Which is better?

[Gutboy]

Now that I have mostly Kara-level gear, I'm wondering which spec is more help on a Kara/Gruul raid (assuming I'm not an MT):

- Full prot spec for tanking, DPSing as needed with dual Devastate and DPS gear (what I'm doing now)

or

- 31/30/0 or 41/20/0 MS 2H arms spec for DPS, OTing with tank gear

Any opinions?

GB

[Trismus]

well, here's my thoughts and experiences, they may not be accurate for your style, but they work for me.


If I'm planning on tanking I spec prot. That's pretty obvious, but if I'm going to OT I simply DPS spec and put on tanking gear when I'm grabbing adds. I wont be able to tank the main bosses, obviously, but I'll be able to easily handle the little guys. Warriors are tough to kill, and hybrid specs involving prot usually come up short on DPS without allowing me to tank the tough mobs.


For 2h DPS there is only one talent you MUST get, and that is improved slam. Slam is the best rage to DPS conversion we have. The only problem is that it resets the weapon timer, so DPS is very high while you're chain-slamming, but weak when you're generating rage.

Given that the global cooldown is 1 second for melee abilities, getting slam down to a 1 second cast is all that is necessary, unless you are consistently lagging in the red. I highly doubt that. One trick I use on gruul is this: I'll dip in to the cave-ins to take about 5k damage or so (fill up my rage bar) then burn the rage on slam/tclap/demo shout/whatever. I can usually pump out between 5k-15k damage (depending on crits and luck) before I'm out of rage, then repeat the process. On mobs where you don't take damage, slam may not be used as much, but it's still an EXCELLENT talent.

You may also want to consider getting flurry. Completely ignore Heroic strike improvement, it's wasted imo, and unless you plan on PvPing ignore imp hamstring/intercept and instead get fully improved overpower/anger management/2h spec etc. Anything that causes damage.


I've also been thinking about trying a dual-wielding arms spec, getting improved dual-wield in the fury tree and forgoing slam. I'm not sure if this would work, however, due to the decreased attack power of a shallow fury hybrid spec.

-Tris

[Luise]

I currently am mainly arms spec- love improved mortal strike and endless rage, however after talking to Apolla and Trismus (my dps warrior heroes  ), I feel I would produce more dps by adding more furry (Flurry,Weapon mastery, slam).
So I will still have Mortal strike, but not improved. I will have 33/28/0 instead of my 41/17/3.
I will lose tactical mastery but plan to stay in berserker stance unless my thunderclap is needed.
What do you think folks?

[Gutboy]

I currently am mainly arms spec- love improved mortal strike and endless rage, however after talking to Apolla and Trismus (my dps warrior heroes  ), I feel I would produce more dps by adding more furry (Flurry,Weapon mastery, slam).
So I will still have Mortal strike, but not improved. I will have 33/28/0 instead of my 41/17/3.
I will lose tactical mastery but plan to stay in berserker stance unless my thunderclap is needed.
What do you think folks?

My MS Arms alt (Prymaat) is 33/28 for just this reason. Here's her spec:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Alexstrasza&n=Prymaat

Two very important things to mention are Blood Frenzy, which is pretty much required to bring to a raid, and Improved Slam. This shortens the time for using Slam dramatically (making it viable to use), but you have to load a swing timer mod (like Quartz) and work with it to get the best DPS rate.

Note also that my build is done without any particular regard for PVP; you might choose other things like Iron Will if that's more your thing.

(EDIT: I notice you have already respecced, to almost the same spec I have. Great minds think alike.  )

Meanwhile in the world of lolprotdps, I haven't changed my spec, but I am gradually moving away from a max-SBV Shield Slam approach in favor of fury gearing, zerker stance, and spamming Devastate and Whirlwind. I still love the 2000 damage Shield Slam crits, but my max-SBV set was too gimped to help with normal DPS.

GB

[Luise]

Yes Gutboy I took the plunge and I love it! But Trismus and Eravion get most of the credit for my choice. 
I did my dailies yesterday with Era and he was getting bored because I killed everything so fast.
Thanks for your help.

[Trismus]

Hehe, that's awesome Luise!


It's really amazing how much a spec can influence how your character functions, seemingly small differences can completely alter performance and some moves that might seem bad at first turn out to yield tremendous bonuses. It's fun to play around with them but ultimately I guess I wish there were more options for experimentation.


-Tris