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I have compiled a series of questions and topics on this forum into what I hope is an informative guide on warriors. This guide is meant for PVE Tanking & DPS.
NOTE: Everything related to dps was written by our resident hack'n'slash monkey, Landolph. Credits to him!
Warrior leveling is not an easy task, especially because the gear you have translates directly into the damage you deal and receive from mobs. The best leveling spec for a warrior is definitely fury (click for talents). Start off with fury tree up to Bloodthirst, then switch to arms tree up to Impale, then put the rest of the points as you see fit.
If you have friends with which you can level, going Protection and grinding instances is by far the best way to get from 60 to 70 because you get access to a wide array of items, and you get to grind Reputation, which you will later need for doing heroics and such. Plus you get a lot of experience when it comes to multi-mob tanking and various abilities and spells that might prove useful when you do heroics or raid for the first time. The spec which you should have at 60 if you’re going prot is this.
Speaking solely from an end-game perspective, what you should aim for first and foremost is 490 defense. After that you go for 25% avoidance (which you should already have without a problem from the defense alone) and last but not least you stack stamina gems in ALL your sockets. In time, with getting new gear you’ll get to the point where you’ll afford to put stamina gems in every single socket. Stamina is the most important stat for a warrior, and NOT avoidance as many people seem to think. Massive avoidance is not reliable and is unpredictable. The warrior is the top tank in this game and when it comes to tanking in itself, it’s not only melee dmg you have to endure. For that, STA is above all else. Of course, still stacking defense + stamina isn’t a wrong choice since defense provides a little bit of every mitigation stat, as shown below.
1 Defense Rating grants 0.4166 Defense Skill.
Resulting in:
1 Defense Rating grants 0.0166 Dodge.
1 Defense Rating grants 0.0166 Parry.
1 Defense Rating grants 0.0166 Block.
1 Defense Rating grants 0.0166 less chance to be Hit.
1 Defense Rating grants 0.0166 less chance to be Critically Hit.
Expertise Rating: 3.9 rating grants 1 Expertise
Defense Rating: 2.4 rating grants 1 defense skill
Dodge Rating: 18.9 rating grants 1% dodge
Parry Rating: 31.5 rating grants 1% parry
Block Rating: 7.9 rating grants 1% block chance
Hit Rating: 15.8 rating grants 1% hit chance
Critical Strike Rating: 22.1 rating grants 1% critical strike chance
Haste Rating: 15.8 rating grants 1% haste
TANKING
The standard tank spec is 8/5/48
Reasoning behind it: improved thunderclap is a must these days since Thunderfury is outdated. You will face many situations where multi-mob tanking is necessary both in raids and outside, and for that Imp. TC is perfect. 5/5 cruelty is a must, no discussion about it. At T6 level, 5% crit is around 30% of a warrior’s total crit chance, crit translates directly into more aggro, more rage, more damage. 0/3 Imp. Sunder Armor – The reason for 0 points in this is that as an MT, the initial 5 sunders should not be a problem when tanking a boss. If there are DPS warriors in the raid, they should be the ones helping with initial sunders so the MT can use his maximum aggro skills.
DPS
The standard dps spec is 17/44/0
Most people ask why to take 5 Parry. The reason is pretty simple: Warriors are NOT a pure DPS class. They for example are able to tank a Boss after the MT died to some reasons if they are fast on equipping a Shield. Most bosses can be saved by that and 5 Parry obviously helps there (Some people bugged me ingame for that and yes, that already happened for me on Teron Gorefiend and Anetheron).
Improved Thunderclap is taken for the same reason as a Prot warrior takes it. A Fury warrior is often limited to the threat-cap of the current tank and so helping him by keeping Thunderclap up gives the MT more time to generate threat.
Improved Demoralizing Shout is a must as well. The melee damage of a boss works like this: he has low attackpower and the high damage bosses do comes from multipliers used on this base attackpower. 5/5 Improved Demoralizing Shout makes sure the boss got lowest attackpower possible even if he got Curse of Recklessness on (else you can use 2/5 Improved Demo and 3/5 Unbridled Wrath).
The reason why I only put 1 point in improved Whirlwind is pretty simple: Whirlwind is on a 9 Second CD then which makes it almost never overlap with Bloodthirst and I did not have that much better choices what to leave out for the second point in Weapon Mastery. So you can keep both on Cooldown pretty easily without loosing CD on your most important damagespell Bloodthirst. It is a matter of taste though some people like to ditch 5% of their offhand damage from Dual Wield Specilization.
TANKING
Helm: best helm enchant you can get is NOT the CoT one, but the ZG one. Unfortunately not many guilds will go ZG just so their tank can get a small upgrade.
Shoulder: the best Enchant after you reached the above-mentioned mitigation-rate is the Sapphiron-Shoulder Enchant Fortitude of the Scourge (16Stamina 100 Armor). But with this it is basically the same as with the Helm-Enchant, only few guilds will do almost whole Naxx just for a tiny Tank-upgrade.
Weapon: Mongoose is by far the best choice for a raiding warrior, but the new patch will bring an interesting alternative: Executioner - Use: Learn how to permanently enchant a Melee Weapon to occasionally ignore 840 of your enemy’s armor. Requires a level 35 or higher item. Assuming the procrate is similar to that of Mongoose, this enchant should be superior in terms of threat generation.
Boots: Boar’s Speed and not 12 stamina. The minor speed increase will prove to be way more useful in more situations than 3 extra stamina.
DPS
Cloak: You can decide: 12 Agility for more critchance or use -2% Threat enchant. I personally use 12 Agility at the moment, because I can rely on some high threat from our tanks mostly. If you feel that you can not DPS freely, use the -2% Threat enchant, but to be honest, your tanks can't suck that much after Patch 2.3. It might be an option when you got both Twin Blades off Illidan though.
Bracers: Use 12 Strength! I always see warriors with 24 Attack Power enchant. The reason is simple: In a raid you will have Blessing of Kings so 12 Strength is at least 26 attackpower. The mats for both enchants are the same, so use 12 Strength.
Main Hand Weapon: Mongoose is the best choice there atm. With 2.3 the new Weapon Enchant Executioner that gives 840 Armor Pierce on proc (chance supposed to be similar to Mongoose). Then you have to decide: Do i need more Crit or can i use the Armor Pierce better?
Off Hand Weapon: Basically the same as above but if you do not plan to have that Off Hand for a long time you can use Potency (+20 Strength) as enchant because you do not have more than 1 proc per Minute on your Off Hand any more, so Potency is only slightly worse.
Gloves: Before Haste was nerfed, the low-level enchant Minor Haste (10 Haste Rating) was the best. Now you gotta stick to 15 Strength again. Do not use 15 Agility as a DPS-Warrior, Strength benefits you more cause it scales with your Talents (namely Improved Berserker Stance).
Boots: Use Surefooted here. The 10 extra Hit Rating are superior to any other Enchant. You can always use your old boots for a runspeed Enchant which can be handy at some encounters but generally you do not need runspeed.
Meta-Socket: ALWAYS use the 3% Critdamage 12 Agility Meta-Gem. The Hasteproc-Metagem is useless due to its inner Cooldown and nerfed Haste. Keep in mind you need 2 blue, 2 red and 2 yellow gems in your gear to get it working.
Helm/Legs/Shoulders: I guess I do not have to mention that the CE-Enchant is the best for your Helm, the Attackpower/Crit-Armorkit is the best for your legs and the Scryer/Aldor-Exalted-Enchant is the best for your shoulders.
TANKING
If you’ve just hit 70, your best bet would be to go Blacksmithing. This profession provides you with a great initial tanking weapon - [Fireguard], which will later be upgraded into Blazefury, the best you can get until Mallet of the Tides. You can also craft different pieces of epic tanking armor, for which you would otherwise have to pay a nether fee.
Enchanting – Although not playing a major part in warrior itemization, the +4 to all stats on ring is mildly useful since a tanking warrior needs a hefty amount of both stamina, strength and agility. Of course this enchant isn't available to anyone but it's still an option.
Engineering – It’s not the most popular profession but you can craft yourself [Tankatronic Goggles] – a Tier 5 equivalent tank helm.
Gathering professions – Your personal choice, if you don’t have a grinding alt, this will be your only way to make money as a prot warrior along with playing the AH.
DPS
Blacksmithing is a great profession for a DPS-Warrior. You get a craftable Mace which is simply the best weapon until you reach Black Temple/Hyjal: [Drakefist Hammer], which will later be upgraded into Dragonstrike. So you are set with weapons for a while.
Enchanting – Although not playing a major part in warrior itemization, the +4 to all stats on ring is a great Enchant for Offwarriors, but then again its not worth to give away the benefits you get from Blacksmithing in my opinion.
Engineering – It’s not the most popular profession but you can craft yourself [Furious Gizmatic Goggles]. They are on par to the T5 DPS-Helm and so you do not need to worry about Helms again until late Black Temple/Hyjal.
Gathering professions – Your personal choice, Mining is good to combine with Blacksmithing of course, or it will be very expensive to push Blacksmithing. Herbing is good for raid-preparation but then again: You are a DPS-Warrior, a farming machine - farm stuff and buy herbs on the AH is more effective.
When it comes to tanking skill rotation, if you’re the only tank sundering the boss, start off with your highest aggro skill (Shield Slam). If you got improved bloodrage which you should have, you can throw a Shield Slam immediately after you popped it which means you don’t have to wait for a hit from yourself or either the boss to have enough rage.
The skill rotation, while keeping Shield Block up all the time and the occasional Heroic Strike for rage dump, is: Shield Slam > Revenge > Devastate > Devastate, assuming the 5 initial sunders are up. If not, replace Devastate with Sunder Armor until they are. You can check WoW-Europe class forums for some math on Devastate vs Sunder/Heroic Strike aggro values, but I won’t bother to list it here. All I can say is Devastate is far superior in any situation, both with a slow or fast weapon.
Generally you gotta take care at the start of an encounter. It's your job to firstly demo shout the mob (might resist some times) and then help your MT to apply 5 sunders.
Always watch threat there because you might get some heavy burst with a Windfury-Totem and if your MT is unlucky having some misses, the mob might turn to you very fast. When the initial stuff is done you will definetely have critted once so you can activate Rampage and of course use Battle Shout. Go into Battle Stance and use Thunder Clap (if there is no other Prot Warriors doing that). Take care that especially Demoralizing Shout is up 24/7. The pure DPS-Rotation is pretty simple: ALWAYS use Bloodthirst with every Cooldown because it is your best damage-ability. The 1 point in improved Whirlwind made sure Whirlwind almost never overlaps with Bloodthirst. If it ever does, make sure to use Bloodthirst first. The time when both is on cooldown you can use for several things: Debuff Demoralizing Shout to make sure its not running out when you use Bloodthirst/Whirlwind again which would leave the mob undebuffed for some seconds (+ it might resist afterwards so the mob would be without demo shout for a long time giving him the chance to do more burst damage on your tank). You can also use Rampage again early so it never runs out, even if you get a phase with noncrits. When you have to debuff Thunderclap on your own: Do it after Bloodthirst. You can easily ditch the low damage of Whirlwind but never miss a Bloodthirst.
Most of the time you will have a Shaman in your group: He will pop Bloodlust when threat is fine (mostly after like a minute) so do not use Death Wish before. Wait for Bloodlust and activate all you got (Haste Potion if you do not need other potions during that encounter, Death Wish, Trinkets, no recklessness yet). Watch threat because depending on your tank you might get close to him in threat. Do never ever use Heroic Strike before Bloodlust if you are relatively close behind your Tank in threat or you will find yourself doing nothing because you are about to pull aggro.
Let me say something about Heroic Strike: Even if your Threat looks fine be aware that Heroic Strike is a threatboost. Depending on if your Tank is good or not you might want to keep your threat-distance to your MT for the last 20% when it comes to
Executing: This is the time where warriors shine: Close before 20% you rebuff Rampage once again to be ready to do NOTHING but execute until you have to rebuff Rampage once again to continue executing. If you got over 3k Attackpower, using Bloodthirst if your rage boosts over 50 is more efficient than just executing with this rage. Executing DPS spikes @ over 2.5k DPS so you produce a lot of threat while doing so. If your threat is fine you can use Death Wish/Haste Potion/Recklessness and Execute all out. Basically this makes all the other classes whine about warrior-imbalance because you just rush past em on any Damagemeter. BUT: Make sure threat is fine, even if you were @ 60% of the MTs threat before you might be able to reach him with this, because some Tanks tend to slack with aggro the last % of a Fight and focus on staying alive.
It will require you to do some experiments how much Heroic Strike you can do to be still able to execute all out but stay slightly under your tank. Start with using no Heroic Strike at all and watch KTM how it is at the end. Generally its the warriors task to give a boss the rest, which is pretty useful on bosses that enrage after 20% so make sure your threat allows that.
Any warrior should always have the following consumables on him:
+ Elixir of Mastery
+ Elixir of Major Fortitude
+ Elixir of Major Agility
+ Ironshield Potion
+ Super Healing Potion
+ Mighty Rage Potion (very important as MT)
+ Swiftness Potion
+ Bandages
+ Nightmare Seed (uses Healthstone cooldown, but also acts like a mini Last Stand)
+ Flask of Fortification
+ Flask of Relentless Assault
+ Strength Food
+ 30 Stamina Food
+ Adamantite Sharpening Stone
+ Haste Potion
Of course just having them won't make you the best warrior alive, you actually have to use these effectively. For example you'd use the Ironshield Potion in case you'll take melee only damage extensively throughout the fight. The Swiftness Potion comes in really handy when you have to reach a set position really fast (like going back to the tank spot after Al'ar does the fire novas). Nightmare Seed is pretty much self explanatory, use it when you take burst damage or in situations like Hydross transitions. The sharpening stones are good for when you don't have a shaman or are dpsing as offtank.
TANKING
Don’t go for too much dodge. It’s tempting to take an epic trinket just cause it’s epic, but in the end it might be better off with a druid. Dodge is an important stat for warriors as well, only we don't generate the same amount of damage through white attacks as druids do, therefore we need to get hit more often but for less. If you have Styleen’s Impending Scarab, use it. It’s still the best overall trinket for tanks. The badge trinket is also a decent choice, block value has been underrated for quite some time and it’s a really good mitigation stat to go for, assuming you’re not neglecting the defense cap and stamina for it.
DPS
Some stuff about itemization: There is a lot of discussions on the official class forums about this. This reflects my opinion and it worked quite well for me:
Crit: Aim for 35% raidbuffed. This theoretically ensures that Flurry never fades (especially with the new Whirlwind). Of course having more Crit is still a DPS-Increase but i like other stats then. Of course you can always get unlucky (even with 90% Crit) and do 3 noncrits in a row.
Hit: 200 Hit Rating (~13%) + 3% Hit from your talents is enough. You will basically not feel any lack of rage with this. Again this is a matter of taste cause this varies on how you play or for example if you got an Enhancement Shaman in your group. Get more hit if you got your CDs ready without rage to spend. With an optimized Group (Enhancement Shaman) you can easily play with 100 Hit Rating.
Attack power: Always a good stat but remember: Strength > AP because it's scaling with Kings.
Armor Pierce/Haste: After the recent Haste nerf try to get Armor Pierce if you can. It Boosts your overall damage and helps you for example to maximize your execute-damage to be able to kill bosses last percent fast.
If you have any further information you feel should be added, don’t hesitate to post and I will copy paste it with credits of course.
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