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For the fist weapon, see Inv weapon hand 15 [Rage].
Rage bar

Warrior player frame with Rage bar

Rage is the primary resource used by Warriors and Ability racial bearform [Bear Form] druids. Rage is required for the execution of many of their abilities, although auto attacks don't depend on it at all. By controlling and focusing their Rage, Warriors can unleash an array of devastating attacks, harden themselves into unassailable defenders, or even draw strength and healing from their anger. While Arms and Fury Warriors primarily use Rage to deal damage, Protection Warriors and Guardian Druids can also use it to mitigate damage or even self-heal.

By default the rage bar is empty, and when out of combat, rage drains or depletes at a constant rate, unaffected by level or stats. Rage can be generated in a number of ways, some passive and some active. By default, Rage is capped at a maximum of 100, but by choosing Achievement boss kingymiron [Deadly Calm] as an Arms Warrior, this cap is raised to 130.

A number of abilities and talents affect the use of Rage in some way. Most reduce the Rage cost of certain abilities, while a few offer additional opportunities for generation.

Basic rage generation[]

Rage can be generated by several means, depending on the Warrior or Druid's abilities and talents:

  • Rage can be generated using specific abilities such as Spell nature bloodlust [Bloodthirst] (Fury Warrior), Inv shield 05 [Shield Slam] (Protection Warrior), and Ability druid mangle2 [Mangle] (Druids). Other, more situational, abilities such as Ability warrior charge [Charge] and Spell druid bristlingfur [Bristling Fur] can be used to generate additional Rage.
  • Auto attacks generate Rage, the amount of which depends only on the speed of the weapon you use and your specialization. It's normalized to a fixed amount per second, however, regardless of weapon speed. See the table below for more details. Auto attacks are how Arms Warriors generates most of their Rage.
  • Rage can be generated by being attacked at a rate of 3 Rage per hit received, but no more often than once per second. This applies to all Warrior specializations as well as Druids in Ability racial bearform [Bear Form]. The talented ability Spell druid bristlingfur [Bristling Fur] for Guardian Druids temporarily allows for the amount of damage taken to generate more Rage.

Certain other effects can also generate Rage:

  • The Arms Warrior passive Inv axe 09 [Seasoned Soldier] grants 30% extra rage whenever an auto attack crits.
  • A Druid's Rage is set to 25 upon shifting into Ability racial bearform [Bear Form].

Rage per second from auto attacks[]

Main Hand Off Hand
Initial Warrior ~6.123 n/a
Arms 7 n/a
Fury 1.75 0.875
Protection ~0.77 n/a
Ability racial bearform [Bear Form] 1.6 n/a

Because this is a normalized amount per second, and weapons attack slower than once per second, the amount generated per swing is much higher:

  • Initial Warrior: 15.92 Rage per attack with a one-handed weapon.
  • Arms Warrior: 25.2 Rage per attack with a two-handed weapon.
    • Thanks to Inv axe 09 [Seasoned Soldier], Arms Warriors also generate 30% more Rage on a critical auto attack (9.1 Rage per second).
  • Fury Warrior:
    • Main Hand: 6.3 Rage per attack with a two-handed weapon, or 4.55 Rage per attack with a one-handed weapon.
    • Off Hand: 3.15 Rage per attack with a two-handed weapon, or 2.275 Rage per attack with a one-handed weapon.
  • Protection Warrior: 2 Rage per attack with a one-handed weapon.
  • Bear Form: 4 Rage per attack at 2.5 swings per second.

Other rage generation[]

Stats[]

Although not directly increasing Rage generation, by interacting with abilities and other modifiers, certain stats can facilitate more production.

  • Critical strike will increase Rage generation via Inv axe 09 [Seasoned Soldier] for Arms Warriors or via Seethe with Spell nature bloodlust [Bloodthirst] for Fury Warriors.
  • Haste and anything else that increases Attack speed will result in more auto attacks and thus more Rage generated from them. Warriors in particular have lots of ways of getting Haste from talented abilities. Haste also synergizes with the Guardian Druid talent Ability druid primaltenacity [Blood Frenzy] because Haste increases the tick-rate of DoTs.

Equipment[]

Consumables[]

Rage Potions, crafted by alchemists, can be used to generate Rage:

Rage decay[]

While not in combat, Rage is lost at rate of 1.25 per second. To maintain a constant Rage value out of combat, 75 Rage per minute (RPM) must be met. However, this is not very feasible as the spells Spell nature thunderclap [Thunder Clap] and Thrash and the PvP talent Ability racial bloodrage [Bloodrage] are among the only ways you can generate Rage outside of combat, and no other spells can suspend it.

It's only necessary to maintain Rage for brief periods such as while waiting for the group to recover mana or health or while running from one opponent to the next, so it's more important to bank as much Rage in combat as you can between encounters than it is to generate lots of it while out of combat. Having enough Rage for the next boss or pack of mobs gives you a head start on damage or defense.

The best way to maintain high Rage is by attacking critters like snakes or rats. You can generate Rage from the attack or spell used and put yourself in combat for a few seconds to suspend decay. Each critter essentially offers an opportunity for free, instant Rage generation, so keep your eye out for them. Low-level mobs can be used in a similar way, potentially allowing the warrior to build-up a full rage bar before attacking a more dangerous foe. When attacking targets for this reason, remember to use Ability warrior charge [Charge] (as a Warrior) as much as possible.

For Guardian Druids, the best you can do is remember to shift into Ability racial bearform [Bear Form] before each pull if you have less than 25 Rage because shifting into it sets your Rage to 25.

Rage management[]

The use of Rage depends on role and situation. In PvE, DPS Warriors will often use Rage to fuel a standard rotation, while Protection Warriors and Guardian Druids will focus more on damage mitigation and survival. In PvP, the unpredictable nature of combat means that Rage is often spent in response to opponents' actions, depending on the need for damage, control or survival. Rage pooling can be useful for those specializations that have abilities which increase their damage for a period of time.

Although you will usually want to spend Rage in the most efficient or useful way possible. Because of its cap at 100 (130 with Achievement boss kingymiron [Deadly Calm]), when any further Rage generated will be capped, it becomes desirable to spend it quickly. The ability to expend Rage is generally limited by the global cooldown, as well as by the cooldowns of some individual abilities. When accumulating more Rage than being spent, players should use a "Rage dump" to avoid wasting it.

Rage dumps[]

Rage dumps are generally inefficient or unrewarding in proportion to their cost, making them less desirable to spend Rage on, but are better than simply wasting Rage. The rule of thumb for Rage dumps is to use them only when you are accumulating more Rage than you can spend.

For ease of use and smoothness in one's rotation for dumping Rage, these spells are sometimes not affected by the global cooldown so they can be used in addition to their preferred abilities without sacrificing time, damage, or Rage generation. In the past, there were such spells that dealt damage, but now off-GCD dumps are relegated entirely to defensive spells. Generation from all sources is balanced around how much Rage you can spend on the GCD. Should such spells return, they can be used for large but inefficient bursts of damage that may leave you Rage-starved, but can be situationally useful to finish off targets like in PvP.

The main mistake made with Rage dumps is to assume you must use them as often as possible. Rage dumps should generally not be used unless there is no better way of spending the Rage, or if the situation demands use of that spell.

Warrior[]

All Warriors have Ability warrior renewedvigor [Ignore Pain] as an off-GCD defensive dump, while Protection Warriors also have Ability warrior revenge [Revenge] as an on-GCD damage dump and get no cooldown on Ignore Pain. Ignore Pain has a limit to its absorb shield, so if possible they should avoid over-capping it. Revenge can be used when defense is not needed.

Because Fury Warriors are designed to spend all of their Rage on Ability warrior rampage [Rampage] as often as possible, which costs most of their Rage bar, they don't need off-GCD dumps, and Rampage doesn't qualify as a dump since it's their most powerful Rage spender.

Arms Warriors tend to be able to spend more than they can generate, so they have no off-GCD dumps. The spells Ability warrior decisivestrike [Slam] and Ability whirlwind [Whirlwind] are their on-GCD damage dumps when more powerful spells are not available.

Druid[]

Druids' only off-GCD Rage dump is Ability druid ironfur [Ironfur] which is enough to handle the amount of Rage they generate from all sources - especially because Ironfur has a stacking effect which makes it very efficient to pool Rage before a large burst of damage and then spend it multiple times at once.

Patch changes[]

  • Battle for Azeroth Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Rage from damage taken is now normalized to 3 per hit with an internal cooldown of 1 second. This change affects all Warriors as well as Druids in Ability racial bearform [Bear Form].
  • Legion Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Stances and Glyphs removed. Ability warrior defensivestance [Defensive Stance] became a talent for Arms Warrior that toggles a reduction in damage taken and dealt. Rage once again is naturally generated based on the amount of damage taken. With Artifact Weapons, some traits would modify the Rage that some abilities generated. Many spells and their costs were reworked, such as Ability warrior savageblow [Mortal Strike] now being a spender for Arms Warriors (who now rely on auto-attacks for Rage). Auto attack Rage generation coefficients were adjusted for every spec.
  • Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): The design of Rage has changed to function more like a valuable resource. Warriors no longer naturally gain Rage from taking damage, but instead generate Rage with their primary attacks, such as Ability warrior savageblow [Mortal Strike], Spell nature bloodlust [Bloodthirst], and Inv shield 05 [Shield Slam]. In addition, Ability racial avatar [Berserker Stance] now allows the warrior to gain some Rage from taking damage and normal attacks, while Ability warrior offensivestance [Battle Stance] allows the warrior to gain high Rage from normal attacks and Ability warrior defensivestance [Defensive Stance] generates 1 Rage every 3 seconds while in combat. Changing stance no longer causes the warrior to lose rage.
  • Cataclysm Patch 4.3.0 (2011-11-29): Several Rage generating abilities now briefly interrupt rage decay when they are cast.
  • Cataclysm Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Rage is being normalized so that its generation is no longer based on damage done by auto-attacks. Each auto-attack will provide a set amount of Rage, with off-hand weapons granting 50% of the Rage main-hand weapons do. Haste will allow Rage to generate more rapidly by increasing attack speed. In addition, while taking damage, the amount of Rage generated will now be based on the Warrior's health rather than the opponent's level. The essence of this change is to improve the scaling that occurs with Warrior gear. With Warriors balanced around the top tiers of items, we've found that the class tends to underperform more drastically than others in lower-quality items. These changes should correct that.
  • Wrath-Logo-Small Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): Attacks that are absorbed (such as by Spell holy powerwordshield [Power Word: Shield]) will now generate rage.
  • WoW Icon update Patch 1.3.0 (2005-03-07): Fixed a bug where rage was not being generated when normal melee attacks were parried, dodged, and blocked.

External links[]

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