PLAYING OFFENSIVE

I’ve been playing the warrior class since day one and throughout all the changes there is one thing that has never changed and probably will never change, and that is the main role of a warrior. While healers are responsible for keeping their team alive, and many other DPS classes bring damage and control to their team, warriors as a class really don’t have the tools necessary to control the other team in the form of crowd control or their utility (to the extent that other classes do), so as a warrior we must instead rely upon our pressure to force the other team to play how we want them to play. With the nerfing of [Mortal Strike] from 50% to 10% the ability of a warrior to balance his offensive and defensive play has never been more important, no longer can you be useful while turtling up with a shield on half the game keeping up MS while your team mates turret damage into the other team.

EFFECTIVE BURSTING.

With the introduction of [Colossus Smash] and [Heroic Strike] as an instant attack the burst capability of a warrior has never been higher and with the drastic reduction in crit chance from wotlk to cata, abilities such as charge (via [Juggernaut]) and [Recklessness] have become enormously important in doing as much damage as possible.

Bursting During Colossus Smash

Following a colossus smash, you should be aiming to immediately get a mortal strike, heroic strike, and an [Overpower] off every time. Basically you should be trying to get as much damage in as possible during the 6seconds of 0 armor that your target will have. There are little things you can do to help make your CS bursts more effective. One thing you can potentially be doing depending on your charge usage is to be using your charge to get the 25% increased chance to crit from juggernaut for your next mortal strike, critting has never been more important than it is now. Also pay attention to your [Lambs to the Slaughter] buff, you want the 30% increased damage Mortal Strike or overpower to land during a Colossus Smash. Another thing you should be doing is paying attention to your [Taste for Blood] procs. Taste for Blood will allow your rend to periodically proc the option to use overpower. The initial application of rend will also immediately proc overpower as well which can be important if your rend falls off or you if you need an overpower on demand for a switch.

Generally speaking this is what I would do following a Colossus Smash: Mortal Strike -> Heroic Strike -> Overpower -> Heroic Strike and either a second Mortal Strike or Overpower. Since Heroic Strike isn’t on the GCD you should be getting 2 Heroic Strikes off every time (rage permitting) and at least 2 Mortal Strikes or Overpowers since Overpower and Mortal Strike share GCD.

RECKLESSNESS AND DEADLY CALM USAGE.

Following the general rule of thumb that our damage is mostly balanced around colossus smash, the most effective use of recklessness would be to get 3 critical specials following a colossus smash during a time in which you are not taking a lot of pressure as recklessness also increases the damage you take by 20%. Recklessness is a buff that will increase the critical strike of your next 3 special attacks by 100%. As it is only 3 charges, it is extremely important that you don’t waste charges on special attacks like Colossus Smash and Overpower. Mortal Strike and Heroic Strike is what should be consuming your Recklessness Stacks. The reason you don’t want to CS or Overpower to eat a recklessness charge is because CS hits rather weak, the benefit of using CS is the 6second window of zero armor, not the damage that the ability itself does, and the reason you generally don’t want overpower eating Reck charges is that Overpower already has a really high chance to crit via the Taste for Blood Talent (60% + Passive Crit.)  There are times that overpowering a during a reck is acceptable though, if it comes down to getting all your instants off during a CS or getting 3 reck charges used on Heroic Strike or MS, always choose to get your full rotation off.

[Deadly Calm], you should try and use deadly calm in situations where your rage will not permit you to get a full CS, MS, OP, Heroic Strike rotation off. Used in conjunction with Reck this is really where a lot of our burst windows originate from.

In terms of long cooldowns, for overall burst Recklessness is by far the most powerful ability warriors have, followed by Deadly Calm which allows 10seconds of full rotations.

MANAGING RAGE.

Warriors have a few tools to help them manage their rage, in addition to deadly calm, warriors have their shouts ([Battle Shout], [Commanding Shout]) which are either 30sec, 45, sec or 60second cooldowns based on the talent [Booming Voice]. [Berserker Rage] which when glyphed with [Glyph of Berserker Rage] and not needed to break CCs can be used for a little bit of on demand rage as well as extra rage generated from damage taken, and charge which when not needed to close a gap or stay on a target can be used to generate extra rage, stun the target, and give you the juggernaut 25% increased crit buff on the next mortal strike. [Drums of War] is also an extremely nice talent for saving rage along with the ability to spam demo shout or PH to get players out of stealth.