Warrior Class Overview

Warriors are a melee oriented class, having a unique resource system called Rage is generated through combat from both dealing and taking damage. The more damage you deal or take, the more Rage you generate. Most of the abilities available to Warriors require Rage to use, so always be mindful of how much you have available at all times.

Warriors can fulfill either the damage dealing role, or the tanking role depending on which specialization you choose. Having the option to tank if needed can make it much easier to find groups, as the tanking role is often in short supply.

Warriors are considered to be Masters of combat, being able to wear all types of armor and wield any available weapon, making them an extremely adaptable class.

Warriors are able to choose one of three specializations: Arms, Fury, and Protection.

• Arms Warrior focuses on dealing damage with Two-Handed weapons. It has the option to use multiple different weapon types and brings a debuff that increases the raid's Physical damage and bleed damage dealt. Arms is also the standard PvP spec.
• Fury Warrior focuses purely on damage. Using raw strength, Fury can wield Two-handed weapons in each hand, greatly increasing the damage it can output. Fury is fast-paced, having a very simple yet satisfying damage-dealing rotation.
• Protection Warrior focuses on tanking, aiming to lock down enemies with high threat generation and crowd control. Prot Warriors rely on their heavy armor and shield to deter enemy attacks, protecting their weaker allies from harm.

The Arms Warrior spec has multiple uses. In PvE content, Arms is the go-to spec while you are still under-geared. Unfortunately the Arms spec does not scale well; once you have acquired a full set of raiding gear, you will probably want to respec to Fury Warrior. Arms also serves as the main PvP spec for battlegrounds and arenas.

The Fury Warrior spec is the main PvE focused damage dealing spec. While the Arms Warrior spec is more of an early-game focused PvE build, Fury focuses more on the end-game, having a higher gear requirement before it "comes online".

The Protection Warrior spec is focused on tanking, allowing you to fulfill a role other than DPS. Tanks are needed for multiple different forms of PvE content, such as raids and dungeons. It is recommended to have a Protection gear-set and spec available for content such as dungeons as this will greatly increase the speed in-which you can find groups as tanks are much more rare than DPS.

In Wrath of the Lich King, Warriors can choose to be any race if playing on the Alliance, and all races except for the Blood Elves if playing on the Horde.

The racial choice for Alliance Warriors are all very close in comparison.

• Human Warriors gain a small Expertise bonus when wielding a Sword or Mace from Sword Specialization and Mace Specialization.
• Dwarves gain a larger Expertise bonus when wielding a Mace from Mace Specialization.
• Finally, Draenei grant 1% increased Hit Chance to themselves and all party members with Heroic Presence./li>

Humans offer a slightly higher DPS increase throughout WotLK as most of the weapons you will use during the expansion will be swords. Dwarves offer a higher amount of Expertise than Humans, but unfortunately there are very few maces that are best in slot throughout the game. Draenei have the potential to grant the highest amount of raid wise damage gain, assuming you will have no other Draeneis in your personal group.

• Orcs offer an Expertise boost when wielding Axes with Axe Specialization. In addition to this, they also have Blood Fury, an on-use Attack Power buff.
• While Trolls don't have a weapon specific racial benefit like most other races, they do have Berserking, a powerful on-use Haste spell. In addition to that, Trolls also have access to Beast Slaying, increasing damage dealt by 5% to any Beast.

The difference between Orcs and Trolls benefits are extremely minor, with Orc pulling ahead very slightly more often as you will be using Axes frequently throughout the entire expansion.

Warriors are able to wear Cloth, Leather, and Mail armor by default, and are able to wear Plate after reaching Level 40. It is very common for DPS Warriors to wear Leather and Mail gear that more desirable stats than other Plate gear in the same gear slot.

Warriors are able to equip all weapons in the game aside from Wands. This allows many different weapon choices, such as choosing a weapon that matches your specific racial bonuses, if you have any.

If you are interested in seeing what end-game gear looks like for each available specs, check out our gearing guides down below:

For those of you wishing to level a Warrior to Level 80, you can check out our spec-specific leveling guides below. Arms Warrior is the recommended leveling spec as it has consistent damage output, tons of cleave damage and can has moderately quick kill times with little-to-no gear.

Protection Warrior is also quite powerful when it comes to leveling, especially early on. Revenge deals extremely high damage in Wrath of the Lich King, killing most normal enemies in 2-3 hits. Protection is the safer spec to choose while leveling, and has the ability to solo most, if not all group quests and elites in the open world. The main weakness of this build is its' low single target damage and reliance on activating Revenge through a dodge, parry or block, which you will have very little of in leveling gear.

Lastly, Fury Warrior is not recommended for leveling as it is much more of an end-game focused spec. On top of the difficulty of acquiring 2 Two-Handed weapons (outside of heirlooms) and keeping them "up to date" with your current level; Fury suffers from a large number of missing attacks, as well as attacks being frequently dodged and parried. Your low crit chance from leveling gear on top of you constantly missing your attacks will often leave you lacking rage for your next ability. While both Arms and Protection rely on procs you get normally during combat, Fury is simply using your rage to deal damage, often times leaving you unable to even use a single ability for long periods of times. It is recommended to avoid this spec until you are geared from end-game content.

Addons and Macros are a solid way to help improve your gameplay and experience throughout Wrath Classic, whether it be while leveling, doing dailies, dungeons, or raiding. Both of the pages below provide information and recommendations on some of the best addons you can use.

Warriors often receive a reputation of being "weak" in WotLK, but that is not the case. While they have fallen off slightly from their previous "godly" status in Classic WoW, and very powerful status in TBC; Warrior remain a very viable class, being competitive throughout the entire expansion.

Warrior tanks receive many talent and ability improvements in Wrath of the Lich King, making them an extremely powerful tanking choice. Having the highest single-target and AoE threat and damage output of any tank makes Protection Warrior extremely viable options in any environment.

While both Fury and Arms are powerful options when it comes to WotLK PvE content, the general rule of thumb is: Arms early on and then Fury when you are geared. Warriors are well-known for needing gear to scale their damage up, and this concept does not change in Wrath of the Lich King. Typically you will play as Arms until the end of Tier 8, where you can swap over to Fury once you are nearly fully geared.