[Arena] How to : Warrior

[Rapt0R]

I've decided to contribute more to the MMOWNED over the last time, and seeing as I was top 4 Warrior on one of the private servers (Blizz-like), I've decided to write a guide or somethng for Warriors.

This is mostly an explanation of warrior PvP basics, so those of you rated 1800+, disregard please. Also, those here for macros, scroll to the bottom.

A bit about myself, to show I (sort of) know what I am doing;
I’ve played four different setups, and by far the most fun was playing Warrior/Shaman, Warrior/Enhshaman/Druid and Warrior/Rogue.

I was 1950 rated on my warrior in 2’s, 3’s in s5. More on private (:

(I was 3rd on the BG as Hpal/Hunter on my FotM reroll paladin.)

Enough E-peen shaking. Down to business!

The warrior class has changed a LOT since the glory days of warrior+healer = GG. With the high burst potential of every class in WotLK, the warrior is not as popular as, say, the almighty Death Knight. Thus, the first rule of warrior PvP is:


1) Play Defensive!
Keeping your 2h out and ragedumping on Heroic Strikes is not worth the huge amount of damage you’re taking in! Switch to defensive, pillar-kite, have a equip sword/shield macro. If you’re not hitting something, have your shield on.
The majority of games I’ve won this season, I’ve been playing warrior/Shaman or Warrior/Druid. With a Druid, CC is a nonissue since they’re immune to most CC and are able to heal very very well while CCd though HoTs. Playing with the Shaman, a 3 to 9 second CC was PLENTY to drop me from 100-0% with a shield on. This was because I was still in battlestance, and not using my defensive cooldowns. The full list of defensive cooldowns a warrior has (to my memory) are:
Shield Block, Shield Wall, Enraged Regeneration, Heroic Fury (Fury), Last Stand (Prot), Disarm, Intervene (for LoS, etc.), Trinkets (Battlemasters, etc.), Intimidating Shout and any Racial abilities (Stoneform, Shadowmeld, War Stomp) etc.
So you see, the warrior is not without options. And the best part of playing defensive is that you can still put out a huge amount of damage.
With the talent “Unrelenting Assault”, Revenge is down to a 1 second cooldown. Currently, if you go into defensive and hit shield block vs a melee, you can just SPAM revenge for 3-8k crits depending on gear, every single GCD.

2) Protect your partner!
Playing a warrior gives you a very good amount of “peel” on your partner. Be it with charge/intercept stuns, racial abilities like War Stomp, Intimidating Shout, or even intervene, you can play defensive FOR your partner. Playing with a shaman with 950 resil, he could VERY easily die in a kidneyshot vs rogue/mage. Thus, I would wait for the rogue to have 5 combo points, then intervene my shaman. I’d eat the full kidney, or trinket and bladestorm kill the rogue. And Mage/Rogue is arguably the hardest comp to fight as shaman/warrior. Intervene is quite possibly the most underrated ability a warrior has. for the low cost of 10 rage, you can coordinate to move just about anywhere within a 25 yd range. This is an incredible ability. Try going into a BG with a couple friends, and make the intervene macro listed below. Used in combination with Charge and Intercept, you can get 75+ yards ahead of your current position using only 3 GCDs. As a prot warrior, Improved Spell Reflection (Often used in 5v5) is a VERY helpful tool. Try speccing prot and playing around with it, it’s a very fun spec.

3) Use cooldowns for double-purpose.
Bladestorm is a VERY overpowered talent. It is the new “Beastial Wrath”. The only problem with it is that it only lasts 6 seconds, and you can’t use it while not in control of your character. This means that it is very easy for others to see, and avoid your bladestorm. That cannot happen. Keybind Bladestorm (Clicking is simply not fast enough) to something easily accessible to you. When you see that mage start to cast a polymorph, bladestorm the rogue. You’ll be immune to the CC and be dealing a ton of damage. Use intimidating shout (When possible) to fear both your kill target and its partner. This allows you a guaranteed hit on your kill target, and likely forces a trinket on the partner.

4) Exploit “Creative” game mechanics.
Intervene blind was never supposed to be in the game, yet warriors have been doing it for years. The reason blizzard has not fixed it is because it takes “a lot of skill to accomplish.” Intervene blind is an extremely easy to do, since Blind has a very short range. All you have to do is watch the rogue. If you see him running to your healer, hit your macro (listed at the bottom) and absorb the blind without any problems! Another extremely powerful tool is exploiting racial abilities. For undead, you can drop fear and canniballize (Provided there is a corpse) for basically 40% hp back. Similarly, you can fear and bandage very easily in the same way. As a Tauren, you can war stomp and Disarm in the same GCD for very effective results, since you cannot dodge/block/parry while stunned. As an Orc, use Blood Fury and your DPS trinket in combination with Rend for extra damage, and maybe even Bladestorm. There are hundreds of “exploits” usable for warriors. You just need to look for them.

5) Find a Skilled Partner!
There is no point in being an uberskilled ninja if your partner is keyturning and spamming Regrowth. Before agreeing to play with someone, test them out in Duels, Skirmishes and PvP. Talk to them about how their PvP philosophy is. If they play offensively, then you should play offensively as well. Be sure you, and your partner have optimal gear before entering an arena, as you will find that using Claymore of Ancient Power vs people using Lotrafen, Spear of the Damned does not work so well. Make sure to use Ventrilo, Skype, Teamspeak or in game Voice Chat to communicate. Get a microphone, it is invaluable (despite it costing about five bucks ). The top three ways to succeed in PvP are as follows: Play your class to the full extent; Intervene Blinds, Bladestorm appropriately, Spell Reflect when needed, Mesh playstyles with your partner, if you’re staying defensive with your shield on while your partner is using his CC on the healer with your kill target at 25%, your arena team is not going to go anywhere. Coordinate CC, kill, switch, drinks, etc. Practise, Practise, Practise!It won’t make you perfect, but it’ll get you pretty darn close. Duel outside Orgrimmar or Ironforge, skirmish with new people, BG a lot. Read ElitistJerks or ArenaJunkies warrior forums, watch Warrior PvP movies. I learned a lot from there. HAVE FUN!! As corny as that sounds, playing with someone who you enjoy playing against is shown to be better than playing with some uberskilled Vengeful Gladiator who yells at you for intercepting .0002s late.

6) Concentrate, Think, React.
If your team is fighting a hard counter, say Mage Prot/holyadin. If you’re off in La-la land and get the mage down to 10% before bop, and don’t notice your partner has purged the BoP while you switch in vain to try to kill the paladin, you will most likely lose the game. Think before doing things. Concentrate on what your opponent and partner are doing. React quickly to obstacles. Get blinded? Trinket. Paladin bubble? Shattering Throw. Mage about to polymorph your partner? Pummel or Shield bash. Reaction is 50% of PvP. If you’re fighting someone in full 8.5 or Furious and you’re in heroic gear, you will likely lose. If the 8.5 player is keyturning and not playing his class correctly, you can very, very easily win.

Here are a list of macros I use, or know of to help warriors. Hopefully they are of use to you.

Spell reflection:

#show Spell Reflection
/cast Spell Reflection
/equip (1HNAME)
/equip (SHIELDNAME)
/cast Spell Reflection

Charge/Battlestance/Equip2h

#show Charge
/cast Charge [stance=1]
/cast Battle Stance [stance=2/3]
/equip (2HNAME)

Equip 1h/shield, Shield Block, Block Trinket, Shield Slam

#show Shield Slam
/equip (1HNAME)
/equip (SHIELDNAME)
/cast Shield Block
/use (TRINKETNAME)
/cast Shield Slam

Cleave/Heroic Strike modifier. (Fury/prot)

#show
/cast [mod=alt*] Cleave, Heroic Strike

*This will use Alt as a modifier to switch between the two. You can also use Shift or Ctrl, simply switch the modifier name.

Hp + Enraged Regen

#show Enraged Regen
/cast Last Stand
/use Battlemaster’s _____
/cast Enraged Regeneration
/cast Commanding Shout

Intervene

#show Intervene
/cast [target=PARTNERNAME] Intervene

Focus*Heroic Throw (Prot)

#show Heroic Throw
/cast [target=focus] Heroic Throw

*/focus is a very powerful tool for a warrior. It allows you to see what someone is doing as if you were targeting them. Try using it in arena.

If you have anything to add, tell me.

[Rapt0R]

Reserved for anything in future.

[Zeroi9]

Epic guide, even if I play a druid. :-)
+2

[Zaff]

Wow.. This is a complete rip off from http://www.mmowned.com/forums/wow-gu...de-macros.html ...

[lolnej7]

Gj u changed font colour of http://www.mmowned.com/forums/wow-gu...de-macros.html

[soto]

this raptor guy really has the habit of just copy-pasting everything he finds on this site, stupid leecher gettign contrib

[ugly_rocket]

It's better for someone to learn the basics then apply their basic knowledge on advanced things(arena in this case) on their own rather than follow the exact footsteps of other people.

[ChildeRoland]

Omg, another CnP.

Warrior Arena PvP guide + macros | FREE Worlf of Warcraft Guides

Edit: Lolnej and Zeff, that post didn't show up when I googled, but this proofs that that post is a CnP as well.
This guide is from freewowguide.org

[Roller]

and all admins / moderators are sleeeping!

someone hit this fool with the stick

[gogobananas]

Alternative guide:
1. Roll face along keyboard.
2. ??????
3. Profit.

[Zaff]

Alternative guide:
1. Roll face along keyboard.
2. ??????
3. Profit.

amen to that!

[Zaphry]

Alternative guide:
1. Roll face along keyboard.
2. ??????
3. Profit.

Doesnt work as a warrior cause of rage problems
that is morelike paladin or dk playstyle tho >_>

[ChildeRoland]

Yeah, the paladin only need 4 buttons in pvp and 5-6 in pve and they need to be spammed all the time. Never oom, and 4k+ dps.

[Taselo]

Yeah, the paladin only need 4 buttons in pvp and 5-6 in pve and they need to be spammed all the time. Never oom, and 4k+ dps.

Dont own a paladin i see? ^^

[ChildeRoland]

How did you guess ^^

I'm watching my friend play, ofc it's more than 4 buttons, but it's faceroll nevertheless.