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Spec guide

Arms Warrior — guide and builds

Arms plays a two-handed weapon around Rend, Overpower and Slam: the most consistent Warrior spec for leveling in WoW Forever.

Class: WarriorData 1.60.1.70009By ForeverGuide team · updated Sep 26, 2026

Overview

Arms keeps its identity in WoW Forever: a big two-handed weapon, bleeds, and strikes that reward good timing. The tools that were weak in Classic have been raised. Rend now scales with attack power and can deal critical strikes, and so can Deep Wounds.

The spec plays across two stances. You switch from Berserker Stance to Battle Stance to land Overpower, and Tactical Mastery lets you keep a little rage on every switch. The swing timer shown by the game and Improved Slam make it a good spec for newcomers.

At level 20 in the beta, Arms sits in A tier among DPS, alongside the other melee specs.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

  • Mobility
    Charge to engage, then Intercept.
  • AoE burst
    Pool your rage for Sweeping Strikes and Cleave.
  • Control
    Improved Hamstring to hold your target.

Weaknesses

  • Fragile rage
    It melts when your hits are dodged or parried.
  • Sustained AoE
    Your area damage fades over a long fight.
  • Little self-healing
    Victory Rush matters a lot while leveling.
Read the details

You have mobility with Charge, then Intercept, and control with Improved Hamstring. By pooling rage for Sweeping Strikes and Cleave, you deal heavy area damage over a short window.

On the other hand, your rage melts when you miss or the target parries. Your area damage fades over a long fight, and you have little passive healing: Victory Rush matters a lot while leveling.

Key spells

Key talents

  • +50% crit chance on Overpower. The level 20 priority.
  • Your bleeds become a real share of your damage, since they can crit.
  • Up to 15 more rage kept when you switch stances. Take it to 5/5 to unlock Anger Management.
  • Spearing Strike (from level 25)
    40% weapon damage to all targets, 80% more against Giants, Dragonkin and mounted targets, which it dismounts.
  • Bloodthrill (5 ranks)
    Your main-hand hits on a target afflicted by Rend can enable Overpower for 6 sec.
  • Weaponmaster (5 ranks)
    Replaces the Axe, Sword, Mace and Polearm specializations, and covers staves. Axes and polearms grant crit; maces and staves ignore part of the armor instead of stunning.
  • Improved Slam (2 ranks)
    Slam casts faster and no longer resets your auto attack.
  • Sweeping Strikes around level 30, then Mortal Strike around level 40.

Rotation and priorities

Leveling opener: Charge, Rend, Thunder Clap, then a few Sunder Armor until the mob dies.

Single target:

  1. Priority 1: Battle Shout
    Cast it before you engage and keep it up.
    When: Before the pull
  2. Priority 2: Rend
    Keep the bleed on the target.
  3. Priority 3: Slam
    Never when the next swing is about to land.
    When: Right after a swing
  4. Priority 4: Thunder Clap
    Keep the attack speed slow up: it protects your tank too.
  5. Priority 5: Victory Rush
    You strike and recover 10% of your maximum health.
    When: As soon as it is available
  6. Priority 6: Heroic Strike
    It replaces the rage from your auto attack.
    When: Spare rage

Multiple targets: Battle Shout, Rend on every target, Slam after a swing, Thunder Clap, Cleave to spend rage, and Victory Rush whenever you can.

Stats

  1. 1Critical strike
  2. then 2Strength
  3. then 3Weapon damage
1 Critical strike
Rend and Deep Wounds can crit

Order to be confirmed: the exact priority is not settled yet.

There is no established stat priority for Arms. Aim for critical strike, Strength and weapon damage. Crit seems to gain value since Rend and Deep Wounds can crit, but the exact order is still to be confirmed.

Leveling

At level 20 you only have 11 points: Improved Overpower 2/2 first, then Cruelty in Fury. Keep favoring Cruelty until level 30, when Two-Handed Weapon Specialization becomes reachable. Then come back to Arms for Sweeping Strikes, then Mortal Strike.

Leveling is much smoother than in Classic: more out-of-combat healing, Victory Rush, and better two-handers as dungeon quest rewards. Dungeon experience now comes mostly from their quests: take them all and share them to find a group. Wailing Caverns and the Ruins of Lordaeron have useful pieces. Mining and Blacksmithing level effortlessly alongside your quests.

Changes compared to Classic

  • New area talent that dismounts.
  • New talent that merges the weapon specializations and adds staves.
  • New talent that enables Overpower on a target afflicted by Rend.
  • A faster Slam that no longer interrupts your auto attack.
  • 15 sec cooldown.
  • Better attack power scaling, can crit.
  • Can crit.

Builds

The 2 guide builds open in the calculator below, with the point order. You can then change points there.

Calculator

“Level 20 (beta)” build · level 20 view

Calculator page

Talents

Split: Arms 7, Fury 4, Protection 0

Points left:0

Level needed:20

Point 11/51, Cruelty 4/5, Fury

Arms

next row at 10
7 points of 51

Fury

next row at 5
4 points of 51

Protection

next row at 5
0 points of 51
  • Available
  • In progress
  • Maxed
  • Locked
  • New
  • Planned · 1st point
  • Taken · 1st point lv. 17

Spellbook

The Warrior spellbook, open on the Arms tab. It follows the calculator: its level, never above the max level, and the talents of the build. Switch tabs, pages or views as in the game.

Level shown: 2034 spells known

Arms

  • A talent spell joins the book when its talent gets a point.
  • Tooltip numbers are the beta client’s at level 60, with no gear.

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