Melee-Cleave Boxing End Game Dungeons

[Mercbeast]

It has been my theory for some time that initiating with a single Fury Warrior (with the rest of the Warriors Arms) should result in overall better damage for the group as the Fury Warrior should use incoming damage better. The others will still get good damage due to Sweeping Strikes so the team should do more damage overall. Does that seem to fit your experience?

I updated the initial post with the Shaman build. If you can please put 1 of your Arms Warrior specs and I will just denote the changes for the others (move battle shout->Demo Shout, pierciing howl, etc) and I will put those in the initial post as well.

What I've been toying with recently, is setting a target for each warrior separately. So each one is beating on its own target. They get more rage this way since they naturally get threat on their own target. Stuff doesn't spike down as hard, but it all comes down more evenly and due to more rage for everyone, faster. It's a little clumsy tho. Basically I've made a 4 step macro, step 1, warrior 1 assists, step 2, warrior 2 assists, etc etc. I use mouse wheel up and down for target nearest etc, so mouse wheel up, hit assist macro, wheel up, assist macro and so on. Then you could set the entire group to have assist, so they can set a mark on their own target (I haven't done this part, yet).

This lets you split the threat much more effectively. Then have a normal all assist hotkey.

[nodoze]

What I've been toying with recently, is setting a target for each warrior separately. So each one is beating on its own target. They get more rage this way since they naturally get threat on their own target. Stuff doesn't spike down as hard, but it all comes down more evenly and due to more rage for everyone, faster. It's a little clumsy tho. Basically I've made a 4 step macro, step 1, warrior 1 assists, step 2, warrior 2 assists, etc etc. I use mouse wheel up and down for target nearest etc, so mouse wheel up, hit assist macro, wheel up, assist macro and so on. Then you could set the entire group to have assist, so they can set a mark on their own target (I haven't done this part, yet).

This lets you split the threat much more effectively. Then have a normal all assist hotkey.

Watching Horde Shaman drive from the Shaman gave me the idea that you may be able to do something similar by using mouse over targeting and a have a modifier key for each warrior to direct the targeting.

It would be interesting to see what you come up with and what your think the overall numbers are.

My approach is very simple to run & test/verify and matches what Quiding is seeing (all warriors pretty close to each other in overall damage)... My thoughts dawned from driving from a Warrior resulting in him being ahead, and thus in a sense, a lead warrior, over the other Warriors. In my usage he typically charges in first getting initial "sight aggro" and taking the first hits anyway and building some initial aggro via "thorn" effects (retribution aura, shield spike, etc).

With that initial "AoE hook already set" via AoE sight aggro+thorns, the lead then immediately use the charge's rage to pop a "shout" to solidfy the AoE threat hook further and then immediately switches to Beserking stance and immediately pops bloodrage and then WhirlWind on cooldown.

In parallel my "follow arms warriors" are charging in after a slight delay (due to being a few feet back behind lead and out of charge range for a few steps), popping blood rage, and once they hit 30 rage they pop Sweeping Strikes and then switch to Berserker stance and then pop whirlwind on cooldown.

On good size packs the Arms Warriors should be hitting more extra mobs than my lead fury warrior due to Sweeping Strikes adding targets and thus naturally have extra threat and typically pull an add or two onto themselves. Yes there is some RNG to that but it seems to average out pretty well in larger groups. It isn't guaranteed to give each of the SS Arms warriors at least 1 mob each but on the plus side it is simple to run/manage (as you don't have to think or do anything extra)...

It does however pretty much guarantee that the lead Fury Warrior takes the bulk of at least the initial incoming damage and sets him up to be your snowball and often times he keeps snowballing. In testing at levels 36-40 my Fury warrior is pushing a little more DPS than my Sweeping Strikes Arms Warriors resulting in a pretty even DPS output over time with no one starved... Sometimes I do get a runaway on my arms warriors if they crit alot on their sweeping strikes and they go off to the races but that may be in part because my lead Fury warrior only wears mail and is all stamina or bear gear while the arms warriors are more pure damage stats and wear leather if it results in better damage on them... Overall they are all using the same weapon (Whirlwind axe since 35) and their armor/gear is fairly close but it would be ideal if they all were exactly the same resulting in more agnostic results.

I highly recommend you try it and see what you think. It is simple/natural if you drive from a lead Fury Warrior and you don't have to do anything special... If you drive from the Healer you may want to have the Fury Warrior charge on a different key and then have the others charge in slightly after to get a similar start to your fights...