Classic Warrior Tank Gear and Best in Slot

The final challenge of WoW Classic, Naxxramas has both the meanest bosses and the juiciest loot in the game.

This loot includes the Warrior Tier 3, Dreadnaught's Battlegear. This is a defensive tank's dream set, and we will be listing many of its pieces down below. All of its bonuses are useful, as you can see below:

• 2 piece bonus: Increases the damage done by your Revenge ability by 75.
• 4 piece bonus: Improves your chance to hit with Taunt and Challenging Shout by 5%.
• 6 piece bonus: Improves your chance to hit with Sunder Armor, Heroic Strike, Revenge, and Shield Slam by 5%.
• 8 piece bonus: When your health drops below 20%, for the next 5 seconds healing spells cast on you help you to Cheat Death, increasing healing done by up to 160.

The 4 piece bonus deserves a special mention, as The Four Horsemen requires a lot of Taunt swapping, and two misses in a row can easily cause a wipe.

In order to make the best use possible out of multiple long cooldown trinkets, such as Diamond Flask, swap them into your gear set when they are off-cooldown and replace them with others during their cooldown.

Finally, because all of Naxxramas bosses are undead other than Maexxna and Grand Widow Faerlina, items that have powerful bonuses that only work on undead such as Seal of the Dawn and Mark of the Champion are a viable alternative to the BiS pieces we list below when clearing the raid.

This gear is split between defensive (D) and threat (T) options, which you can mix and match in order to make your tanking as comfortable as possible.

While the list above contains the absolute best gear setup, you are unlikely to quickly gather all of it. We provide more options below, some which are very close to the best and some which are just much easier to get!

This is the gear we recommend for Warrior tanks in the AQ40 patch, split between defensive (D) and threat (T) options, which you can mix and match in order to make your tanking as comfortable as possible.

Warriors Tier 2.5, Conqueror's Battlegear has an amazing 3-piece bonus for advanced tanks, which enables a Shout focused rotation when combined with Manual of Battle Shout VII, which drops in AQ20.

• The 3-set bonus reduces the Rage cost of your shouts by 35%. While this is only a minor bonus when following the normal tanking rotation, it allows Battle Shout spam to become more threat per Rage than Sunder Armor in many situations.
• The 5-set bonus increases the slow and damage of Thunderclap by 50%. While the slowing debuff slot should be ideally covered by Thunderfury, if you happen to have the whole set at your disposal and no Thunderfury in group, consider using it as an alternative slowing debuff, especially if you are off-tanking.

As always, try to have at least 305 weapon skill with your weapon in order to benefit from a huge boost to your damage / threat, using gear such as Edgemaster's Handguards to hit that magic number if needed.

Your hit cap is 6% when you have 305+ weapon skill (vs 9% without), so make sure to mix and match our suggested gear in order to hit this cap. Going over it can still help you while dual wielding, but the value of 1% hit will be much lower than before 6/9%.

If you crave raw damage and threat numbers, you can find even more offensive gear options in the Warrior DPS Best in Slot guide below:

This is the gear we recommend you to chase in the current content patch, including Blackwing Lair items, as a Tank Warrior. Before we get into the list itself, it is good to present two of the most important concepts for gearing: weapon skill and the Hit cap.

As explained in our Warrior Tank Weapon Skill guide, the difference between only having the baseline 300 weapon skill at level 60 or 305 weapon skill or above is absolutely gigantic for threat generation against bosses, and easily capable of making a pre-BiS blue weapon superior to the best raid epics. Thus, your first gearing priority against raid bosses should be hitting at least 305 skill with your current weapon.

This can be achieved by using race-appropriate weapons on a Orc or Human character, or with any race by using special gear such as Edgemaster's Handguards. Once you get 305+ weapon skill, remember to not go over 6% extra Hit chance, as the extra Hit will be wasted. This cap is 9% Hit when at 300 weapon skill, which means you will require a lot more Hit to cap out.

The Tier 2 Warrior set is designed with tanking in mind, and its bonuses are very useful:

• The 3 set bonus increases the attack power of Battle Shout, granting you a small personal damage (threat) gain, that extends to your group.
• The 5 set bonus causes your offensive abilities to have a 20% chance to decrease the cost of your next offensive ability by 5 Rage. More Rage equals more damage over time.
• Finally, the 8 set bonus increases your parry by 4% for the next hit after a block, which is a nice survivability boost.

Because of its perks, and general strong stats across the board, using full tier 2 is a viable option for mitigation oriented characters. Threat oriented Tanks will still want to use off-pieces such as Lionheart Helm and Savage Gladiator Chain to maximize their threat output.

While the main focus is on Blackwing Lair gear, the list below also contains some gear from older raids, PvP sets and world bosses, when warranted, in order to create a good list for players who regularly clear the raids up to Tier 2.

Also, we are only listing the Horde versions of quest and PvP gear. Equivalent versions can be found on the Alliance side, with the same requirements, cost and stats.

We will be mixing in threat / offensive oriented gear (Strength, Agility, Hit) alongside defensive gear (Stamina, Dodge, Armor). Offensive gear is generally recommended to allow for greater raid DPS, but it can also be useful to keep some defensive gear on you for tougher bosses.

You can find even more offensive gear options in the Warrior DPS Best in Slot guide.

This is the gear we recommend you to chase in the Blackwing Lair as a Tank Warrior. Before we get into the list itself, it is good to present two of the most important concepts for gearing: weapon skill and the Hit cap.

As explained in our Warrior Tank Weapon Skill guide, the difference between only having the baseline 300 weapon skill at level 60 or 305 weapon skill or above is absolutely gigantic for threat generation against bosses, and easily capable of making a pre-BiS blue weapon superior to the best raid epics. Thus, your first gearing priority against raid bosses should be hitting at least 305 skill with your current weapon.

This can be achieved by using race-appropriate weapons on a Orc or Human character, or with any race by using special gear such as Edgemaster's Handguards. Once you get 305+ weapon skill, remember to not go over 6% extra Hit chance, as the extra Hit will be wasted. This cap is 9% Hit when at 300 weapon skill, which means you will require a lot more Hit to cap out.

The Tier 2 Warrior set is designed with tanking in mind, and its bonuses are very useful:

• The 3 set bonus increases the attack power of Battle Shout, granting you a small personal damage (threat) gain, that extends to your group.
• The 5 set bonus causes your offensive abilities to have a 20% chance to decrease the cost of your next offensive ability by 5 Rage. More Rage equals more damage over time.
• Finally, the 8 set bonus increases your parry by 4% for the next hit after a block, which is a nice survivability boost.

Because of its perks, and general strong stats across the board, using full tier 2 is a viable option for mitigation oriented characters. Threat oriented Tanks will still want to use off-pieces such as Lionheart Helm and Savage Gladiator Chain to maximize their threat output.

While the main focus is on Blackwing Lair gear, the list below also contains some gear from older raids, PvP sets and world bosses, when warranted, in order to create a good list for players who regularly clear the raids up to Tier 2.

Also, we are only listing the Horde versions of quest and PvP gear. Equivalent versions can be found on the Alliance side, with the same requirements, cost and stats.

We will be mixing in threat / offensive oriented gear (Strength, Agility, Hit) alongside defensive gear (Stamina, Dodge, Armor). Offensive gear is generally recommended to allow for greater raid DPS, but it can also be useful to keep some defensive gear on you for tougher bosses.

You can find even more offensive gear options in the Warrior DPS Best in Slot guide.

We will list the best gear you can have in Phase 2, including Molten Core, Onyxia's Lair, World Bosses, and PvP, below.

Warrior Tier 1 gear, Battlegear of Might is great for Warrior Tanks, and you can gain a lot of value from the 3 set bonus, which increases your shield's block value by 30 and from the final, 8 set bonus, which increases the threat generation of Sunder Armor by 15%.

*As explained before, Edgemaster's Handguards and other +weapon skill items will allow you to have a 6% Hit cap with any race, as long as you are using Axes, Daggers or Swords. This is a huge benefit when it bumps you from 300 weapon skill to 307, but not worth it when you were already at 305 or above to begin with. Plan your gear accordingly.

We will list the best gear you can have while only running Tier 1 raids (Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair) below. Before we get into the list itself, it is good to present two of the most important concepts for gearing: weapon skill and the Hit cap.

As explained in our Warrior Tank Weapon Skill guide, the difference between only having the baseline 300 weapon skill at level 60 or 305 weapon skill or above is absolutely gigantic for threat generation against bosses, and easily capable of making a pre-bis blue weapon superior to the best raid epics. Thus, your first gearing priority against raid bosses should be hitting at least 305 skill with your current weapon.

This can be achieved by using race-appropriate weapons on a Orc or Human character, or with any race by using special gear such as Edgemaster's Handguards. Once you get 305+ weapon skill, remember to not go over 6% extra Hit chance, as the extra Hit will be wasted. This cap is 9% Hit when at 300 weapon skill, which means you will require a lot more Hit to cap out.

Warrior Tier 1 gear, Battlegear of Might is great for Warrior Tanks, and you can gain a lot of value from the 3 set bonus, which increases your shield's block value by 30 and from the final, 8 set bonus, which increases the threat generation of Sunder Armor by 15%.

Finally, while we are only listing the Horde versions of the PvP set, equivalent versions can be found on the Alliance side, with the same requirements, cost and stats.