Arms Warrior DPS Gear and Best in Slot — The War Within (11.0.5)
On this page, you will find the best gear and best in slot items for your Arms Warrior in World of Warcraft The War Within (11.0.5).
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Arms Warrior gear and best in slot.
Best in Slot Gear Guide for Arms Warrior
Welcome to our Gear and BiS Page for Arms Warrior for The War Within Season 1. Check this page to learn everything you need to know about gearing a Arms Warrior, including the BiS Gear from all sources, Raiding and Mythic+, information on the best Trinkets, Tier Sets, and much more.
For discussion and information on Stats specifically, check out our Stats page below.
BiS Gear for Arms Warrior
Season 1 Overall BiS List for Arms Warrior
This list contains the Best in Slot Gear from all sources for Season 1 of The War Within.
| Slot | Item | Source/Note |
|---|---|---|
| Mainhand Weapon |  Surgical Heartstopper (639) |
Mythic+ City of Threads |
| Helm |  Warsculptor's Barbute (639) |
Silken Court in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Neck |  Sureki Zealot's Insignia (639) |
Sikran in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Shoulder |  Warsculptor's Horned Spaulders (639) |
Rasha'nan/Matrix Catalyst |
| Cloak |  Consecrated Cloak (636) |
Crafted — Tailoring |
| Chest |  Warsculptor's Furred Plastron (639) |
Broodtwister Ovi'nax/Matrix Catalyst |
| Bracers |  Everforged Vambraces (636) |
Crafted — Blacksmithing |
| Gloves |  Black Blood Injectors (639) |
Broodtwister Ovi'nax in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Belt |  Crystal-Fissure Girdle (639) |
Mythic+ The Stonevault |
| Legs |  Warsculptor's Cuisses (639) |
Nexus Princess Ky'veza in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Boots |  Boots of the Black Bulwark (639) |
The Bloodbound Horror in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Ring #1 |  Seal of the Poisoned Pact (639) |
Queen Ansurek in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Ring #2 |  Band of the Ancient Dredger (639) |
Mythic+ Siege of Boralus |
| Trinket #1 |  Mad Queen's Mandate (639) |
Queen Ansurek in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Trinket #2 |  Treacherous Transmitter (639) |
Nexus Princess Ky'veza in Nerub-ar Palace |
Nerub-ar Palace Gear BiS List for Arms Warrior
This list contains the best gear dropping specifically inside the Nerub-ar Palace raid in Season 1 of The War Within.
| Slot | Item | Source/Note |
|---|---|---|
| Mainhand Weapon |  Anub'arash's Colossal Mandible (639) |
Silken Court in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Helm | Warsculptor's Barbute (639) |
Silken Court in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Neck | Sureki Zealot's Insignia (639) |
Sikran in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Shoulder | Warsculptor's Horned Spaulders (639) |
Rasha'nan/Matrix Catalyst |
| Cloak |  Wings of Shattered Sorrow (639) |
Rasha'nan in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Chest | Warsculptor's Furred Plastron (639) |
Broodtwister Ovi'nax/Matrix Catalyst |
| Bracers |  Ravaged Lamplighter's Manacles (639) |
Rasha'nan in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Gloves | Black Blood Injectors (639) |
Broodtwister Ovi'nax in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Belt |  Nether Bounty's Greatbelt (639) |
Ulgrax the Devourer in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Legs | Warsculptor's Cuisses (639) |
Nexus Princess Ky'veza in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Boots | Boots of the Black Bulwark (639) |
The Bloodbound Horror in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Ring #1 | Seal of the Poisoned Pact (639) |
Queen Ansurek in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Ring #2 |  Key to the Unseeming (639) |
The Bloodbound Horror in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Trinket #1 | Mad Queen's Mandate (639) |
Queen Ansurek in Nerub-ar Palace |
| Trinket #2 | Treacherous Transmitter (639) |
Nexus Princess Ky'veza in Nerub-ar Palace |
Mythic+ Gear BiS List for Arms Warrior
This list contains the best gear dropping specifically from Mythic+ dungeons in Season 1 of The War Within. This makes them more easily farmable, though at a lower item level than what is available from Mythic Raid or The Great Vault, so they are not necessarily the absolute best drops or the best consolidated set of gear.
| Slot | Item | Source/Note |
|---|---|---|
| Mainhand Weapon | Surgical Heartstopper (613) |
Mythic+ City of Threads |
| Helm |  Wrathbark Greathelm (613) |
Mythic+ Mists of Tirna Scithe |
| Neck |  Trailspinner Pendant (613) |
Mythic+ Mists of Tirna Scithe |
| Shoulder |  Flesh Connector's Epaulets (613) |
Mythic+ City of Threads |
| Cloak |  Anvilhide Cape (613) |
Mythic+ The Stonevault |
| Chest |  Experimental Goresilk Chestguard (613) |
Mythic+ Ara-Kara, City of Echoes |
| Bracers |  Vociferous Subjugator's Bracers (613) |
Mythic+ City of Threads |
| Gloves |  Machinist's Searing Handguards (613) |
Mythic+ The Stonevault |
| Belt |  Belt of the Forgemaster (613) |
Mythic+ Grim Batol |
| Legs |  Gormshell Greaves (613) |
Mythic+ Mists of Tirna Scithe |
| Boots |  Ballast Sinkers (613) |
Mythic+ Siege of Boralus |
| Ring #1 |  Circle of Bone (613) |
Mythic+ Grim Batol |
| Ring #2 | Band of the Ancient Dredger (613) |
Mythic+ Siege of Boralus |
| Trinket #1 |  Skarmorak Shard (613) |
Mythic+ The Stonevault |
| Trinket #2 |  Ara-Kara Sacbrood (613) |
Mythic+ Ara-Kara, City of Echoes |
Best Trinkets for Arms Warrior in The War Within Season 1
Best Raiding Trinkets for Arms Warrior
This Trinket Tier List is single target biased, as this tends to be the most important aspect of Raiding. The best trinkets tend to be those that provide stat boosts, enhancing the performance of burst cooldowns, although there are a handful of strong direct damage trinkets in Season 1 of The War Within as well.
While using two on-use trinkets is generally not preferred due to the shared 20-second lockout period they incur, there are very few passive trinket options in this Season. However, direct damage trinkets do not need to be timed with anything in particular, so they can typically be delayed without issue so long as the delay does not cost an overall use.
As of right now, nothing from the recent Timewalking or new anniversary Black Rock Depths raid appears strongly competitive with the other options currently available, both due to their limited item level and low rate of acquisition. That said, players who do not have access to the highest levels of gear from Nerub-ar Palace and Mythic+ may find more use for them as interim upgrades.
Best Raiding Trinkets
- Treacherous Transmitter is the strongest on-use trinket, though it
comes at the cost of a gimmick - players are required to complete a task before
receiving the buff, and although it only takes a couple of seconds, it can
sometimes disrupt your rotation to the point that the gain is not worth the
effort.
- Mad Queen's Mandate deals a high amount of direct damage, though it
is both on the global cooldown and has a short cast time, making it important
to use outside of burst cooldowns.
- Ara-Kara Sacbrood is the only good passive trinket in Season 1,
making it very useful in reducing the burden on gameplay.
Good Alternative Single Target Trinkets
Mark of Khardros is slightly weaker than the Transmitter, except
without any gimmick, allowing to be safely macrod into other cooldowns.- Skarmorak Shard is nearly identical to the Mark of Khardros, with
a slightly smaller initial buff offset by a smaller secondary buff triggered
anytime a target is killed, making it good in high-density multitarget
situations.
Skyterror's Corrosive Organ is another direct damage trinket, which
also does a small amount of damage to secondary targets.
Oppressive Orator's Larynx another direct damage on-use, this one is
unique in that it also provides a powerful Strength buff with a high uptime,
although all stacks of the buff are consumed whenever the trinket is used.
Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher is a boomerang-like skill shot, best used with a cursor macro to aim behind the target to ensure it hits while moving away and returning.
These are generic simulations from Bloodmallet, giving you a rough overview of strong Arms Warrior Trinkets. It is not a replacement for simming yourself, but it can still offer a quick reference point.
Best Mythic+ Trinkets for Arms Warrior
This Trinket Tier List is multitarget biased, as this tends to be the most important aspect of Mythic+. The best trinkets tend to be those that provide stat boosts, enhancing the performance of burst cooldowns, although there are a handful of strong direct damage trinkets in Season 1 of The War Within as well.
While using two on-use trinkets is generally not preferred due to the shared 20-second lockout period they incur, there are very few passive trinket options in this Season. However, direct damage trinkets do not need to be timed with anything in particular, so they can typically be delayed without issue so long as the delay does not cost an overall use.
Best Mythic+ Trinkets
- Treacherous Transmitter is the strongest on-use trinket, though it
comes at the cost of a gimmick - players are required to complete a task before
receiving the buff, and although it only takes a couple of seconds, it can
sometimes disrupt your rotation to the point that the gain is not worth the
effort.
- Overclocked Gear-a-Rang Launcher is a boomerang-like skill shot, best
used with a cursor macro to aim behind the target to ensure it hits while
moving away and returning.
- Ara-Kara Sacbrood is the only good passive trinket in Season 1,
making it very useful in reducing the burden on gameplay.
Good Alternative Single Target Trinkets
- Skarmorak Shard is nearly identical to the Mark of Khardros, with
a slightly smaller initial buff offset by a smaller secondary buff triggered
anytime a target is killed, making it good in high-density multitarget
situations.
- Mark of Khardros is slightly weaker than the Transmitter, except
without any gimmick, allowing to be safely macrod into other cooldowns.
These are generic simulations from Bloodmallet, giving you a rough overview of strong Arms Warrior Trinkets. It is not a replacement for simming yourself, but can still offer a quick reference point.
"Simming" Yourself as a Arms Warrior
Throughout this page, we regularly refer to the importance of simming yourself on Raidbots, as it is an indispensable aspect of optimizing your character.
While we do offer generic sim charts for Trinkets, this should not be a replacement for simming yourself, at least not if you want to minmax sub-1%!
If you are new to simming and Raidbots, check out our detailed guide below.
Best Crafted Items for Arms Warrior
Our BiS Crafts are pretty straightforward. We want 2x
Duskthread Lining on Cloak and Bracers, due to being the lowest stat
budget gear slots. Alternatively, crafting a 
Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension
Weapon and pairing it with a 
Writhing Armor Banding bracer is virtually
equal in terms of competitive power and makes a good option for players who
expect to have difficulty obtaining a high item level weapon on their own,
though the Darkmoon Embellishments are not well suited for Mythic+ content.
For players crafting a weapon, be aware that it requires two
Spark of Omens, so it is, therefore, a good idea to craft the
Writhing Armor Banding on a blue 590 item level bracer and upgrading it
later once a third spark has been acquired.
Arms Warriors should craft Critical Strike/Haste onto their gear. While this can change depending on what gear you currently have available, it is easier to gear around your crafts than to continually recraft your gear.
Best Embellishments and Crafting Order for Arms Warrior
Note that Embellishments are in a very odd state of tuning, and players cannot craft maximum item-level gear in the first weeks anyway, so it is highly recommended not to craft anything until it is felt as though it is needed, generally right before you head into serious raid or Mythic+ progression. The longer you can wait with crafting, the better information you, and this guide, will have on the best Crafts. Crafting early and then having the recommendation change because of tuning by Blizzard really sucks!
- Consecrated Cloak — currently the best
embellishment.
- Everforged Vambraces — doubling up on
the same.
- Next, fill low-item level holes in your gear, preferring weapons or pieces of gear you are not likely to replace quickly.
- At this point, you are mostly done crafting. You can spend future Sparks on off-spec items, alternatively statted crafts for different situations, and so on.
Do note that using crests on crafted gear is much less efficient than upgrading gear directly, so it is generally a good idea to craft at Heroic item level, and only upgrading to Mythic after more important upgrades have been completed.
Best Gear Crest Upgrades for Arms Warrior
You will be able to upgrade your items via Crests such as
Gilded Harbinger Crest. Once you have upgraded a slot to a certain item
level, upgrading other items of that slot to that item level is free.
When you upgrade with Crests, you should think of it as upgrading slots and not items.
Additionally, since Crests are a limited resource, you will want to obtain the highest item-level possible before upgrading a given slot, as this means you will spend fewer Crests on that slot in total. If you are at all capable of doing a +9 Dungeon, for example, it would be a VERY bad idea to upgrade an item from a +8 Dungeon, as those are wasted Crests you may not get back for a very long time.
We see a ton of players, even at a high level, mess up their upgrade priorities, and upgrading prematurely. Getting this right will put you far ahead of most players.
Below is the slot priority you should upgrade your items in. If you ever want to deviate from this, you should have a very good reason.
- Weapons
- Trinkets
- Helm/Chest/Legs
- Shoulders/Gloves/Belt/Boots
- Rings and Necks
- Cloaks and Bracers
Note that exceptions are possible, such as special items that have more Item Level scaling than their slot would imply.
Season 1 Tier Set for Arms Warrior
The Tier Set is comprised of 5 items, all carrying the Warsculptor moniker. Unique DPS bonuses are unlocked when wearing 2 or 4 pieces from the set:
-
Warrior Arms Season 1 2pc — Mortal Strike and Cleave increase the damage
of your next Overpower by 10%. This is a very passive bonus, though not a particularly
strong one as the value is low and Overpower is not a major damage contributor
either, increasing total damage by less than 1%.
-
Warrior Arms Season 1 4pc — When Overpower has its cooldown
reset by Tactician, your next Mortal Strike or Cleave has its damage increased
by 10%, and critical strike chance increased by 10%, stacking up to 2 times.
This is a moderate bonus, triggering often, but not particularly powerful
either, increasing total damage by ~2% for Slayer and ~5% for Colossus.
The Tier Set Bonus is technically mandatory for maximizing performance, but is currently so weak that it is not worth prioritizing. You can use the Matrix Catalyst to convert regular items (from Mythic+, for example) into Tier Items.
You only need 4 pieces out of 5 to get both set bonuses. We recommend you get all items except for the Gloves. Check out the BiS List for more information.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Added brief section detailing upcoming Timewalking and Anniversary raid trinkets.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for The War Within Season 1 launch.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Season Launch.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated with new gear and bullion recommendations for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Expanded crafting recommendations and reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.5.
- 14 Jan. 2023: Added Fyr'alath to overall BiS list (good luck).
- 08 Nov. 2023: Updated with new gear sets accounting for Sporecloak nerf.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2 and Season 3.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5, to include Dawn of the Infinite gear.
- 01 May 2023: Updated Onyx Annulet gem recommendations.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Updated with Onyx Annulet information for Patch 10.0.7.
- 02 Feb. 2023: Removed erroneous Fury reference.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Warrior Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Archimtiros, Warrior class theorycrafter and SimulationCraft developer who has been writing class guides for more than a decade. You can follow him on Twitter or see more of his day to day work in Skyhold, the Warrior Discord.
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