Classic Warrior DPS Spell Summary

This page will list the relevant skills for a Warrior damage-dealer (DPS) and explain what they do. It is recommended that you read through this page in order to have a basis for the various topics that are discussed throughout the rest of this guide.

Warriors are always in one of three stances:

• Battle Stance is the starting stance of your character. It is used to Charge into enemies before combat begins, and for using Overpower.
• Defensive Stance is obtained through a trainer quest at Level 10, and increases your threat generated, while reducing both your damage dealt and taken. You will only rarely need use this stance, namely when needing to play defensively or using skills that require it, such as Disarm.
• Berserker Stance is your primary stance of a DPS Warrior. It is obtained through another trainer quest, this time at Level 30, and increases your critical strike at the cost of increased damage taken.

Execute (requires Battle Stance or Berserker Stance) deals very high damage and converts your extra Rage into even more damage, but can only be used on enemies under 20% health.

Whirlwind (requires Berserker Stance) is a powerful burst AoE attack, which is also worth using whenever possible in single-target situations.

Heroic Strike replaces your next auto-attack, causing it to grant no Rage, deal extra damage, cause extra threat (making it often undesirable in groups), and gain "special attack" properties. This mostly means it will have an increased chance to hit and ignore glancing blow mechanics. Use it to dump excess Rage.

Cleave also replaces your next auto-attack, but it also hits an additional target. This makes it useful for Rage dumping on AoE situations.

Mortal Strike deals Physical damage to a single-target and applies a 50% healing debuff for 10 seconds. It is your main attack as Arms.

Bloodthirst deals Physical damage to a single-target and causes you to heal from the next 5 melee attacks, or during the next 8 seconds. It is your main attack as Fury.

Dodge allows you to avoid a melee attack, as long as you are facing the enemy when it is attacking.

Parry also causes you to avoid a melee attack if you are facing the enemy. Unlike dodge, however, parrying makes your next auto-attack happen faster.

Block allows you to use a shield to block incoming attacks, reducing their damage by an amount that depends on your block value.

Shield Wall (requires Defensive Stance) reduces all damage taken by 75% for 10 seconds. While powerful, it will require that you have a shield equipped for its duration, drastically reducing your DPS. Also, it shares a 30-minute cooldown with Retaliation and Recklessness.

Bloodrage causes you to gain Rage, at the cost of health, and places you in combat for its 10-second duration.

Retaliation (requires Battle Stance) causes you to retaliate against enemy melee attacks for 15 seconds, as long as you are facing the enemies. It shares a 30-minute cooldown with Recklessness and Shield Wall.

Recklessness (requires Berserker Stance) makes you immune to fear and ensures most attacks are critical hits for its 15-second duration, but it also increases your damage taken by 20%. Use it during the Execute-spam phase for ridiculous numbers, and to shorten enrage phases. It shares a 30-minute cooldown with Retaliation and Shield Wall.

Sweeping Strikes causes your attacks to hit a second target. Use it whenever you fight two or more enemies.

Death Wish causes you to deal 20% more damage and become fear immune, but lowers your armor and resistances by 20%. Use it whenever it is available, as the extra kill speed is well worth the risk.

Charge (requires Battle Stance) makes you sprint towards an enemy, stunning it briefly. It also generates some Rage when used.

Intercept (requires Berserker Stance) also makes you sprint towards an enemy, but instead of generating Rage, it costs 10 to use. It stuns for 3 seconds, however, making it a powerful crowd-control and extra interrupt tool.

Disarm (requires Defensive Stance) removes the weapon from the enemy you use it on for 10 seconds. This diminishes their damage and stops the use of abilities that require weapons.

Intimidating Shout causes a target enemy to cower in fear, and 5 additional enemies to flee. While it can, technically, be used to gain breathing room in emergencies, be careful of the fleeing enemies coming back with additional mobs.

Hamstring (requires Battle Stance or Berserker Stance) allows you to slow enemies by a significant amount for 15 seconds. This can be used to slow down enemies who are fleeing, or to allow yourself to get out of their melee range, which can be useful when using slow weapons, as you can wait for your swing timer to recover, while not taking any damage.

Piercing Howl slows all nearby enemies by 50% for 6 seconds. Use it to avoid melee attacks on a pinch, or stop enemies from running away. Like all offensive shouts, it can break nearby enemies out of stealth, as well.

Battle Shout increases the melee attack power of the party by a fixed amount for a long duration.

Sunder Armor reduces the armor of one enemy and stacks up to 5 times. Although it deals no damage itself, the armor debuff will help your raid deal much more damage than what you could have dealt yourself by using a damage skill instead.

Demoralizing Shout reduces the attack power of nearby enemies. This is typically used to reduce damage on tank, if he cannot apply it himself or if you talented into Improved Demoralizing Shout.

Thunder Clap (requires Battle Stance) deals minor damage to up to 4 enemies around you, and reduces their attack speed by 10%. Similarly to Demoralizing Shout, this is a debuff you can place on enemies to make them less threatening towards your tank.

Berserker Rage (requires Berserker Stance) removes and grants immunity to fear and incapacitate effects for 10 seconds, on a 30-second cooldown. You will need to use this against bosses that fear, if Fear Ward is not an option.

Pummel (requires Berserker Stance) also interrupts and locks a spell school, this time for 4 seconds, on a 10-second cooldown.

Shield Bash (requires Battle Stance or Defensive Stance) deals a minor amount of damage and interrupts the target, locking the interrupted spell school for 6 seconds, on a 12-second cooldown. Since it requires a shield to be used, you must swap equipment fast to avoid a big DPS loss.

Rend (requires Battle Stance or Defensive Stance) leaves a weak, but long lasting, damage over time effect on an enemy. It is of use during early game leveling, and against enemy Rogues and Druids to prevent them from returning to stealth.

Taunt (requires Defensive Stance) forces a target to attack you for a short duration, on a cooldown of 10 seconds, and raises your threat on the target to the amount the person currently holding aggro has. In an emergency, you can use this to get loose enemies off of cloth users or healers.

Mocking Blow (requires Battle Stance) also forces a target to attack you, but unlike Taunt, it will not raise your threat level on the enemy, so keep in mind you will have to Taunt once its effect expires, should you want to continue having the enemy's attention. It has a much higher cooldown of 2 minutes.

Shield Block (requires Defensive Stance) is not on the global cooldown, allowing you to use it at any time, provided it is ready and you have enough Rage. If you ever end up grabbing aggro from a hard-hitting melee enemy, quickly swap to your shield set, and use this on cooldown to survive.