In the new addition to World of Warcraft: Shadowlands , the Warriors in the Arms specialization don’t have as many changes as some classes, but they do. Let’s first see what has changed.
General Changes to the Weapon Specialization in Shadowlands
“Fight to the death” – skill rollback has been reduced to 2 minutes (previously 3 minutes).
Cleave – now absorbs accumulated Overpower effects
Sure Victory heals the warrior by 30% (previously 20%)
Deadly Calm – The developers have revised this ability. Deadly Calm now reduces the Rage cost of using four abilities. Previously, the skill completely removed the cost of rage for six seconds. In addition, Deadly Calm now passively increases Rage by 30.
Fearlessness – Formerly a Azerite Gear talent, now part of the Seismic Wave talent . With this talent, you can deal additional damage to 5 enemies in front of you
Bloodletting now increases the warrior’s critical damage against the target by 10%
Mastery: Deep Wounds now also increases your target damage
Ravager – Cooldown is now only 45 seconds (previously 1 minute)
Sweeping Strikes – the duration of the ability has been increased to 15 seconds (previously 12 seconds)
Some of the warrior’s abilities are now available to all three specializations, and therefore they can be included in your rotation and used in battle.
“Intervention” – will help your warrior to become much more mobile
“Shield Block” – can be successfully used in PvP battles. True, for this you have to equip a shield and one-handed weapon, as well as take the talent Defensive stance
“Shield Slam” – also used only with a shield and one-handed weapon in a Defensive Stance
“Calling Shout” – a massive provocation
“Resistance to pain” – will allow you to become more tenacious in battle
Spell Reflection is a great ability for any branch of a warrior’s talents. Reduces magic damage by 20% and protects well in both PvP and PvE
“Crushing Throw” – not only removes immunity from the target, but also deals damage to enemy shields in the amount of 500%
Priority characteristics
The priority of characteristics for each warrior is different, and therefore I recommend using the Raidbots addon to more accurately determine what your character is missing. But at the same time, of course, first of all we need the Force. Below I will give a small list in descending order of usefulness of characteristics:
- Force
- Critical hit
- Skill
- Speed
- Versatility
Secondary stats are scaled in Shadowlands. This innovation made life easier for developers, but for players it creates additional difficulties for the growth of these characteristics.
Priority talents
- Skullbreaker– Best choice for both PvE and PvP. This talent is suitable for conquering Mythic Keys and for raids. The “War Machine” is slightly inferior to him , but “Sudden Death” will be good in PvP content
- The “Double Time”talent is not bad for raids, but in mythic + it is better to take “Thunderer’s Strike” . Sure Victory will only help on non-mobile bosses in the raid.
- “Bloodshed” is agreat talent for all aspects of the game, although only in the case of the chosen covenant of the Ventirs. Bloodletting is good for other Covenants against bosses and single targets, but Barrage is the weakest talent in this tier.
- The best choice would be “Defensive Stance”. “Boundary Step” adds mobility, and “Second Wind” is used in extremely rare cases.
- Peacekeeperand Cleave Damage are great help in Mythic Keys. Collateral damage is not that useful at this level.
- In raids, the Arms Varu is well helped by “Mortal Calm”, and in the myths “Avatar” . The latter will be better revealed in synergy with the legendary ability “Signet of Tormented Kings”. “Finishing Off”, despite being a good talent, loses out to other options in this tier.
- It isbetter to take “Anger management” for the period of gaining characteristics. After pulling up your equipment, you can pay attention to “Fearlessness” . Ravager loses to Fearless on all fronts, although it can still be picked up in both PvP and PvE.
Builds
Or take a more survivable option:
These builds in no way claim to be the only and most effective builds, but in my opinion they are one of the best. Nobody bothers you to experiment and replace, for example, “Bloodletting” with “Bloodshed” or “Fearlessness” with “Ravager”.
Legendary abilities
Collect them all!
In World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, legendary items have been replaced by legendary abilities. You can get a lot of them, and after the desired ability has dropped out, you can create a piece of equipment that has exactly this feature. The warrior has several legendary abilities that will increase your damage and will be useful in conquering keys + and raids.
- First of all, it is worth noting the “Signet of Tormented Kings”. After you cast Recklessness, Avatar, or Whirlwind of Blades, the Signet activates one of the remaining abilities with a weakened effect.
- The ability to “Out of Control”gives you 2 automatic “fatal blow” to random opponents during the action “Bladestorm”. For a single target, this ability will come in handy.
- A good choice would be “Voivode”. This ability grants Mighty Strike a 40% chance to restore Mortal Strike and reduce the cost of your next Mortal Strike by 12 Fury.
- In addition to these legendary abilities, you can note “Finisher”, “Judgment of the Arbiter”, “Seismic Resonance” and “Preparatory Strike”, although in fact you can generally assemble a legendary for your style of play or experiment. At the moment, there are not many main ingredients for creating legs. Soul ash is collected in limited quantities per week, so choose wisely.
Covenant
Ventiry (Revendreth)
The best choice for the Weapons specialization right now is the Ventir Covenant. The Covenant’s “Scold” ability replaces Execute and is very powerful in combat. Scold not only deals Arcane damage to the enemy, but also weakens it. Under Sweeping Strikes, Scold can deal damage to multiple opponents at once, but first of all, this ability is good for a single target.
“Gate of Shadows” is a situational ability and in some cases adds mobility to the warrior, and according to personal observations, it is useful in some encounters in the “Castle of Nafriya” raid. It is only darkened by the casting time.
Kirii (Bastion)
The Kiri Covenant’s ability, Bastion Spear, also performs well in both PvP and Mythic Keys, but it cannot displace Invalue in raids. Also yields to the Re-thrust of the ancients in the myths.
But the Flask of Serenity, obtained with the second ability of the covenant Summon Master, in the keys + is very useful.
Night Folk (Ardenveld)
Rebound of the Ancients is stronger than Bastion Spear , but it also immobilizes you and forces you to stand still. However, if you conquer epic keys with your party played, this ability will give you good damage. Note that in raids and PvP, Ventiras will still lead.
Soulform is a useful ability that increases your mobility.
Necrolords (Maldraxus)
The ability to “Banner Conqueror” is the weakest of the four covenants. Unfortunately, it takes too long to recharge and is also locked in place.
Flesh Sculptor is effective only against strong enemies and increases your survivability.
The choice of the covenant is at the discretion of the player, although I personally chose the Ventirov covenant for myself. Revendreth is versatile for any play style. Currently, the developers are tweaking and changing classes, skills and legendary abilities in order to achieve maximum balance. No one can guarantee that after the next patch, a large number of armies will leave Ventirov in search of a better life. So you can’t say that you only need to go to one specific Covenant, take a closer look at each and choose the one that suits your playstyle.
Mediums
Each of the Covenant has its own mediums. The connection of souls with one of three such characters will allow you to receive additional bonuses and passive abilities. I will only consider the best candidates for Soul Bond, which are worth looking out for first.
Nadia is our best friend and comrade!
Najia, Blade of the Mists is the finest in the Ventyr covenant. It allows you to learn the Thrill Seeker and Fearless Duelist abilities . In the first case, the player can get 20% speed for 10 seconds, and in the second, the warrior will be able to deal 3% more damage to one enemy, while 1.5% less damage will pass through you.
Pelagius … Pelageya, but in general it doesn’t matter
If you have chosen the covenant of Kiri, then the best medium will be Pelagius. His Battle Meditation will increase your Mastery by 10 seconds after using Bastion Spear . In this case, the effect can be prolonged by picking up sad memories. Each memory adds 3 seconds to the buff. But the ability “Forget the past” will increase your survivability. After learning this skill, the use of spells and abilities will reduce magic damage to the character by 1% (6 seconds). If you alternate abilities, then this damage is reduced by another 1%. Total Forget the past adds up to 3%.
Although the Arms (Weapon) Warrior, unlike Fury (Fury), hasn’t undergone any major changes in Shadowlands, he still feels better than Fury until the balance tweaks arrived.
