Forever Fury Warrior Melee DPS Guide

Fury Warrior focuses on aggressive melee combat, generating Rage through constant attacks and spending it to keep pressure on your target. The spec is a good fit for players who enjoy staying in the middle of a fight and turning extra Rage into more damage whenever possible. Improved talents such as Unbridled Wrath further support this playstyle by improving your Rage generation, giving Fury a much smoother and more active leveling experience as you gain additional tools.

This guide focuses on leveling and PvE content through level 20. The talent build and combat recommendations are based on the currently available WoW Forever trainer and talent information, and will be updated as beta testing reveals anything that was missed during the demo or changed in later builds.

The ratings below are based on the current Level 20 toolkit and are not meant to represent the specialization's end-game potential.

The following fundamentals will help throughout most of your leveling journey, from choosing useful professions and racials to keeping your abilities trained and fighting enemies around your level. Following these basics will make the leveling process more consistent and help reduce unnecessary downtime.

Warriors should generally fight enemies around their level or slightly below it. Before starting a pull, check your Health, nearby enemies, and the amount of space you have available. Recover between fights when needed, and consider grouping up for elites or crowded quest areas. If necessary, use a ranged weapon to pull an enemy back to you instead of charging directly into the area.

Upgrading your weapon should remain one of your highest priorities. Compare the damage per second and damage range of a new weapon against your current one, and make sure the relevant weapon skill is trained. When changing weapon types, practice against lower-level enemies until the new weapon skill catches up to your current level, as even a strong weapon will perform poorly if its weapon skill is far behind.

Visit your trainer regularly to learn useful abilities and new spell ranks, and remember to place newly trained abilities on your action bars. Keep some money available for training instead of spending everything on a small gear upgrade that you will quickly replace anyways.

Mining and Blacksmithing work well together while leveling, with Mining directly supplying Blacksmithing the materials needed to craft your own weapons and armor. Not every crafted item will be an upgrade, so compare each recipe against your current gear before spending your limited materials. Use Blacksmithing to fill useful gaps in your equipment instead of slowing down your leveling route to craft every available recipe.

Engineering is another strong profession choice, especially for Gnomes due to their racial Engineering Specialization. After Blacksmithing has provided the gear you need, you can replace it with Engineering, or eventually replace Mining if you want Blacksmithing and Engineering together as your endgame professions. Do not drop Mining too early, however, as you should first gather the materials required to fully level both professions and craft your gear before giving up your main source of ore.

Cooking is a useful profession to level as you progress, allowing you to make your own food and save a significant amount of money compared to buying it from vendors. Food that provides a food buff now also increases experience gained by 5%, giving Cooking even more value while leveling. Fishing works especially well alongside Cooking by providing a reliable source of ingredients and making it easier to keep your Cooking skill leveled.

Alliance: Gnome — Escape Artist removes movement-impairing effects and briefly makes you immune to additional roots and slows, making it useful in PvP and many PvE situations. Eureka increases the damage of your next three abilities by 10% while reducing their Rage cost by 40%, giving you another damage cooldown. Expansive Mind increases your maximum Rage by 5%, while Engineering Specialization improves the reliability of Engineering devices, making Gnome especially useful if you plan to take Engineering.

Horde: Orc — Blood Fury increases your Attack Power by 10% for 15 seconds, giving you a strong damage cooldown while leveling. Axe Specialization increases your Critical Strike Chance by 1% while using an axe, making axes especially valuable when available. Hardiness reduces the duration of stuns by 20%, while Shatter Curse removes and grants temporary immunity to Curses and Banes while also reducing Magical damage taken, giving Orc several useful offensive and defensive bonuses while leveling.

Cruelty increases your melee Critical Strike Chance by 5%, providing a direct increase to your overall damage. It is one of the strongest early damage increases available for awhile, making it difficult to pass up regardless of which specialization you plan to play.

Unbridled Wrath gives your melee attacks a chance to generate an additional Rage, with two-handed weapons generating 2 additional Rage when it triggers. This helps with one of the biggest limitations of an early Fury Warrior, giving you more Rage to spend on abilities without waiting as long between attacks.

Our final point goes into Piercing Howl, giving you another way to slow nearby enemies by 50%. It is not part of your normal damage rotation, but can be extremely useful when fighting multiple enemies or when you need to create space and escape from a dangerous pull. Remember that Piercing Howl costs Rage, so avoid using it when the slow is not needed.

While the beta does not give you access to your entire talent tree or spell book, you can still learn much about playing a Warrior during the first few levels of gameplay.

Rage is the resource Warriors use for most of their abilities. You generate it through auto-attacks, taking damage, and abilities such as Charge and Bloodrage. Rage gradually decays outside of combat, so learning how to balance generating Rage with spending it on important attacks is one of the first things you will learn as a Warrior. Rage generation is slow at lower levels, making it important to know which abilities are worth spending it on.

At level 4 you can train the first rank of Charge, allowing you to quickly close the distance to an enemy while generating a small amount of Rage. It can only be used outside of combat, so use it to close the gap and begin the fight with some additional Rage. At level 10 you also gain Bloodrage, allowing you to sacrifice Health to immediately generate 10 Rage and another 10 Rage over 10 seconds. Try to use Bloodrage as often as possible to maintain your Rage, especially between pulls where it can help prevent your Rage from decaying outside of combat.

Heroic Strike enhances your next auto-attack, spending Rage to add additional damage to your next weapon swing. Because it modifies your next auto-attack, the attack becomes a special attack, or yellow hit, instead of an auto-attack, or white hit. Special attacks do not generate Rage, so Heroic Strike should generally be avoided while leveling and is mostly an endgame ability used when you have excessive Rage.

Stances are a unique mechanic available only to Warriors. Your active stance determines which abilities you can use, as certain abilities require a specific stance, while each stance also provides its own buff. Only one stance can be active at a time, but you can switch between them at any time, including during combat. Changing stances causes you to lose all of your Rage, so only swap when needed. At level 14 you can learn Tactical Mastery, allowing you to retain up to 10 Rage when changing stances.

At this level you only have access to 2 stances, with Battle Stance available by default and Defensive Stance becoming available after completing the Warrior class quest at level 10. Keep a shield (and one-handed weapon if you are using a two-hander) ready for abilities that require a shield, such as Shield Bash. This ability works in both Battle Stance and Defensive Stance, allowing you to interrupt from either stance as long as a shield is equipped.

Battle Stance — This is your primary stance for questing and dealing damage at level 20. It allows you to use Charge to begin a fight and Overpower after an enemy dodges one of your attacks. Remain in this stance most of the time unless you need to tank or are taking too much damage.

Defensive Stance — Reduces the damage you take and deal by 10%. Also increases your threat generated by 30%, helping keep enemies focused on you while tanking. Gives you access to abilities such as Shield Block and Disarm, providing several defensive options when fighting stronger enemies.

Shield Bash is your only available interrupt at this level and requires a shield to be equipped. Keep a shield and one-handed weapon (if you are using a two-hander) ready when fighting enemies with dangerous casts, as interrupting the cast may save more Health than using another damaging ability.

Hamstring slows your target, helping prevent fleeing enemies from reaching a nearby group or giving you space to retreat from a dangerous fight. Pay attention to your surroundings when trying to escape, as moving carelessly can easily pull additional enemies.

Mocking Blow forces an enemy to attack you for a short time. This can help pull an enemy away from a vulnerable party member, but be prepared to take the incoming attacks yourself after using it. Remember that you can equip a shield in any stance, and you may want to do so against tougher enemies before using Mocking Blow.

Retaliation becomes available at level 20 and causes you to counterattack enemies that strike you from the front. This can be extremely useful when fighting multiple melee enemies or recovering from a difficult pull. Keep enemies in front of you to take full advantage of the effect, as you can not counterattack enemies positioned behind you.

Below is our recommended rotation for Fury Warriors during the WoW Forever Beta. Each ability includes additional information explaining when and how it should be used.

Avoid wasting Rage on an ability when an enemy is about to die. When the enemy is low on Health, simply finish it with an auto-attack so you can preserve your remaining Rage for the next pull.

1. Prepare for the pull — Keep Battle Shout active at all times. If it is not already active when combat begins, use it as soon as you have enough Rage.
2. Use Charge if possible — remember that Charge can only be used outside of combat, has a limited range, and can not be used if you are too close to the target. Make sure you are not charging into multiple enemies or you may quickly become overwhelmed. If several enemies are near your target, use a ranged weapon to pull the enemy back to you instead. Use Bloodrage if available after entering combat.
3. Debuff the target with Demoralizing Shout — Once you are close to your target, use Demoralizing Shout against non-casting enemies to reduce the damage they deal. While the reduction may seem small, the Health saved over multiple pulls reduces how often you need to stop and eat or heal, giving you more time to continue fighting.
4. Use Victory Rush if available — At level 20 you can train Victory Rush, which becomes usable after killing an enemy around your level. Victory Rush costs no Rage, deals solid damage, and restores 10% of your maximum Health. Use it early when available, as you only have a 20-second window before the proc expires.
5. Use Overpower if possible — When an enemy dodges one of your attacks, Overpower becomes available for a few seconds. Be ready to use the proc quickly when it appears.
6. Apply Rend early — Rend is useful at these lower levels. Apply it early in combat against an enemy that will survive for most of the bleed's duration. Do not reapply Rend when the target is close to death, as most of the bleed will be wasted along with the Rage spent.
7. Sunder Armor once or twice early on — After completing the Warrior quest at level 10 you will unlock Sunder Armor, a stacking debuff that reduces the target's Armor with each application. You will usually only have enough Rage to apply it once or twice during a fight. Avoid spending Rage on additional Sunder Armor applications once the target is below 50% Health, as this is generally the point where additional stacks are no longer worth it.

At lower levels, Warriors have limited ways to deal damage to multiple enemies at once, so you should avoid pulling more than 1 enemy whenever possible. If you accidentally pull more than 1 enemy and can not escape, focus on killing one target as quickly as possible. Removing an enemy from the fight will usually save you more Health than spreading your damage evenly between both targets. When leveling with a healer, you can typically pull 2 enemies at a time, giving you additional Rage from the damage taken while allowing you to kill more enemies at once.

Cleave allows you to damage more than one enemy by causing your next auto-attack to also hit a second nearby target. Cleave replaces that auto-attack with a special attack, meaning the swing will not generate Rage. This can make the ability difficult to use at lower levels due to its Rage cost, and it is common to only have enough Rage to use it once or twice during a fight.

Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout can reduce the damage you take while fighting multiple melee enemies. Both abilities cost Rage, so only use them when the extra protection is needed instead of automatically using them in every fight. In dungeons, give your tank enough time to establish threat before using Cleave, and avoid attacking enemies that your group is keeping under crowd-control effects.

This section covers the currently available information on best-in-slot gear, stats, and consumables for Fury Warriors during the WoW Forever beta test.

WoW Forever has completely reworked dungeon loot and item stats, meaning Classic equipment lists can not be used to determine best-in-slot gear for the beta. Specific level-20 recommendations will be added once more items and their drop sources have been discovered. We expect much of the best gear available during the beta to come from dungeons and crafted professions such as Blacksmithing.

WoW Forever uses a unique stat distribution system compared to many other RPGs, where even an Uncommon item can sometimes be better than a much rarer piece of gear. Always compare potential upgrades directly against what you currently have rather than judging an item only by its rarity or level requirement.

Upgrading your weapons is the single biggest gearing improvement you can make as a Fury Warrior while leveling. Weapon damage directly affects your auto-attacks and most of your damaging abilities, meaning a strong weapon upgrade will usually provide more value than small increases to the stats on your armor. Always keep an eye out for better weapons as you progress, even if their secondary stats are not perfect.

You are unable to dual-wield weapons before level 20, so you should be using a two-handed weapon before that. Once you reason level 20, you can decide to keep using a two-handed weapon or swap over to dual-wielding 2 one-handers. We recommend doing whichever you have the better weapons for.

Stats are bonuses found on weapons and armor that improve different parts of your character. Some increase your damage, while others improve your survivability. You do not need perfectly optimized gear while leveling; instead, focus on consistently replacing weaker items with upgrades that improve your most important stats, listed below from best to worst:

Weapon Damage is the most important stat to consider while leveling. A stronger weapon increases the damage of your auto-attacks and most of your abilities, making weapon upgrades more valuable than small increases to other stats. In most cases, a weapon with higher damage is worth using even if the rest of its stats are not ideal.

Hit Chance reduces the chance that your melee attacks will miss. A missed attack deals no damage and generates no Rage, making Hit Chance your best stat to look for on gear. Hit Chance is uncommon at lower levels, so any useful item you find with Hit will likely remain equipped for a long time.

Crit Chance increases your chance to critically strike with melee attacks and abilities. Critical strikes deal double damage, generate more Rage, and help you kill enemies much faster. Like Hit Chance, flat Crit Chance is uncommon on lower-level gear, making it especially valuable whenever it is available.

Strength increases your Attack Power, improving the damage of your auto-attacks and most of your abilities. It is one of your most reliable damage stats because it directly increases the damage you deal, ensuring it provides value in every fight. Strength is also common on Warrior gear at lower levels, making it a solid stat when comparing similar items.

Agility increases your Crit Chance, Dodge chance, and provides a small amount of Armor. This gives you a useful combination of offensive and defensive value, but it generally provides less overall benefit than Strength when comparing similar pieces of gear.

Armor reduces the amount of Physical damage you take from enemy attacks, making it a strong defensive stat while leveling. Higher Armor helps you survive longer in combat and can reduce the amount of time you spend recovering between fights. You typically will not use Armor as the primary stat when deciding if an item is an upgrade, but it can be the deciding factor when two pieces have very similar stats.

Stamina increases your maximum Health, making it easier to survive accidental additional pulls, tank dungeons, or fight stronger enemies. Stamina does not increase your damage or directly reduce the damage you take, but having enough of it can make leveling much safer.

Spirit increases your Health regeneration while out of combat, slightly reducing the amount of time you may need to spend eating between fights. It can provide some convenience while leveling, but is not valuable enough to prioritize over your main offensive or defensive stats.

Intellect increases your Mana and provides no meaningful benefit to a Warrior. Gear with Intellect should only be considered when the item is still a significant upgrade in a more important area, such as Weapon Damage.

Specific potion and elixir recommendations are still unknown and will be updated as more information becomes available during the beta. Keep an eye out for an appropriate healing potion for your level, as these will be one of the most commonly available consumables at lower levels and are extremely useful for both leveling and dungeons. Add your Health Potions to an easy-to-reach action bar button so you remember to use them during an emergency.

Always carry at least one or two stacks of food to restore your Health between pulls, as this will be your main way to recover on your own as a Warrior. You can also learn the secondary profession First Aid and create bandages, allowing you to restore a portion of your Health over a short channel. First Aid is highly recommended, as healing yourself with a bandage is much faster than recovering with food.

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