Some Groundwork! The Warrior!

The Warrior!

I've been reluctant to write the warrior intro for a few reasons. Until recently, I've played my warrior almost exclusively. But a few months ago I switched mains to my druid, and I haven't looked back. It's almost sad how much I loved playing warriors, and now I can't find the patience to log onto him to do a random heroic anymore. Also, warriors are in a bit of a tight spot ATM as far as tanking goes. There is much unrest in the warrior community, as it has been ever since paladins walked onto the tanking scene back in BC. Concerns about block viability and DPS compared to other tanks has beaten the warrior's ego down a fair bit. High end guilds all over the world are shelving their warrior tanks for DKs or druids for the most difficult encounters, and this classism has filtered down to the masses, adding weight to the warrior's shield.

Now that you understand where the warrior is, you may understand my reluctance to write about them. So, enough of that, let's get right into it! That's what warriors are best at, actually. If you're looking for in your face, slash and bash, blood of the gladiator type of fighting, you've come to the right place! Warriors are the classic melee class. You can't go wrong with tradition, after all. If you saw the movie 300, those spartans were all warriors. Don't ask me why they took off their armor, maybe cause they were still low level? Smash them in the face with a shield, bash em with your mace, slash em to bits with your sword! It's all the same to a warrior. At the most basic level, a warrior tank puts the steel into the teeth of evil. Or good. It's all the same to them. Shield slam is the staple move of warrior tanks, causing the most threat and making great use of that shield. Once you dodge their attack, you see red, and want revenge! Revenge is another core move in the warrior's arsenal. Usable after you avoid an attack, it causes a good amount of damage and threat for very little rage. And once you've had your revenge, devastate their defenses! Devastate does pretty pitiful damage, but it stacks a debuff on the enemy, lowering their armor. This is the original move right here. Warriors used to stack sunder armor like there was no tomorrow back in the day. Now, they do the same thing, but it does a bit of damage now.

If you remember the paladin, they have a pretty solid rotation with ALOT of moves. And the druid has hardly any moves. The warrior is just a hair above a druid in this respect, having a solid set of abilities that will always be used in combat, and not many "extras". There's no set rotation for a warrior, they refer to call it a priority system. It basically breaks down like this. Shield Slam -> Revenge -> Heroic Strike -> Devasate. There it is. It's not strictly a rotation, since HS can be used off the global cooldown and just "stacks" onto your normal swing. We'll talk about HS specifically a bit later. So you should always shield slam when it's off CD, and also revenge whenever it's available and not cooling down. It's also a good idea to get your sunder armor up to 5 stacks ASAP in the fight, but then only refresh it when it's about to run out, or if you have some time inbetween, which shouldn't be a problem most of the time. Devastate does this, and also has a chance to proc a free shield slam, so it's useful to use when you get the time. If you haven't noticed, there's alot of free time inbetween SS, Revenge, and Devastates. You can fill those in with one of the two AoE moves that warriors get. Thunderclap is on a 6 second cooldown, and does a pretty decent amount of damage. It also slows down a mob's attack speed, which is perfect if you've got alot of trash around you, or you're fighting a boss. You can also use Demoralizing Shout, which will do no damage, but provides a good debuff on the mob's attack power. And finally, the ultimate protection talent, the final in finishing moves, the openingest opener, Shockwave! I saved the best for last. Shockwave is a frontal cone AoE move that does significant damage but also stuns for a good amount of time. Frontal cone AoE moves may be foreign to you as a melee'er, but I'll give you a good way to think about it. If you can swing at a mob, you can probably get it with shockwave. This isn't really true, since you can swing at mobs in a 180 degree arc in front of you, and shockwave doesn't quite reach that wide, but it's a good rule of thumb for those quick second decisions. I find backing up 2 or 3 steps then using it quickly before mobs can follow me will get almost all of any size group. Seem like alot of work? I won't lie, shockwave is a pain to use, and until you get really good at it, you're going to always curse it's coney quirks. But used well, it can significantly improve your ability to tank. You can charge into a pack, TC the mobs, back up into your melee buddies running (lol they have to run) to catch up to you, then Shockwave! They're stunned and really pissed at you. Depending on your AoE in the group, they may be dead soon afterwards. And you don't take damage when the mobs are stunned. It's like avoidance built into your melee moves, clever huh?

Mobility! Warriors are the undisputed kings of mobility. With charge and intercept, a warrior can be anywhere at any time, literally within the blink of an eye. Warbringer is probably my favorite talent as a warrior, since it allows you to use charge while in combat. When you first get charge as a warrior, you fall in love, there's no denying it. With all of a warrior's moves being targetted burst, a warrior can lay down the smack without worrying about keeping mobs in one place. A fun thing to do is charge some mobs, TC, shockwave, then intervene the healer and sit behind them. Who pulled those mobs and why are they running at the healer!? Noone even saw you move, because you were so fast!

Controlling a fight is another strong point of being a warrior. It takes more skill to make use of all of the warrior's moves, but a mastery of them will give you unparallelled control over a battle. Concussion Blow, Revenge, and Shockwave all give you the ability to stun. Revenge will stun about half the time, so it's unreliable, but it still allows you to exert control. A skilled warrior can place mobs wherever he wants, which is usually on the ground, behind him.

Taking it is what warriors love the most. Beat em up, it just makes em more angry, and they use that rage to bring the pain. Warriors use shields to block (some) damage, and can parry and dodge. They also have some decent cooldown defensive moves. The first one is the original, the classic, the Shield Wall. Originally a true emergency button, it made you nearly immortal for a pretty significant amount of time, but it was on a VERY long cooldown. It was changed to offer about half it's immortality, but the CD was lowered significantly also. Which means we can use it much more often. Shield Block allows you to block every attack and also doubles the amount you can block for. It's on a cooldown, and also causes your shield slams to hit for much more, so alot of warriors only use this as a threat cooldown because of the problems with block. But it still is a decent way to avoid some damage at a crucial time. And when your back is to the wall, it's time to make your Last Stand! Last Stand gives you a boost to your hit points, giving your healers a bigger margin for error. Which is good, since it's your job to make theirs easier.

One last thing I wanted to talk about is Heroic Strike. Recently, due to the large amount of rage we can generate, this ability has moved from an occasional ability to burn some rage when you're full, to an ability that has to be spammed constantly to stay competative. This is one of those quality of life things for warriors. Before the lich king, we had to spam shield block, which lasted 6 seconds and HAD to be refreshed asap. Now, we HAVE to spam HS if we want to contribute to the DPS. Or you could do the DPS of someone 10 levels lower than you. While warriors are all about smashing stuff, the keyboard shouldn't be one of them. If you're serious about tanking as a warrior, set up a macro to put heroic strike into one of your other abilities, or bind your mousewheel to your heroic strike button. We don't need you getting RSI from tanking!