How to Play Warrior?

Well, good. You're in the right place, then. If you wanted to be a warlock, it would have been three doors down on the left.

Warriors are an extremely versatile class, capable of producing extremely high DPS numbers being the best tank in the game based upon how you spec. Warriors also utilize a unique combat mechanic, otherwise known as 'rage', and learning how to properly manage your Rage is one of the most important aspects of the class.

So, onwards and upwards! I've split this guide into two parts; one detailing how to tank, and another detailing how to DPS, with a whole load of subsections. Enjoy! For more PvP-specific information, see the PvP guide at the bottom.

Tanking

Ah, tanking... one of the warriors defining traits. All Warriors can and should (and are expected to) be able to tank in instances and groups. It doesn't matter if you have 61 points into Fury and Arms; you need to be able to tank.

(More To Come Here, I Promise)

DPS?

Ah, DPS... it's fun, it's exciting, and it's often necessary based upon the group composition. Especially while leveling, do NOT expect this to be your primary role in five-mans; where DPS really comes to the front is soloing (where, you know... the ability to get the mob's attention is kind of moot) and in raiding, which will be the primary focus of my information. I'll still try to provide separate information about effective five-man/solo DPS strategies, though!

So you want to... use a two-hander?

Ah, good old two-hand DPS. A classic form of damage that is preferred for PvP, and has some excellent AE and single-target damage capabilities. Don't be fooled - 2H DPS is far, far more viable now than it ever was pre-TBC (outside of leveling/PvP, anyway), and people who underestimate it do so at their own cost.

A caveat, though, for doing effective damage in raids as a 2Her; find a Shaman. Attach him to your hip, and have him drop Windfury. Without Windfury, the viability of 2H DPS drops down the tubes in short order; it provides a large DPS boost on its own, and helps solve the Rage starvation issues that can plague a 2H DPS warrior. With that said, though, let's get started detailing the different flavors of 2H DPS, and how to play them.

Mortal Strike/Fury Defining Points: 31/23/0

This setup functions off some variation of the above build; you can go on to pick up some combination of Blood Frenzy and Flurry for a PvE build, and Second Wind and TM (and Imp. Intercept) for a PvP build. This build allows high damage output, retains the Mortal Strike debuff (which is often rather handy, in PvP and PvE - see Karathress/Magtheridon/Maulgar for healing mobs) as well as some critical raid utility in Blood Craze. If there isn't another person with Blood Craze in the raid, do not spec 31/30/0; you will get about the same damage output out of 33/28/0 (4% increased damage, rather than 10% haste) and, more to the point, so will the rest of the raid's physical DPS. It's a far greater increase overall.

For this build, you should focus on two key factors; 1) Use Slam after every autoattack (see below for a guide on proper use of Slam), and 2) Keeping MS/WW off cooldown as much as possible. In general, your attack order should be some variation on autoattack, Slam, MS, autoattack, Slam, Whirlwind, autoattack, Slam, Hamstring, autoattack, Slam, MS, etc. (Depending upon the amount of Flurry/weapon speed and your timing, MS may be off cooldown after the Whirlwind rotation). This build gains compared to the 2H Fury build by capitalizing on Blood Craze, Sweeping Strikes for AE damage where applicable, weapon specializations and Mortal Strike interacting properly with Whirlwind.

2H Fury Defining Points: 20/41/0

This build functions off a variation of the above build, but points may be moved around where applicable (Intercept vs. Execute comes to mind). This build allows high damage output with an extraordinarily high amount of attack power; when combined with other stacking AP buffs (such as Unleashed Rage from an Enhancement Shaman) AP scores can reach absolutely obscene numbers. Moreover, with a sufficiently high AP score Bloodthirst WILL outdamage Mortal Strike, attack for attack (MS does compensate by being capable of triggering WF, which Bloodthirst is not).

For this build, you now get to focus on three key factors! 1) Use Slam after every autoattack (again, see below), 2) Keep Bloodthirst/WW off cooldown as much as possible, and 3) Keep Rampage up whenever possible. As Rampage triggers the global cooldown, this will necessitate you working it into your autoattack->slam->ability->autoattack cycles. I tend to favor hitting Rampage ~6-8 seconds before it expires, as getting a series of hits and letting it tick off is a fair DPS drop as it will take some time to rebuild the stack to full. This build gains compared to MS/Fury by focusing on insane AP totals and the inherent boosts of Rampage. It also functions well when combined with a weapon that does not benefit from weapon specialization (such as Stormherald or Worldbreaker).

So you want to... know what the hell you're doing?

Slam - A Few Words

Okay, maybe many more than a few. This is a paraphrased copy of a guide I wrote explaining how to use Slam. Enjoy!

In order to understand slam, let's first take a look at the ability itself;

Slam All Stances - 15 Rage Max Rank Tooltip: Slams the opponent, causing weapon damage plus 140. Talent References: Focused Rage, Improved Slam

Slam is the only true Warrior spell, barring oddities such as racials (Warstomp and Escape Artist come to mind). It functions in the same way as a spell, although it is no longer effected by pushback effects (which is to say, incoming damage does not increase the cast time).

Because it is a spell, using the ability will reset your weapon swing timer as of the end of the channel... which is to say, if you Slam and have a 3.8 speed weapon, your next autoattack will occur 3.8 seconds after the Slam ends. This occurs no matter what point in your normal swing timer you used the ability, which means that if you Slam at the wrong point - say, 3.7 seconds after your previous autoattack - you'll gain nothing and will in fact _lose_ damage. Consider: 3.7 plus .5 means your weapon swing timer became 4.2, instead of the 3.8 it would have been if you did nothing, and that doesn't even factor in the lost Rage. This means that proper use of Slam requires _very good timing_.

Slam also triggers the global cooldown, which for Warriors is 1.5s. This means that even with 2/2 Imp. Slam, you cannot "spam" Slam more than once every 1.5s. So one might ask, what in the hell is the point of the ability?

I'm glad you asked.

With use of a swing timer mod (I heavily recommend Quartz, an Ace2 mod with a customizable swing timer) and good reactions and planning, you can Slam directly after your normal autoattack swing... which means that you're using 15 Rage in order to deal your autoattack damage over .5 seconds, plus the crit modifier. It essentially allows you to get a free "double swing" after attacks at a relatively small Rage cost.

A brief summary, before we continue: Slam requires _very good_ timing, preferably aided by a Swing Timer mod. Slam resets your swing timer when used. Slam, when used improperly, is worse than doing nothing at all.

I'm going to assume a 3.6 speed weapon for these numbers, as that is the current 'default' weapon speed - barring Smithing weapons, there are few epics that are slower than this. If you're using a Smithing weapon (that's not Sword) or a Worldbreaker, these numbers are still accurate... just more so.

You will never have perfectly precise timing, even with a swing timer modm but you can get _very good_ timing. Human reaction speed being what it is, I'm going to assume that even with the swing timer mod you're not hitting Slam until .25s after a swing. Personally, using the spell metrics mod I wrote, I'm activating Slam about .1-.2s after the swing but that's due to a good connection and a lot of practice, to the point where it's become second nature.

You're attacking the mob, and get a weapon swing. .25s later, the server gets your "omgslam" message and you start the channel... giving you a .75s "swing", at which point the swing timer resets. However, because Slam does activate the GCD you have one second before you can perform any other actions. After the GCD goes away, you hit Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst or Whirlwind. And then... you wait. To summarize;

Swing - .75 Slam (Reset) - 3.6 - 2.6 (Mortal Strike) - 1.1 (Nothing) - Swing - .75 Slam (Reset)... repeat.

Why do nothing? Simple. If you hit all of these abilities with _perfect_ timing, you will have .4s of GCD after your next ability when your Swing Timer goes up - and believe me, you will not have perfect timing. If you have Flurry, the problem becomes significantly worse as well.

One of the purposes behind using MS/BT/WW is additionally rage generation, as they are somewhat more Rage efficient than Slam is when used every 1.5s due to not interfering with the swing timer. If Slam had no GCD associated with it, Mortal Strike and Whirlwind would be obsolete in situations where you did not need the MS debuff or the AE damage on whirlwind... but you do, and a .5s Slam with no GCD trigger would be more than slightly overpowered (consider that with a full Rage bar, that's 6 Slams in 3 seconds. In PvP if nothing else, you could throw a Stun up and absolutely drop someone with nothing they could do about it at all.)

I haven’t mentioned one of the primary aspects that does make this strategy work, and that is the mighty Windfury Totem. Without Windfury, your damage as 2H is going to be lacking in the extreme - it provides such a massive boost to damage and Rage Generation it allows us to easily forgo Endless Rage and actually get talents like Death Wish and Imp. Slam, which provide the huge boost in damage that we need in order to compete.

To summarize: GCD is your enemy and your friend... but mostly your enemy. Learn to manage them - GCD's are to you what Combo Points would be to a Rogue, one of your most valuable resources. Use it wisely. Keeping track of GCD and your swing timer and anything else the boss might do and keeping an eye on your threat meter is why playing a Slam warrior is far from easy. Luckily, it's extremely rewarding... but it requires considerably more concentration and attention than DW DPS ever will.

Slam after every autoattack if possible. The only time when it's advisable to spam Slam over and over is during your Death Wish/Trinket cycle if you have the rage available, and even then you should skimp on one Slam cycle every 10s to lob off a MS and Whirlwind, then go back to Slams after the next autoattack.

Damage Rotations

Using Slam as an effective damage tool is rather tricky. Doing it properly takes attention, the use of a Swing Timer mod (see the Slam guide for more details) and some knowledge of global cooldowns. I've covered most of the basics above, so I'll assume you've already read them and I won't rehash the information.

Question #1: Is it worth leaving Mortal Strike/Whirlwind/Bloodthirst on cooldown for a second or two in order to ensure Slam use right as you autoattack? Yes. Kind of. Sometimes, no. See Question #5.

Question #2: Is there a point where Slam rotations become unsustainable? Yes, actually. You can either have insufficient Rage generation to support it (possible, but with even moderate gearing and a Windfury totem it's rather unlikely) or your weapon can be too fast. Assuming zero reaction time, the fastest possible Slam/Instant Attack rotation is 2.5s. Assuming normal human reaction time and latency, any weapon speed faster than 2.75s is likely to be in some degree wasted. This would mean that any weapon at 3.4 speed or faster is wasting time and damage with full Flurry; combined with the fact that Slam isn't normalized and there's even more compelling reasons to get an extremely slow weapon. With a 3.6 speed weapon, Slam and 5/5 Flurry runs at 2.88 swing speed; add in much more haste, either from trinkets or the Haste Potion, and it's most likely largely wasted.

Question #3: What should I do during Bloodlust/Heroism? Good question. Bloodlust actually reduces the global cooldown by 30%, as well as providing 30% haste; this means that your rotations are (in theory) unaffected, although human reaction time/latency still comes into play. Other haste effects do not provide this benefit. You will also have to work in additional Slams to cover the loss of instant attacks (as the cooldown itself has not been lowered).

Question #4: Just how important is my weapon speed? Very. I run upwards of 4,000 AP raid buffed in my current 2H Fury build. With a 3.8 speed weapon (Such as, oh, a Stormherald) Slam hits for 140 + (4000 / 14 + 127) * 3.8 = 1708 damage. Even dropping down to 3.6 speed with equivalent DPS (say, the Lionheart series of smithing weapons) puts it at 140 + (4000 / 14 + 127) * 3.6 = 1625 damage. That's an aprox. 5% damage increase to Slam... and as you'll be using Slam a lot, speed matters. See also question #2 and the notations about haste.

Question #5: I have a very slow weapon, but no Flurry (or, I cannot land a crit and thus effectively have no Flurry at the moment). Should I use two instant attacks in this cycle and push Slam back slightly? Yes, if possible. Even if the second instant attack is a Hamstring. Sample cycle at 3.8 speed:

0s: Autoattack .25: Start Slam .75: Slam Completes, Reset 0: Global Cooldown 1.0: GCD Ends, Cast Mortal Strike (./Bloodthirst/Whirlwind/Whatever) 2.5: GCD Ends, Cast Whirlwind (./Mortal Strike/Bloodthirst/Hamstring) 3.8: Autoattack, Reset .2: GCD Ends .3: Start Slam

By using the Global Cooldown to help manage your timers at this speed, you don't lose much. You can effectively slam on the Slam button until GCD relents and lets it go through, and do not have to watch the Swing Timer at all. Moreover, the loss in time is comparable to that lost from human reaction speed anyway; let it fly! (Also, if you do have Flurry, the additional Hamstring proc can help bring it back up.)