Tuesday, May 27, 2008

33/28/0 Mortal Strike/Slam

First off I want to say sorry for the late post. I didn't get the time before Gruuls to finish it, and afterwards Lady B. hijacked me for a couple of heroics, damn but I really really have to build up some kind of resistance to her.

Ok this is going to be a departure from my usual posts and I'm going to pretend I know something. Remember I'm only pretending so do double check everything I say.


This post will have two parts to it. The first part will be on the main points of 33/28 and how to use it. The second part will be on my variant of the build and why I differ from the cookie cutter build.


33/28/0 Cookie Cutter Build. (taken from the Elitest Jerks forum)

This build is a utility build. This means that focuses more on increasing raid dps than on personal dps.



The key Points of this build are as follows.

Deep Wounds : This talent is what allows you to keep Blood Frenzy up without wasting rage on Rend. It is also required before you can take Impale, a talent which no dps warrior should be without.


Blood Frenzy : This talent is what makes this build raid viable. At rank 2 this causes all physical damage to the target to be increased by 4%
. This benefits Hunters, Hunter Pets, Warriors (of all speccs), Rogues, Enhance Shaman, Protection and Retribution Paladins, and Feral Druids.

Improved Slam: Regular Slam just wont cut it. Having 2/2 Improved slam Is what allows you to put out good personal dps as well as provide utility for the raid.



Mortal Strike: Taking this gives you a second special attack to fit into your rotation, and is again part of providing meaningful personal dps
as well as raid utility.



Improved Thu
nder Clap: Remember what I said about raid utility? Well this talent allows you to act as Debuff B#### for the main tank in boss fights. It does mean that you have to switch into Battle Stance occasionally, but thems the breaks.


Improved
Demoralizing Shout: Again another item in your arsenal as Debuff B####.



Commanding Presence: This talent increase the attack power or health you give to others in your party, as well as increasing your own attack power. It's a win win talent :)




Using 33/28:

This build has a very specific damage rotation which requires quite a bit of practice to get right. It consists of inserting special attacks between white attacks, and then following the white attack w
ith a slam. Your attack rotation should look something like this.

White Attack -- Mortal Strike -- White attack -- Slam -- Whirlwind -- White Attack -- Slam -- Mortal Strike -- White Attack

Using this rotation you can make 3 attacks with a two handed weapon in just over 4 seconds, depending on lag.


The reason you use Slam right after the white attack is because Slam resets the auto attack timer. This means that if you have a 3.6 speed weapon and you hit slam 3 seconds into the timer, after slam has finished you have to wait another 3.6 seconds before you will get an auto attack. T
his will kill your rage generation, and thus kill your dps. This is also why having Improved Slam is so important. Improved Slam means that there is only a 0.5 second delay between casting Slam and the attack timer starting again.

Tips on 33/28:

Get an attack timer. I recommend the Quartz addon (link pending). This allows you to better time your Slams since you have a visual reference for your auto attack.

Have Rend on your action bar. Now hold on a minute before you start flaming me on that one, just hear me out. You want to have Blood Frenzy up 100% of the time and there will be times when you just don't a critical strike. They don't call it a percentage chance for nothing.

If in doubt skip Slam. Messing up your Slam timing is the biggest detriment to your dps, so if you think you missed the timing just don't cast it.

Use a slow weapon. This is because your special attacks are instant cast or have a set cast time and use the weapons damage for their base damage. This means that if two weapons have the same dps, but one has a slower attack speed, the slower of the two will provide better overall damage.

That about covers it for what I fell I'm able to comment on. Now lets talk about my variant of this build.


My 33/28/0 MS/Slam Build

I feel that you should never be afraid to mess ar
ound with a cookie cutter build to better suit your own play style. This is how I've changed mine.


The main differences are 5/5 Deflection, and 5/5 Unbridled Wrath.

The 5/5 Deflection was taken over 3/3 Improved Heroic Strike, and 2/5 Deflection. This is because:

1) I have rage issues, I just don't generate enough rage on a consistent scale to warrent throwing any Heroic Strikes into my rotation.

2) I still occasionally have to tank something when I'm dps, and having the extra 3% deflection really helps there.

The 5/5 Unbridled Wrath was chosen over 5/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout. this is because:

1) Those rage issues again.

2) We usually have enough warlocks that one of them is on Curse of Weakness duty and it seams that when curse of weakness is up I can't put Demo Shout on the same mob. This is one of those things I'd go double check if I were you.


Well that about wraps it up for me pretending I know what the hell I'm talking about. Back to my usual fare for the next post.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

8 comments:

the vase said...

Awesome post!
I just found your blog since BRK linked it on his page, and I have found it quite interesting. Couple things I wanted to add to your post.
I have a Warrior in my guild who never was allowed to do anything because most of my server is still locked in the "You have to be Prot or Fury to do dps!" (btw we have the largest xxLegolasxx pop. on Dath'Remar) I told her I would be more than happy to have her raid arms.

First off Imp Demo shout is better than curse of weakness. It goes something like this
Imp Demo shout
Imp curse of weakness
demo shout
curse of weakness
full improved demo shout reduces attack power to the point where the warlocks can throw a curse of Recklessness reducing boss armor by 800 with no ill affects.

However I have seen much research on the fact that if your weapon is slower than 3.5 speed, 3 points in Unbridaled wrath is enough to ensure 1 rage on every swing. So going 2 imp demo and 3 unbridaled will still help out the raid and help with your rage generation.

Looking forward to more posts!

Stuntyone said...

Hey thanks thats a great commentary :)

I will make the necessary adjustments to my build before the raid tonight.

You see this is why I titled my blog "Incompetent Warrior" and not "Do as I say Warrior" :)

Stuntyone said...

Oh quick question.

Does the 3/5 Unbridled Wrath take into account the haste effect from 3/5 flurry proccing?

Anonymous said...

Any chance on doing an analysis of one or two other cookie-cutterspecs and what the are best used for please?
Or a general examination of the differences between an Arms-based, and Fury-based warrior?
I have a lvl70, and am thinking of rolling a warrior any day now, and wondered what the all the jargon means...
Maybe even a cursory examination of some of the other talents and how they combine?
(I plan on going Prot eventually, but would like to level as fast as possible too.)
I know it probably means a bunch of work for you, but i liked your talent analysis, I thought maybe a 101 version, or at least 102, would be useful for people like me who want to, at the very least level as a dps warrior of a certain kind. Even if we dont get to raid eventually as one.
Thx

Stuntyone said...

Damn but that IS a lot of work.

However I did kind of enjoy pretending I knew what the hell I ws talking about, so I guess I could give it a shot.

Anonymous said...

@vanguard

the general rule of thumb is: if you have a full melee group, and a few hunter, and only one DPS warrior, that DPS warrior should be BF spec. The 4% bonus is just too good to pass up on.

I run more or less the cookie cutter spec, with imp. intercept instead of imp. disciplines to allow me to get back on the boss after running away from the fire/death and decay/Whirlwind or any of the many things Blizz put in on T5-6 content to show their hatred of melee.

I have imp demo shout, but we never have a lock to put up CoR, so i've been thinking of going to UW... how is it working for you Stunt?

Stuntyone said...

Well it turns out that fully raid buffed and in a proper melee group I have no rage issues what so ever.

So good by 5/5 UW and hello 5/5 Imp demo shout :)

Sara said...

If you're having rage issues, do what my dps warrior does. Befriend a healer and go jump in enough AoE damage to give you rage, but not enough to kill you. Then continue to befriend the healer (chocolates and compliments works well.)