Player Spotlight: Andaa

Hello everyone! Welcome to the second RaiderIO Player Spotlight of Season 3 and the eighteenth consecutive Spotlight of my series. My name is Samantha aka Vitaminpee and with this series, I am aiming to highlight the amazing players of World of Warcraft regardless of their chosen class, spec, language, and/or region. I hope to bring you valuable information and help you learn more about your favorite top players or discover new ones who you may not know.

This week, I interviewed the #1 Fury Warrior in Season 3 Mythic+, Andaa. In a season swimming with Outlaw Rogues, Anda and his teammates climbed the ranks and made a slightly off-meta group composition work in their favor. In this interview, Anda discusses how Fury Warrior’s relentless, constant damage output can complement a group and make up for what it lacks in the utility department.





VitaminP: Hi Anda! Can you please tell us a little more about yourself?

Anda: My name is Simon and I’m 22 years old from Southwestern Germany. I’m a Physics dropout now studying IT. I started playing WoW when I was 12 years old on private servers, but I swapped to retail some time during Hellfire Citadel. I’ve been playing Warrior as my main for most of my WoW career.



VitaminP: Throughout Season 3, Fury Warrior has been a strong melee pick for high key pushers. Can you please tell us what utility and benefits Fury Warrior brings to a Mythic+ group?

Anda: Fury Warrior brings damage and proper Battle Shout, which is something people were missing when the tank meta shifted from Protection Warrior in Season 2 to Brewmaster Monk in Season 3. Outside of that, we have Storm Bolt for a single-target stun and Intimidating Shout, an AoE Fear which can be situationally useful as a disrupt. The main reason my group brought me this season was because Fury’s damage output is constant, yet does not have a difficult setup in order to pump in contrast to a Mage or an Unholy Death Knight. Fury excels in five-target cleave due to Whirlwind causing all our melee abilities cleaving to five targets, but this means we have a soft-cap at five targets. Therefore, Fury falls behind on very large pulls (like a big first pull in Tol Dagor) compared to Mythic+ staple classes like Outlaw Rogue or Demon Hunter. Fury’s single-target damage is very competitive as well, but it doesn't quite reach the damage of especially strong single-target damage specs like Balance Druid. Warrior is also fairly self-reliant due to Bloodthirst and Gushing Wounds from the Azerite Trait Cold Steel, Hot Blood in addition to having Enraged Regeneration, making Fury Warrior somewhat comparable in survivability to a Demon Hunter with its Leech talent. Due to having 2x two-handed weapons equipped, we have more stamina than most other DPS classes, on top of having Warpaint which is a 10% damage reduction on a really high uptime. Additionally, we have Piercing Howl, which can allow us to perma-slow mobs with very low upkeep, which is really useful at the tail-end of hard pulls when your tank has to start kiting (or if he is perma-kiting). Rallying Cry is sometimes a useful way to save your tank or use as a pseudo-external cooldown.




VitaminP: Now that we’ve discussed the strengths of Fury Warriors in Mythic+, what weaknesses do they have and what does your team do to work around them?

Anda: Fury doesn't have the strongest utility toolkit, since a lot of its utility abilities like Piercing Howl and Rallying Cry are very situational. With the removal of Shockwave for DPS Warriors this expansion, we even lost our quintessential AoE stun. However, since I mainly play with a Brewmaster Monk and a Havoc Demon-Hunter who both have an AoE stun, I end up letting them focus on all the disrupts and interrupts for me while I primarily just hit the mobs. In general, Fury synergizes very well with Brewmaster Monk, since the Monk toolkit fills in a lot of our gaps. Monks bring Paralysis, Leg Sweep, Ring of Peace and Mystic Touch. Since Fury Warrior already locks up one of the DPS spots in a group and many teams have been running at least 1-2 Outlaw Rogues this season, it’s lucky that Brewmaster was in the tank meta to complement my class since it’s been harder to fit a Windwalker into a group composition.



VitaminP: Fury Warriors are rumored to look very strong going into Patch 8.3. How much of an impact do you think the patch changes will have on the spec? From what you know so far about the new seasonal affix Awakened, do you think Fury Warrior’s damage style will be strong for the new season?

Anda: Fury will end up doing a lot of damage once again, but I think it just depends on how viable other classes will be. With Brewmaster Monk falling out of favour due to the nerfs/bug fixes in patch 8.3, Protection Warrior will most likely be the best tank to play again. Depending on how strong Mistweaver is in Season 4, I can see myself pushing some high keys. With a Monk bringing the 5% group wide Physical damage buff, a Fury Warrior is brought to keys solely for our damage-dealing potential, since you miss a lot of utilities that other comp choices would bring. It helps that Fury has access to fairly good Azerite pieces from the last two bosses of the new raid, since Cold Steel, Hot Blood (which I’ll explain in more depth later) scales very well with item level. On top of that, we get a weapon drop from the last boss which has a Corruption effect that sounds good on paper, but currently has way too much Corruption for it to be worth. Fury’s damage pattern always lends itself well to Fortified weeks since our damage is relentless and most pulls are limited by the amount of disrupts and interrupts you have anyway. Fury also has very consistent damage for the Pillar adds, so we don't fall behind there like a Fire Mage could for example, who might have to hold Combust for other points depending on how powerful the Commanders are.



VitaminP: What are your go-to talents, azerite traits, and essences (major and minor) for Fury Warrior in high Mythic+? What variations might you make to your build for different dungeons or affixes? With the 4th essence slot unlocking in 8.3, people will now have a 3rd minor trait. What 4th trait(s) do you think looks strong in Patch 8.3 to add to your current build and why?

Anda:
Go-to talents:


Situational talents:
← →
← →
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Major Essences:

• Blood of the Enemy

Minor Essences:

• Purification Protocol
  
• Conflict and Strife
  
• Esssence of the Focusing Iris

Azerite Traits:

• 3x Cold Steel, Hot Blood
• 1x Unbridled Ferocity
• 1x Simmering Rage

Trinkets:
Vial of Animated Blood, Pocket-Sized Computation Device with a Recalibration Punchcard and a high Crit card, Ashvanes Razor Coral, Dribbling Inkpod, Gore-Crusted Butcher’s Block

In most situations, I will run Storm Bolt, Dragon Roar, and Reckless Abandon with Blood of the Enemy major and Purification Protocol and Iris minors. I prefer Iris over Conflict and Strife due to having very low haste on my gear, but Conflict and Strife is still a very valid choice in that slot as well. Iris minor is great for Fury Warrior, since Iris stacks are kept up from Whirlwind AND cleaved hits even if you're not targeting the mob that started the stack.

In dungeons that require high amounts of single-target priority damage, namely Kings’ Rest and Siege of Boralus, I will generally play Siegebreaker instead of Reckless Abandon and swap out Purification Protocol for Conflict and Strife. In Kings’ Rest, I also use Double Time instead of Storm Bolt, since the mobility increase from this talent dramatically improves DPS uptime on the first, third, and last bosses. Storm Bolt isn’t really helpful or required in Kings’ Rest, since the Spectral Berserkers are really the only dangerous mobs in that dungeon that aren’t immune to stuns. Not only does Double Time increase DPS uptime on the boss fights, but this works synergistically to increase your own survivability as well due to Warpaint. In other words, your increased DPS uptime increases your Enrage uptime, which in turn increases your survivability through the 10% damage reduction provided by Warpaint during your Enrage buff. Therefore,speccing out of Storm Bolt and choosing Double Time is a really good call for Kings’ Rest.

I pick Bladestorm in Tol Dagor and Atal’Dazar on weeks when there are on-death affixes such as Bursting, Bolstering, and Sanguine. Due to our softcap of 5 targets, you might force long extends on Bursting, early Bolsters or Sanguine pools during the snap-spot pulls, which can lead to a wipe very fast. Therefore, I play Bladestorm there to force more even, steady damage to mobs. In Tol Dagor, I use Bladestorm to somewhat fix the AoE issues Fury has on the big first pull and it actually works well with timings on the Detention Block floor as well.

I also have a single-target gear set for when I leave dungeons (i.e. Tol Dagor and Motherlode), which includes Condensed Life-Force major and Iris/Crucible minors + Coral/Inkpod trinkets.

You can use Coral + Inkpod in all situations, but getting full value out of Coral is a lot of extra work in higher keys and Inkpod loses value without Coral, as you cannot guarantee crits on bosses without it. Vial is really good due to perfectly aligning with the Recklessness + Blood of the Enemy combination and the Recalibration card has a very high uptime and no primary stats (Strength is actually our worst stat). Gore-Crusted Butcher’s Block is also a solid trinket choice, since crit is very strong.

Fury does not do competitive damage without triple Cold Steel, Hot Blood in keys sadly, since it is our strongest stacking trait on single-target and by far the best trait in cleave situations. It also heals, because why not?!

As for the Fourth Essence slot unlocking, I think our setup will end up being Blood of the Enemy Major, and Conflict and Strife, Iris, and Purification Protocol minors. It’s just a solid amount of extra stats.




VitaminP: During the push week in late November, one of your teammates sent this funny clip to me of you dying on Sporecaller Zancha due to a weird pathing issue/angle of your Charge. What are some of the bugs or issues you’ve experienced as a Warrior in Mythic+ this season?

Anda: You can’t leap over a lot of ground effects, lets just put it that way. I found that out the hard way. Charge can be very funky as seen in that clip, since small edges in the floor kind of block its path, causing you to go around them instead. Your Charge can also sometimes go on cooldown without you even moving, which is a pretty good one. Assassinating people with Upheaval is also very good content and you can even use this technique to assassinate your whole group if you’re lucky.



VitaminP: What are some things you are looking to improve upon in your personal gameplay for next season? What tools do you use to evaluate your own play and make improvements?

Anda: I need to stop standing in frontals. Evaluating my own play is mostly just self reflection. I often mumble to myself on stream that I shouldve done X or Y. Having played this class for a long time, I normally notice right away when I mess something up rotationally. Simming is a very strong tool for single-target DPS, but the Fury APL (Action Priority List - the thing that makes the sim actually do stuff) for AoE is unfortunately fairly sub-optimal, especially in the way it uses cooldowns. You basically just want crit for keys anyway. Basically, it all comes down to experience and just testing what works and what doesn’t through trial and error.



VitaminP: If for some reason DPS warriors get nerfed into the ground before or during Season 4, what other classes might you be willing to play? Do you have any alts prepared if this happens or are you a die-hard Warrior main?

Anda: I doubt Fury will get nerfed, but it’s only as good as the meta allows it to be, which might not be kind to Fury this season. I have a Paladin and a Havoc Demon Hunter in playable states, but I don’t enjoy either of those classes enough to actually play them a lot. If I can’t one-trick Warrior in Season 4, I might just chill for the season or I could also play Protection Warrior again. Since Brewmaster Monk is getting nerfed and will most likely fall out of meta, our group’s current composition wont hold on anyway.



VitaminP: Lastly, what advice do you have for aspiring Fury Warriors in Mythic+?

Anda: Having a mouseover Execute macro to snipe Executes more efficiently is a good idea. A focus kick macro is also useful. Outside of that, I don't use any special tools to help me do what I do, but having a clean UI helps you to keep a good overview! You can dodge some mechanics like Upheaval on the first boss in Tol Dagor by using Heroic Leap (Charge technically works as well) at the correct time. On the last boss in Kings’ Rest, you can Heroic leap out of his Quaking Leap at the last second of the cast and then Charge back in right as he starts jumping to nullify the impact damage. Using Bladestorm to immune certain CC’s can be done as well if you choose to play that talent.

Special thanks to my push group Ailuropodà, Bubis, Ashvaeldh, and Míkkel. I’m happy I had the opportunity this season to show that this off-meta class is far from useless. With my teammates setting up solid pulls, I was able to do what a Fury Warrior does best: damage.





For more insights on Fury Warrior in Mythic+, please check out Dratnos's Spec Spotlight video here: