Warrior

Race choice after the 26 October changes

Blizzard's 26 October notes remove Orc Savage, set Human Ruthless to 1% crit and Skyborne Wind-Blessed to 2% haste, replace Dwarf Earth Fury with 1% hit, and leave Tauren Endurance at 5% health only. Do not use older weapon-specialisation or critical-damage bonuses to choose a race. Pet Command does not boost Warrior attacks; tank survival, movement and control can justify a choice beyond modelled damage.

How Forever changed the class

Rage. Blizzard's Priest and Warrior deep dive changed how Rage is earned. Rage from being hit ignores your actual armour and absorbs. The original 50% assumed mitigation was superseded by 2 October notes, which use level-dependent expected values in the 20–40% range. Those notes explicitly cover both Warriors and Druids. Rage from dealing damage is normalised to the speed of the weapon that hit, so bigger hits no longer give more Rage. Critical strikes were set to give 75% more Rage, and Blizzard's 2 October notes raised that to 100% after a Dual Wield Specialization bug skewed its tests. Wowhead's Fury overview still says crits give no extra Rage; that text predates the change.

Stances. Defensive Stance comes from a level 10 class quest and Berserker Stance from a level 30 one. Tactical Mastery keeps 10 Rage when you switch, and the Arms talent Improved Tactical Mastery keeps up to 15 more (ForeverDB talents).

Baseline changes from the deep dive and ForeverDB's changes page:

• Victory Rush becomes usable for 20 sec after you kill an enemy worth experience. It heals 10% of your maximum health on a 30 sec cooldown.
• Thunder Clap works in Defensive Stance, slows attacks by 20% (10% in Classic) and has a 6 sec cooldown. It and Rend now scale with attack power.
• Shield Wall cuts damage by 60% for 12 sec on a 15 min cooldown. It, Retaliation and Recklessness no longer share a cooldown.
• Shield Block blocks two attacks over 7 sec. Taunt has an 8 sec cooldown.
• Battle Shout lasts 3 min and reaches the whole raid since the 16 October build, but gives less attack power per rank.
• Rend and Sunder Armor tag an enemy to you as soon as they land.

Talents. The Axe, Mace, Sword and Polearm specialisations merged into one Arms talent, Weaponmaster. Improved Slam moved to Arms and stops Slam delaying your swing. Toughness, Improved Cleave and Precision are gone. ForeverDB counts 10 new and 24 changed talents. Blizzard says one-point milestone talents sit at 11, 16, 21 and 31 points, talents are changed at a capital-city trainer, and Dual Specialization opens at level 40.

Blizzard's stated identity for the class is sustained damage against several melee targets. It wants Warriors to be "the kings of cleave damage" (WoW: Forever Podcast, via ForeverDB). The deep dive adds that Warriors lack tools to recover once they have taken too much damage.

Choosing a spec

Which spec for levelling

The guides lean towards Protection. Icy Veins calls it the fastest Warrior levelling spec and the one it recommends. It credits stronger Revenge, a shield that cuts downtime, and talents that both add Rage and make abilities cheaper. Wowhead's Level 30 Protection page agrees that once Revenge arrives at 14, sword-and-board levels as well as a two-hander or better. ForeverDB's levelling guide is more even-handed: Arms for a simple start, Fury for crits and passive talents, Protection if you die too often or want to tank, accepting slower kills.

Advice shared across all three guides:

• Weapon upgrades matter more than anything else for Arms and Fury, so take quest weapons and run dungeons for them.
• Victory Rush at 20 makes solo questing much smoother. Wowhead suggests sticking to quests and enemies of your level or lower.
• Mining and Blacksmithing pair well while levelling, since crafted mail rates highly at 20 and 30. Engineering is the usual endgame pick.

Class quests

The Berserker Stance quest starts at any capital Warrior trainer at 30 (except Darnassus). It leads to a gauntlet on Fray Island that ends with Big Will, a level 33 enemy. Klannoc Macleod then starts the long Whirlwind Weapon chain, which ends against Cyclonian, a level 40 elite (Wowhead). The Brutal Hauberk chain can start at 20 but runs through Razorfen Kraul, so most players do it later (Wowhead).

How mixing works

ForeverDB reads the rules from the client: a point at every level from 10 to 60, and each row of a tree opens once you have 5 more points in the rows above it. Blizzard's deep dive adds one-point milestone talents at 11, 16, 21 and 31 points. That makes deep capstones expensive and shallow dips cheap. The Legacy perk Talented gives the same points up to five levels early, but Wowhead notes it sits behind Well Rested in the Legacy tree, so most players won't have all five. Respeccing cost 1 silver in the beta as a temporary measure; the launch price isn't known.

Levelling hybrids the guides suggest

ForeverDB's published builds stay in one tree at both 20 and 30, so not every guide sees mixing as necessary before 30.

The level 60 plans all mix trees. These are projections nobody has played:

The pattern: damage specs borrow Rage and crit talents, mostly from the top rows of the other damage tree, and both tank plans borrow crit. Blizzard's 2 October notes also moved Iron Will, Improved Bloodrage, Improved Disarm and Improved Shield Bash up the Protection tree. The goal was a path for players without a shield, so Protection could serve "as a PvP tech secondary specialization".

The hybrid tax

On episode 2 of the WoW: Forever Podcast, Blizzard's developers said they aim for hybrid damage specs to deal about 5% less than Hunters, Mages, Rogues and Warlocks (ForeverDB's write-up). Every other class counts as a hybrid, and Warriors are included because they can pick up a shield, switch to Defensive Stance and tank. In practice, if a pure class does 1,000 damage per second, the target for Arms or Fury is around 950.

Key points from that write-up:

• It is an average across fights, not a cap, and a hybrid can still top some encounters.
• The developers also said they don't believe in the old hybrid tax. They would rather keep every role competitive and leave hybrids missing some tools and buffs.
• As compensation, Blizzard wants Warriors to be the best class for cleave.
• Damage tuning lives on Blizzard's servers, so the 5% can't be checked in the client, and no patch notes mention it. Nobody can measure level 60 damage yet.
• Forum reaction is mixed. A long thread argues Warriors aren't hybrids at all, and another fears the label will make the levelling tank shortage worse. As of 8 October, ForeverDB found no Blizzard follow-up.

Dual-role play

Blizzard says Dual Specialization becomes available at level 40, so tank and damage builds can sit side by side later. Before that, the guides describe flexing within one build:

• Damage Warriors can tank in an emergency. If the tank dies, switch to Defensive Stance and Taunt. Tactical Mastery keeps 10 Rage through the switch, and up to 25 with Improved Tactical Mastery (ForeverDB). Wowhead's Fury guides add that taking some hits in dungeons is fine, because damage taken is Rage.
• Keep a shield in your bags. Icy Veins suggests carrying a one-hander and shield so you can Shield Bash dangerous casts in any build. ForeverDB has a weapon-swap macro (see the macros page).
• Protection levels and tanks without a respec. ForeverDB says its level 30 levelling build also tanks dungeons well.
• Two-hander for Retaliation. Wowhead suggests a tank swap to a two-hander while Retaliation is active against several enemies.

The forum objection still applies: a Warrior in damage gear and talents tanks poorly, which is the main argument against the hybrid label.

Stances and openers

Charge out of combat, Intercept in combat (ForeverDB): charges from Battle Stance before a fight and Intercepts from Berserker Stance during one, fixing your stance first if needed. Intercept needs 30.

#showtooltip
/cast [nocombat,stance:1] Charge; [combat,stance:3] Intercept; [nocombat] Battle Stance; Berserker Stance

Charge into Rend (Kami Labs): a solo opener that Charges out of combat and applies Rend once the fight starts.

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast [nocombat,nostance:1] Battle Stance
/cast [nocombat,stance:1] Charge
/cast [combat] Rend

Battle and Defensive toggle (Wowhead): flips between Battle and Defensive Stance on one key.

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1] Defensive Stance; [stance:2] Battle Stance

Charge, then Execute or Taunt (Wowhead): Charges out of combat, then Executes in Battle Stance or Taunts in Defensive Stance.

#showtooltip
/cast [nocombat] Charge
/cast [stance:1]Execute; [stance:2] Taunt

Overpower from any stance (ForeverDB): moves you to Battle Stance if needed, then Overpowers on the next press.

#showtooltip Overpower
/startattack
/cast [stance:1] Overpower; Battle Stance

Berserker Rage from any stance (ForeverDB): moves you to Berserker Stance and casts Berserker Rage. Press it before a fear lands.

#showtooltip Berserker Rage
/cast [stance:3] Berserker Rage; Berserker Stance

Whirlwind with a stance swap (Kami Labs): enters Berserker Stance and Whirlwinds. Whirlwind is trained at 36.

#showtooltip
/cast [nostance:3] Berserker Stance
/cast Whirlwind

Tanking

Mouseover Taunt, Shift for Mocking Blow (ForeverDB): taunts the enemy under your cursor (or your target), with Mocking Blow as a backup on Shift.

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift,stance:1,@mouseover,harm,nodead][mod:shift,stance:1] Mocking Blow; [mod:shift] Battle Stance; [stance:2,@mouseover,harm,nodead][stance:2] Taunt; Defensive Stance

Mouseover Sunder Armor (Kami Labs): stacks Sunder on the enemy under your cursor without changing target.

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Sunder Armor

Revenge and Shield Block together (ForeverDB): Revenge plus Shield Block on one press. Hold Shift to skip the block and save Rage.

#showtooltip Revenge
/startattack
/cast Revenge
/cast [nomod:shift] Shield Block

Shield Slam into Revenge (Kami Labs): tries Shield Slam, then Revenge, from Defensive Stance. Shield Slam is a level 40 talent.

#showtooltip
/cast [nostance:2] Defensive Stance
/cast Shield Slam
/cast Revenge

Shield Wall, Shift for Last Stand (ForeverDB): both emergency buttons on one key, with Defensive Stance enforced for Shield Wall.

#showtooltip Shield Wall
/cast [mod:shift] Last Stand; [stance:2] Shield Wall; Defensive Stance

Interrupts and weapons

Focus interrupt (ForeverDB): Shield Bash on your focus or target, or Pummel in Berserker Stance (Pummel needs 38).

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:3,@focus,harm,nodead][stance:3] Pummel; [@focus,harm,nodead][] Shield Bash

Mouseover Shield Bash (Icy Veins): interrupts the enemy under your cursor, or your target. Needs a shield and Battle or Defensive Stance.

#showtooltip Shield Bash
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Shield Bash

Mouseover Pummel (Icy Veins): the Berserker Stance version.

#showtooltip Pummel
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Pummel

Sword and board, Shift for two-hander (ForeverDB): equips one-hander and shield, or your two-hander with Shift. Replace the braces with your own item names; ForeverDB's page fills them in for you.

#showtooltip
/equip [mod:shift] {TWOHAND}
/equipslot [nomod] 16 {ONEHAND}
/equipslot [nomod] 17 {SHIELD}

One ranged key (Wowhead): uses whichever ranged weapon you have equipped for pulling.

#showtooltip
/cast [worn:Bows] Shoot Bow; [worn:Crossbows] Shoot Crossbow; [worn:Guns] Shoot Gun; [worn:Thrown] Throw

Damage and Rage

Heroic Strike, Shift for Cleave (ForeverDB): queues Heroic Strike, or Cleave with Shift, and makes sure you are swinging.

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast [mod:shift] Cleave; Heroic Strike

Victory Rush (Kami Labs): starts swinging and uses Victory Rush after a kill, from level 20.

#showtooltip
/startattack
/cast Victory Rush

Where the guides differ

• Charging with Vanguard: ForeverDB suggests changing stance:1 to stance:1/2 in its Charge macro. Icy Veins says Vanguard's Charge is a separate spell, which must be shift-clicked into the macro and re-added with each new rank. Which works won't be known until launch.
• Berserker Rage: Kami Labs says it breaks fear. ForeverDB says the tooltip only promises immunity, so use it before the fear.
• Raging Blows: ForeverDB's macro notes say it cuts Cleave by 2 Rage; the current talent tooltip says 3.