The Arms Warrior in WoW

The Arms warrior in WoW typically carries a two-handed sword or axe and excels at generating massive damage to crush opponents. More "bursty" than other Warriors, they love to charge into PvP combat and destroy the opposition.

Urrr... Arms Warrior SMASH!!!

Currently, for the 3.3 patch series, the last before the Cataclysm release, Fury builds fall to the dirt compared to Arms builds. For off-tanking and DPS work Arms is a pretty good build, and if you're not yet at the level cap it's a pretty good choice for leveling. All in all, the Arms Warrior has a lot of versitility.

For raiding DPS some say that Fury is superior to Arms. But the two are comparable, according to others. Most agree that Arms DPS requires a lot more attention than Fury to generate comparable numbers.
After playing a Fury warrior (perhaps while leveling) for a long time it can be refreshing to play something that requires a little more skill. It's refreshing to move to the more difficult Arms after playing Fury for a while. Also, as mentioned above, Arms rewards that higher level of involvement with a great deal of versatility. That it hits really hard is no small bonus.

Your primary attack will become Mortal Strike. MSs healing debuff makes it especially useful in PvP. With that healing debuff and Arms' burst damage you opponent (victim) might be dead before the healer can do anything about it. Then you kill the healer.

When building or leveling your Arms Warrior, especially if you're going to be PvPing, you will want to get into Mortal Strike ASAP, so stick with Arms at least until you can get MS. You should then stay with Arms to get into Bladestorm, and after that feel free to pick up talents from the other trees to suit your particular needs. Once you have MS your generic attack rotation will then be something like charge > MS > Hamstring. Use Overpower, Sudden Death, or Bloodsurge if they proc, otherwise use Heroic Strike inbetween your MSs.

The upcoming Cataclysm expansion brings two big changes to the talent system, besides a complete reworking of the talents. Ok, three big changes, two after the reworking. The first is that once you pick your firs talent you're locked into that tree until you grab the top talent (barring having your trainer wipe your talents.) Only after that can you branch out. The Mastery system is the next big change. "Mastery" of the Arms tree gives you a chance for free attacks after each of your normal melee attacks.   This provides encouragement to stick with one tree, which you will be forced to do anyway.

Mastery will be a skill that can be obtained from your trainer, once you get the top (Arms) talent, Bladestorm. Many pieces of Cataclysm gear will have Mastery Rating as one of their stats and this will add to your initial Mastery rating. This works the same way as gear with Hit or Crit rating points. Very well geared Arms Warriors will be getting quite a few of those extra attacks, which should boost their DPS quite nicely.

If you are starting a new Arms Warrior (or any class) check out this Dungeon Leveling Guide for tips on how to use the WoW instances to get leveled fast.