Warrior

Warriors are melee fighters highly trained in the arts of weaponry. They are strong and quick on the battlefield. As such they can deal large amounts of damage; they are also capable of withstanding large amounts of damage to protect other party members. Warrior abilities depend on rage generation. This is different to all but one melee class, which is the druid; specifically a druid in bear form. Rage is generated through damage being dealt to and by the warrior and is capped at 100. Warriors have several talents capable of aiding rage generation. Warriors can change between three combat stances: Battle Stance, Defensive Stance and Berserker Stance. Many abilities have a stance requirement. However, stances give the class a fluid play style allowing the player a variety of responses to any given PvE or PvP situation. Warriors can wear any type of armor; plate armour becomes available at level 40. They are able to use shields and can wield any weapon with the exception of wands and relics.

The primary warrior attributes are strength and stamina. Agility is also useful while levelling as critical strike rating on gear is rare until later levels. Warrior-oriented gear found towards end-game provides a wider range of attributes. Gear oriented specifically to damage dealing warriors may include critical strike rating, or haste. Gear oriented to warrior tanks usually includes some combination of defense rating, block value, block rating, dodge rating or parry rating. Hit rating or expertise rating are also commonly found on gear and can be useful for warriors performing either role. It can be difficult to find rings or cloaks with the relevant attributes. As such warriors may improvise; for example, damage dealing warriors may seek "rogue" items that contain agility and attack power in place of elusive items containing strength.

Background


As long as war is waged on Azeroth, there will be men and women who fight those wars. The warrior is no mere sword-swinger; they are skilled combatants, combining strength of arm, knowledge of weaponry and practiced maneuvers to slice or bludgeon their foes into little red bits. The warrior is the most versatile of the combat classes, and they supplement their fighting prowess with the ability to rally their allies and spur them to victory, but not only can they rally their allies into victory; they can themselves charge into the heart of the battle, take several lives and live to tell the tale. All races fight, and all races boast many warriors in their ranks. Warriors are common among dwarves, Forsaken, humans, and orcs, but are less so among the other races. Masters of swords, spears, and weapons of all kinds, warriors share a common way of life on Azeroth. Using their abilities to deal pain and cause bloodshed, warriors are deadly adversaries and welcome friends in violent times (which seem to be all the time in recent decades). Warriors have existed in every race, from the murlocs to the tauren. Anyone willing to take up arms to defend their people can be classed as a warrior. A knight is the warrior elite among humans.

Races


The warrior class can be played by all available races:

Until the Cataclysm expansion came out, blood elf players were the only race that could not be warriors. Blood elf warriors are a standard class for blood elves in the RPG. Some blood elves become warriors (or scouts or hunters) — especially those seeking to be spell breakers, demon hunters, and rangers. In addition, there were High Elf Swordsmen in the Undead campaign in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, so Elven warriors have technically always been justified.

With the release of Cataclysm, warriors are the first non-hero class to be available to all races.

Racial advantages
Each race comes with unique special abilites or powers, known as racial traits, or simply racials. While each race has its advantages, certain racials are of particular benefit to certain classes. Players may wish to take these advantages into account when selecting which race/class combination to play. Some of the most useful racials for warriors are:


 * Humans: Sword Specialization (human racial) and Mace Specialization increase expertise with swords and maces by 3, reducing opponents' chance to dodge or parry by 0.75%. Humans also gain Every Man for Himself, allowing the player to free himself from all effects that impair movement or cause loss of control every 2 minutes. This is a very useful ability for PvP, especially for melee classes such as warriors who rely on staying close to their targets in order to deal damage. This ability's 2 minute cooldown offers a significant advantage over the 5 minute cooldown offered by PvP trinkets up until level 80, as well as freeing the trinket slot usually reserved for them.


 * Dwarves: Stoneform is a very useful 2-minute cooldown ability that removes all poison, disease and bleed effects, and reduces all damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds. Dwarves also gain Frost Resistance which is always useful. Mace Specialization increases expertise with maces by 3, reducing opponents' chance to dodge or parry by 0.75%. Though warriors will not be using guns as their main weapon, they can be useful for a pull or when helplessly rooted, and Gun Specialization adds a 1% critical hit chance when using one.


 * Gnomes: Escape Artist can be very useful, primarily in PvP situations, but also in PvE. Warriors being the prototypical tank often have to lead mobs and bosses away from the healers and ranged fighters, thus making Escape Artist very useful. Gnomes also benefit from increased Arcane Resistance (gnome racial) which is always useful. Because of their small size, gnome warriors are useful in PvP environments, posing a difficulty to target. Inexperienced or careless opponents can be quickly hit by Hamstring, Thunder Clap, and Sunder Armor before they have any idea as to what happened. Gnomes also have Shortblade Specialization, giving them 3 Expertise when using a one-handed sword, a popular tanking weapon type.


 * Night elves: Quickness reduces the chance for night elves to be hit by melee or ranged attacks by 2%, improving tanking and overall survivability. Nature Resistance (racial) is also increased. Shadowmeld adds an interesting element to night elves, who can stealth to avoid mob detection (more useful for solo play). In addition, in PvP settings, Shadowmeld can be devastating. Stealth, Charge, Hamstring, Thunder Clap, etc., and Ta-da! You just became a rogue in heavy armor! An additional bonus to Shadowmeld is the ability to temporarily drop threat in combat, and possibly even save your life (if you're the last person standing).


 * Draenei: Gift of the Naaru allows players to heal a target for 20% of their health over 15 seconds, every 3 minutes. This can act as a useful panic button and is one of the few healing abilities available to warriors, potentially adding 20% to their available health in most encounters, as well as reducing downtime for warriors who are soloing, and helping to conserve a group's mana. Increased Shadow Resistance (racial) is always welcomed. Heroic Presence increases chance to hit by 1%. For a DPS warrior, Heroic Presence will also reduce the amount of gear you need to dedicate to reaching hit caps.


 * Worgen: Darkflight allows a warrior to increase his movement speed by 40% for 10 seconds every 2 minutes, which can be useful for staying close to your target and counteracting snares, or for escaping combat. Viciousness grants an extra 1% critical strike chance. Aberration increases both nature and shadow resistance, which is a nice bonus.


 * Orcs: Axe Specialization increases expertise by 3 when wielding an axe or fist weapon, reducing the player's chance to be dodged/parried by 0.75%. Hardiness reduces stun duration by 15%, which can save a warrior in PvP settings, or save their group in PvE settings. Blood Fury temporarily increases the warrior's attack power, granting 1169 attack power at level 85.


 * Trolls: Berserking can increase attack speed by 20% for 10 seconds every 3 minutes, useful for all warriors, particularly DPS warriors, but can also provide a marginal TPS buff to tanking warriors. Regeneration (racial) can help keep you alive during PvP fights, or boss battles, and the increased healing can reduce down time for soloing players. Beast Slaying grants 5% increased damage against beasts, which can be useful as beasts are located almost everywhere in the world. Da Voodoo Shuffle reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 15%, providing a significant boost to a warrior's mobility, something which is of particular use in PvP.


 * Undead: The increased Shadow Resistance (racial) is always useful, as is Cannibalize, which can reduce down time while soloing, and save your healer's mana. The increased Underwater Breathing is also useful, especially when soloing, where a warrior might not have access to an alchemist or warlock. Will of the Forsaken is one of the best racials in game, and can be the difference between life and death in both PvP and PvE settings.


 * Tauren: War Stomp is a useful form of crowd control. Endurance provides tauren with 5% extra base health, meaning tauren warriors can have the highest possible HP of any warrior tank. The additional Nature Resistance (racial) is always a plus.


 * Blood elves: Arcane Torrent generates 15 rage, and is a great tanking utility. As an Area of Effect silence, It can be used to interrupt and silence the enemy for a while; good for stopping a heal or devastating attack. Arcane Resistance (blood elf racial) means less arcane damage is taken.


 * Goblins: Rocket Jump is an ability used to escape combat in a dire situation or if used correctly can be used as a charge. Rocket Barrage is an ability that deals a little damage. Time is Money passively increases attack speed by 1%, increasing a warrior's DPS.

Rage
By default, a warrior's rage bar is empty. Warriors can gain rage by being struck in combat, dealing damage, drinking rage potions, or using certain abilities. Most of their abilities require a certain amount of rage in order to be activated - this makes rage the warrior's equivalent of mana, energy, focus, or runic power. When a warrior exits combat, any left-over rage slowly decays until the bar returns to empty. The rate at which rage decays can be controlled through talents. Below level 58, a warrior's rage bar will drop to 0 immediately if they switch their stance. At level 58, the passive ability Stance Mastery becomes available, allowing warriors to retain 25 rage through a stance change. The Tier 2 Arms talent Tactical Mastery increases this by a further 25/50 for a maximum of 75 rage retained.

Warriors need to be in combat or use a rage-generating ability to generate rage. The longer the battle, the more rage a warrior can accumulate. This often leads the warrior to the strategy of "filling up" their rage bar on a weaker foe before moving on to a more powerful enemy. A warrior with a full rage bar can quickly unload a large amount of damage.

Stances
The warrior has different stances for different situations. Which stance to use will also be determined by the warrior's talents.


 * Battle Stance: The standard starting stance for all warriors. A balanced combat stance. Increases damage done by 5%. Decreases damage taken by 5%
 * Defensive Stance: A defensive combat stance. Decreases damage taken by 10%. Increases Threat generated by 200%.
 * Berserker Stance: An aggressive combat stance. Increases damage done by 10%.

Some warrior abilities are not available based on which stance you are in, so choose wisely! Remember that all your rage is depleted when you switch stances unless you have Tactical Mastery or Stance Mastery.

Abilities


The warrior has various abilities, which are typically limited to certain stances.


 * In Defensive Stance, the warrior can use abilities such as Revenge and Taunt (warrior ability). These abilities are useful for keeping aggro.
 * In Battle Stance, the warrior can use a balanced array of abilities. Abilities such as Overpower and Retaliation are useful for dealing damage. Some abilities usable in Defensive and Berserker Stances are also usable in Battle Stance.
 * In Berserker Stance, the warrior is focused on maximizing damage potential with abilities such as Recklessness.

How stats affect the warrior
(Original can be seen at WoW: World of Warriors)

Mitigation and avoidance stats
{| class="darktable" ! Stat !! Effect ! Armor ! Dodge ! Parry ! Block Rating
 * Armor augments a character's health to a higher number (if the armor is positive), which represents the amount of physical damage a player can withstand. For instance, a character with 5000 health and 50% armor would be able to absorb 10000 damage before dying.
 * - class="alt"
 * The warrior moves out of the way of the enemy's attack, and takes no damage from it. It is extremely useful to have a trinket which increases dodge rating for a short time to help healers keep up with healing. (If you're not getting hit, you don't need heals.) A warrior can only dodge frontal attacks. Attacks from behind cannot be dodged.
 * - class="alt"
 * The warrior parries the enemy's attack and takes no damage from it. Parrying attacks increases the warrior's melee haste rating, causing him to hit faster than normal. A warrior can only parry frontal attacks. Attacks from behind cannot be parried.
 * The warrior raises his shield and blocks the enemy's attack. Block rating increases a warrior's % chance to block. Unlike dodge and parry, blocking an attack only reduces the amount of damage done to the warrior. A warrior can only block frontal attacks. Attacks from behind cannot be blocked.
 * - class="alt"

Talents
Warrior talents are split into three trees: arms, fury, and protection.

Arms

 * Specialties: Strong bleeding skills, high burst damage with a two handed weapon. Can reduce healing on enemies with Mortal Strike.
 * Strengths: High rage gain (Anger Management) and rage efficient abilities (Overpower). Access to Tactical Mastery.
 * Weaknesses: At a disadvantage on fights that require constant movement due to the cast time on Slam. Must be played with skill and a fast reaction time to successfully compete with other damage dealers.

The arms tree consists of abilities which focus on slow two-handed burst coupled with heavy bleeding damage to better effect. The arms talent tree is capped by the Bladestorm ability, which when activated, whirlwinds every second for 6 seconds and causes the warrior to become unstoppable, unless killed, for the duration. Due to almost every arms skill being based on weapon damage, such as Rend, Overpower, Deep Wounds and Mortal Strike, slow two-handed weapons are favored by almost every arms warrior to maximize effect. Bleeding skills are enhanced as well with the talent Trauma and Taste for Blood allows Rend to open up opportunities to use Overpower regardless of whether the the target dodged your attacks.

Fury

 * Specialties: Powerful sustained damage and can regenerate with Bloodthirst and Blood Craze. Can passively reduce healing on enemies with Furious Attacks. Able to wield two 2-handed weapons with Titan's Grip or two 1-handed weapons with Single-Minded Fury.
 * Strengths: Powerful sustained damage with dual wielding and capable of high burst damage with Bloodsurge and Bloodthirst. Small amount of self-healing through Bloodthirst.
 * Weaknesses: Fury warriors have almost no crowd control and are less desired than other classes in situations that require it. Fury warriors generate very high threat and have no talents or abilities which reduce or drop threat (many players will joke that death is the fury warrior's threat dump).

The fury tree bolsters the use of dual wielding to dish out high damage. Critical strikes allow the fury warrior to proc Flurry (warrior talent). Bloodthirst has a chance to proc Bloodsurge, which gives the warrior an instant-cast slam at no rage cost. The final point in the fury tree offers players a choice between Titan's Grip or Single-Minded Fury. Titan's Grip allows the warrior to dual wield 2-handed weapons, while Single-Minded Fury gives the warrior increased damage when dual wielding 1-handed weapons. It is possible to put a point in both of these talents at the same time, although there is very little practical reason to do so.

In the past, going too deep in the fury tree was undesired for PvP due to its lack of the Mortal Strike healing debuff, but as of patch 3.0.0, the fury tree gained Furious Attacks, which applies the needed healing debuff. Patch 3.1 reduced the damage taken penalty for being in Berserker Stance from 10% to 5%, and patch 4.0.1 removed the penalty completely, which greatly helped overall survivability for fury warriors.

Protection

 * Specialties: Access to many stuns, such as Concussion Blow and Shockwave. An excellent tank spec proficient at both AoE tanking and singular tanking.
 * Strengths: All-new powerful damage that was unheard of before Patch 3.0.0, making the shield not just a defensive tool, but a powerful offensive one as well. Able to take very high amounts of damage and dish out high amounts in return.
 * Weaknesses: Technically rage-starved if not being hit, though speccing protection allows you to make your hits crit more often, still allowing you to deal burst damage without rage (Sword and Board). No healing debuff to apply to enemies. Damage output very limited when not the focus of enemy attacks, due to key abilities dependent fully or partially on blocking (i.e. Revenge, Sword and Board.)

Since Patch 3.0.0, tanking has been redefined by Blizzard, and so the protection tree likely got the biggest change (for the better) in comparison to the other trees.

The protection tree features the traditional one-handed weapon + shield combination with talents to improve its use. It is likely that one would think the overall damage is lower due to not using a "powerful two-hander" or "dual-wielding two weapons". But when facing a protection warrior, they need to consider the shield as well. With it protection warriors can crush anyone foolish enough to attack him/her in melee, and use it to harass and silence casters. Protection warriors now scale with attack power more so than they did in the past, causing them to do much more damage. The protection tree boosts overall survivability, but also offense with the kind of tools that prot warriors use, namely the one handed weapon and shield. And with that new offense comes higher aggro buildup, making them threat machines.

Pre Patch 3.0.0, protection warriors were almost never considered for PvP due to their lack of damage, utility against players, and lack of everything that PvP stood for, but now they return with a new style. Still lacking a healing debuff, protection warriors now focus on stunning, crippling and harassing with their new high mobility talent, Warbringer.

Blizzard's talent calculator can be found here.

Spells
Battle Shout and Commanding Shout will affect the raid, not just the party.

Talents

 * Titan's Grip is a new fury talent and allows warriors to wield a two-hand weapon in one hand, thereby allowing two-handed dual wielding.
 * Protection warriors have a new spell called Shockwave allowing them to damage and stun all the enemies in front of them.
 * Bladestorm is a new arms talent whirlwinding 4 enemies in range every 1 second for 6 seconds.

Protection
Blizzard improved the protection spec so that it is more viable outside of tanking by increasing damage, with improvements to all damaging abilities, including Concussion Blow. Shield Slam will also be available to all warriors now.

General preview
{{Bluepost|poster=Bornakk|title=Cataclysm Class Preview: Warrior|date=04/08/2010 09:01:06 AM PDT|link=http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038612592&sid=1|body= World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. Here you will get a glimpse into some of the changes we have in store for the warrior. The information you're about to read is not complete, and is only meant to act as a preview for some of the exciting new things to come.

New Warrior Abilities
Inner Rage (Level 81): Whenever the character reaches a full 100 Rage, he or she will gain a buff that causes attacks to consume 50% more Rage and do 15% more damage for a short amount of time. This is a passive ability so it won't need to be activated by the player. The goal for this ability is to provide a benefit for hitting max Rage instead of it feeling like a penalty. However, we also don't want warriors to feel like they're supposed to pool Rage and do nothing until they hit 100, so we'll be closely monitoring how this plays out during the beta testing, and making adjustments as needed.

Gushing Wound (Level 83): This ability will apply a bleed effect to the target. If the target moves, the bleed gains an extra stack and refreshes its duration, up to a maximum of three stacks. The ability is currently planned to have no cooldown, cost 10 Rage, and have a 9-second duration. Gushing Wound is designed to be weaker than Rend with one stack, but better with three stacks, which will be reached when fighting a moving target.

Heroic Leap (Level 85): This ability makes the character leap at their target and apply the Thunder Clap ability to all enemies in the area when they land. Heroic Leap will be usable in Battle Stance and shares a cooldown with Charge, but the Juggernaut (warrior talent) and Warbringer talents will allow Heroic Leap to be used in any stance and possibly while in combat. The cooldown for this ability might be longer than the Charge ability, but it will also apply a stun effect so you can make sure the target will still be there when you land.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
In addition to learning new abilities, you'll see changes to other abilities and mechanics with which you're already familiar. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we intend for each spec.


 * Heroic Strike will no longer be an "on next swing" attack, as we are removing this mechanic in Cataclysm. To keep the niche of Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, it will become an instant attack, but will cost between 10 and 30 Rage. This ability will not be usable until you have 10 Rage, but if you have more than 10, it will consume up to 30, adding additional damage for each point of Rage consumed above the base 10. Other abilities, such as Cleave, Execute, and Maul (for druids) will work similarly. The goal is to provide players with an option where if you can't afford the Rage, you don't push the button, but if you have excess Rage, you can push it a lot.
 * Battle Shout, Commanding Shout, and possibly Demoralizing Shout will work more like the death knight's Horn of Winter ability. Specifically, these shouts will cost no resources, generate rage in addition to their current effects, and be on a short cooldown.
 * Whirlwind will hit an unlimited number of targets, but only for 50% of weapon damage. The intent is for this ability to be used in multi-target scenarios and not on single targets.
 * Overall, heals cast by players in Cataclysm will be a lower number relative to players' health than the current game. So to make the Mortal Strike debuff less mandatory but still useful in PvP, Mortal Strike will reduce healing by only 20%. All equivalent debuffs, including the Shadow priest and Frost mage debuffs, will be for 20% less healing. At the moment we aren't considering giving this debuff to anyone else, though we will certainly consider PvP utility for historically under-represented specs that use other mechanics.
 * Sunder Armor will be reduced to three stacks instead of five, and still provide only a 4% reduction in armor per stack. We want to make this debuff easier to apply and less of a damage swing when it falls off.

New Talents and Talent Changes

 * The Furious Sundering talent in the Fury tree will make the Sunder Armor ability cause 25/50% weapon damage and reduce the threat generated by 50/100%.
 * The Mace and Poleaxe Specialization talents in the Arms tree will be removed. These provided just passive stats, which are not the kinds of talents we want to design in the future. We will keep the Sword Specialization talent, but it will be changed to a talent that applies to all types of weapons.
 * As a Fury talent, Booming Voice will increase the Rage generated by shouts.
 * While we like how Titan's Grip plays, we recognize some warriors liked the Fury tree because of the really fast swings that dual-wielding one-handed weapons could provide. Therefore, we're planning to try out a talent called Single-Minded Fury that is parallel to Titan's Grip and will provide a large boost to the damage of a pair of one-handed weapons.
 * Several talents that reduce the Rage cost of abilities will be changed to focus on increased damage for those abilities instead.
 * The new Arms talent called Disarming Nature will make successful disarms cause the target to cower in fear for 5/10 seconds.
 * Another new Arms talent called Blitz will make the Charge ability hit for extra damage. The amount will possibly vary depending on the distance travelled.
 * Improved Pummel, a Fury talent, will cause a successful interrupt to generate 10/20 Rage.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

 * Arms
 * 1) Melee Damage
 * 2) Armor Penetration
 * 3) Bonus Swing: This is similar to the Sword Specialization talent that is currently in the game, but Bonus Swing will work on all attacks and with all weapons. You have a chance to proc a free, instant weapon swing that hits for 50% damage.


 * Fury
 * 1) Melee Damage
 * 2) Melee Haste
 * 3) Enrage Intensity: Every benefit of being enraged is increased. This includes doing more damage/healing/ etc. from abilities like Bloodrage, Death Wish, Enrage, Berserker Rage, and Enraged Regeneration.


 * Protection
 * 1) Damage Reduction
 * 2) Vengeance
 * 3) Critical Block Chance: As we mentioned in the stat changes preview, block rating is changing to a chance to block 30% of a melee swing's damage. Protection warriors have a chance that the block will be a critical block and block for 60% of a melee swing's damage instead. There will likely be talents available to push the amount blocked even higher.


 * Vengeance: This is a mechanic to ensure that tank damage (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will give them a stacking attack power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's un-buffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have the attack power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Protection tree. These values will be smaller at lower levels. Remember, you only get this bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Protection tree, so you won't see Arms or Fury warriors running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to make tank gear more or less the way we do today – there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but overall the goal is for all four tanks do about the same damage when tanking.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues. }}