Level 80 Fury Warrior for dummies (patch 3.1.1)

It's time for the first guide I'd like to publish. It is for those who don't understand one iota of the fury warrior, but would like a quick introduction and maybe try it themselves.

So here we go, the shortshort version:

Right. You've just wiped your talents. The first you need to know is that a fury warrior's home is in the Berserker stance*. Unless you want to do something fancy, got to that stance and stay there.

If you've never tried Fury before, the first thing you'll notice is that the action bar for Berserker stance is empty. We will get to that soon.

Talents
Before we start filling the slots with useful buttons, let's flesh out an easy-to-use talent tree. It's not the most powerful but it is the most user friendly at a start, for soloing or grouping.

NOTE: if you're a stance-dancer this enables you to travel between fights through both Charge* when it's available and Intercept* when Charge is on cooldown or when you're in combat. If this sounds like alien language to you, or too messy, move the points from Tactical Mastery* on the second level of the Arms tree to its neighbour Iron Will* for a less complicated (and less powerful) setup.

The action bar

Now, I'll ot interfere on where on the action bar you want your attacks and abilities, but here are the ones you want on there, sorted by type:

Attacks:
Whirlwind* (WW)
Bloodthirst* (BT)
Slam*
Heroic Strike* (HS)

Utility:
Bloodrage* (Blr)
Berserker Rage* (BeR)
Death Wish* and Recklessness*
Enraged Regeneration*
Intercept*
(Pummel* and Hamstring*)

Getting Rage
The talent spec gets you a lot of rage. With this you can get a full rage bar out of combat (ooc) by just spamming Blr and BeR. Blr does not trigger the global cooldown (gcd) so use it as soon as it's available. BeR is trickier, but a good rule of thumb is to use it whenever you WW and BT is on cd and/or your rage is below 50.

How to attack
The basic rotation is to WW and BT whenever they are up, and do the insta-Slam whenever you get the Bloodsurge* effect. If your rage is above 50 and WW, BT and insta-Slam is not available, it's time for Heroic Strike - but only then!

Special abilities and boosts
Deathwish and Recklessness boosts your damage and should be used when you're not low on healthpoints (HP) and with Deathwish, when more than 20 seconds of combat is before you. Remember that the way of the fury warrior is to take out the enemy hard and fast and worry about HP later.
You can also use Enraged Regeneration to heal up. If it's greyed out you can use Blr or BeR to enable it.

Intercept is mostly used as a way of transport between mobs, Pummel is the spellcast interrupt and Hamstring is for those that can't get enemies down fast enough when they flee.


Summing up

Use Blr when you can, always spam WW and BT, hit Slam when Bloodsurge activates, use BeR to boost your rage, and do a HS when you have lots or rage.

I shouldn't have to tell you this, but always keep Battle Shout* up of course.


Wait, what about gear?

You'll need two 2-handers (sword, axe, mace). Go for the damage stat first, and take Strength, Attackpower and Hit/Crit ratings. Agility is not great, but it is useful. Take Stamina if it's free. Armor Penetration and Expertise are powerful stats, but only once you're done stacking the other ones. More on these two stats in future guides.
The above goes for armour too, except the damage stat of course!


Time to go!

Now, equip your 2-handers and your dps gear, enter Berserker stance and start that rampage of destruction!


Next time we'll talk about Glyphs.

ps WW will hit crowd-controlled mobs, like sheeps and saps, so make sure you place yourself well on the battlefield if you're in a group that uses CC!

ps2 Cleave* has not been included in the rotation since it complicates things further. Stick with HS for now.


.