#0 - Aug. 1, 2010, 1:41 p.m.
I shall split this guide into several sections pertaining to important aspects of Fury gameplay. They are as follows:
1. The Fury Spec And Glyphs
2. Important Fury Abilities
3. Fury Gear And Itemization
4. The Fury DPS Priority
I have listed these topics in the order I feel they are naturally encountered.
In order to be a Fury warrior, you must put the majority of your points into the fury tree. The spec is the skeleton of the play style, without a proper spec your foundation will be weak and ultimately your performance will suffer.
The abilities you use as a fury warrior are the next step in building towards peak performance. An understanding of how each ability operates and how they interact is paramount.
The third level is gear and itemization. If you don't know how to properly itemize or what gear to obtain you will struggle to perform at optimal levels.
And finally the actual gameplay, what buttons to press and when. If you've laid the proper foundation you will find all that remains is internalizing the priority rotation through practice.
So let us begin our magical journey of violence and bloodshed!
SECTION 1: THE FURY SPEC
I will mention at this point that this is an endgame, level 80 guide. I understand a lot of newer players might be reading this guide and wondering to themselves "how does this affect my level 28 warrior?" to which I must reply that many talents which are useful at lower levels become less so at higher ones. You could easily use the specs presented here, adding points as you level into the cookie cutter builds, however I'd suggest that you experiment with seldom used talents and see how they operate at lower levels.
I shall now describe the pertinent talents in both the fury and arms trees (I won't discuss prot talents as they are sub-optimal for fury builds.) and why they are important, or unimportant.
THE FURY TREE
The tree from whence we take our namesake. A merciless, raging talent spec of mindless slaughter and unquenchable blood thirst. Without these talents we would be nothing (or possibly Arms warriors.)
Armored to The Teeth: This is a pretty straightforward talent that is great for almost all warrior specs. It turns a purely defensive stat (armor rating) into an offensive stat (attack power). With a full 3 points you receive 3 attack power for each 108 armor rating you possess. Attack power lets you hit harder, so take all 3 points!
Booming Voice: This is a decent utility and filler talent that increases the range and duration of your shouts. It won't increase your dps but when combined with the pertinent glyphs it can give your shouts a 6 minute duration, which is very handy in 5 and 10 man situations, and even in 25 mans where you need to buff commanding shout or are short on paladins.
Cruelty: A straight crit rating increase talent. Mandatory for all fury builds.
Improved Demoralizing Shout: This increases the efficacy of your demoralizing shout. Not terribly useful for pve dps. I wouldn't recommend taking this talent unless your guild master tells you to.
Unbridled Wrath: this talent Gives you an opportunity to receive one additional point of rage every time you deal damage with a melee weapon. 1 whole rage! This should be the last time you even think about taking this talent, the chance for it to take effect and the effect itself are completely lackluster and it is not worth taking for an endgame fury build.
Improved Cleave: This talent makes your cleave hit harder. It's a great talent to increase your multi-target damage, and when used in conjunction with glyph of cleave can produce astounding numbers, however generally speaking your focus in endgame content won't be maximizing your multi-target damage, but maximizing your single target damage on boss encounters. As I will explain later, many people choose to forego this talent in favor of increased mobility talents.
Piercing Howl: This talent gives you an aoe slow ability. Not terribly useful for pve dps, should be passed over in favor of more useful talents.
Blood Craze: this is a pvp oriented ability that won't do much for you. It allows you to regenerate a small amount of health every time you are the victim of a critical strike. As a pve fury warrior you shouldn’t be worried about self healing.
Commanding Presence: This is a decent talent that improves the effect of your buffing shouts. Not mandatory since in most raid situations you'll have someone else to put up an analogous buff, but can be useful depending on your usual raid setup.
Dual Wield Specialization: This talent increases the damage of your offhand weapon attacks. A must have, fury is at its heart a dual wielding talent tree and this helps you get the most out of your offhand.
Improved Execute: This reduces the rage cost of execute. As a fury warrior you won't be using execute a lot. I would recommend skipping this talent in favor of more useful ones.
Enrage: This ability gives you a 30% chance upon getting hit to increase your damage. You shouldn't be getting hit as a pve fury warrior and so, you shouldn't be taking this talent.
Precision: this talent increases your chance to hit by 1% for each point you put into it, up to 3%. Another must have talent that lowers your hit soft cap (which I will discuss in the itemization section) and allows you to gear for other dps increasing stats. Always take the full 3 points, even if you are over hit cap since it increases your dps more than any alternative.
Death Wish: This talent gives you a powerful cool down that increases your damage by 20% for 30 seconds every 3 minutes. (The cool down can be decreased to 2 minutes with further talents) at the cost of taking 5% more damage for the duration. The increase in damage taken isn't much of an issue in pve, and the 20% increase in damage is positively beastly.
Improved Intercept: This talent decreases the cool down on your intercept ability by up to 10 seconds. A great mobility talent that can allow you to stay on target during heavy movement fights. A lot of endgame fury warriors take this talent for just that reason.
Improved Berserker Rage: This talent makes your berserker rage ability instantly generate 10 rage per talent point you put into it, up to 20. At first glance this might seem like an obvious choice, but you have to take into account that berserker rage uses up a global cool down. For lower gear levels you might find this useful, but for the most part don't take this talent as it really doesn't fit in to your rotation.
Flurry: This talent increases your attack speed on your next 3 attacks by 5% for each point placed into it (up to 5) every time you get a critical hit. This is another must have talent that helps to convert crit rating into attack speed, increasing the benefit of an all ready great stat.
Intensify Rage: This ability decreases the cool down on several abilities. Blood rage, berserker rage, recklessness and death wish. Death wish is what you're most concerned with, and taking a minute off the cool down is well worth the talent point alone. Another must have talent.
Bloodthirst: Bloodthirst gives you a new instant attack with a small cool down that does a modest amount of self healing, this is one of the lynchpins of your endgame dps rotation and must be taken.
Improved Whirlwind: this talent increases the damage of your whirlwind ability. Again, whirlwind is another staple of your dps rotation and so you must purchase all points in this talent.
Furious Attacks: Furious attacks give your melee attacks a chance to decrease the effectiveness of healing on your target by 25%, stacking twice to a maximum of 50%. This is a mainly pvp talent that has little to no use and pve and so should be skipped.
Improved Berserker Stance: This talent increases our strength and decreases our threat in berserker stance. You will be doing almost all of your dps in berserker stance so this is another must have.
Heroic Fury: This is a great mobility talent that removes immobilization effects and immediately refreshes the cool down on your intercept ability. This helps you stay on target in heavy movement fights, many endgame fury warriors take this talent.
Rampage: Rampage gives you and everyone in your raid/party 5% more physical crit. You're going to want to take this talent.
Bloodsuge: This talent forms another part of your necessary pve rotation, it will sometimes make your slam ability instant after using heroic strike, whirlwind or blood thirst. A must have ability.
Unending Fury: This is a straight damage increase to your main attacks, whirlwind, blood thirst and slam. You need all 5 points of this.
Titan's Grip: And here we have our 51 points talent. This has been the hallmark of fury warriors since it was first introduced at the very end of The Burning Crusade. This wondrous ability allows us to wield not 1, but 2 gigantic 2-handed weapons! No other class can accomplish this and our spec is balanced around it. Such mighty power is offset by a 10% across the board decrease in damage while dual wielding 2-handers, but trust me you won't miss it. If it wasn't apparent, you really need this talent!
