This guide is intended to provide a general overview of the World of Warcraft Warrior. For a far more in-depth and highly detailed resource on the warrior, check out the Killer Guide's Warrior Guide.

Also check the other Warrior guides on GotWarcraft, such as our Warrior Class Guide and guides for the specific builds of Fury Warrior, Arms Warrior, and Protection Warrior. We also have a new Warrior PvP guide.

Contents:

• 1.0 - Introduction
• 2.0 - Talents for leveling
• 3.0 - Gear & Progression
• 4.0 - Professions
• 5.0 - 1-80 Warrior Leveling Guide

Introduction

Warriors are one of my favorite classes to level, at least under specific circumstances. They provide the fun gaming style of non-stop death-dealing combined with a decent overall leveling speed that can come in narrowly behind rogues and hunters, if done correctly.

One slight catch - to do so you must be geared to the teeth at all times, and, at the very least, you must updateg your weaponry every 5 or 6 levels, if not more.  So, have fun dropping your cash, or gold in this case, down the black hole known as the Auction House.

Besides that small downer, Warriors can provide a fun and engaging experience to level, especially with the somewhat recent increase to quested experience gain – this really helps make Warrior (and any class) leveling far easier.

2.0 – Talent Builds for Leveling

Build #1: 19/52/0 Fury + Arms Build - This is a solid level 80 leveling build, from Zygor's Guide, complete with glyphs. It's intended to get you into Titan's Grip ASAP. It's not intended to be a true raiding or PvP build.

1. Fury Talents
2. 3 pts in Armored to the Teeth - More armor = more damage.
3. 5 pts in Cruelty - Yes, we like crits, and it helps with other talents.
4. 4 of 5 pts in Unbridled Wrath - More Rage
5. 3 pts in Improved Cleave - More Cleave damage
6. 5 pts in Dual Wield Specialization - Use two weapons, rage comes faster. 'nuff said
7. 3 pts in Precision - Hit more often = More damage and more threat
8. Death Wish - More damage. Great for DPS and leveling.
9. 2 pts in Improved Intercept - More frequent Intercepts
10. 5 pts in Flurry - More crits = more attacks = more damage and threat
11. Blood Thirst - Instant attack and restores a bit of health
12. 2 pts in Improved Whirlwind - More Whirlwind damage
13. 5 pts in Improved Berserker Stance - More Srength = more damage , but less threat
14. Rampage - More crits for your team
15. 3 pts in Bloodsurge - Your next Slam might be instant (20% chance)
16. 5 pts in Unending Fury - More damage
17. Titan's Grip - Wield two 2-hand weapons. What's not to like?
18. Arms Talents
19. 3 pts in Improved Heroic Strike - Lowered rage cost.
20. 2 pts out of 5 in Deflection - 2% parry
21. 2 pts in Iron Will - Lower the duration of Stun and Charms
22. 3 pts in Tactical Mastery - More efficient rage management, more threat in Def. stance.
23. Anger Management - More Rage
24. 2 pts in Impale - More crit damage
25. 3 pts in Deep Wounds - Adds a bleed to your crits
26. 3 pts in Two-Handed Weapon Specialization - More damage with your two 2-handers

This build allows you to pump out massive amounts of consistent damage combined with frequent critical strikes, giving a near permanent flurry buff and maxing out white damage.

Use Dual Weild when you get the ability at level 20. You will get faster rage generation and more damage.

The Fury + Arms build covers almost any need as far as talents go, picking up all the necessary ones and essentially going for maximum efficiency as far as a well geared fury warrior is concerned.  However, that’s not to say it’s in any way perfect for your warrior, so feel free to experiment as you go and find your match.

Cruelty provides us with a staple damage increase. It also gives us the much needed critical strikes that become oh-so-very-important at the later levels, largely due to Flurry.  It’s probably one of the best talents in the tree despite occupying the first tier.

Second tier we pick up Unbridled Wrath, this also helps greatly at all levels – Hilariously enough, I skipped this my first time through the game, way back at release, and instead picked up Booming Voice, as Unbridled Wrath seemed rather weak to me at a first glance. Don’t make this same mistake. The Unbridled Wrath talent is yet another must have as it really shows when you’ve maxed it out and proceed to fill your rage pool *while* fully spamming  all abilities.

At one point in time I'd favored Enrage over Dual-wield Specialization, however, that time has passed, and, for consistency, I now pick up five points in Dual-wield Spec as opposed to my prior builds - I'd recommend you do the same.

Flurry is the real killer, however. It rounds out the builds damage abilities with a massive, consistent increase of damage throughout practically every fight.  Just one thing: you might not notice it being quite as good as I’m playing it up to be, until you’ve - A: maxed it out, 5/5, and B: built up a decent critical rating.

Bloodthirst, Rampage, Improved Berserker stance, etc. - aAll these simply build upon already present damage dealing capabilities. Learn to use them correctly, and they truly become a boon. Use them incorrectly, and you’ll likely notice minimal effect.

Build #2: 54/17/0 Arms + fury build - An Arms Warrior leveling build with better ability to fight multiple mobs. It has comparable DPS to Fury, but less healing, so there is a bit more downtime.

Attack Rotation:

Start attack macro - this will initiate your attack even if you don't have the rage to use Heroic Strike (HS.)

#showtooltip Heroic Strike
/startattack
/cast Heroic Strike

• Get a bow (or gun or throwing knife or...) Use it to pull mobs from groups or to shoot runners.
• Start with Charge, then Rend - So many mobs run away. This way they run and die.
• Spam HS as rage permits
• Get Glyph of Rend, just more time for them to bleed
• Multiple mobs - Rend each one, spam Cleave
• Use Intimidating Shout to scare adds, as necessary.

3.0 – Gear & Progression

Fury Warrior stats are quite simple; we want to maximize damage at all costs. This means picking up as much attack power, critical rating, hit rating, and strength as possible, with all other statistics taking a backseat in this regard, including stamina.

One practice that is followed occasionally at higher levels is the usage of mail and/or leather armor that possesses the greater damage stats. However, this shouldn’t be much of a factor along the road to your 60’s.

Strength is your first priority, it increases attack power, and in doing so, your base damage values.  Stacking massive amounts of strength is most effective at lower levels and slowly erodes up until 80, whereupon it about evens out against critical rating.

Unless you are doing a lot of PvP and/or tanking you will find the offensive stats to be much more valuable than the defensive ones. While leveling stick to the massive offense and carry enough food and bandages with you to minimize downtime.

Critical rating and raw Attack Power come at about an even par. However, in the end I’d say Critical Rating edges out +Attack Power, because Crit Raing increases how often Flurry procs, thereby increasing white damage significantly. (The Skinning profession will increase your crit rating. )

4.0 - Professions

If you have to level a skill then go for Blacksmithing and Mining. Blacksmithing will get you into some good gear. Mining is a great money maker that also provides raw materials for Blacksmithing and Engineering. First Aid is an essential skill (for when you smash your hand with your hammer.) Keep it maxed at all times. Skip the crafting professions while leveling (even Inscription,) unless you have, or can generate, plenty of gold.

• Skinning give you extra crit rating
• Mining gives you more Stamina
• Herbalism gives you a small heal.

Here is a list of other money-making and useful professions:

• Inscription - By far, the best money maker of the professions, you can use it to make some cool high-end things that are self-only. You'll spend plenty to level this one, but nowhere near as much as the other skills, and you can easily make it all back. If cash is tight, (you'll need it for gear,) or you are in a hurry to level, skip this until later.
• Skinning - A solid money maker. Just sell everything, even the scraps. Since you're going to be killing the beasts anyway you might as well take it.
• Herbalism - A solid money maker, especially with scribes buying up tons of herbs to level Inscription.
• Cooking - A good skill to take. You'll be able to cook up foods that buff str, stam, and other stats.
• Fishing - A good way to slow down your leveling speed. It does provide mats for cooking, and some fish are good gold makers (oily blackmouth, deviate fish, etc.,) but it is time consuming.

5.0 -- 1-80 Warrior Leveling Guide

One of the commonly seen questions in the forums and in the game chat is something like, "Where do I go to level...?" You can grind endless groups of mobs, which a fury warrior does very well, or you can follow the quests as you find them, perhaps looking for quest details on a site like Thottbot.com.

Or you can consider a full blown Warrior leveling guide. The guide covers the entire 1-80 leveling path and it's laid out for you, step by step, Zygor's Guide automates that path, from start to finish, for your Warrior or any class you play.

Automation means you pick your starting point and the guide automatically updates and advances to the next step as you complete each step and quest, and also sets the next waypoint arrow automatically. In addition, the important quest info is included in the guide.

All you have to do is follow the arrow and check the guide (with its in-game window) to see what you have to do. You'll knock off the quests boom, boom, boom and you'll level with a surprising lack of stress.

You will probably never need to look at your quest log again, much less browse Thottbot. Grab your copy of Zygor's guide here or read our review.