Arms v Fury v Protection

This particular post was requested by a fellow member of <Reckless Minority>. The opinions posted here are my own and do not reflect those of Blizzard, who own the © to World of Warcraft, nor do these opinions reflect those of others in <Reckless Minority>.

I don't know why I mentioned that up top, but I felt it was necessary.

ARMS
The Arms Warrior tree is built around increased burst through slow two-handed weapons, increased by stacking heavy bleed increasing effects. Almost all the talents are built around increasing weapon damage, increased bleed duration/damage, and reducing CDs on spec-specific abilities for increased damage.

Pros

• Sustainable Rage resource due to Anger Management and rage efficient abilities like Overpower.
• Increased burst.
• Mortal Strike: Spec specific debuff for healing reduction.
• Bladestorm: Spec Tier ability for increased burst, as well as "invulnerability."
• Optimal PvP DPS spec.
• Optimal PvE solo DPS spec.

Cons

• Poor viability for PvE raiding.
• Sustainable DPS relies on consistent reapplication of bleeds.
• High-movement fights effect DPS due to Slam's cast time.
• Lower-end of PvE burst damage.
• Has a higher reliance on Mastery than Critical/Haste, after Strength.

FURY
The Fury Warrior tree is built around increased damage through Enrage, "double" the damage through dual-wielding (increased burst with TG, or sustainable burst through SMF), with a more 'reckless' playstyle. The Fury talents are built around an increased risk-over-reward system, where you put yourself at a higher risk of death to receive reward. Death Wish or Recklessness, the two Fury-based CDs are built around increasing damage taken for damage dealt.

Pros

• The more reckless playstyle creates many more fun opportunities to display the classes utility and functionality.
• Regeneration through basic rotation.
• Rampage: Fury raid-wide buff for 5% increased critical strike chance.
• Titan's Grip/Single-Minded Fury: Bottom tier increases weapon choices.
• Furious Attacks: Spec specific Mortal Strike styled talent.
• Precision: Fury talent for 3% hit.
• Berserker Stance: With the changes to Berserker not forcing you to take more damage to deal more damage, Fury gains more survivability AND increased damage.
• Die by the Sword: Was more of a Pro before the 500% threat increase. Gave the Fury Warrior a chance to recuperate with 100% parry to survive an insta-death when stealing aggro.
• Strongest DPS warrior spec for PvE. (According to current data, Arms is winning this race again, but I digress..)
• Relies solely on Strength and Critical, Haste is worthless due to Flurry talent. Mastery is an abysmal DPS increase.

Cons

• Poorly sustainable Rage resource until level capped, with high amounts of Hit(12%+) and Exp capped.
• Titan's Grip/Single-Minded Fury: Rotation changes depending on spec due to the differences in weapon speed of 2H to 1H. Where certain abilities are more prevalent in TG, they are useless in SMF.
• Berserker Stance: The Fury Stance is practically useless while leveling until you hit level 50, where you gain Intercept. Stance-dancing for Charge from 30 to 50 was obviously overlooked by Blizzard. Especially since you lack access to Stance Mastery from the Arms tree with the way Talent trees are setup, so you lose any and all rage in target catching.
• Pre-500% threat increase, Fury had a serious threat generation issue.
• Poor PvP utility due to lack of crowd control abilities.
• (While true of all classes, Fury and Druids are mostly effected by this statement as a whole) Purely gear-based. No measure of skill will make you do more damage/DPS if you're simply lacking in gear.

PROTECTION
The Protection Warrior tree is, obviously, the tank tree. Built to generate substantial threat, take the hits with increased survivability, and dish the pain back out through Vengeance. The entire Protection tree is structured toward increased avoidance, accelerated and sustained threat generation, damage reduction, and protection of the group. While less so than Paladins on that last note.

Pros

• Most survivability.
• Moderate damage while leveling, tapers off at level cap when DPS start to "outgear" the Vengeance boost for Tanks.
• Last Stand: Protection talent that boosts the tank's health two-fold for a short time to increase survivability.
• Vigilance: Protection talent that is placed on a raid/party member that whenever the "Vigi'd" target is struck, your Taunt's CD is refreshed and your Vengeance stacks as if you were hit.
• Concussive Blow and Shockwave: Protection based abilities built for stuns.
• Blood and Thunder: Turns the warrior into a viable AoE tank as well as a single target tank.
• Turns a shield into an offensive weapon as well as a defensive tool.
• Best Flag Carrier class/spec in RBGs at current time. The removal of Vengeance in PvP might effect this, but Prot Warriors will still be strong FCs.

Cons

• Lack of powerful DPS at level cap and end-game.
• No longer able to dual-wield when a shield isn't optimal for increased tank damage.
• Possibility of Rage starvation with too high avoidance.
• Lack of healing debuff that Arms and Fury both offer.

In my own personal time playing Warriors, and I have played many..
Protection is a great way to level if you plan on booking it through dungeons. If you plan on questing, Protection can slow you down if you take that route. It'll be marginal, especially since the release of Vengeance.
Arms is a great way to level through quests and PvP, due to the increased survivability, sustainable rage, and Mortal Strike ability, and the fact that Arms is the most viable PvP spec a warrior has. The possibility of crowd control makes them an asset in dungeons, but almost all other classes have more options for CC.
Fury is a great way to level.. Period. This might be biased, but like I said, personal opinion. Fury has great burst damage, sustainable damage, self-regen abilities, and can swap to sword-and-board to temp tank in a clincher, better than an Arms could, due to high-threat and those self-regen abilities.

Since this reroll is about not hiding away in dungeons/battlegrounds, I'd honestly say rolling Arms and Fury are your best bets for fast leveling. By leveling as Arms/Fury, you're going to be in a position where you'll almost always have a queue time, so questing should be your number one priority for leveling. Queuing for dungeons adds in those scenarios to correct and improve your rotations in relation to others, while not being "hectic" like an end-game raid setting.

I believe I've said more than enough..

Kutira, out.