How To Prepare Your Fury Warrior For Cataclysm

My first class on WoW was a Warrior, and when I leveled high enough to obtain the Fury Spec, I loved it and have stuck to my guns keeping it as my main Spec and Class on my main character. There's just something about jumping into the fray wielding two two handed hulking weapons with the ability to chew through your enemies at the speed of a blender :D

With Cataclysm around the corner and the release of Blizzard's biggest patch since, well Wrath of the Lich King, everyone is scrambling to come to grips with a lot of new changes to their respective Classes. Some classes and specs have changed very little, others have changed quite a bit, Fury being one of them.

Fury Spec for Warrior has changed quite a bit. A big one being Whirlwind can now hit infinite targets within a 8 yard radius but only at half the damage.The down side being that it hits for -50% of the weapon's normal or white damage.

The Rage mechanic or Rage Generation has also changed. It is now based on hit (goodbye Armour Penetration it was fun), how successful your swings are (that you hit your target) that will determine the rage you generate (since it has been 'normalized', that is Blood Thirst etc. will generate a set amount of rage). To make sure you never miss you would need a 27% hit to never miss (with your offhand) a level 83. Since Cataclysm has not been released it would be a waste of possible damage to reach the 27% hit cap at this point in time.

Why? Say you only had 20% hit, your offhand would have a 5% chance of missing on a level 80 which is a 1/20 chance of missing, not a huge loss considering the damage increase you would gain if you focused on strength. That is to say your hits, although not landing 100% of the time, would generate more damage then you would lose when missing with your offhand when focusing on Strength and Mastery. That said, when not landing every swing, you risk a loss of rage generation and thus have to be careful about rotation timings. While you have to be increasingly more careful for each % of hit that is below 27%, the damage gained over a possible miss is definitely worth the trade off.

With the new single target talent Raging Blow and reduced Whirlwind damage tossed into the fray, it would seem Blizzard wants to separate Fury's single target and AOE mechanics. At first it seems clunky and more of a whack-a-mole DPS style of an Arms Warrior or Death Knight's runic power cds. And truth be told it is. It doesn't feel as fast paced or furious as it once did, and toss in 'rage normalization' it leaves little room for varied rotations. What to do?

After a few days of moaning and complaining I finally started to get the hang of it. Not hitting WW was probably the hardest thing to get used to lol. Unless you have 3+ mobs/targets, it's not worth the rage you'd lose for the damage you'd put out. BUT jump(intercept) into the fray and quickly hit cleave then WW and BAM! (assuming you have the rage) you hit like a truck before you can say Bloodthirst.

The biggest change to the rotation is definitely Raging Blow hands down. When timed right with Blood Thirst and Heroic Strike, these three will mow down any single target MUCH faster then with the previous patch. Say hello to single target :)

Update: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond's meta requirements have now changed to 'more blue then red' gems in order for the meta to activate. Very lame... The replacement for now is the Thundering Skyflare Diamond meta gem which has a chance of increasing your haste by 480 (14.6%) for 6 seconds.

As for changes to the Talent tree a lot of them have been revised, renamed and combined, with a few new ones such as Raging Blow and Single Minded Fury (Titan's Grip version for those who like two one handed weapons). But for the most part it is pretty much self explanatory (see pic). Unfortunately DoTs are not really available until perhaps 85 seeing how ideal talent trees might pan out. For now, what ya hit is what ya get :)

There are now 3 extra glyph slots (yay!) and once you buy a glyph, you never have to again! With that as the case Glyph prices have gone through the roof :P. As with the Talent Tree, the Glyphs are pretty self explanatory and familiar(see pic).There are 3 types of Glyphs; Prime, Major and Minor.

The ones you want for now are:

Prime: Glyphs of Slam, Raging Blow and Bloodthirst.

Major: Glyphs of Cleaving, Heroic Throw and Intercept

Minor: Glyphs of Battle, Beserker Rage and Enduring Victory

With the patch Blizzard has introduced or rather incorporated some popular add ons such as Power Auras, but their version of it and have done a good job in the process. For instance, when you become enraged (therefore being able to use Raging Blow) or an instant slam procs the talent box will become highlighted letting you know that it is up and ready to use.

For now I'm using a minimal setup, no macros just keybinds as there is not much point with the way things are right now and with the expansion just around the corner. I previously mentioned that Fury does not have a DoT atm, may I also mention that changing stance into Battle Stance (to rend etc.) is not worth the time as you will actually drop in DPS and damage done.

As for Addons I'm using Xperl, Omen Threat Meter, Prat (chat mod) and Recount as they suite my needs and seem pretty stable at the moment.

While this is not an exhaustive overview I hope it has helped to lay a firm foundation for your Fury Warrior into the next expansion, ready for anything! :)

Into The Fray!

Edit: I have corrected the photos so that they will now increase in size when clicked :)