Warrior as a classical fantasy class is well-known in World of Warcraft too. Playing this class you can’t use magic or count on blessings from a greater power. Just you, your weapons, plate armor, and enemies around. In our WotLK Classic Warrior guide below you can find all you need to know to start to play on the character of this class in Wrath of the Lich King, starting from the specializations overview and ending with gear BiS lists and useful macros.
WotLK Classic Warrior Overview
Some things never change, you know? So and Warriors in every expansion look the same. They wear heavy plate armor, can use almost all available in the game weapon, and be melee DPS or Tanks in raids. Someone can say, that warriors a kinda boring, but it’s worth taking a closer look at this class’ specializations to convince himself otherwise.
Warrior Spec Choice
Like all other WotLK classes, Warrior has three specializations for choice, Arms (DPS), Fury (DPS), and Protection (Tank).
Arms
Arms Warrior fights using bleeding abilities and focuses on two-three targets in most cases. But also can provide you with great AoE damage using cleaves and spells like the brand-new Bladestorm.
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Fury
At first, in WotLK Fury Warrior is still the only spec in the game that can use pair of two-hands weapons at one time. At least, it looks impressive, like we want to play a fantasy RPG. Also, specialization has pretty good cleave damage and totally scary in single-target fights because of such Warrior abilities as Death Wish.
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Protection
Most classical and brutal tanks, use no magic shields and face all enemies with their own plate-armored bodies. Protection Warriors is about high threat tanking, great damage including AoE specifics, good mobility, and a lot of fun.
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WotLK Classic Warrior Changes
In Wotlk Classic every Warrior specialization gets some new abilities and talent changes, that can improve your gameplay experience, but now we should talk about the general changes that depend not on current specs.
- No more “stance dance”, so you don’t need to switch between three poses (Combat, Defensive, and Berserker) so often. Also, all these poses also get some changes;
- Combat Stance now gives you +10% to Armor Penetration with all attacks (expansion before this was stance without bonuses or penalties);
- Defensive Stance reduces taken damage by 10%, giving players an additional 45% threat. Also, now this stance reduces your damage only by 5% (instead of 10% before);
- Berserker Stance gives you a 3% Critical Strike chance and increases your taken damage by 5% (before it was 10%);
- Berserker Rage in WotLK can be used in all three stances (instead of only in Berserker stance);
- Recklessness (the best offensive), Protective Wall, Retaliation (the best defensive) CDs get cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes;
- Battle Shout and the Command Shout now get 30 meters range (20 before) and 4 minutes duration (instead of 2);
- Also, the Warriors get another two powerful skills, the Enraged Regeneration healing option, and the Smashing Throw strong attack ability.
WotLK Classic Warrior Leveling
If you decide to level your Warrior, you must very carefully and meticulously go to the choice of specialization. Not every spec is well suited to this task:
- Arms with bleeding rotation looks good in all stages and get additional AoE options closer to the highest levels;
- Fury is not the best choice because this spec depends on gear;
- Protection is not the quickest way for solo leveling but for Warrior Dungeon leveling it’s the best option.
5.0WotLK Warrior Talents and Glyphs
In WotLK Warrior specializations got many interesting new talents, which improve Arms, Fury, and Protection Specs. Some more opportunities provide us with new Warrior Glyphs, that change and bring to a new level the classes’ key abilities. Or in the case of Minor Glyphs we got some nice cosmetic effects.
Arms [55/8/8]: the best option for early gear levels builder around Incite talent.
Fury [18/53/0]: this specialization doesn’t have many specific builds, but you can change this one for yourself. Fury Warrior WotLK talents build around Bloodthirst and 
Bloodsurge and provide you high single-target and cleave damage, but truly reveal with high-level gear.
Protection [15/5/51]: standard WotLK Prot Warrior talents suitable for almost all raid situations, that provides you also with good single-target and AoE damage.
WotLK Classic Warrior Stats
It is good to know the most valuable stats for your class before you end leveling and start pre-raid preparation or PvP adventures. Collecting gear with the most suitable stats will make your character much more powerful.
| Arms | Fury | Protection |
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WotLK Classic Warrior Best Race
In WoW classic race choice also impact your character. Some races don’t give you any benefits, but others can give you nice buffs or passive abilities.
Arms
| Alliance | Horde |
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Fury
| Alliance | Horde |
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Protection
| Alliance | Horde |
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WotLK Classic Warrior Consumables, Chants & Gems
All good players try as hard as they can to improve their character in all possible specific options. Right consumables, chants, and gems in total can bring you to another level on PvP, Dungeons, and raid runs.
Arms
| Gems | Chants | Consumables |
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Fury
| Gems | Chants | Consumables |
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Protection
WotLK Classic Warrior Best Professions
As you can notice before, Arms and Fury specialization have a lot of similar options in various moments from stats to best races. The same and with profession choice, but in this time, Protection spec also has a similar option:
- Engineering is the clear choice for most classes because of a lot of useful bombs, gadgets, chants, and other utilities. Just a few examples: Global Thermal Sapper Charge,
Saronite Bomb, 
Hyperspeed Accelerators, and coveted by almost all players Nitro Boosts. Protection Warrior also can look at the 
Armored Titanium Goggles (pre-raid WotLK Warrior BiS), Mind Amplification Dish, and Reticulated Armor Webbing (great enchants); - Jewelcrafting is good because of three powerful BoP gems which can use only characters that learn and level this profession. You can find all these gems and learn more about the profession itself in our WotLK Classic Jewelcrafting guide;
- Blacksmithing gives you additional sockets you can use, but looks weaker than the options we talk about above.
WotLK Classic Warrior Rotation
Now it’s time to get a simple overview of basic rotation for every specialization. Of course, feel free to change these lists if you want to change your gameplay, but if you doing your first steps for this class, try to start from the basics.
Arms
| Standard | AoE |
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Fury
| Standard | AoE |
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Protection
- Shield Slam is your first option, especially if CD was refreshed;
- Also with
Revenge; - Use
Shockwave for AoE damage; - Stack
Devastate every time you can; - Cast
Heroic Strike when you have extra rage.
WotLK Classic Warrior Phase 1 BiS
Even the biggest master of Warrior class can’t be the best without well-chosen gear. Below you can find lists that help you get pre-raid BiS and Phase 1 BiS.
WotLK Warrior Pre-Raid BiS
WotLK Warrior Raid BiS
WotLK Warrior PvP
If you are more interested in PvP, in WotLK you should take a look at Arms and Protection Warrior specialization, because Fury Warrior is still too weak for confrontations with opposite factions.
Arms
Arms Warrior has a great DPS and can help teammates with various utilities. Also, Bladestorm and 
Mortal Strike combined with other damage abilities and talents, make Arms Warrior a true machine of death.
| 2v2 comps | 3v3 comps |
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Protection
Protection Warrior mixes high mobility and useful utilities with high defensive capabilities and good damage into a single target. Also, this spec has a wide pool of stuns, kicks, and other crowd control abilities that makes Prot Warrior in WotLK a more than a suitable teammate in various situations.
| 2v2 comps | 3v3 comps |
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WotLK Warrior Macros
Finally, little advice about macros that will be helpful in various situations regardless of your specialization.
Auto-Attack Macro
The main feature of every Physical DPS class helps you control effectively of your auto-attack realization:
#showtooltip Mortal Strike
/cast Mortal Strike
/startattack
Above you can see an example that should be added for every your ability.
Mouseover Sunder
This macro helps you cast Sunder Armor without target changing:
#showtooltip Sunder Armor
/cast [@mouseover] Sunder Armor
We hope this information helps you to choose your warrior’s way. Don’t forget to give us feedback if our WotLK Warrior guide was helpful for you.
