Warrior Class Guide — Class Guides · WoW Wrath of the Lich King
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.
Fury warriors can wield a two-handed weapon in each hand with Titan's Grip.
- Roles
- Damage, Tank
- Specializations
- 3
- Popular builds
- 5
- Version
- WoW Wrath of the Lich King
How the warrior plays
Warriors in Wrath of the Lich King get a broad toolkit: Heroic Throw and Shattering Throw for range (Shattering Throw breaks immunities such as Divine Shield and Ice Block), Enraged Regeneration to heal, Bladestorm for Arms and Titan's Grip for Fury.
Rage and stances work as before, but talents loosen the rules: Juggernaut lets Arms Charge in combat, and Warbringer lets Protection Charge and Intercept in any stance.
Many raid buffs and debuffs can now come from several classes, so warriors are brought for their damage and tanking rather than for a single buff.
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
- Very strong damage in Arms and Fury, and excellent scaling with gear.
- A complete tank with Shield Wall, Last Stand, Spell Reflection and Shockwave.
- Mobile: Charge, Intercept, Intervene and Heroic Throw.
- Shattering Throw removes Divine Shield and Ice Block.
Weaknesses
- Very gear-dependent: Rage runs short in low gear.
- Few self-heals; casters can kite you.
- Competes with paladins and death knights for the same plate.
Specializations
The specs compared
Each spec rated from 1 to 5 at what it does in WoW Wrath of the Lich King. 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 · 3 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
Bladestorm - Fury
Damage · 1 build
Dual-wield damage from Bloodthirst, Flurry and a deeper Rage pool: a raid damage tree.
Top talent:
Fury guide
Titan's Grip - Protection
Tank · 1 build
The tanking tree: more armour, block and threat from Shield Slam, plus abilities that hold several enemies.
Top talent:
Protection guide
Shockwave
Gear
- Plate with Strength, hit, expertise, crit and armour penetration for damage; Stamina, defense to 540, dodge and parry for tanking.
- Hit to 8% (263 rating) for special attacks, and expertise toward 26 (214 rating) to stop dodges.
- Armour penetration becomes the best stat for Arms and Fury once your gear has a lot of it.
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.