Friday's Super Quick Guide to Arms

To get back in the spirit of things, here's a summery of what you need to Arms Warrior the easy way.  This should suffice for the more casual or beginner Arms Warrior.

Arms is all about using a great big sharp pointy to poke lots of bad guys really hard and all at once. Yah, it's really, really fun. For true.

Leveling

• Gear with Srength and Stamina. Hit and Crit if you should stumble across it. If you have the means, heirloom gear rocks.  Get 'em.
• Stick with the basic 57/14 Arms build as you level.
• You can tank as Arms below 60 without much difficulty. 
• Use Dungeon Finder and Battlegrounds as much as you can stand. Both will keep you sexy all the way to 80. 
• Rep: Sons of Hodir, Knights of the Ebon Blade and do Argent Tournament as much as you can stand.
• Random heroics until you're blue in the face and wearing the purdy armor.

The Stats

• Hit Rating? 264 at Level 80.
• Strength? Your main stat after you Hit Cap. All the Crit in the world won't do any good if you hit like a wet noodle.
• Crit? As much as possible.  Poleaxe spec helps.  You'll be getting this from gear.
• Armor Penetration? Is good if you're swords, but (and this is just me), I wouldn't give up Strength, Hit, Crit or Expertise for it.
• Expertise? I wouldn't go out of my way. Gear up using a site like MaxDPS or GearWishList and it'll just magically be there.
• Profession? Whatever you like. Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Engineering and Jewelcrafting are Warrior favs.

What to Wear

• Sword or Poleaxe Specialization?  Whichever you like.  Use whatever is best and available. So, if that yummy sword drops and you're spec'd to Poleaxe, then roll your butt off on it and respec.
• Gems? Hit until cap, then replace as soon as possible with Strength.  If your gears Hit cap you, pretty red Strength rocks only, please.  
• Enchants? Berserking on your pokey stick. Arcanum of Torment on your noggin. Greater Inscription of the Axe on your shoulders.  Major Agility on your rug.  Powerful Stats on your bewbs.  Greater Assault on your wrists and feets. Crusher on your hands. Thigh-high Icescale Leg Armor on your gams. Eternal Belt Buckle on your belt.
• Glyphs? Majors: Mortal Strike, Execution, Rending. Minors: Battle, Bloodrage, Charge.

Fighting

• DSIS = Don't Stand In Shit.  If it's on the ground and hurty, get out of it.
• Ass first. You should only hit things from behind the mob.  If you see crotch, you're doing it wrong. Stand on the pet if it helps you get oriented.
• Beware the ass pull. If you move behind the mob, watch out for ones that are close by. Your big butt will probably pull them over.
• Proper Rotation?  There isn't one. Arms Warriors have priorities instead of a rotation.  Your priorities will change slightly depending on what kind of fight it is.
• For trash, pop Sweeping Strikes as often as possible. Bladestorm whenever it's safe to do so. Preferably both at the same time.
• In order of priority it's:  Rend, Mortal Strike, Execute, Overpower, then Slam.  
• Reapply Rend ASAP after it falls off, but not before.
• Stance? Battle. By the time you need the other two, you'll be way beyond this guide.

That's it. Fighting as an Arms Warrior takes some practice. There's lots of options. But that's kinda what makes it so fun. That and whirling around killing bunches of stuff with Bladestorm.  Yah, that.

Now off with you! Go forth and Bladestorm mightily!

-Fri

BAK Happy Blog Day to Me!

Really? Since august? /epicblogfail

Two years ago today Our Girl Friday started. Wow! I don't think I've ever done ANYHTING except play WoW for more than two years! Okay, it's not a consistent two years, but still...

What happen to bring me back was that lately I've been playing on the rogue, Friday's sister, Rowen.  Rowen has been a bank alt for a long, long time and it's her turn.  Fair is fair.

Oh, that and playing a combat rogue is so much fun it's freaky!  Yes, playing the Shaman is so much fun it's freaky too. It's a lot of freaky fun going on here.

Anyhow, we're just about officially between xpacs, and the lure of the alt starts calling again. Fri's skills are all leveled, she's got absolutely gorgeous hot armor again (finally... WotK will be forever known as the xpac of the BORING leveling armor... almost miss the clown suits of BC... not quite, but almost), she's all quested out, and if she has to PuG more than one heroic a day anymore she might puke.  She's still got a few more pieces of gearisms to grab, of course, and there's a few reps to grind, but mostly (unless she starts raiding regularly) she's coasting.

So Rowen's there and I start rogue'in it a bit, and turns out rogues aren't as bad as I thought.  They're wicked fun in dungeons and PvP, and with the Dungeon Finder, gearing and leveling isn't the quest grind it use to be.  In fact, she did ten level entirely in dungeons. Ha!

While I'll probably still be mean to people who play rogues... now I won't be as mean. :P

Anyhoo, we're random PuGing in SFK and someone in the group whispers "I love your blog."  And I'm thinking, "Oh yah, I have a blog. Ooops."  Which was kinda cool cause it's the first time in 2 years anyone's ever said anything in game about the blog. Ha!

Then like, the next day, someone whispers me on Fenris (again while I was playing on Rowen) and asks for some Arms Warrior advice and mentions the blog again. Granted, I'm probably not the best person to ask, but still it's kinda cool.  And there is a horrible lack of Arms Warrior stuff on the web (though, what is there is fabulous).

So, it's the blog's birthday and I figured it would be a good time to start posting again.  Nice to see ya and if you see a silly rogue named Rowen that needs to LTP in the lowbie randoms, give a wave. :)

-Fri