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.
Great Cleave DPS will help you in the fights with 2-3 targets;
Very effective burst AoE damage.
Weak scaling because of rotation based on bleeding;
Not the best defensive abilities.
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.
Commanding Shout strong survival ability that can save your raid from death;
Great single-target and cleave damage;
High mobility that won’t affect your DPS.
Good scaling, but for great DPS you should have great gear;
Not the biggest number of raid utility and defensive options;
You can forget about good AoE damage because of cap of targets (just 4).
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.
Strengths
Weaknesses
You shouldn’t worry about threat;
Good DPS including powerful AoE abilities;
Engaging rotation around Shield Slam and it’s randomly refreshing;
High mobility and a lot of control options like multiple stuns, kicks, silences, and disarm;
Bosses that use magic can be a problem because of Protection Warrior’s reliance on block rating;
It will be hard to survive without raid support because of a limited number of defensive cooldowns.
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 Stancereduces 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);
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.
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
Hit Rating (up to cap at 263)
Strength
Armor Penetration/Critical Strike Rating
Expertise
Agility
Haste Rating
Attack Power
Hit Rating (up to cap at 263 without Precision talent)
Strength
Armor Penetration
Critical Strike Rating
Expertise
Agility
Haste Rating
Attack Power
Critical Strikes immunity
Survivability
Expertise (soft cap at 213)
Hit cap (up to cap at 264)
Strength
Critical strike
Block Value
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
Draenei should be your first choice because of Heroic Presence passive (which gives 1% hit to you and your entire party). It will help you achieve the Hit cap and be more flexible with gearing;
Troll is an option if you don’t like Orc because of the Haste buff.
Fury
Alliance
Horde
Human with arms specializations and Will to Survive is a good choice for Fury Warriors in WotLK;
Draenei is also a strong choice because of racial passive;
Dwarf can be an interesting option because of Mace Specialization, if you want to see your character with two maces.
Orc gives identical bonuses for Arms and Fury, so it’s the best choice for both specs;
Troll looks the same, just a second minor option.
Protection
Alliance
Horde
Draenei is first one more time;
Human – the same;
Night Elf is your option if you searching for survivability with Quickness passive;
Dwarfs also can be useful because of mace specialization and additional armor buff Stoneform.
Orc and Troll are almost fully equal as choice for the Protection Warrior because of their racial abilities we talk about above.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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
Warrior/ Paladin
Warrior / Warlock / Druid
Warrior / Paladin / Death Knight
Warrior / Paladin / Healer
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
Warrior/ Paladin
Warrior/ Rogue
Warrior/ Arms Warrior
Warrior/ Shaman
Warrior/ Paladin
Warrior/ Hunter/ Paladin
Warrior/ Shaman/ Paladin
Warrior/ Arms Warrior/ Paladin
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: