World of Warcraft

June 10th, 2021

A warrior clad in blue armor brandishes a large sword equal to himself in height. He stands at the ready, poised for combat at any moment. The background is medieval gothic with tombstones, candles, red bushes, and flying buttresses throughout.

Venthyr Arms Warrior DPS Guide – Shadowlands 9.0.5

Venthyr Arms warrior is my favorite spec at the moment, while not as strong in all scenarios as other specs, it really shines in single-target and two-target cleave fights, swiftly climbing the DPS meters and giving other players a run for their money.

About me:
My name is Hrothmar, a top 250 Heroic Castle Nathria Arms Warrior and raid leader for The Loch Mess guild on Emerald Dream. My goal is to make you feel more confident and comfortable playing Arms warrior.

In this guide we’ll go over how Venthyr Arms warriors work, how their abilities interplay with one another, and how to perform better. This guide is specifically scoped to the Venthyr covenant, so if you’re playing a different covenant some of the information within this guide may differ, and I would defer you check out community guides such as Wowhead, IcyVeins, or the warrior discord for more information. For the sake of brevity, I’ve split this guide into multiple parts covering the major areas which make up Arms warriors:

Specialization Overview

Arms warrior has been historically known for one thing: “big executes”. Execute is the bread-and-butter of the spec, and this expansion is no different. Venthyr Arms warriors will have roughly 50% (or more) of their damage coming directly from their covenant ability, Condemn, which replaces Execute. Condemn works exactly like Execute, dealing high damage at the end of a boss’s health bar, but the primary difference is that Condemn can also be used at the start of a boss’s health bar, giving us two major DPS windows instead of just one.

Arms Warrior Playstyle

Arms is one of slowest and least-frantic specs to play, with a focus on making the correct choice at the right time, instead of how fast you can click your buttons. Arms is a Builder/Spender style spec, meaning some abilities will generate our main resource, Rage, while other, more powerful abilities will spend that Rage.

Arms has a a core kit of three main spells: Mortal Strike, Overpower, and Execute. Mortal Strike spends our Rage resource in order to deal moderate damage and apply a damage-over-time bleed called “Deep Wounds” which amplifies all damage we do to the target as long as it is active– meaning we want to maintain on the target at all times. Overpower is a free ability which we’ll want to use as often as possible since spending Rage has a chance to instantly reset Overpower’s cooldown thanks to our passive, Seasoned Soldier. Execute is a high-damage ability only usable on low-health targets and the source of a significant amount of our damage despite only being usable for a small amount of time.

Juggernauts on the battlefield, Warrior has generous utility under its belt. It has has access to a fair amount of mobility through Heroic Leap, Charge, and Intervene, all of which also grant us immunity to falling damage if used correctly. Warriors can also mitigate or entirely ignore a fair number of mechanics thanks to Spell Reflect, allowing us to maintain damage while standing in otherwise deadly situations. They also provide group-wide utility through our abilities Battle Shout, increasing attack power of all allies by 5% for an hour, as well as having a great defensive cooldown named Rallying Cry, which grants 15% temporary and maximum health for 10 seconds– making it capable of saving a raid from incoming damage. A more in-depth look at utility for the warrior class can be found over on the Advanced Warrior Tips & Tricks guide.

Rage Management

Managing your Rage will determine how much damage you’ll be able to do during a fight. We’ll want to prioritize our Rage generation, spend it accordingly, and ensure we don’t create any excess Rage. If our Rage meter is full (also called “rage capped”), we’ll want to spend our Rage in order to make room to generate more. You never want to generate Rage if you’re at maximum, since any additional Rage overflow is lost. Rage loss means lost damage, and lost damage makes a sad warrior.

Getting Started:

Next, head over to the DPS abilities and cooldowns guide to learn more about how the core Arms toolkit and how its damage comes together.

Additional Guides