Kezah's Warrior guide!

[Kezah]

Hi all and welcome to my warrior guide!

The guide is not complete yet but I will add in updates whenever I'm done writing a new part!

Note that everything in this guide is from my own experience, so you may have other opinions on what speccs and such are better than what I say. With that said, let's begin with the guide. :wave:


General Warrior info:

Warriors are melee fighters that can specialise in either dealing damage (DPS'ing) or taking damage (Tanking). Warriors don't have mana, they need rage to use their abilities. Rage is generated from dealing, or taking damage. The more damage a hit does, the more rage it gives the warrior. This is for both in- and outcoming attacks. If you use a special ability (yellow text for the damage) you will not gain any rage. You will still get rage from getting hit from special abilites.

Warriors can use all weapons in the game, with the exception of wands. Though warriors have no abilites for any ranged weapons, they are still used for pulling and for the stats that they give. Warriors can also use shields, which is quite necessary when tanking.
Warriors obviously cannot use librams / idols / totems.


Warrior Races

Warriors can be played by all races in the game except blood elves.

I'll list the racials here for the different races and what I think about them.

Alliance:

Human:

• The Human Spirit, Passive: Spirit increased by 10%. Useless.
• Sword and Mace Specialization, Passive: Expertise with Swords/Maces and Two-Handed Swords/Maces increased by 5. Very good racial. 5 expertise is 1.25% less chance for the enemy to dodge/parry your attacks. This helps all warrior speccs alot. More damage for the DPS speccs, and bigger threat generation for tanks.
• Perception, Instant, 3 min cooldown: Dramatically increases stealth detection for 20 sec. Good in PvP for arenas when there's stealthers, and for those times you know there's a rogue sneaking on you.
• Diplomacy, Passive: Reputation gains increased by 10%. This is a pretty good racial, as you won't have to grind as much reputation as others and thus you can get rep rewards easier.

Dwarf:

• Stoneform, Instant, 3 min cooldown: While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In addition, Armor increased by 10%. Lasts 8 sec. Can be a little useful for tanking with the 10% armor increase, but it's not very much and it doesn't last too long. Good in PvP though and against some bosses (Moroes for example)
• Gun Specialization, Passive: Your chance to critically hit with guns is increased by 1%. Useless for warriors.
• Frost Resistance, Passive: Frost resistance increased by 10. Very situational racial. Examples where it can be good is tanking Hydross and when PvPing against frost mages.
• Find Treasure, Instant: Allows the dwarf to sense nearby treasure, making it appear on the minimap. Lasts until cancelled. Useless.

Gnome:

• Expansive Mind, Passive: Intellect increased by 10%. Useless.
• Escape Artist, Instant, 1.75 min cooldown:Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect. One of the best PvP racials in the game. Immobilization and movement speed reduction are the bane of warriors in PvP, and this helps you escape those. This is the reason you roll a gnome warrior (except for the awesome looks).
• Engineering Specialization, Passive: Engineering skill increased by 15. Useless
• Arcane Resistance, Passive: Arcane Resistance increased by 10. Same as frost resistance, situational use.

Night Elf:

• Wisp Spirit, Passive: Transform into a wisp upon death, increasing speed by 50%. Useless.
• Shadowmeld, Instant, 10 sec cooldown: Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Night Elf Rogues and Druids with Shadowmeld are more difficult to detect while stealthed or prowling. Can be useful in PvP as even though they know where you are, they can't target you, so you can be sure to get charge in without your opponent putting you in combat.
• Quickness, Passive: Dodge chance increased by 1%. Good for tanking.
• Nature Resistance, Passive: Nature Resistance increased by 10. See other resistances.

Draenei:

• Heroic Presence, Passive: Increases chance to hit for you and all party members within 30 yards. Very nice racial. Hit is very good when tanking for the extra threat you get from it. For DPSing this is also very good if you don't have enough hit. Not to mention it helps your party also.
• Gift of the Naaru, 1.5 sec cast, 3 min cooldown: Heals the target of 1085 damage over 15 sec. It's not very much, but it can still help a little sometimes.
• Gemcutting, Passive: Jewelcrafting skill increased by 5. Useless.
• Shadow Resistance, Passive: Shadow resistance increased by 10. See other resistances.

I'd say that for Alliance, Humans are best PvE wise, and gnomes PvP wise.

Horde:

Orc:

• Hardiness, Passive: Chance to resist stun effects increased by an additional 15%. Very good racial for PvP, combine it with Iron Will and Meta Gem and laugh at everyone trying to stun you.
• Command, Passive: Damage dealt by Hunter and Warlock pets increased by 5%. Useless.
• Blood Fury, Instant, 2 min cooldown:Increases attack power by 282, but reduces healing effects on you by 50%. Lasts 15 sec. Very nice for fury warriors, nice AP boost. The healing debuff makes it not very good for tanking threat boost and PvPing.
• Axe Specialization, Passive: Expertise with Axes and Two-Handed axes increased by 5. See human.

Undead

• Will of the Forsaken, Instant, 2 min cooldown: Provides immunity to Charm, Fear and Sleep while active. May also be used while already afflicted by Charm, Fear or Sleep. Lasts 5 sec. Good against warlocks and priests, but you will have death wish and berserker rage anyway so it isn't too useful.
• Underwater Breathing, Passive: Underwater breath lasts 300% longer than normal. Useless.
• Cannibalize, Instant, 2 min cooldown: When activated, regenerates 7% of total health every 2 sec for 10 sec. Only works on Humanoid or Undead corpses within 5 yds. Any movement, action, or damage taken while Cannibalizing will cancel the effect. Good for humiliating others when you killed them.
• Shadow Resistance, Passive: Same as Draenei's.

Troll:

• Throwing/Bow Specialization, Passive: Your chance to critically hit with Throwing Weapons/Bows is increased by 1%. Useless.
• Berserking, Instant, 3 min cooldown, 5 rage: Increases your attack speed by 10% to 30%. At full health the speed increase is 10% with a greater effect up to 30% if you are badly hurt when you activate Berserking. Lasts 10 sec. This can be pretty good. If you use it when low health that 30% is really nice damage increase.
• Beast Slaying, Passive: Damage dealt versus beasts increased by 5%. Pretty useless in most cases. Though it works against Lurker Below and maybe some other bosses too.
• Regeneration, Passive: Health regeneration rate increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat. This is very much useless. The health you gain is so minimal it makes no difference.

Tauren:

• Cultivation, Passive: Herbalism skill increased by 15. Obviously only of use if you're a herbalist, and it's still pretty useless.
• Endurance, Passive: Total health increased by 5%. One of the best racials for warriors there is. Whether you're tanking or PvP'ing, this will benefit you. The best thing with this is that it scales with gear.
• Nature Resistance, Passive: Nature Resistance increased by 10. See other resistances.
• War Stomp, 0.5 sec cast, 2 min cooldown:Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yds for 2 sec. Very nice in PvP to stop runners or interrupt casts.

For horde I'd say Tauren is best for both PvE and PvP.


Talents:

Warriors have 3 talent trees they can specialize in. Arms, Fury and Protection. I'll talk a little about them each and post some builds that are good.

Arms:

Arms is generally considered the warrior's PvP tree. Arms specializes in using two-handed weapons. Skills such as Mortal Strike and Overpower has it's damage based on weapon damage, so a slow two-hander is best suited for arms. Even though arms is a more PvP centric tree it can still do very good damage in PvE with using improved Slam, which basically gives you an extra attack for the cost of 15 rage and 0.5 sec slower normal swing, more about this later on in the guide.

Some talents speccs now:

<45/5/11>: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is a PvP oriented build. It's more for arena than BG's but works fine for BG's too. Last stand is nice for if you're about to die, and endless rage is good in those battles where the other team ignores you and goes for the others instead.

<37/21/3>: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This one is also a PvP build, but more BG oriented than the previous one. In BG there's more enemies and then you'll have good use of Sweeping Strikes and Improved Demoralizing Shout. Enrage is more likely to procc in BG's also where there's more attacking you.

<33/28/0>: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

MS/Flurry. This is a specc suited more for PvE DPS. Blood Frenzy is a great dps boost for all physical dps in raids. Improved Slam is also there for some nice extra damage. If you want to or if your raids already have a warrior with Blood Frenzy, consider taking the two points from it and put it into maxing out Flurry.

Fury

Fury is the PvE DPS centered tree for warriors. This has some great talents for pumping out damage. The damage from a fury warrior's main damage move, Bloodthirst, isn't based on Weapon damage, but only on AP, and with fury you can get a LOT of AP. With the improved battle shout, Rampage, and the 10% AP bonus from Imp. Berserker Stance your AP can get really high. Fury is best used by dual-wielding. Preferably a slow weapon in both hands, but a slow in the main hand and a fast in the off-hand can also be good for the faster and more steady rage generation.

And for fury speccs:

<17/44/0>: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is really the best build for fury in PvE. The 17 points in arms for impale and deep wounds are really nice. 20% more damage on your special crits are awesome, and with good enough gear you'll get so much rage you'll be able to use Heroic Strike whenever you aren't close to getting aggro (which you shouldn't with a good tank and the new imp. zerker stance). This is also great for grinding.

For fury there isn't really any other good builds. You can switch the 5 points in Imp.Demo Shout to Unbridled Wrath if you feel your rage generation is bad and your healers aren't having problems with the tank taking too much damage.

Protection

Protection is the warrior's tanking tree. Protection is very bad at dealing damage, but it's very good in taking damage
Protection uses a 1hand weapon and a shield. One of the main talents of protection is shield slam, which generates a lot of threat and deals damage based on your block value, this attack is the most threat-generating attack a warrior has. Another very important skill for protection is improved shield block, which gives you an extra charge on your shield block ability. This is invaluable when tanking bosses where you need to keep it up at all times to prevent getting a crushing blow on you.

Protection specc:

<8/5/48>: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is my favourite tanking specc. This is for raids mostly with last stand and improved shield wall in it. The points in arms for 5% more parry and improved thunderclap is great. The improved thunderclap makes you take 20% less total damage from all melee mobs. Last stand and improved shield wall helps a lot in some situations where you're taking a lot of damage and just need to hold on for a little longer.

For fury and protection there aren't many other "good" speccs that these two I posted. Arms has more choices to make and got more different speccs.

And also, here is what I would recommend for leveling specc:

I prefer leveling with two-hand weapon pre-outland as fury needs a lot of hit and you won't find much of that until you enter outland.
I recommend a Two-Hand slam specc which will allow for good grinding.

10-14: Cruelty 5/5
15-19: Improved Demoralizing Shout 5/5
20-24: Commanding Presence 5/5
25-29: Enrage 5/5
30-31: Improved Slam 2/2
32: Sweeping Strikes 1/1

Now you should go into the arms tree;

33-37: Deflection 5/5
38-40: Improved Thunder Clap 3/3
41-42: Iron Will 2/5
43-45: Deep Wounds 3/3
46: Anger Management 1/1
47: Improved Overpower 1/2
48-49: Impale 2/2
50-52: Two-Handed Weapon Specialization 3/5
53: Death Wish 1/1
54-58: Sword Specialization 5/5
59-60: Two-Handed Weapon Specialization 5/5

Now you can choose to either continue with Arms or Respecc to dual wield fury. Fury is viable now in outland with all +hit gear that you can find there. Just go with what you like most. For fury respecc to this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Arms 61-70:

61-62: Improved Intercept 2/2
63: Mortal Strike 1/1
64-65: Second Wind 2/2
66-67: Improved Bloodrage 2/2
68-70: Tactical Mastery 3/3

Fury 61-70:

61: Improved Thunder Clap 2/3
62-64: Deep Wounds 3/3
65: Anger Management 1/1
66: Improved Thunder Clap 3/3
67-68: Impale 2/2
69-70: Execute 2/2

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That's the end, keep in mind I'll be updating whenever I'm finished with a new part. Got lots of more to write but will post this now and I will update later as I get more. Thanks for reading hoped you like it. :wave:

~Kezah

[1337-kage]

Pretty much common knowledge. Though, you forgot that Dorfs have a Sta improve, which also make them very suitable for PvE. You kinda need to count things like that in

[NoVa)Ulqiora]

To be honest , I am using the 33/28 spec mainly but not in BGs or raiding as you are saying. I am using it in arena. While the 33/25/3 is more versatile , in a 2v2 fight (assuming your arena partner is a healer ) the straightforward 33/28 dps is much more important. Just my opinion anyways..

Anyway , great guide :-)

[Kezah]

Pretty much common knowledge. Though, you forgot that Dorfs have a Sta improve, which also make them very suitable for PvE. You kinda need to count things like that in

Dwarves have like 5 more points in stamina over other races, not really any difference...

[joeeb22]

i agree that 33/28 dps much better but spell reflect saves my ass so much in arena. If u have a good spell reflect macro 33/25/3 is the shit. but in 3v3 and 5v5 id go 33/28 with sword as weapon its pretty amazing. also make sure u get imp slam on 33/28 for 3's and 5's its a huge dps increase.

[Ferag]

Talents aren't that great, and the guide is pretty obvious. You state racials, and what they do. Everyone knows this. As for your talents .. Only a few of them are any good. Your prot spec leaves much to be desired. It's okay for raiding, but Imp Shield Wall and Imp Defensive Stance are pointless. Speaking as a BT tank, of course. Imp Taunt is needed for 5 mans and Heroics. Anger Management is also a very useful talent once you get better geared, because as you generate less rage, this talent gets more important. Overall, no rep from me, pretty common sense guide.