WoW Midnight's Season 2 has been live for almost a week, and many players have noticed that Arms Warrior remains a strong contender.
This class not only accumulates Rage through auto-attacks in combat and then unleashes it on high-damage abilities, dealing massive damage during specific damage-boosting windows, but it can also engage in dual-target combat, making it very popular in the new raid, The Venomous Abyss.
If you'd like to try this powerful class but are unsure how to play it well in Season 2, you can refer to this guide.
Core Mechanics
In WoW Midnight's Season 2, Arms Warrior's core mechanics consist of three parts: Rage, Colossus Smash, and Sweeping Strikes.
Rage
Almost all of Arms Warrior's powerful abilities consume Rage, which is primarily obtained in two ways:
First, auto-attacks. Players gain Rage with each auto-attack hit - this is the primary source of Rage.
Therefore, maintaining close proximity to the target in combat is the first principle that Arms Warriors must adhere to - failing to hit the enemy means being unable to unleash powerful abilities.
Secondly, certain Talents or abilities also provide a small amount of Rage.
Colossus Smash
If Rage is the fuel for Arms Warriors to unleash their abilities, then Colossus Smash is the core skill for this class's burst rotation.
After using this skill, your damage dealt to enemies will be increased by 30% for several seconds. This means that you need to unleash all your high-damage abilities and burst ultimates during the duration of Colossus Smash to maximize damage.
Sweeping Strikes
The secret to Arms Warriors' ability to engage in dual-target combat is Sweeping Strikes. When this skill is activated, Arms Warrior's next 12 single-target abilities will simultaneously deal 75% damage to a second enemy within a certain range.
If you use Talent Powerful Momentum, you can increase this duplicate damage to 95%.
Furthermore, in WoW Midnight Season 2, due to changes to Talent Broad Strokes, players will instantly gain 6 charges of Sweeping Strikes after using Colossus Smash, and this stacks with actively used Sweeping Strikes.
This means that players can almost maintain Sweeping Strikes for the entire duration of a two-target fight.
Hero Talent Selection
Arms Warriors have two Hero Talent paths to choose from - Slayer and Colossus.
In WoW Midnight Season 2, Slayer is a better choice for Arms Warriors in both Raids and Mythic+. This path allows you to utilize three powerful Passive Talents: Slayer's Dominance, Sudden Death, and Imminent Demise.
Slayer's Dominance grants the target a Marked for Execution effect when an auto-attack triggers Slayer's Strike. This significantly increases the damage dealt to that target by using Execute.
Sudden Death allows players to ignore enemy health and use Execute during auto-attacks.
Imminent Demise enhances the next Bladestorm attack after a Sudden Death-triggered Execute, increasing its hit count.
In short, this build offers a high Execute trigger frequency and smooth controls, ensuring players have skills available almost throughout the entire attack sequence.
Equipment Selection
Jade Warrior's Dominion four-piece set is recommended. When players collect all four pieces, they gain a special effect: Overpower damage increased by 15%, and Mortal Strike and Overpower increase the damage of the next Slam by 20%, stacking up to 5 times.
Regarding weapons and trinkets, if players are capable of conquering the new raid The Venomous Abyss in WoW Midnight Season 2, they can choose the weapons and trinkets dropped by boss The Coiled Altar.
However, if players are not yet strong enough to conquer the raid, they can exchange Gold for similar equipment in Auction House. Nevertheless, the equipment dropped by this boss remains the preferred choice.
DPS Rotation
Arms Warrior's DPS rotation varies depending on the number of targets, specifically divided into single-target, dual-target, and multi-target scenarios.
Single-Target Rotation
The single-target rotation is primarily used when attacking bosses.
At the start of the attack, players should use Rend to apply a bleed debuff to the target. This debuff also increases your critical strike chance against the target by 5%. Remember to refresh it promptly.
Next, during burst phases, players should prioritize using the skills Execute, Bladestorm, Heroic Strike, Mortal Strike, and Overpower. When these skills are on cooldown, Slam can be used as a supplement.
When the target boss's health drops below 35%, it enters the execute range, and Execute becomes the player's absolute core skill.
Note that in WoW Midnight Season 2, Mortal Strike automatically applies Rend to targets below 35% health, so you don't need to manually refresh Rend.
Dual-Target Rotation
If there are two enemies in the fight, your strategy is to keep Sweeping Strikes active and then execute the single-target rotation described above.
Since Broad Strokes allows Colossus Smash to automatically provide Sweeping stacks, your Sweeping Strikes uptime will be very high.
Multi-Target Rotation
When facing multiple enemies, you also need to keep Sweeping Strikes active while using Cleave to apply Rend to all enemies in front of you.
During burst windows, you need to use the skills Avatar, Colossus Smash, and Bladestorm. After unleashing your burst damage, you can prioritize using Cleave (3 stacks of bonus damage), Execute (2 stacks of Sudden Death), Overpower, and Mortal Strike.
This concludes the gameplay guide for Arms Warrior class in WoW Midnight Season 2. Overall, Arms Warrior is a relatively easy but powerful class, suitable for most players. If you're interested, you can try it out using this guide.
