Warrior Talent Ratings

Rather than contributing a talent "build", I thought I would have us break down and evaluate the Warrior talents individually.

Each Talent has a Utility ranking (how good it is, on a 1-10 scale, ignoring pre-requisites), a Cost ranking (1 being too many poor utility pre-requisites, 10 meaning it's worth the point investment to get it nomatter what), and an Overall ranking (subjective combination of the two factors).

On some of these talents I am not speaking from direct experience, so please feel free to adjust any ratings/descriptions you feel are off. If enough people tweak the ranks, I will go through the history and edit the rank to reflect an average of current patch rankings (feel free to adjust the average yourself if you want to crunch the numbers).

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ARMS

Improved Heroic Strike / Deflection / Improved Rend

Improved Heroic Strike - 3 points

1. Reduces the cost of your Heroic Strike ability by 1 rage point.
2. Reduces the cost of your Heroic Strike ability by 2 rage points.
3. Reduces the cost of your Heroic Strike ability by 3 rage points.

Without this talent, the Heroic Strike skill is one of the least rage efficient skills a warrior can use (15 rage for 124 damage at rank 8 - or 8.26 DPR). Full investment in this talent improves the efficiency to 10 DPR, which still leaves HS near the bottom of the list in terms of efficient use of rage for damage. (see Warrior Rage Efficiency)
Additionally, no rage is generated when doing a HS attack, nor on the subsequent regular attack. For a slow 2H weapon user, this is a devastating blow to overall rage generation. A fast 1H weapon user (or dual wielder) may find the skill and talent more attractive, but in my opinion the talent is not a good value.

Utility Rank: 2/10 (1 person rating)
Steaming Pile of... Well if you use it early and get rid of it on a respec it's OK
Cost Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
5 points that could be better spent elsewhere, but luckily only 5
Overall Rank: 3/10 (1 person rating)
People may giggle if you admit you have it, but they won't throw you out of the group...

Deflection - 5 points

1. Increases your Parry chance by 1%.
2. Increases your Parry chance by 2%.
3. Increases your Parry chance by 3%.
4. Increases your Parry chance by 4%.
5. Increases your Parry chance by 5%.

If you have talent points kicking around and you don't know where to spend them, buy this talent. A successful parry negates all incoming melee damage from a single source - making 1% parry improvement significantly more effective than a 1% shield block improvement. The only time this passive talent isn't really helping you is when your only attackers are using magic damage.

Utility Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
Belongs in any defensive minded "protection spec" even though it's in Arms
Cost Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
Absolutely worth the points unless your plan has no room for it.
Overall Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
Just get it already...

Improved Rend - 3 points

1. Increases the bleed damage done by your Rend ability by 15%.
2. Increases the bleed damage done by your Rend ability by 25%.
3. Increases the bleed damage done by your Rend ability by 35%.

Rend is worth using with or without this talent. With this talent, if allowed to run it's full duration (it's a DoT skill) has Damage Per Rage (DPR) nearly matching that of Mortal Strike with a top-end weapon. Even at half duration (i.e. the monster dies half way through), Rend easily outperforms Heroic Strike. Bottom line, if you're playing your warrior effectively, you will be using this skill a lot, and boosting the damage of a highly used skill doesn't hurt.

BTW, Rend stacks with other warrior's Rends, but I believe using it again while your own Rend is still in effect only resets the DoT timer for your Rend.

Utility Rank: 7/10 (1 person rating)
A nice talent, but depends on a skill use. Also a pre-requisite for an excellent passive talent.
Cost Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
When you're tight on points, you may be able to live without it. You can still use the plain skill.
Overall Rank: 7/10 (1 person rating)
Belongs in most Arms builds, but other builds can skip it.

Improved Charge / Tactical Mastery / Improved Thunder Clap

Improved Charge - 2 points

1. Increases the rage generated by your Charge ability by 3.
2. Increases the rage generated by your Charge ability by 6.

Charge is only available in one stance, and doesn't work when "in-combat" - that includes when an enemy mob has seen you and started casting a ranged spell. In other words, the skill gets used rarely enough that spending talent points to boost it's effectiveness (and the extra rage is nice) doesn't seem like a great use of talent points.

Utility Rank: 1/10 (1 person rating)
Would be much higher if Charge worked in combat, but it doesn't.
Cost Rank: 3/10 (1 person rating)
Only worth the points if you can't think of ANYWHERE else to put them, but it's only 3.
Overall Rank: 2/10 (1 person rating)
Almost anything besides this is a better way to get the 10 Arms talents for the next tier.

Tactical Mastery - 5 points

1. You retain up to 5 of your rage points when you change stances.
2. You retain up to 10 of your rage points when you change stances.
3. You retain up to 15 of your rage points when you change stances.
4. You retain up to 20 of your rage points when you change stances.
5. You retain up to 25 of your rage points when you change stances.

With recent changes that made many attacks work in multiple/all stances, this talent lost some of its utility, but it is not completely useless. Some example uses:
- You're tanking in another stance, but need to switch to Defensive to use taunt. While taunt is 0 rage, it's nice to keep some rage after the taunt for building up a little aggro surplus (hint: sunder armor).
- You're in defensive stance and want to switch to battle or beserker stance to use execute (need at least 15 rage, but more rage means more damage).
- Starting combat strong and fast. Charge in, switch to Beserk stance, Whirlwind (25 rage needed), and switch back to Battle stance.
- You're in Defensive stance, for some reason don't have Piercing Howl, so you need to switch to Battle or Beserk stance to hamstring an enemy who is a possible flight risk (10 rage needed).

Other than those examples, I can't really think of anything critical. Most times I've needed to switch stances, I've found I can quickly blow out any surplus rage before switching and didn't particularly need tactical mastery.

Utility Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
If you see something in the above list of uses that you MUST do, then you need it, otherwise you don't.
Cost Rank: 7/10 (1 person rating)
A better way to get to 10 Arms points than Charge/Thunderclap talents.
Overall Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
A good talent, but far from mandatory.

Improved Thunder Clap - 3 points

1. Increases the damage done by your Thunder Clap by 8%.
2. Increases the damage done by your Thunder Clap by 16%.
3. Increases the damage done by your Thunder Clap by 25%.

This talent has had a lot of haters for a while. Many people don't spend the gold to get higher ranks of the skill. Against 4 opponents, at maxed rank and maxed talent, the Damage per Rage is a little better than Heroic Strike (that's not saying much). I reccomend leaving Thunder Clap at rank 1 and just use it for the slow attack and aggro generation, but do what you like.

Utility Rank: 2/10 (1 person rating)
Extra damage on a weak, barely used skill... whee! Still better than the Charge talent, IMO.
Cost Rank: 3/10 (1 person rating)
Every talent point is precious. Friends don't let friends get the Thunder Clap talent.
Overall Rank: 3/10 (1 person rating)
Out of witty comments...

Improved Overpower / Anger Management / Deep Wounds

Improved Overpower - 2 points

1. Increases the critical strike chance of your Overpower ability by 25%.
2. Increases the critical strike chance of your Overpower ability by 50%.

The skill is great, I use it every time it comes up and it's way up there in the Damage per Rage rankings. On the flip side, it's exclusive to Battle stance, and it doesn't come up nearly as often as I'd like (requires the opponent to dodge first). Against a dodge happy Rogue in PvP, this skill with both talent points is nearly a guaranteed win (if they're smart, they'll run away and come back without their "extra dodging" skill going).

Utility Rank: 8/10 (1 person rating)
An opportunity to nearly double the damage on what was already a highly efficient damage dealing skill.
Cost Rank: 7/10 (1 person rating)
To get to this tier, you sometimes need to make some sacrifices, but as Arms is so popular, not penalized too much.
Overall Rank: 7/10 (1 person rating)
Get it if you plan to be in Battle Stance a lot.

Anger Management - 1 point

1. Increases the time required for your Rage to decay while out of combat by 30%.

Your fighting pace has to be in a bit of a sweet spot for this to make any difference. If you're in a group that stops to drink/chat a lot between each battle, all your rage will be gone whether or not you take this talent. If you're in a gung-ho group that mows through pulls non-stop, you'll almost never be out of combat long enough to notice the difference. Somewhere inbetween there's a happy medium where this talent is very nice. Also pretty useless if you're an execute happy warrior as you'll never have rage left over at the end of a fight.

Utility Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
It's all about pacing...
Cost Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
You have to have 5 points in Tactical Mastery to get here, but there are worse things you could do with your talent points
Overall Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
You won't know if you need this until you have a better feel for your personal play style.

Deep Wounds - 3 points

1. Your critical strikes cause the opponent to bleed, dealing 20% of your melee weapon's average damage over 12 seconds.
2. Your critical strikes cause the opponent to bleed, dealing 40% of your melee weapon's average damage over 12 seconds.
3. Your critical strikes cause the opponent to bleed, dealing 60% of your melee weapon's average damage over 12 seconds.

It's passive (always on - working with normal attacks), which is reason enough to love this talent. If you have a slow high damage weapon, it will add significant damage. If you have a fast weapon, it will proc more often (although I don't think it stacks). Advantage goes to the big slow weapons (the start of a trend).

Utility Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
Less if you have a wimpy weapon...
Cost Rank: 7/10 (1 person rating)
Docked a little for being a 10 req tier talent, but the Rend pre-requisite isn't a big detraction.
Overall Rank: 8/10 (1 person rating)
Passive talents are great!

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization / Impale

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - 5 points

1. Increases the damage you deal with two-handed weapons melee weapons by 1%.
2. Increases the damage you deal with two-handed weapons melee weapons by 2%.
3. Increases the damage you deal with two-handed weapons melee weapons by 3%.
4. Increases the damage you deal with two-handed weapons melee weapons by 4%.
5. Increases the damage you deal with two-handed weapons melee weapons by 5%.

If you want to be dishing out damage, you'll likely be using a two-handed weapon (dual wield has issues with missing too much). If you're using a shield a lot (i.e. tanking) this talent doesn't help much. I like this talent better than the more specific ones mainly for the flexibility. If you dump 5 points into axes, and then find a mace that's clearly better, you're stuck with 5 useless talent points. The 2H category is a safer bet.

That said, increasing damage by a 1% per talent point isn't too mind blowing. You're looking at an additional 15 damage on a hit of a high end 2H weapon.

Utility Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
Pretty middle of the road, but OK.
Cost Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
If you're doing an Arms build, I can't think of a better way to get to the next tier, otherwise there are tempting options in other talent categories.
Overall Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
Hey, at least it's passive.

Impale - 2 points

1. Increases the critical strike damage done by your abilities in Battle, Defensive, and Berserker stance by 10%.
2. Increases the critical strike damage done by your abilities in Battle, Defensive, and Berserker stance by 20%.

Don't jump too quickly on this talent - it does nothing for your damage when you crit a normal attack. Normal attacks are most of your damage. However, if you find yourself using special attacks that can crit (such as mortal strike and execute) all the time, then you may see decent returns here.

Utility Rank: 4/10 (1 person rating)
Doesn't trigger as often as one would like, but when it does it's handy.
Cost Rank: 7/10 (1 person rating)
Pre-reqs aren't too painful, and it's only a couple talent points either way.
Overall Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
A matter of personal style I guess...

Axe Specialization / Sweeping Strikes / Mace Specialization / Sword Specialization

Sweeping Strikes - 1 point

1. You next 5 melee weapon swings strike an additional nearby opponent.

This is a great skill, and the only way to use it is to get the talent. What puts Sweeping Strikes above Cleave is the fact that if you use a special attack while the skill is active, the special also strikes an additional opponent. Think doubled up Mortal Strikes. Combinig Sweeping Strikes with Cleave yields interesting results - give it a try! Even without specials stacking, this is a great skill.

Utility Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
If you get this far in the Arms tree, and don't pick up this Talent, you should be shot.
Cost Rank: 8/10 (1 person rating)
Getting here means giving up some other nice talents on other trees, but it's still a bargain.
Overall Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
Get it, use it, love it.

Axe Specialization - 5 points

1. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Axes by 1%.
2. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Axes by 2%.
3. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Axes by 3%.
4. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Axes by 4%.
5. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Axes by 5%.

It's a shame this talent can't be gotten along with Flurry. Consensus among the PvP crowd is that of all the Specializations, the critical strike % ones are the best (a lucky streak of several criticals in a row usually means a duel victory).

Utility Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
Personal Taste.
Cost Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
Missed opportunity to get more valuable talents.
Overall Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
All depends on your style and luck with aquiring the appropriate weapon.

Mace Specialization - 5 points

1. Gives you a 1% chance to stun your target for 3 seconds with a mace.
2. Gives you a 2% chance to stun your target for 3 seconds with a mace.
3. Gives you a 3% chance to stun your target for 3 seconds with a mace.
4. Gives you a 4% chance to stun your target for 3 seconds with a mace.
5. Gives you a 5% chance to stun your target for 3 seconds with a mace.

This is more for the defensive minded or group PvP types. It would be even better if there wasn't a diminishing returns on stuns vs. a single target, including stuns your party member may be trying to apply with better durations. Back when it was a bit easier to have both people swore by the combination of this talent and improved revenge (which also stuns).

Utility Rank: 4/10 (1 person rating)
Personal Taste.
Cost Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
Missed opportunity to get more valuable talents.
Overall Rank: 4/10 (1 person rating)
See if it works for you, but the diminishing returns put it below the others in this category, IMO.

Sword Specialization - 5 points

1. Gives you a 1% chance to get an extra attack after dealing damage with your Sword.
2. Gives you a 2% chance to get an extra attack after dealing damage with your Sword.
3. Gives you a 3% chance to get an extra attack after dealing damage with your Sword.
4. Gives you a 4% chance to get an extra attack after dealing damage with your Sword.
5. Gives you a 5% chance to get an extra attack after dealing damage with your Sword.

Similar net effect as increasing critical damage, except the extra attack can miss. On the upside, if you're using a fast weapon with Unbridled Wrath, this would keep your rage building at a faster pace than the critical damage route (due to the Unbridled Wrath bonus rage).

Utility Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
Personal Taste.
Cost Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
Missed opportunity to get more valuable talents.
Overall Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
All depends on your style and luck with aquiring the appropriate weapon.

Polearm Specialization / Improved Hamstring

Polearm Specialization - 5 points

1. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Polearms by 1%.
2. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Polearms by 2%.
3. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Polearms by 3%.
4. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Polearms by 4%.
5. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Polearms by 5%.

Polearms/Spears (they're both in this category now) are generally the best weapons for Mortal Strike. Mortal Strike is the class favorite for damage output. For that reason, this specialization gets a slight nod, but the comments on Axe Specialization applies just as well here.

Utility Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
Very specified, but those going for the optimal Mortal Strike will end up going this route.
Cost Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
Missed opportunities, but not the worst way to get to 30 arms.
Overall Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
Just make sure you get your hands on a good polearm, or you'll feel silly taking this talent.

Improved Hamstring - 2/2 points

1. Increases the movement slow effect of your Hamstring ability by 5%.
2. Increases the movement slow effect of your Hamstring ability by 10%.

This talent was stealthed nerfed recently (IGN didn't even catch on) from 10% per point to 5% per point. The difference between 0 points and 2 points is if a PvP opponent is using a haste potion, the net effect after the 2 point hamstring is the normal run speed - so you may be able to keep up, whereas with 0 points they'll be slightly faster. Utility Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
A shadow of the talent (and skill) it once was.
Cost Rank: 4/10 (1 person rating)
Probably should be a higher rating, but I'm bitter about the 10%->5% nerf.
Overall Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
It's a bad value for your talent points, but if you're a die hard PvP player you should still get it.

Mortal Strike

Mortal Strike - 1 point

1. A vicious strike that deals 200% weapon damage and wounds the target, reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 50% for 10 seconds.

Still the Warrior's best way of dealing damage. If you don't dump 30 talent points into Arms pre-requisites, you'll never get to try it. This is an instant attack, meaning the best weapon to use with it is the biggest, slowest 2hander you can find (usually a spear or polearm). If you are sneaky with your macros, you could conceivably have a 1h / shield setup (tanking) that swapped in a 2H for MS only and then swapped back... but that's another Wiki page...

Utility Rank: 10/10 (1 person rating)
Hey, I don't particularly like it, but I recognize it's that good...
Cost Rank: 8/10 (1 person rating)
A lot of good talents in other trees are just barely out of reach. Them's the breaks.
Overall Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
Unless you have a very clear plan for your talents, this is the default end-goal talent.

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FURY

Booming Voice / Cruelty

Booming Voice - 5 points

1. Increases the duration of your Battle Shout and Demoralizing Shout by 50% (10% per point).

I don't find it necessary to have longer durations on either of these shouts. Battle Shout can be renewed before a battle (hint: perfect use for bloodrage during downtime), and Demoralizing Shout is usually worth re-casting as each new shout helps generate aggro towards you (for tanking groups).

Utility Rank: 4/10 (1 person rating)
More useful if your playstyle leaves you without either of these shouts still active at the end of battle
Cost Rank: 6/10 (1 person rating)
Can be picked up cheaply by nearly any build. Don't rush to 5 if 1 point here works for you.
Overall Rank: 5/10 (1 person rating)
Fine to get it, just know what you're trading off.

Cruelty - 5 points

1. Increases your chance to get a critical strike with melee weapons by 5% (1% per point).

A tier 1 talent that has the same effect for all weapons that some high tier Arms talents way up the tree have only for a single wepaon. Gee... I wonder which is better?

Utility Rank: 10/10 (1 person rating)
More damage with any weapon you use. Avoid if you dislike dealing damage.
Cost Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
If you have unused points, put them here before nearly anything else.
Overall Rank: 9/10 (1 person rating)
Great talent with no significant tradeoffs, what's not to like?

Improved Demoralizing Shout / Unbridled Wrath

Improved Demoralizing Shout - 5 points

1. Increases the attack power reduction of your Demoralizing Shout by 25% (5% per point).

Unbridled Wrath - 5 points

1. Gives you a 40% chance to generate an additional Rage point when you deal melee damage (8% per point).

Improved Cleave / Piercing Howl / Blood Craze / Improved Battle Shout

Improved Cleave - 3 points

1. Increases the bonus damage done by your Cleave ability by 60% (20% per point).

Piercing Howl - 1 point

1. Causes all enemies near the warrior to be dazed for 6 seconds.

Blood Craze - 3 points

1. Allows 15% of your Health regeneration to work during combat for 20 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike (5% per point).

Improved Battle Shout - 5 points

1. Increases the Attack Power bonus of your Battle Shout by 25% (5% per point).

Improved Execute / Enrage

Improved Execute - 2 points

1. Reduces the Rage cost of your Execute ability by 2.
2. Reduces the Rage cost of your Execute ability by 5.

Enrage - 5 points

1. Gives you a 40% melee damage bonus for 4 swings any time you are the victim of a critical strike (8% per point).

Improved Slam / Death Wish / Improved Intercept

Improved Slam - 5 points

1. Decreases the casting time of your Slam ability by 0.5 seconds (0.1 seconds per point).

Death Wish - 1 point

1. When activated, increases your melee damage by 20% and makes you immune to fear, but lowers your defense against all types of damage by 20%. Lasts 30 seconds.

Improved Intercept - 2 points

1. Reduces the cooldown of your Intercept ability by 10 seconds (5 seconds per point).

Improved Berserker Rage / Flurry

Improved Berserker Rage - 2 points

1. Increases the duration of your Berserker Rage ability by 6 seconds (3 seconds per point).

Flurry - 5 points

1. Increases your attack speed by 10% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
2. Increases your attack speed by 15% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
3. Increases your attack speed by 20% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
4. Increases your attack speed by 25% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.
5. Increases your attack speed by 30% for your next 3 swings after dealing a critical strike.

Bloodthirst

Bloodthirst - 1 point

1. Activates after dealing a killing blow. Your next melee weapon attack deals a 100% increased damage.

PROTECTION

--UNDER CONSTRUCTION--

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