Fun with Fury

[mjdoom]

WOW; all I can say is wow! I spent about 45 minutes working on this post and then an accidental click of the "back" button on my browser erased the entire thing. Because I have the time and no life though I'll do it all over again...

I have decided to work on a little side project with Galreth while I am not raiding and that is to build the best set of offensive gear I can for him. He is already pimped out in some of the best tank gear I can get and is a perfectly capable tank. He has managed to even tank Death Talon Flamescales in BWL and with a bit more FR will be able to tank Death Talon Seethers as well. At his heart Galreth is a tank; but there's not much more I can do to gear him up for that. With that said I'm now going to try to help his offensive gear for when I am not needed to tank.

Currently Galreth is built to be a Fury warrior (hence the thread topic) and I enjoy playing a Fury warrior a lot. Arms has never really appealed to me so I am not going that route. I've heard that Arms warriors outdamage Fury warriors but frankly I don't care :P For anyone that is curious his current build is:

Arms Talents (13 points)

Deflection - 5/5 points
Increases your Parry chance by 5%.

Tactical Mastery - 5/5 points
You retain up to 25 of your rage points when you change stances.

Anger Management - 1/1 point
Increases the time required for your Rage to decay while out of combat by 30%.

Improved Overpower - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Overpower ability by 50%.

Fury Talents (38 points)

Cruelty - 5/5 points
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5%.

Unbridled Wrath - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% chance to generate an additional Rage point when you deal melee damage with a weapon.

Improved Demoralizing Shout - 5/5 points
Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 40%.

Piercing Howl - 1/1 point
Causes all enemies near the warrior to be dazed for 6 seconds.

Improved Cleave - 3/3 points
Increases the bonus damage done by your Cleave ability by 120%.

Improved Battle Shout - 5/5 points
Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Battle Shout by 25%.

Enrage - 5/5 points
Gives you a 40% melee damage bonus for 12 seconds up to a maximum of 12 swings after being the victim of a critical strike.

Improved Execute - 2/2 points
Reduces the Rage cost of your Execute ability by 5.

Death Wish - 1/1 point
When activated, increases your physical damage by 20% and makes you immune to fear effects, but lowers your armor and all resistances by 20%. Lasts 30 seconds.

Flurry - 5/5 points
Increases your attack speed by 30% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.

Bloodthirst - 1/1 point
Instantly attack the target, causing damage equal to 30% of your attack power. In addition, the next 5 successful melee attacks will restore 10 health. This effect lasts 8 seconds.

Level 48: 13 health
Level 54: 17 health
Level 60: 20 health

Protection Talents (0 points)

None

I'm still doing some testing with this build but so far it's been working fairly well. As a disclaimer I will say that I had 15 points in Prot when I did that BWL tanking but since I've switched I've successfully tanked everything prior to MC and I don't expect to have problems when I am next called on to tank in BWL. If you have any questions/comments on this build feel free to post them but my focus of this post is how to best equip Galreth for damage given this build.

Note that the restriction on this is that the gear must be relatively easily acquirable before MC/Ony/BWL. This is a side project after all and I don't expect any drops from MC or above to fuel it. I also want to stay away from boe blues because they are a much more random beast and I don't have loads of cash to waste on the AH.

I'm going to go through a rundown of each equipment slot and some of my thoughts. Feel free to add comments wherever you feel it may be appropriate. The basic idea is to maximize AP (and strength which gives AP) for consistent weapon damage and bigger bloodthirst hits. Crit is secondary and I'd like to try to aim for 20% crit or higher in order to keep flurry up fairly consistently.

Head:
I don't think that Lionheart Helm can be beat for a DW Fury warrior. Decent strength, 2% crit, and 2% chance to hit to boot. Not only that; but the mats for it are honestly not THAT obscene, it will just take a large amount of mining... Only negative is its complete lack of stamina (although you can put +100 hps on it from a Libram).

Shoulders:
I already have Pauldrons of Might. Any upgrade I can get to those is minor and it is nice to have the higher AC and stamina to offset some of what I am losing while going for offense. I think they are fine.

Neck:
I have Will of the Martyr and I think that's fine. Gives me some stamina to cover what I am losing elsewhere and Mark of Fordring isn't an option because I took the Ornate Admantium Breastplate for tanking.

Chest:
I have Breastplate of Valor and I think that is just fine for this purpose.

Cloak:
This is one spot that I clearly need an upgrade. I already have Redoubt Cloak and Cloak of Warding for tanking; but I have no offensive cloak to speak of. It seems to me that Phantasmal Cloak is my best option; good strength, stamina, and AC even but I'm not certain. Any other thoughts on this one?

Wrist:
I have [http://www.thotbott.com/?i=35971]Gordok Bracers of Power[/URL] already and I think those will do nicely.

Hands:
Another ogre special, Gordok's Handguards seem to fit in here very well; the 1% crit beats out the extra 7 strength and 3 agility from Valor I think.

Waist:
Another place with options. I'm still trying to acquire an Elemental Girdle of Fire Resistance for FR gear and it could double decently well for offensive gear. Other options include Belt of Valor, Girdle of the Dawn, and Omokk's Girth Restrainer. The Girth Restrainer looks pretty good and I already have the quest for it. I'd need a group to 5-man clear LBRS to get it though.

Legs:
It seems to me that trying to get Eldritch Reinforced Legplates is the way to go. Legplates of Valor also look decent.

Feet:
Ribsteel Footguards look to be the clear winner here to me

Rings:
I currently use Band of the Ogre King and Magni's Will. Painweaver Band would be a slight upgrade over Magni's but another intriguing option is Blackstone Ring. It could probably be fairly easily farmed and because I am going DW the chance to hit is nice. Blackstone vs. Painweaver is an interesting decision.

Trinkets:
I already have Blackhand's Breadth, Counterattack Lodestone, and Hand of Justice. I don't think those can really be upgraded.

Ranged:
I have Satyr's Bow and I think the extra chance to hit on that beats the AP of Riphook.

Now we get to weapons. The interesting thing to note here is that without Mortal Strike I don't have much reason to go with a big 2her anyway. Even though Overpower would benefit from a big damage weapon DW is more likely to allow Overpower to be used more often. So DW it is...

Main Hand:
I want a weapon with decent damage and either stats or a decent proc. I currently have Skullforge Reaver here and I also have Timeworn Mace as an option since I have one of those that I usually use for tanking. It seems to me that Mass of McGowan would be really nice here but it's not the easiest thing to acquire.

For an enchant on my main hand weapon it would seem that Crusader would win easily due to the big strength bonus when it procs.

Off Hand:
I got the idea to treat my off hand weapon like a rogue treats theirs. Go for a fast weapon with good stats or a proc and then apply "poisons" for increased damage. In my case my only choice of "poisons" are Frost Oil and Shadow Oil. Stones aren't going to be as useful on a low damage off hand weapon. Bonescraper seems to be the best option here and I think it would also be kind of cool to occasionally DW with two weapons from the Baron. For an enchant I would think that Fiery weapon would be the best due to its relatively high procs per minute that won't be hurt as much by the speed of the weapon and the fact that it adds decent damage when it procs (and it's cheaper).

This should give me a solid damage dealer with good AC and stamina. I don't ever expect to keep up with dps classes like rogues but I would hope that it could make me a more solid contributor to damage when I don't need to tank. Any thoughts/comments/suggestions. I've thrown this all together in my mind over the last few days and I'm curious to see what others think.

- mjdoom

[Olon97]

Do you have enough AVs open on your server to grind faction there? Glacial Blade, Don Julio's band, and Lobotomizer are all excellent Fury warrior options that don't require spending one's DKPs. [edit: linky]

I don't quite understand how you fit 38 points into fury without 2 points in improved beserker rage. You really don't want an extra on-demand source of 10 free rage every 30 seconds? Better deal per talent point than unbridled wrath, IMO.

Personally I would reccomend crusader main hand, +15 agility enchant offhand. Dual crusaders don't appear to proc twice as often, and too many things are immune to life steal. Agility means crits which means more flurries.

I'll share a little flurry tidbit from some messing around I did with excel. Assumes dual wield with 77% hit rate (some +hit% gear assumed) and 840 attack power. For base damage (regulars + crits):
15% crit - Flurry adds 11.6% more base damage - active 38% of the time
20% crit - Flurry adds 14.6% more base damage - active 49% of the time
25% crit - Flurry adds 17.3% more base damage - active 58% of the time
30% crit - Flurry adds 19.7% more base damage - active 66% of the time
35% crit - Flurry adds 21.8% more base damage - active 72% of the time

Balance out your crit / attack power mix accordingly. To figure it out yourself just make the simplifying assumption that the chance an individual strike will be at flurried speed is (1 - chance of the last 3 hits not being crits).

Fun fact: if you have 12% or less crit chance, you would actually do more damage dual wielding with 1H mastery than with Flurry. :P

[edit: if you want to be extravagant, use elemental sharpening stones as your "poisons".]

[Kevin]

This seems like a good place to post my "mini combat rogue" warrior build I've been kicking around. After watching a few rogues with blade flurry and slice and dice tear things up I wondered if you could a warrior with more damage mitigation to do the same. mjdoom and I talked a bit about it in game and we saw that you could get flurry and sweeping strikes. So I looked at a build. This is where I'm at with it. This would be a dual wield build taking advantage of the extra attacks and hitting multiple mobs with each swing.

Arms Talents - 21 points
Improved Heroic Strike rank 0/3
Deflection rank 4/5
Improved Rend rank 3/3
Tactical Mastery rank 5/5
Improved Overpower rank 2/2
Anger Management rank 1/1
Deep Wounds rank 3/3
Impale rank 2/2
Sweeping Strikes rank 1/1
Fury Talents - 30 points
Cruelty rank 5/5
Unbridled Wrath rank 5/5
Improved Cleave rank 3/3
Improved Battle Shout rank 2/5
Dual Wield Specialization rank 5/5
Enrage rank 5/5
Flurry rank 5/5
Protection Talents - 0 points

My big debates are with dual wield spec. I could take a point out of there and get death wish which has some good utility, even in this build and doing a sweeping strikes attack.

Improved cleave. I've seen the sweeping strikes/cleave combo and there will still be times where I might still want to do that with this build. I give up 27.75 attack power on battle shout for 60 more damage per target on each cleave hit for it. Since the idea is to try and have two or more mobs around all the time cleave looked appealing.

The other potential huge drawback is that sweeping strikes is a high rage cost (30) and is only 5 swings. This is not blade flurries 15 seconds. So the idea may not work at all.

I want extra attacks but I can't get sword spec unless I take points out of flurry.

Oh well it's just thoughts on a variant build that is mostly fury so I took this thread for it. :)

[mjdoom]

Do you have enough AVs open on your server to grind faction there? Glacial Blade, Don Julio's band, and Lobotomizer are all excellent Fury warrior options that don't require spending one's DKPs. [edit: linky]

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AV is a dicey proposition at best on SR :(

I don't quite understand how you fit 38 points into fury without 2 points in improved beserker rage. You really don't want an extra on-demand source of 10 free rage every 30 seconds? Better deal per talent point than unbridled wrath, IMO.
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I have considered getting this; I've found that I do spend a bit more time in 'zerk stance than I anticipated. I've also considered taking points out of Imp Cleave since most times I am not tanking I am doing single target damage and if I'm cleaving I have a better chance of taking aggro I don't want anyway. I don't have sweeping strikes so killing mobs 1v2 when grinding is not as attractive anyway so Imp Cleave might not be worth it...

- mjdoom

[Boutros]

Frostwolf Legionaire's cloak is what I use for DPS, it's pretty nice. Only required Honored faction.

[Artega]

I'd strongly suggest using a two-handed weapon for use with Cleave+SS, since you'll be getting free attacks through Sweeping Strikes.

Maybe use StanceSets or a similar mod to dual to build up the necessary rage, then swap out a two-hander to spend it :)

[Olon97]

I have considered getting this; I've found that I do spend a bit more time in 'zerk stance than I anticipated.  I've also considered taking points out of Imp Cleave since most times I am not tanking I am doing single target damage and if I'm cleaving I have a better chance of taking aggro I don't want anyway.  I don't have sweeping strikes so killing mobs 1v2 when grinding is not as attractive anyway so Imp Cleave might not be worth it...

I was underwhelmed by the results when I crunched #s on improved cleave. I just don't use the skill often enough.

As for Imp. Beserker rage, who said anything about having to stay in beserker stance? Empty rage bar pre-pull with no room to charge? Switch to zerker stance, hit zerker rage for 10 rage, switch to prot stance, pull. It's basically a second bloodrage (20 bonus rage per minute) with the health cost only coming when you're taking damage - which often isn't the case when you find yourself wanting more rage. One use that comes to mind is 3 improved executes instead of 2 against high HP MC mobs (initial rage dump, bloodrage, imp. zerker rage) - just watch pulling aggro with that kind of burst damage.

[Kevin]

I'd strongly suggest using a two-handed weapon for use with Cleave+SS, since you'll be getting free attacks through Sweeping Strikes.

Maybe use StanceSets or a similar mod to dual to build up the necessary rage, then swap out a two-hander to spend it :)
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Yar that was the plan. I guess I didn't mention that. :) I've got WeaponSwap by CapnBry and use it for weapon changes all the time. I only use StanceSets with my solo rogue. Everything else I need more control over what weapons are equiped. :)

[Quark]

Frostwolf Legionaire's cloak is what I use for DPS, it's pretty nice. Only required Honored faction.
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I've been one AV short of Honored for over 2 weeks now.

[bonemage]

Yar that was the plan.  I guess I didn't mention that. :)  I've got WeaponSwap by CapnBry and use it for weapon changes all the time.  I only use StanceSets with my solo rogue.  Everything else I need more control over what weapons are equiped.  :)
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Another mod to consider here is the WeaponSwapForSkill mod. I am a dual wield Fury warrior who uses this to overpower and cleave with my slow 2hander. I used to carry a slow one hander in my main hand for overpowers, but this is much more effective, and doesn't have all the other button mashes for manually changing gear. It won't replace WeaponSwap (I also use this for other gear changes) but it gives additional options and added power. The syntax is also VERY similar to WeaponSwap.