability which may result in you being unable to DPS for any length of time, and hold off on using cooldowns if they become available shortly before the timers for such abilities come up. Quite a bit of DPS can be lost from carelessly popping a pot and trinket just before say, getting graved on Morogrim,

One thing about boot enchants:

While Dexterity (12 agi) can be the best enchant in simple stand-and-nuke style of fight, the run speed increase from cat's swiftness or boar's speed becomes better in fights involving movement. If you get one more attack per couple of minutes, you'll propably outdps the dexterity. Not to mention the run speed can save your life on Mother, help avoid taking even the single hit from void zones, flamestrikes etc.

There was a post about this somewhere, i'll try to dig it out.

Edit: Found it from the enhancement shaman thread:

Duly noted.

On the subject of cooldowns I have a few important points to add. In a raid situation you will most likely be grouped with at least 2 rogues, generally 3. Work out your cooldown's so that you both will be able to make the most of Bloodlust/Heroism. The main cooldown that they will want to use is adrenaline rush which is on a 5 minute cooldown.

In my experience I find it's best to wait till after your first dps cycle has been completed before using your trinket/haste pot. It's important to get into your rotation and establish a steady rage flow before you start blowing CDs. You generally want to use your trinkets and haste pots as soon as possible, but make sure all the necessary debuffs are up on your target before you do so. I find your first dps rotation works as a good timer (also allows you to get maximum use out of your trinket as mentioned by Katrael).

The windfury proc also increases your attack power by approx. 580 (improved - 445 untalented). It's beneficial if you can time your specials to coincide with your auto attacks, but by no means waste their cooldown by waiting.

A few consumables have been left out.

Fel Strength Elixir: 90 Attack Power, -10 stamina (1 hour)

Elemental Sharpening Stone: 28 Crit Rating (1 hour) - Best OH enchant - MC recipe

Elixir of Major Strength is 35 strength, not 70.

You might also include the Drums of Battle: 80 Haste Rating for party for 30 seconds (Leatherworker only).

I thought boss dodge was 5.6% - no idea why nor facts to back this up. Also an amount of expertise rating required to eliminate dodge would be excellent once we establish the exact %. I've been lead to believe its 23 expertise or 91 rating. 60 expertise rating once you take weapon mastery into consideration.

Excellent compilation.

I was under the impression testing had been done to prove that boss dodge is slightly higher than the expected 5.6%, I'll look around for confirmation on this.

Edit: Found some confirmation that is indeed 5.6%. Updated.