Warrior Class Guide — Class Guides · WoW Burning Crusade
A plate-wearing melee fighter who builds Rage by dealing and taking damage and spends it on attacks, shouts and stances. Warriors tank with a shield in Defensive Stance or deal melee damage with two-handed or dual-wielded weapons.
- Roles
- Damage, Tank
- Specializations
- 3
- Popular builds
- 7
- Version
- WoW Burning Crusade
How the warrior plays
Warriors still run on Rage, filled by dealing and taking damage. In The Burning Crusade the Rage from a hit depends on its damage and your weapon's speed, so it flows more evenly than in Classic, and talents such as Endless Rage and Unbridled Wrath add more. Gear still drives everything.
Stances work as before, and new abilities fill the gaps: Victory Rush heals you after a kill, Spell Reflection bounces a spell back at its caster, Intervene jumps to an ally and takes a hit for them, and Commanding Shout raises the group's health.
Warriors also carry raid debuffs: Arms brings Blood Frenzy, Protection's Devastate keeps Sunder Armor up, and Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout weaken bosses.
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
- The main tank of most raids: big health, Shield Wall, Last Stand and Spell Reflection.
- Strong melee damage that grows with raid buffs.
- Mobile: Charge, Intercept and Intervene.
- Blood Frenzy and Sunder Armor raise the whole raid's physical damage.
Weaknesses
- Needs gear and raid buffs to shine.
- Little self-healing beyond Victory Rush, so leveling has downtime.
- Casters can kite you; arena warriors depend on their healer.
Specializations
The specs compared
Each spec rated from 1 to 5 at what it does in WoW Burning Crusade. Single and several targets mean damage for damage specs, healing for healers and threat for tanks; a spec's own guide names its ratings for its role.
| Rating |  Arms |  Fury |  Protection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single target | |||
| Several targets | |||
| Survivability | |||
| Utility | |||
| Solo and leveling | |||
| Ease of play |
- Arms
Damage, Tank · 4 builds
Two-handed weapon damage built around Mortal Strike, which also reduces the healing its target receives. The usual leveling and player-versus-player tree.
Top talent:
Arms guide
Endless Rage - Fury
Damage · 1 build
Dual-wield damage from Bloodthirst, Flurry and a deeper Rage pool: a raid damage tree.
Top talent:
Fury guide
Rampage - Protection
Tank · 2 builds
The tanking tree: more armour, block and threat from Shield Slam, plus abilities that hold several enemies.
Top talent:
Protection guide
Devastate
Gear
- Plate with Strength, hit, crit, expertise and armour penetration for damage; Stamina, defense and avoidance for tanking.
- Hit rating to 9% (142 rating) for special attacks, less any from talents.
- Expertise lowers the chance your attacks are dodged or parried.
- Gems: Strength for damage, Stamina for tanking; take socket bonuses when they are cheap.
Each spec guide ranks its stats and says what to look for on its gear.
Warrior class quests
The quests that unlock class abilities, by the level each route starts at.