Warrior PvP, an Overview

This guide is primarily for Warriors who are fairly new to the Warrior class or to PVP in general. It you are already the Warrior PVP god it probably won’t be much help, but everyone else should be able to learn from it.

If you want to skip the lower level stuff and blast your new Warrior to the cap ASAP then look into a serious leveling guide.

Warrior PvP Contents

1. Builds:
   • Arms warrior PvP page  – Details specific to Arms
   • Fury Warrior PvP Page – Arms is generally better for PvP, but here’s your build if you want a challenge.
2. Warrior Races
3. Basic and Arena PvP Tips
4. Keybinding
5. Stats, gems, enchants
6. More Warrior Pages

 

Warrior Races

If you want to make a new Warrior for use in PVP there are some things to consider. The following lists some specific racial abilities that will be helpful to the PVP Warrior. Ultimately your skill and gear will count for more than any racial abilities. If you want to blast your new Warrior to the level cap ASAP then look into a serious leveling guide.

For top ranked arena PvP? Orcs and Humans are way more popular than any others. And Orcs far more than Humans. See the listing here.

For having fun in the battlegrounds? Pick one that works for you. They all bring something useful.

For the Alliance!

Dwarf:

• • Stoneform : Activate to gain immunity to poison, disease, and bleed (will also remove these types of debuffs); +10% damage reduction; Lasts 8 seconds. 3 minute cooldown.

Dark Iron Dwarf

• • Your Fireblood removes all poison, disease, curse, magic, and bleed effects, just like your Dwarven “brethren,” but your ability increases your primary stat (Strength, Agility, Intelligence) which scales with level, +bonus stats for each additional effect removed. Lasts 8 sec. with a 2 min cooldown.

Gnome: Size and Escape Artist are the reasons that some say the Gnome is the best of the Alliance PvP races.

• • Escape Artist : Escape the effects of any immobilization or movement speed reduction effect. Instant cast. 1 min, 45 sec cooldown.

Mechagnome

• • Your Hyper Organic Light Originator summons a couple of images of you to distract your foes. Added damage or use it to give yourself a moment to set something up. See it in action here .
  • And you get, as a Racial Passive, Combat Analysis : You gather and analyze combat data every 5 sec, increasing your Strength by 25, stacking up to 10 times. The data decays while out of combat.

Human: The Human Every Man skill makes Humans a good PvP choice, since you can now have two DPS trinkets.

• • Every Man for Himself : Removes all stun effects. Used to remove all control effects, but was nerfed to stun only.  Still pretty useful. It also allows Warrior to use two DPS trinkets in PvP. More damage and a decent escape.
  • The Human Spirit : You gain 2% more of all secondary stats (Haste, Critical Strike, Mastery, Versatility) from all sources. Give you a bit more damage.

Kul Tiran

• • Wind up, then unleash your mighty Haymaker upon your foe. Doesn’t hurt much, but does stun then for 3 seconds and knocks them back substantially.  2.5 minute cooldown. Knock ’em back then Charge.
  • Brush It Off – Increases Versatility by 1%. When you take damage you sometimes heal for 2% of that damage over 4 sec.

Night Elf:

• • Shadowmeld : Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Generally pretty useless in the Arena, but has its uses elsewhere when a rest is necessary or you’re able to set up an ambush from the shadows.
  • Quickness : Reduces the chance that melee and ranged attackers will hit you by 2%. This is more useful for tanking than PvP, but every little bit helps.

Void Elf

• • Your abilities have a chance to empower you with the essence of the Void, Entropic Embrace , which increases your damage by 5% for 12 sec. It has a 33% proc chance with 60 seconds internal cooldown. Nothing like a bit of Void energy added to your attacks, right?
  • Spatial Rift : Tear a rift in space. Reactivate this ability to teleport through the rift. 30 yd range. 3 min cooldown. You can activate this, then change direction, hit it again, and be back to the original spot. Practice this to get a good idea of how it works. Warriors teleporting. Wow.

Draenei:

• • You have the extra Strength from your Heroic Presence for a little extra head-smashing goodness. These stats scale up as you level.
  • A personal heal is always useful for a class with none.

Lightforged Draenei

• • You have two area effect attacks, Light’s Judgment and Light’s Reckoning . The former lets you call down a strike onto enemies close to you, with a three second delay, which might be interesting. Reckoning causes you to unleash the Light upon dying, damaging enemies within 8 yards and healing any allies for the same amount.

Worgen:

• • Their Sprint-like ability has it’s uses.
  • +1% crit chance is a slight DPS increase, so is always welcome.

For the Horde!

Tauren:

• Your War Stomp , is a nice PvP ability that gives Taurens a useful short range, bried (2 seconds,) AoE stun. Charge in and stomp!
• Your mighty Endurance gives you an increase to base health, which scales with level. Every little bit helps for Warriors.

HighMountain Tauren

• Bull Rush is a charge forward that knocks down any enemies in your path. It’s a fast move and a decently long charge. Can be used as a burst movement.
• Slight damage increase and damage reduction via Mountaineer and a bit more damage reduction from Rugged Tenacity .

Undead:

• • Your Will of the Forsaken removes fear, sleep, and charms. Definitely useful in PvP and of occasional use elsewhere. It also allows indefinite underwater breathing.

Troll:

• • Berserking increases your Haste by 10% for 12 seconds, one a 3 minute cooldown.  Decent, even though Haste is not a great stat for Warriors.
  • Da Voodoo Shuffle gives you a nice 20% reduced duration of movement impairing effects, such as snares, slows, etc. But not stuns or anything else.

Zandalari Troll

• • Your Embrace of the Loa ability allows you to choose which Loa you are associated with. Has a 5 day cooldown. Each embrace also lasts through death.
    • Embrace of Bwonsamdi  – Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal Shadow damage and heal you for 100% of the damage done. The Death Loa is a good pick for Warriors.
    • Embrace of Kimbul  – Your damaging abilities have a chance to cause the target to bleed over 6s. This effect stacks up to 3 times. More blood. Not bad at all.
    • Embrace of Pa’ku – Your abilities have a chance to grant you +4% critical strike for 12 seconds. Live by the crit? This is for you. This is your default Loa.
    • And the rest…
    • Embrace of Akunda – Your healing abilities have a chance to heal their target for some extra points. What healing abilities?
    • Embrace of Gonk  – Increase movement speed by 5%.
    • Embrace of Krag’wa  – Taking damage has a chance to grant you additional Health and 66 Armor. Good tanking ability.
  • Regeneratin’ – Regenerate 100% of your maximum health over 6 sec, interrupted by damage. 2.5 min cooldown. Got 6 seconds to rest?? Potions will be better.
  • Pterrordax Swoop – Slows your fall for two minutes. Time for some serious Warrior cliff jumpin’.

Orc:

• • Your Blood Fury increases all of your damage (increased Attack Power) every 2 min. Lasts 15 seconds. A very useful cooldown.
  • Your Hardiness makes you resistant to stuns (20% shorter duration, about 1 second off a 5 second stun).

Mag’har Orc

• • Your Ancestral Call will boost a random secondary stat (crit, haste, versatility) for 12 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown. The boost scales with level.
  • Since you are extremely healthy your Savage Blood gives you reduced duration of curses, poisons, and diseases (by 10%.)

Blood Elf:

• • Your Arcane Torrent removes one beneficial effect from any nearby enemies (8 yards) and restores some or your Rage.
  • And your Arcane Acuity gives you a bit more crit (1%.)

Nightbourne

• • You can do an Arcane Pulse , which damages all nearby enemies and reduces their speed for 12 seconds. Note that this will break most “crowd control” effects you might have on those enemies. 3 minute cooldown.

Goblin:

• • Can Rocket Jump forward and away from, on into, stuff. so is a bit like the hunter ability disengage. Note that any effects the slow falling will be suppressed for 10 seconds. So no Rocket Jumps off cliffs. The fall is fine, the impact at the end hurts.
  • Short size makes it a bit harder on clickers.

Vulpera

• • 

    Bag of Tricks : Cunning thing that you are you can use a trick on an enemy to damage them or on an ally to heal them. You can rummage your bag to change tricks.

Warrior PvP Tips

Muscle Memory

Of all the classes I’ve played in PvP, meaning every class in world of warcraft, warriors required the most instinctive play as opposed to actual well-thought out strategies, how much I played seemed to drastically improve my abilities as opposed to training myself for specific fights.

I sometimes use a Nostromo gaming pad, sometimes not, I’ve also experimented with special macro set-ups for specific classes, but either way I found that whether I could mash the required key before my opponent could react decided most fights before they even began.

Hitting charge before you’re forced into ‘combat’ status, mashing intercept to catch the sprinting rogue and following it up with hamstring, intervene a team-mate to gain ground or help them fight off another player, all these are determined by how well your hands know what you’re doing as opposed to conscious thought patterns.

Whether you’re Arms, Fury, or Protection, if you can master your keys and hit them in proper succession with your eyes closed, you’ve probably reached the level where you need to worry more about gear than experience.

The basic PVP tips:

• Tip #1 – Don’t Die! When your enemies are focusing their attacks on you, use your defensive abilities and your partner’s abilities to help you stay alive.
• Tip #2 – Don’t Let Your Teammates Die! Learn to be good at peeling attackers off of your teammates. Use Charge/Intercept and Hamstring to keep enemies off of your healer. Your general damage can force enemies to play defensively and temporarily reduce pressure on your teammates.
  (Peeling refers to pulling an attacker off your teammate, just like your Tank might peel a mob off of the overly enthusiastic mage, or visa-versa.)
• Tip #3 – Don’t Let Your Enemy Get Away! With your Charges and Snares you should be able to keep your target within melee range.
• Tip #4 – Use Proper Key Bindings And Movement Keys! Use WASD for movement with A and D for strafing. Use your mouse to turn by holding down the right mouse button.
• Tip #5 – Burst When Your Target Can’t Get Healed. This is pretty self-explanatory. Don’t waste cooldowns on targets that you know won’t die, such as when they have a healthy healer keeping them up. When they are vulnerable, pop everything and force some real pressure.
• Tip #6 – Sustain Damage When You Know You Can’t Burst Them To Death. Continue attacking, but don’t waste cooldowns on someone who won’t die. At this stage in a fight gather Rage, wait for cooldowns to refresh, and refresh Rend.
• Tip #7 – Keep Your Character In The Center Of The Screen . . . This should be self-explanatory. (yes, it’s a joke.)

Basic Arena Tips:

There is a glossary of terms here.

A good arena team has to communicate.  Use macros to call out strategy and specific actions so that your teammates know what is happening.

• Healers should call out heals that are going out.
• Casters should call out crowd control (CC) that is going out, (such as sheeping the other side.)
• Call out CC that is coming in, damage taken, kill opportunities, as well as other important information.

Another important thing is to always know what’s around you. You should know where to line-of-sight your enemies, and know where they can line-of-sight you. You want to know where your enemies and teammates are at all times.

Advanced Arena Tips:

You must find a perfect balance between doing damage, being aware of your surroundings, and not getting tunnel vision. If you focus on just one person to kill, CC, or heal, you often lose track of what’s going on around you. Try to be aware of everything that’s happening. Focus Frames and Unit Frames coupled with Healing/Damage Macros and Focus Macros will greatly aid you in this department.

• • Some discussion on focus macros here

Coordination between teammates is important, especially when quickly switching targets to exploit an enemy player who has gotten out-of-position or who has used a PvP trinket/large cooldown at a bad time.

Practice with your team and develop complex strategies. Simply using basic strategies like “attack the healer” will not get you to the top of the Arena ladder. Of course all of you have a headset, right?

Again, the more you play together the better your reactions to enemy action will become. Just as in any other battle situation, having the ability and knowledge to counter an opponent’s attack is crucial to your success.

Use Focus Target to have a better idea of what is going on. Combine Focus Target with macros to play more efficiently.

• • Targeting help
  • Ever switch between talents in the same row? Use this macro. It will change with whichever talent you pick. No more having to remember to swap the new talent to your bar. 1st number is the row, second is the talent number. Make one for each row f you think you’ll be switching talents:
    • #showtooltip
      /cast [talent:7/1] Name of 1st Talent
      /cast [talent:7/2] Name of 2nd Talent
      /cast [talent:7/3] Name of 3rd Talent

Check out Skill-Capped for lots of Warrior PvP goodness, from Gladiator level Warriors.

Warrior PvP Keybinding Concepts

The use of keybinds allows you to react to situations far more quickly than with the mouse. Leave the mouse for turning and the occasional clicking.

• • Use the W-A-S-D keys for movement with A and D for strafing (moving side to side.)  Some people will shift those keys to the right by one place and use E-S-D-F (S & F for strafing,) which opens up Q & A for more binds.
  • Use your mouse to turn by holding down the right mouse button.
  • Bind abilities to the 6 keys on the far left of the top keyboard row: `,1,2,3,4,5, and to Q,E,R,T,F, & G. When combined with Shift, Ctrl, and Alt you have a lot of buttons available to you for binding.
  • Start with just a few binds, or even just one, and practice them relentlessly. Add more as you get comfortable with them. Your goal is to be a fast touch typist with your keybinds.

This is probably the single most important thing to do that will improve your PVP skill.

And some Other Warrior PvP Notes

Of all the various classes warriors might require the most instinctive play as opposed to actual well-thought out strategies. How much time played seems to drastically improve my abilities as opposed to training myself for specific fights.

I sometimes use a Nostromo gaming pad, sometimes not, I’ve also experimented with special macro set-ups for specific classes, but either way I found that whether I could mash the required key before my opponent could react decided most fights before they even began.

Hitting charge before you’re forced into ‘combat’ status, mashing intercept to catch the sprinting rogue and following it up with hamstring, intervene a team-mate to gain ground or help them fight off another player, all these are determined by how well your hands know what you’re doing as opposed to conscious thought patterns.

Whether you’re Arms, Fury, or Protection, if you can master your keys and hit them in proper succession with your eyes closed, you’ve probably reached the level where you need to worry more about gear than experience.

Grab an add-on that will help, a lot, with your macros and keybinds: BindPad.

Warrior Stats, Gems, Enchants, Etc.

Stat order:

• • 1. Everything is Str & Crit.

Descriptions

• • • Strength, Crit rating, and Stamina are your primary stats.
    • Haste and Mastery are decent enough stats, but Crit is better for Most Warriors.
    • Corruption??? Ick. Good way for YOU to take plenty of damage. It sometimes has some value though. More on Corruption, and how to get rid of it, here.
    • Essences? They will go away with Shadowlands.

In the event that you find yourself with a gem slot, use the above info. Str first, then crit.

Weapons and rings can be enchanted at top level. At lower levels more gear is available to enchant. If you’re leveling and using heirloom gear then you can add the highest level enchants to it. They will automatically scale to your level.

 

More Warrior Goodness

• • 

    Warrior overview – a general guide to the Warrior in WoW.

  • Warrior leveling – tips to get to the level cap faster.
  • Arms PvP – More detail specific to Arms
  • Arms PvE – for when you get tired of killing players. (Is that possible?)
  • Arms Warrior PvP Gear – the gear you need for all levels of PvP. Also for Fury.
  • Fury PvP – Yes, it’s viable, though Arms is “better.”
  • Fury PvE – Grind NPCs into their component parts.
  • Protection tanking – We have no PvP guide for this spec. Should we do one?
  • Get your butt to the level cap, fast.