Warrior Class Overview

Last updated on Jan 01, 2024 at 15:28 by Abide 1 comment

Masters of combat, Warriors are a staple of war since the beginning of time. Combining strength, leadership and a mastery of all weapons and armor, Warriors aim to wreak havoc in combat. Arming themselves with sturdy shields or deadly weapons, Warriors aim to utilize their Rage to inflict devastating attacks upon their foes.

Warriors receive multiple improvements during Wrath of the Lich King, improving their previous weaknesses greatly. Warriors have the option of being either a tank or a damage dealer, with both roles being very powerful choices.

1.

Warrior Playstyle

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.

Warrior Class WotLK Guide
2.

Warrior Specializations

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.
2.1.

What Specialization Should I Play?

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.

3.

Races For Warriors in Wrath of the Lich King

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.

4.

What is the Best Race for Alliance Warriors?

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

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.

5.

What is the Best Race for Horde Warriors?

  • Orcs offer an Expertise boost when wielding Axes with Axe Specialization IconAxe Specialization. In addition to this, they also have Blood Fury IconBlood 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 IconBerserking, a powerful on-use Haste spell. In addition to that, Trolls also have access to Beast Slaying IconBeast 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.

6.

Warrior Gearing

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:

7.

Warrior Leveling Guides

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 IconRevenge 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 IconRevenge 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.

8.

Warrior Addons and Macros

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.

9.

Is Warrior viable in Wrath?

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.

10.

Is Prot Warrior good in WotLK??

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.

11.

Which Warrior spec is best for DPS in WotLK

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.

12.

Changelog

  • 01 Jan. 2024: Updated for Phase 5.
  • 17 Jun. 2023: Updated page format.
  • 28 Aug. 2022: Page added.
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