Warrior Leveling 1.12 (Classic)

[Valks 2,375]

This thread is for comments and feedback regarding our Warrior Leveling guide for World of Warcraft: Classic.

[Guest Chasen]

Hey guys, love the guide! Just a minor bug, the arms warrior slider is showing a level 38 spell (pummel) with the slider on level 36. ?

[Seksi 208]

4 hours ago, Guest Chasen said:

Hey guys, love the guide! Just a minor bug, the arms warrior slider is showing a level 38 spell (pummel) with the slider on level 36. ?

Thanks man! Now THAT is an incredible eye for detail! Will fix ASAP, let me know if you find anything else off, plenty of improvements and typo fixes coming up soon for other parts that I have been getting feedback on ?

[ChaosDecides 30]

Can't buy charge until level 4, not 3.

[Valks 2,375]

14 hours ago, ChaosDecides said:

Can't buy charge until level 4, not 3.

This has been fixed, thanks!

[Guest Killion]

The guide for warrior states that Anger Management generates rage, it does not' it lowers the decay amount. 

[Seksi 208]

That is a common misconception because of the tooltip but in fact the way it lowers the decay amount is by generating 1 rage every 3 seconds: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/aeln9t/anger_management/

PS: I just re-tested it in game and that's literally what it does, after I pull a mob with bow and run around I get 1 rage every 3 seconds while in combat ? 

[Guest Voidmist]

The link you have for the engineering pets that can help with Cyclonian, the YouTube video has been set to private. Got an alternate source?

[Seksi 208]

Unfortunately no, it was a very rare video of a Warrior soloing Cyclonian with the help of engineering pets..I'll rework the paragraph to reflect the loss of the video, thanks!

[Guest Ras]

I find this 'guide' very incomplete for players who are totally new to the class..simple things such as "what sort of 2h weapon is better to use if you choose a 2h build, fast or slow?" are missing.. It's the sort of things that I as a new warrior player really want to know. The author seems to assume everybody already knows everything and just lists very basic things. When I look at the rotation page the "slam" skill isn't even listed at all..while 2h builds are recommended for players with sucky gear and I am being adviced to spec heavily into slam. I find it all very confusing and not very helpful at all.

[Seksi 208]

1 hour ago, Guest Ras said:

I find this 'guide' very incomplete for players who are totally new to the class..simple things such as "what sort of 2h weapon is better to use if you choose a 2h build, fast or slow?" are missing.. It's the sort of things that I as a new warrior player really want to know. The author seems to assume everybody already knows everything and just lists very basic things. When I look at the rotation page the "slam" skill isn't even listed at all..while 2h builds are recommended for players with sucky gear and I am being adviced to spec heavily into slam. I find it all very confusing and not very helpful at all.

You are supposed to read the whole guide, as the information is segmented into several pages.

The information you say is missing is, at the very least, on the leveling guide and on the stats page:

 

Leveling Guide:

2.4. Gear Options

While leveling, the number one thing is to use weapons with high damage. High damage per second on a weapon is also good, especially for Fury and Protection, but keep in mind that some of our best abilities (such as  Whirlwind and  Mortal Strike) scale off of the weapon damage itself, making slower weapons generally stronger. Finally, slower weapons allow you to kite with  Hamstring more efficiently.

 

Stats Page:

3.2. Weapon Stats

Your weapon is by far the largest contributor to your damage, and you should always aim to upgrade it first, if possible. There are two types of stats you are mainly looking for in a weapon: its DPS or damage and its speed. Slower weapons have bigger damage ranges, which is very important for certain skills that depend only on the damage range, such as  Mortal Strike and  Whirlwind. For more sustained DPS styles, such as Fury dual wielding, DPS is the most important stat, as  Bloodthirst does not depend on the weapon's damage range.

[Guest Old Dog]

I don't understand why improved hamstring is suggested over Impale?  Is that a pvp suggestion only?

[Seksi 208]

Impale has a sub 1% impact on your damage while you are leveling, because it only affects special attack crits (yellow crits), which are an extremely low % of your total damage before you get end game gear and raid buffs, etc.

Thus losing out on it is less impactful than a single point into two-hand weapon specialization, for comparison's sake. The points into improved hamstring make hamstring kiting way, way easier to do, thus reducing your damage intake significantly, as it can often be hard to do it properly in WoW Classic due to leeway mechanics. In PvP it is also a must-have talent, and therefore it is a great talent for PvP servers, which are where the majority of players are playing.

These are my arguments for this spec. Regardless, whatever is written in Icy Veins, or really any guide anywhere, is not meant to be the one and only way to play. If you do not feel like improved hamstring has benefits for you, try to get parry for more survivability both while soloing and tanking, or impale for a little extra DPS, or just about anything you fancy. Because the actual impact from this type of talent choices is very minor. As long as you get Sweeping Strikes and Mortal Strike ASAP, you will be completely fine.

[Guest Old Dog]

Thanks so much for the explanation!

[corbit 0]

Some questions leveling as a Fury Warrior.

* How many Sunders to apply? It's mentioned to Sunder when the enemy is at high health. Just one time? More? Should I prioritize having enough Rage to Bloodthirst while it's not on CD over Sundering?

* Should Berserker Rage be used constantly? It seems pretty clear that it should, but I thought it deserves a call out if so.

* How effective really is Battle Shout? "Use it if you miss its buff" doesn't make it clear how effective it is for its Rage cost.

* Generally should I fight in Berserker stance or another?

* What am I looking for in a main hand vs off hand weapon? Slow main hand, quick off hand / does it matter?

Thank you so much for this guide! It has been a great help while leveling!

[Seksi 208]

34 minutes ago, corbit said:

* How many Sunders to apply? It's mentioned to Sunder when the enemy is at high health. Just one time? More? Should I prioritize having enough Rage to Bloodthirst while it's not on CD over Sundering?

You should only sunder at the very start of the fight, and a maximum of two sunders (can go for more on elites and other high HP enemies). Using it later over Bloodthirst is not useful because the enemy will already have much less health than it began with (and the -armor debuff makes it take more damage, it doesn't actually deal damage by itself).

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* Should Berserker Rage be used constantly? It seems pretty clear that it should, but I thought it deserves a call out if so.

Use it on cooldown when fighting, yeah. Will add it to the rotation list, thanks!

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* How effective really is Battle Shout? "Use it if you miss its buff" doesn't make it clear how effective it is for its Rage cost.

You literally only have to swing about 2-3 times for Battle Shout to be worth the Rage cost. Always keep it up!

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* Generally should I fight in Berserker stance or another?

You should at least swap to Berserker Stance whenever Whirlwind / Berserker Rage are off-cooldown. Being on it constantly increases your damage done by less than it increases your damage taken compared to Battle Stance, so it can be more efficient overall to fight in Battle Stance and just swap when using abilities, but at the same time killing enemies faster will allow you to start regenerating / eating faster so its all down to your preference. When in doubt stay in Berserker Stance because it is a much easier way to play, only going Battle Stance for charging in.

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* What am I looking for in a main hand vs off hand weapon? Slow main hand, quick off hand / does it matter?

You want the slowest weapons possible (at similar DPS levels, otherwise use the highest DPS weapons you have) because Whirlwind gives you a free hit of both weapons. The slower they are, the higher it will hit for. Faster off-hands are mostly a thing for Rogues, to cause more poison procs. For DPS Warriors you always want the slowest weapons possible everywhere due to Whirlwind's mechanics, even if you use +weapon damage weapon enchants and / or grindstones, it is still not enough to warrant preferring fast weapons. You can Heroic Strike / Cleave faster with a faster main hand weapon, but you simply don't have the Rage to do this unless you are main tanking raid bosses!

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Thank you so much for this guide! It has been a great help while leveling!

Glad you are enjoying it, ? have fun in WoW Classic!

[Guest Guest]

Hey guys, thank you for the great guide. I am a little confused though. You say to purchase and upgrade sunder armor, but in the talent tree slider there are no points put in it. Is that intended or am i missing something. Sorry if that is a noob question. Thank you

[Seksi 208]

4 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

Hey guys, thank you for the great guide. I am a little confused though. You say to purchase and upgrade sunder armor, but in the talent tree slider there are no points put in it. Is that intended or am i missing something. Sorry if that is a noob question. Thank you

No worries, its natural to have this sort of questions when you are new ?. The explanation is simple: Sunder Armor is a great skill to learn through your level 10 Warrior quest and you should keep it up to date by buying new ranks of it from your trainer, when available (which is what we mean by "upgrading sunder armor").

Getting the Protection tree talent "Improved Sunder Armor" only reduces its Rage cost by 1 per talent point, and requires quite a bit of investment in the tree before you can get it. It is way better, while leveling, to invest in other talents, instead. But because this is WoW Classic, you don't really need any talents that improve Sunder Armor to make it usable! Just try to apply 1-2 sunders when you first pull an enemy to make the most out of it, you will do a lot more damage and it will die much faster, good luck and hope you are having fun! ? 

[TheBellTolls 0]

Hi! The guides have been very helpful, but I'm a bit confused about a specific part of the warrior guide.

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If you want to optimize your leveling speed, it is recommended that you use the Fury leveling build first for  Cruelty and then Arms for  Improved Overpower.

I'm a total warrior noob, so I'm not sure how the talent spec would look going this route. Would you be able to provide an example talent tree for the optimized leveling spec until 30?

[Seksi 208]

Yes sir! Check this nifty spec out.

Will include it in the guide proper at the point I make that remark to make things as clear as possible ? 

[Guest Warbahl]

I just learned that switching stance zeroes out Rage (first-time warrior, level *teen, Classic, emphasis Prot) . The recommended rotation is to begin with Charge, then immediately switch to Def Stance. This apparently throws away the 9 Rage provided by Charge. Instead, I'm waiting for 1 more Rage (almost immediate), cast Sunder Armor (10 Rage), then switch stance. Pros/cons?

[Seksi 208]

It only zeroes your Rage if you don't have any points into tactical mastery. The charge > def stance recommendation applies once you do, otherwise it is better to use the Rage you got from the charge for the first sunder armor as you said, good catch! ?

If you have left over rage from the previous pack it is also good to ignore charge altogether and just walk / shoot at the next pack so you never have to leave defensive stance to begin with!

[Guest Warbahl]

On 10/20/2019 at 11:45 AM, Guest Warbahl said:

...Instead, I'm waiting for 1 more Rage (almost immediate), cast Sunder Armor (10 Rage), then switch stance.

To correct my own numbers, Sunder Armor costs 15 Rage (Battle/Dem Shout are 10).

Ty response and info.

[Guest Steve]

There is something really big missing from this guide and all related warrior guides you need to add as soon as possible.

People playing this game need to know what skills are necessary to buy and which ones aren’t. Please update this guide from level 22 to 60. Tell us which skills we should buy and what skills we can skip and buy later. 

This is really important because it’s really hard saving gold in this game. You really need to create a guide for all classes for which skills are necessary to buy and which ones can be purchased later or are totally useless and not needed.

[Seksi 208]

It is there (as well as in all of my guides), and extraordinarily detailed too, literally tells you every single spell to buy at each level, adjusted to the skills near the level you selected on the slider: