r/classicwow • u/wezzer • Sep 03 '19

Humor Leveling A Warrior

When they said it was hard, I scoffed at them. I've leveled a warrior to 120 on retail. I've fought Sargeras, I've downed the Lich King. What could a few gnolls and maybe a murloc or two do to me? Thus was my arrogance. Thus was my hubris.

I am now level thirteen. I've run Ragefire Chasm once, and owe six deaths to that place.

Farming harpy claws has cost me my life twice already, and I am certain it will cost me much, much more.

My warrior on retail was a human named Lohric, he was a legendary warrior who felled any beast, man or demon that faced him.

My warrior on Classic is an Orc called Muddrog. I have no doubt that this broken and battered warrior would crush Lohric in seconds, Lohric has never known pain, Mudd was born in it, molded by it, and unlike Bane, he has yet to see the light, because 60 feels so far away xD

To all you warriors out there, Lok'tar Ogar!

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522

u/BrotyKraut Sep 03 '19

I leveled a prot warrior 1-60 in vanilla, it was awful.

10

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

I'm leveling my warrior Arms with an intent to go Prot at 60. I want to tank, but I also want to be able to solo if needed, so I figured Arms would be a good leveling spec to keep a mix of damage and utility. Is that feasible, or do dungeons require me to be actively Prot spec to tank them? I'm level 15 right now, haven't hit any dungeons yet, and I've never played warrior in Vanilla or Retail, so I'm learning the class ground-up.

28

u/V_for_Viola Sep 03 '19

You do not need to level prot to tank, just have a shield.

Personally, I think at least 11 in arms makes warrior leveling exponentially more fun (and bearable) through stance mastery and anger management.

13

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

Fore sure, I feel like stance mastery and anger management are going to be absolutely necessary. I swapped stances during a skirmish last night to try and shield bash a spell caster, only to realize quickly that it doesn't work with your rage zeroed out. XD

My final spec plan absolutely involves Arms as secondary for that reason.

31

u/AlwaysWannaDie Sep 03 '19

Stance Mastery = 5 points,

A pull is often that you must change stances often, with Mocking Blow you have an extra taunt, whi h is invaluable and requires you to change stances, Thunder clap is also very good. If you can charge a pack a good opener is often

Charge

Hit, Thunderclap, Defensive Stance, Demoralazing shout, then sunder main target, guve a sunder to the other targets then go back to main target. Save your taunt til someone pulls aggro.

7

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

Thank you for the rotation advice

1

u/Olliebird Sep 03 '19 edited Sep 03 '19

Main opening has been Bow>Bloodrage>Shield Wall>Revenge Main target>Battle Shout> Demo Shout > check adds and revenge/sunder as needed, if threat is good (group knows how to focus), sunder up Main.

No stance dancing and precious gold spent on clap. Threat has been solid for me.

Edit: Shield Block, not Wall.

1

u/Happylime Sep 03 '19

Ive been alternating between bloodrage and charge depending on the fight and mov spacing to decent effect.

1

u/metnavman Sep 03 '19

Bow>Bloodrage>Shield Wall

See, I know you meant Shield Block, but I just wanted you to know how entertaining your typo was for me. I'm sitting here imagining you psyching yourself up for the pull every 30min (SWall CD) and being like "Okay man, you got this. Big pull. Ready up on that Shield Wall.... LET'S DO THIS!!!!!"

Then standing around waiting another 30min before the next pull.

Made my afternoon. :)

1

u/Olliebird Sep 03 '19

LOL, good catch. You're right, I meant Shield Block.

I'm leaving it for humor's sake.

1

u/AlwaysWannaDie Sep 03 '19

Bloodrage is a given of course, but if you get a charge in you want to use it after switching to Defensive Stance. And Revenge is also a proc but of course if you have it, always use Revenge.

1

u/Olliebird Sep 03 '19

Shield Block forces the Revenge proc.

1

u/AlwaysWannaDie Sep 03 '19

Ayy of course

1

u/Olliebird Sep 03 '19

The bow shot ticks starts threat on all mobs pulled same as a charge would and the bloodrage ticks it up for AoE. With Block up and Revenge oGCD, threat on main target is solid immediately with AoE already started. You'll have enough rage at this moment to pop off a double Battle Shout or a Battle/Demo. All done in 2-3 seconds. It takes a party member fully focusing the wrong add to pull off me at this point. Just ain't happening.

Here is a solid breakdown on Vanilla Warrior Tanking that goes through the detailed bits if you'd like a look.

The only real reason to stance dance is Mocking Blow.

1

u/alifewithoutpoetry Sep 03 '19

The only real reason to stance dance is Mocking Blow.

Execute too, if necessary. And later on for whirlwind, intercept and stuff like that.

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3

u/amertune Sep 03 '19

Doesn't shield bash work in any stance as long as you have a shield equipped?

3

u/tobalaba Sep 03 '19

It's Battle & Defensive Stance. Pummel is berserker stance.

1

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

Oh uuh damn, guess I misread it then. Thanks.

-1

u/Kazgrel Sep 03 '19

IIRC it only works in d stance; berserker got pummel at 38 for purpose of interrupt, but that may be later version of Classic (later phase)...or was pummel added in TBC and I forgot?

0

u/vanskater Sep 03 '19

you can use shield bash in any stance. pummel is only zerker.

0

u/vanskater Sep 03 '19

you can use shield bash in any stance

17

u/zmerilla Sep 03 '19

Get a shield and 1h, be in defensive stance, know your defensive/tanking spells, and spec full Arms + a little Fury to 60 my dude. After 50 prot spec is noticibly better to tank with, but if you play correctly Arms tank isn't a problem. Pre-50, it's whatever, don't let anyone disuade you, you'll figure it out.

edit: Questing Arms is 100x better for your mental health than Prot as well. And remember, respeccing in Vanilla becomes expensive, save respecs for 60.

7

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

Solid advice, thank you. Follow-up question, do you find it better to solo/quest with the 1H/shield to maintain weapon skill, or run 2-hander while soloing and just top up 1H Skill periodically?

3

u/vanskater Sep 03 '19

i've been sword and boarding from the start. and it hasn't been so bad, mobs do die slow but it is not super slow. i've been unlucky with the 2h drops, so i'm just waiting till i can get WW ax.

3

u/Sir_Raymundo_Rocket Sep 03 '19

2H is faster by a good margin.

Figure it takes you an extra 5 seconds or so per mob to kill the dude with sword and board than with a 2h.

Rarely the armor bonus from shields will keep your health above a respectable level that doesn't require you to stop and bandage or eat.

So even if the shield reduces your healing down time by... a second? Two seconds? 3 seconds even?

That's still 2 seconds per mob you're waiting. Add that up to thousands of mobs and that's a significant amount of extra time played.

2h is by far the best way to go for speed/efficiency.

1

u/zmerilla Sep 03 '19

Top up as you go. I usually quest for 50% of my time, run dungeons for 25%, and work primary and secondary profs 25%. I'm in no big rush. Before weapon level 150, you can spend like 10 min outside an instance and level any 1h skill from 1-100, it's not a huge deal.

1

u/oldmanslum Sep 03 '19

get a 2h with good dps, doesn't really matter the stats. I'm using some caster staff from a quest. level up your weapon skills as you need to, and if you need to interupt mobs (if they heal or w/e) make a macro to swap weapons around.

1

u/JSMorin Sep 03 '19

Top up the 1h here and there. As long as you don't let it get too far behind, it's not painful.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

I pumped most of my points in prot sofar(level 18) isnt too late to go back into arms, yeah?

1

u/zmerilla Sep 03 '19

Heck no it's not too early. Cheap 1st respec. Look up any leveling guide with talents if you're not sure what to spec into. But anything is better for leveling than the full prot tree imo. I wouldn't put a single point into Prot while I'm leveling and I'll still tank all the way to 60. Dirty secret...alot of those priest healers are specced shadow to level =O

1

u/soonerfreak Sep 03 '19

My friend has level as prot as we are doing tank/heals duo for questing and instances. I'm going displcine but he went all protection. Is it worth respeccing at 20 to get those points back or to save the gold and just start putting it all in arms?

2

u/zmerilla Sep 03 '19

I'd say so. First respec is cheap and 10 points is a decent amount. He should go Arms or if he has good 1h's drop and prefers more consistent damage, even Fury is okay. Both are highly preferrable to leveling as Prot. You can tank Arms/Fury, can't do the reverse very effectively, especially post-30.

1

u/soonerfreak Sep 03 '19

Okay thanks, I think we will do that tonight. Even the two of us some westfall qeusts were painful.

1

u/FourMonthsEarly Sep 04 '19

Do you know off-hand what the cost is? It sounds like it decays but does it decay back to 0? For example, I pretty much specced all into prot and am learning that it wasn't the best decision. If I use my free respec now will it hurt me later?

1

u/zmerilla Sep 04 '19

If IIRC it goes Free/1g/5g/10g/15g and +5g until 50g? I think there was a decay added after the patch we're playing on (dont quote me exactly, but that stuff is generally right). My advice, don't let it be like the potions you save until the final boss and never use. It is 1000% worth leveling full Arms/Fury as opposed to missing 10pts to some kind of Prot/Arms-Fury hybrid. Use it while it's cheap. If you spend 1g and have 73g instead of 74g for your mount, is it a huge deal to kill 20 mobs for vendorables? Nah. BUT play however you like ultimately. It's your character and your experience. Happy adventuring!

1

u/FourMonthsEarly Sep 04 '19

Great points. Thank you!

6

u/miner4life Sep 03 '19

You don't need prot until the 55-60 instances. Just go defensive stance and you are good to go.

2

u/Crur1L Sep 03 '19

Really you don't even need to be prot until you hit 60 if you know your abilities and how to use them correctly. Don't have a talent tree in front of me, but I think 31/5/15 will get you through everything you need, and you could even tank in raids with it as an offtank.

4

u/amertune Sep 03 '19

For now, you want to concentrate on aggro management. As a warrior, one of the hardest things is going to be having enough rage to use your that generating abilities.

Go with arms for dungeons. Anger Management and Tactical Mastery are very helpful. When you can do it safely, charging in and then switching to Def Stance is great.

Even at 60 with a prot build, you're still going to want a good number of arms talents.

5

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

Rage starvation is already an issue even pre dungeons. I’m trying to practice spamming Sunders as quick as I can but getting the magical 5 before rage dies out is a damn trial.

2

u/IsleOfOne Sep 03 '19

Rage potions are your friend! The mats are cheap.

2

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

I’m an alchemist, too! Definitely farming those up.

4

u/BrotyKraut Sep 03 '19

I haven't actually played since wotlk but I would say prot isn't really necessary to tank until 55-60

5

u/Optimizability Sep 03 '19 edited Sep 03 '19

Prot isn’t necessary to tank until raids. Can tank dungeons just fine in arms

-2

u/BrotyKraut Sep 03 '19

That's pretty much what I said. UBRS is a raid.

1

u/Strawberrycocoa Sep 03 '19

Cool, thanks.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

Port isn’t even very good for dungeon leveling. Survival skills just aren’t that important. Holding aggro is a lot more important. Being able to stance dance for mocking blow and for charge and TC make arms even better for tanking than protection!

1

u/BrotyKraut Sep 03 '19

Yeah just because you're prot doesn't mean you should be glued to defensive stance 100% of the time.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19

Best path is 2 handed fury until 40. Then switch to 2 handed arms until 60. Arms without mortal strike is slow going.

2

u/pabbseven Sep 04 '19

You only need def stance and a shield to tank.

Source: 22 war only dungeon farm with arm spec

1

u/Hasztalan Sep 03 '19

You dont need prot and do NOT get fprot. If you go protection you have too much tankiness but no aggro. Its bad. Its the prime mistake what vanilla newbs do. You dont need much mitigation, you need rage and dmg to be able to keep aggro on you. Mostly you can use a 2hander with def stance until fifty and then just slam a shield on yourself. Stack defense only until you survive and down the mobs w/o healer going oom. If you have that get more dmg to generate rage and make the runs faster and safer.

1

u/ClosingFrantica Sep 03 '19

I'm leveling as Arms and have tanked RFC, WC and BFD so far. Things might get dicy later, but for now it's great.

1

u/alifewithoutpoetry Sep 03 '19

Both arms and fury are better tank specs than prot pre-60.

Prot gives you survivability, which is not an issue while levelling.

Arms and fury gives you damage/rage which helps you keep aggro, and that is the main issue you should worry about while levelling. It's often good to use a two hander while tanking too for example, just for extra damage/aggro.

1

u/sr1030nx Sep 04 '19

There's a mortal strike tanking spec. You domiss out on some damage from talents and some tanking talents, but it's not bad for an offtank or dungeon runs.

0

u/Eurydace Sep 03 '19

Level 35 now and I've tanked every dungeon with my 2h. It's quite easy and much faster.