Just a little guide to the WoW (World of Warcraft) class; the Warrior.

First off though, just a little about myself, my name is Unco on most of the WoW servers I play on, and my main is two level 60 warriors. I have quite a lot of knowledge about the warrior class, and just want to share them with everyone here in RedGuides.com.

The warrior is a class that starts off, slightly weaker than most others, and becomes one of the strongest end-game. Sure rogues can do more DPS, but can they last as many hits as a warrior could with their leather armour?

Table of Contents:-

0. Overview
1. Stats
- Races
- Racials
2. Skill overview
- Mostly used skill
- Talent skills
- How to tank
3. Talent Overview
- A guide to the warriors talents
- Talent builds
4. Thinking about tanking endgame?
- Armour for tanking in MC/BWL
5. Player Vs. Player strategies.
- In-depth guide to killing every class.
- PvP Gear

Overview: The Warrior Class

Pros –
· One of the two classes that could wear the strongest armour in the game, Plate. (Thus being able to take much more hits than any cloth wearers. It gets better being on the horde side as well, as there is no competition to plate armour other than another warrior ;))
· They are the only efficient tanks end-game, a lot more efficient to paladins, and can spec Protection to be even more efficient!
· They can also dish out a lot of DPS, assuming you are Fury spec. Although Arms spec can almost evenly match it with Mortal Strike (MS), nothing can beat dual wield Fury spec spamming heroic strike.
· Has several ways to hold hate (aggro) and can manage it better than the paladin.
· Great team member! [Party’s will ALWAYS need one or two warriors]
· Can use almost every weapon except Wands.

Cons –
· Very Gear Dependent
· Can’t get out of immobilize, unless you use a trinket or have a pocket priest with decursive by your side ;).
· Can’t heal other than bandages and potions (and food if out of battle).
· Relies quite a lot on other party members, for heals.
· Only has good close range attacks, no long range attacks other than shoot.
· Will be fighting over 2H weapons and 1H weapons against any melee class, even hunters.
· Can’t use Wands =[.

1. Stats

Races:

The races which will be able to play as the warrior class are…
Alliance:
Gnome, Night Elf, Human, Dwarf
Horde:
Tauren, Undead, Orc, Troll

Racials:

All races have got a racial to give them the upper hand in battle if they learn to use it well.
The racial spell is located in your spellbook.

Alliance:

Gnomes – Escape Artist, 0.5 sec cast speed, 1 min cooldown. Definitely one of the best racials to help the warrior. It gets rid of the effects of any immobilization or slowing effects. (such as hamstring, and frost nova)

Night Elf – Shadowmeld, a toggled ability that turns you invisible until toggled off or if you move/attack. 10 second cooldown. Great skill to use when you’re just about to ambush someone. Follow up with a charge.
Human – Perception, 3 min cooldown. Increases your stealth detection for 20 secs. Greatest skill ever to take down rogues, not sure if it has another use just as good as it though.

Dwarf – Stoneform, 3 minute cooldown. Armour is increased by 10%, and grants immunity to Bleed, Poisons and Disease effects. Lasts 8 seconds. Stoneform is another racial built to take out rogues. With your immunity to poisons and 10% extra armour, rogues would be barely scratching you at all!

Horde

Tauren – Warstomp, 0.5 sec cast, 2 min cooldown. Stuns up to 5 enemies for 2 seconds. One of the best tanking racials. It will give you some time (2 seconds) to build aggro on another monster that is attacking your party member. Also very useful in PvP.

Undead – Will of the Forsaken, instant cast, 2 minute cooldown. My favourite racial ever. Provides immunity to charm, fear and sleep for 5 secs. It can also be used when you’re feared, charmed or slept. Greatest PvP racial ever!

Orc – Blood Fury, 2 minute cooldown. Increases base melee attack power by 25% for 15 seconds and reduces healing effects on you by 50% for 25 seconds. Really useful in solo-PvP, and even solo-Grinding.

Troll – Berserking, costs 5 rage, 3 minute cooldown. Increases attack speed by 10% to 30%. The higher the health, the lower the increase. Lasts 10 seconds.

2. Skill Overview

Mostly used skill:

Charge – You first get this skill at level 4, and you will be using it til level 60. Using this skill, you charge at the enemy from quite a long range, generating 9 rage (Talents can improve the rage generated) and stuns the target for 1 second. The bad thing is, it cannot be used in combat.

Heroic Strike – You start off with heroic strike. It increases your next melee damage by a certain amount and causes high amount of threat at the cost of 15 rage (talents can reduce it to 12). This is the skill for fury warriors. As it does not generate rage when you use this, Fury warriors generate rage since their offhand still attacks normally while the heroic strike is being ‘queued’.

Hamstring – You get this skill at level 8. It is one of the best skills in the game PvP-wise. It slows the target, dealing very little damage but slowing the target to 60% - 50% of their movement speed for 15 seconds. It’s awesome for stopping runners.

Bloodrage – You first get this skill at level 10. It generates 10 rage and an extra 10 rage over 10 seconds at the cost of 10% of your max life. In the duration, the warrior is considered to be in combat, so you cannot charge. It’s a very useful skill, you will be using it until 60.

Sunder Armor – Your first tanking skill. You acquire this skill with protection stance at level 10 after completing the quest. It stacks 5 times on a target and reduces their armor by massive amounts. It causes HUGE amounts of threat and will still cause threat when you use it even after 5 is stacked.

Overpower – The rogue killer. 5 Rage, 5 second cooldown. Only usable after your target dodged an attack. It is like an instant heroic strike, that can crit for huge amounts. It can’t be blocked, dodged or parried but can miss. Only usable in battle stance.

Demoralizing shout – Reduces the attack power of all enemies in a 10 yard range for 30 seconds. Costs 10 rage. Useful for tanking large amount of monsters and CAN UNSTEALTH ROGUES! All shouts can unstealth rogues, other than battle shout. Many warriors forget about this!

Revenge – Usable only in Defensive Stance, and must follow a dodge, block or parry. It causes massive amounts of threat for only 5 rage. Use Shield Block and then Revenge when it is lit up, and you will be causing huge amounts of threat.

Shield Block – Usable only in Defensive stance and if you have a shield equipped. Increases chance to block by 75% for 5 seconds, and will only block 1 attack. Costs 10 rage. Great tanking skill.

Disarm – Usable only in defensive stance. Disarms the enemies weapon for 10 seconds. 1 Minute cooldown. Costs 20 rage. Great PvP skill.

Intimidating Shout – 25 rage, 3-minute cooldown. The warrior shouts, causing the target to stay and fight, while every other enemy nearby will flee in fear for 8 seconds.
This is the skill which requires great timing. First of all, it is a ranged STUN that gets broken by any attack, even DoT’s (damage over time) attacks. Therefore, if you think you need to bandage in a fight, don’t use rend on that person/monster. Use intimidating shout, and cancel your auto-attack and quickly bandage. The stun also lasts 8 seconds, which is enough to get in a bandage to its full potential.

Execute – A great finishing move. Only usable in battle and berserker stance, and on monsters below 20% hp. Costs 15 rage, and would usually instant kill anything that has less than 20% hp.
That execute was my highest crit. [Picture wasn't added, it was a 5977 execute full rage]

Whirlwind – Usable only in Berserker Stance, you spin and attack 4 enemies at once, dealing weapon damage to each enemy. Cost 25 rage and on a 10 second cooldown. Most arms warriors use this all the time. Charge – Mortal Strike – Whirlwind – Normal Attacks – Mortal strike – Whirlwind – Execute.

Pummel – Usable only in Berserker Stance, 10 rage, 10 second cooldown. Pummels the target interrupting their casting spell and stops them from casting from the same school of magic for 4 seconds. (ie. Arcane Missiles = Arcane School. He cannot cast polymorph for 4 seconds as it is also from the Arcane School)

Intercept – Usable only in Berserker Stance, 10 rage, 30 second cooldown (Fury talents reduce it). Charges at an enemy causing damage and a 3 second stun.
It is usable in combat, which makes it different to Charge.

Talent Skills

Arms –
Sweeping Strikes – Battle Stance, next 5 melee attacks strike an additional enemy. Gotta love it when you use that + an execute crit in PvP. 4k Execute to two people, even when one of them was on full hp.

Mortal Strike – 30 rage, 6 second cooldown. An attack that does weapon damage + extra damage and puts a debuff on the target reducing its healing effects by 50% done to them for 10 seconds. Great PvP and PvE skill.

Fury –
Piercing Howl – Causes all enemies near warrior to be dazed for 6 seconds. It is like an AoE Hamstring, but 6 seconds only and has a higher range. Awesome for catching people.

Death Wish – 3 minute cooldown. Increases physical damage by 20% and makes you immune to fear effects but lowers resistance and armor by 20%. Lasts 30 seconds. Really good for burst DPS. Usable when you’re in Fear.

Bloodthirst – 30 rage, 6 second cooldown. An attack that causes 45% of your attack power in damage and heals you for 20hp each hit for the next 5 hits. This is the fury 31 point talent. It is a very good skill that deals nice DPS and the only self heal warriors have.

Protection –
Last stand – 10 Minute cooldown. Increases your hp by 30% of your maximum hp for 20 seconds. Really good for tanking.

Concussive blow – Stuns the opponent for 5 seconds, 15 rage 45 second cooldown. This skill I reckon is more for PvP than it is for PvE.

Shield Slam – Requires shield. 30 Rage 6 second cooldown. Slams the target causing massive amounts of damage and has a 50% chance to dispel 1 magic effect. Causes a very high amount of threat. Best tanking skill in-game.

How to Tank

A quick guide on how to be a good tank.
Always Pull with a GUN!
Never ever charge in an instance, unless you are 100% sure there will be no adds.
Since there is usually double – triple+ pulls in instances, start off by hitting bloodrage and sundering the mob twice, then sunder the second mob twice and keep going.
Against bosses, just spam sunder. Even after 5 sunders are stacked, keep it coming. You should never lose aggro, if you do, use taunt and continue sundering.
Do NOT use taunt if the mob is already on you.
Also, try to always be in defensive stance.

3. Talent Overview

A guide to the warrior talents

Arms – This talent tree is just to improve your DPS with 2h weapons, crit chance.
It also has one of the strongest warrior skills in the game, Mortal Strike.
Fury – This talent tree is for the warriors who want to be rogues but with more
armour. It is the DW spec. Most fury warriors would find themselves never running out of rage, and can be the best grinders and dpsers. Unlimited rage, and a low cooldown intercept makes fury warriors great grinders. Also, bloodthirst and blood craze’s self heal, allows the fury warrior to last battles without rest.
Protection – This talent tree is to improve your tanking skill, and the damage you
take.

Talent Builds

The most common build:
31/20/0 Arms/Fury/Protection

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?pAGxdhbo0uVVzu0x

My Build
15/36/0 Arms/Fury/Protection

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?LGMxdZVVzuxxRio

Tanking Build
15/5/31 Arms/Fury/Protection

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?LVMxdZVZEizIx00oo

These are the only 3 builds I have gone with, and I enjoyed them very much, especially my fury build. Try them out if you like.

4. Thinking about Tanking End-game?

First of all, the only gear you need to maintank in MC are heavy armoured, Fire resistance gear. Dark Iron Plate is your best bet. It is the easiest ‘out-of-mc’ gear to get with very high Fire resistance.
Get some Fire resistance enchants on your cloak and do the libram of resilience quest a few times (it will cost a LOT). Libram of Resilience gives you an item which enchants your leg or head armor with 20 fire resistance.
Main-tanks in MC usually have a total of 350+ Fire Resistance, which should be your goal.

5. Player vs Player Strategies

In-Depth Guide to killing every class

Druid
Druids are a very hard opponent to beat. They can tank your attacks well in bear form, and can heal in caster form. The way I’ve found to beat them is, to hit them with mortal strike and keep that debuff on them at all times. Don’t bother with hamstring as they will shapeshift out and lose it, but instead, USE PIERCING HOWL!
They cannot shapeshift out of piercing howl, which is good because most druids would turn into travel form and try to run away.
If they entangle roots you when they need to heal, use your trinket and intercept them, pummel every green thing coming out of their hands and you have the battle!

Hunter
Hunters are probably the toughest for a warrior. A good hunter will chain-freeze trap a warrior so bad, they will die before the warrior even gets a hit on him. If you find a hunter that doesn’t chain-trap, keep hamstring on him at all times and fear his pet when he’s getting annoying. Don’t forget hunters can feign death and trap again. So keep a rend on him to keep him in combat as well. Other than hamstringing and rending the hunter, just spam all your DPS moves and it should be easy.

Mage
A good mage would always kite the warrior. Save your intercept until he uses his first Frost Nova, since it will waste it if he frost nova’s you after you have intercepted. A good mage would also use rank 1 frostbolt on a 1 second cast, which will screw us over. Piercing Howl the mage when you’re nova’d and he will blink. Then you use your trinket and intercept the mage and chop him up. At that point, you have a few seconds to kill the mage before he Nova’s again. If he does nova again, repeat the process, except that you might not have intercept ready and you definitely won’t have your trinket ready. If you ever get near the mage, use all your skills and pummel his frost spells.

Paladin
Paladins are quite an easy fight, they’re dps is weaker than the warriors, but they have immunity shields and can heal. Bandage up when they have their shield up and re-charge at them since they would be out of combat while shield-healing. Then go full DPS until they start healing again, pummel the heal and the rest should be cake.

Priest
A very hard fight for all classes. Keep Berserker stance on at ALL times. Berserker rage out of their 30second cooldown fear, and keep mortal strike debuff on them. If you are specced fury, keep intercepting them to stop their spells. Save pummel for their holy spells. Trinket out of their ‘blackout’ stun and keep on DPSing them.

Rogue
Definitely one of the easiest classes for warriors. Keep battle stance on unless you need to use whirlwind. Always keep them hamstringed, and trinket out of their kidney shot. Berserker rage also gets rid of Sap + Gouge, which is very useful. The main thing of this battle is, to outdps the rogue. The rogue will dodge a lot of your attacks, so you will have a lot of opportunities to hit overpower. Overall an easy fight, just need to get used to the berserker raging and trinketing.

Shaman
A very hard fight. Their DPS is crazy, and their heals are really annoying. Most shamans would drop earthbind totem and spam frost shocks on you. Target the earthbind totem and hit hamstring so it dies without wasting an auto attack. Keep DPSing the shaman and it’ll soon need to heal, but after frost shocking too much it is probably OOM and can’t fight any longer.
Just outlast the shaman and the fight is easy.

Warlock
Berserker stance should be on at all times. Keep them hamstringed and fear off their pet if it is a succubus. Berserker rage out of their fear and just DPS the warlock. The battle shouldn’t last long, just remember to pummel their shadow spells as it is probably a fear.

Warriors
Get the charge on them, disarm and the rest is easy. Just outdps them and hope you crit.

PvP Gear

PvP Warriors rely on a lot of stats. Mainly stamina, crit% and strength. Even mail crit% armours are good, such as the Crown of Destruction.
The more stamina you have, the more hp, thus the longer you will survive in PvP.
The more crit% you have, the more chance you will crit, meaning you will kill faster in PvP.
Strength will just increase your attack power, which is also useful, just not as useful.