Arms Warrior

Viability

Warrior is the most difficult class to level in the Hardcore challenge in World of Warcraft Classic by a large margin. Warriors lack the damage, crowd control, AoE, self-sustainability, buffs, and escape tools that other classes possess, especially at low levels.

However, despite these challenges, warrior is the most popular class in Hardcore. Warrior is an incredibly fun class to play—gear and weapon upgrades are extremely impactful, they’re the best dungeon tanks, they’re the best and most in-demand class at level 60, and there’s something fun about the added challenge of playing the hardest class in the game. Additionally, warriors scale very well with gear and get consistently stronger every level all the way to 60.

Best races

Alliance

Human

Human warriors benefit from Sword Specialization and Mace Specialization. These abilities are hugely beneficial at max level, but have very little impact while leveling. If you plan on participating in end-game content at level 60, humans are far and away the best race to choose for warriors.

Gnome

Gnome warriors benefit from Escape Artist and Engineering Specialization. Escape Artist is an invaluable escape ability with a short cast time and a short cooldown. This is particularly useful for warriors, who have no other means of escape. Because of Escape Artist, gnome is the best choice for making it to level 60, but gnomes lose out to humans for end-game content.

Horde

Orc

Orc warriors benefit from Axe Specialization Blood Fury, and Hardiness. Orcs boast solid damage and survivability while leveling and at 60, and Axe Specialization makes orc warriors the best DPS warriors at max level for horde players.

Troll

Troll warriors benefit from Berserking, Regeneration, and Beast Slaying. These abilities offer convenient passive benefits while leveling, and one powerful offensive cooldown. Trolls are strong levelers, and make very strong tanks at max level.

Tauren

Tauren warriors benefit from War Stomp and Endurance. War Stomp is one of the best racials in the game for survivability, allowing the caster to bandage, run, interrupt casts, or just get a brief respite from taking damage. Endurance is a nice passive boost of stamina that scales with stamina from gear. These abilities make Taurens very strong levelers, fantastic dungeon tanks, and strong tanks at max level.

Talent builds

Leveling as Arms

Generally speaking, Arms with a two-handed weapon is the best specialization while leveling (at least until you get Thrash Blade). You can get to 60 using any spec, but the spec below will give you the easiest journey:

Levels 1-29

The first five points should go into Cruelty, which is a massive boost to your DPS. Next, you pick up 5/5 Deflection, 5/5 Tactical Mastery and Anger Management, which allows you to stance dance and increases your rage generation. Then you take 2/2 Improved Overpower, which gives a massive +50% crit chance to Overpower. The last two points I usually put in Improved Charge, which brings you to level 29. If you prefer you can go straight for Improved Overpower and Anger Management in Arms before grabbing Cruelty. All of these talents are very powerful, and the order in which you get them isn't super important.

Many players choose to spec into Improved Rend, Deep Wounds, and Impale. These talents are underwhelming while leveling. The boost to Rend damage is minimal, as Rend is already such a low damage ability (and you stop using it entirely around level 35). Deep wounds does good damage, but runs the risk of breaking the fear effect of Intimidating Shout. Lastly, Impale only provides bonus damage to yellow hits, and because while leveling your crit chance is so low, it is a minimal dps boost (less than Cruelty). While you are free to spec into these talents if you wish, they are not optimal.

Levels 30-50

At level 30, you can respec fully arms to get Sweeping Strikes, and set yourself up to get Mortal Strike at 40. After getting Mortal Strike, the next 5 talent points should go back into Cruelty. If you prefer, you can wait until 40 to respec instead of 30, which just means you will get Sweeping Strikes at 35 instead of 30, but you will keep Cruelty in the interim. In this build, the points spent on Improved Hamstring and Improved Thunder Clap are filler, and can be spent elsewhere. The points spent in Axe Specialization should be put in the specialization that matches your weapon (which will likely be Axes around that level due to Whirlwind Axe and Bonebiter).

Levels 50-59

Once you have completed Maraudon and acquired Thrash Blade, fury becomes viable. Many players still prefer to stay in arms, but personally I greatly prefer fury. A good fury spec for 50-59 looks something like this. First you work up to Bloodthirst, then go back to arms until Anger Management, and then back into fury for those last few filler points (like Improved Execute).

End-game Warrior Builds

Once you reach level 60, there are three main specs you can run: Fury, Prot, and Fury Prot. Arms spec also has some viability for both DPS and tanking in dungeons if you have a great two-hander, due to Sweeping Strikes. However, because Mortal Strike takes up a debuff slot, it should never be used in raids.

Important Skills and Talents

Battle Shout

Battle Shout is a significant dps boost, and should be kept whenever you are fighting. The two minute duration is annoyingly short, but it is worth keeping it up. I like to cast battle shout at the end of every fight just as the last of my rage is ticking away. That way it refreshes the two minute duration, and the rage I used to cast it would’ve gone to waste anyway.

Sunder Armor

Sunder Armor seems underwhelming, but the armor removed from enemy targets makes for vastly increased damage over the length of the fight. The earlier you cast sunder, the longer you have to benefit from the debuff being on your enemy. Sunder should be your opening ability in pretty much every fight.

Hamstring

Hamstring is a very useful escape tool. If there is a mob on you and you need to escape, cast Hamstring on them and proceed to run away. Just remember to stop attacking the mob afterwards, or it won’t reset. Check out the Advanced Tips section below to see how leashing mobs works. Additionally, Hamstring can be used if you are at high rage to fish for Overpower procs, or Windfury Totem procs if you are in a duo with a Shaman.

Thunder Clap

Thunder Clap is a defensive ability that increases the amount of time between your enemies’ melee attacks, reducing the amount of damage you take. It also does a small amount of AoE damage. Thunder Clap should be used in every fight in the early levels (when you don’t have much else to spend your rage on) and on higher level fights when you expect to take a lot of damage.

Demoralizing Shout

Demoralizing Shout is a defensive ability that decreases the attack power of your enemies, reducing the amount of damage that you take. It should be used in every fight in the early levels (when you don’t have much else to spend your rage on) and on higher level fights when you expect to take a lot of damage.

Overpower

Overpower is a proc-based ability that can only be cast after your enemy dodges one of your attacks. When combined with the Improved Overpower talent from the Arms tree, it has a huge chance to cause a critical strike. You’ll be excited every time you see “Dodge” on your screen. It shares a cooldown with Revenge.

Sweeping Strikes

Sweeping Strikes is an Arms talent that makes your next 5 attacks also hit a nearby enemy. For example, if you have two mobs on you with Sweeping Strikes up and you cast Mortal Strike on one of them, it will also do the same amount of damage to the other target. If you cast Whirlwind, it will hit each of them with the base ability and the Sweeping Strikes, for four hits total with the press of one button. This ability single handedly allows warriors to easily take on two targets at a time, and is tons of fun to use.

Mortal Strike  /  Bloodthirst

Mortal Strike and Bloodthirst are the main abilities from the Arms and Fury trees, respectively. One of the weird things about playing a warrior is that you do not get your main dps ability until level 40. However, when you get it, it is a game changer. The main difference between the two is that Mortal Strike is based on weapon damage, whereas Bloodthirst is based only on attack power. So the damage of your weapon matters for your Mortal Strike damage but not for Bloodthirst. If you have the rage, these abilities should be used on cooldown.

Whirlwind

Whirlwind is a weapon-damage-based AoE ability. It should be used whenever you are fighting more than one target. Whirlwind should also be used in single target fights before you get Mortal Strike / Bloodthirst, and can continue to be used after you get one of those abilities if you have extra rage. It also pairs incredibly well with Sweeping Strikes.

Intimidating Shout

Intimidating Shout is an AoE fear that serves as a warrior’s only true escape ability. It is worth noting that ticking bleeds such as Rend or Deep Wounds, can break the fear, so avoid these abilities if you plan on relying on Intimidating Shout. The targeted enemy will cower (will stay in place), and additional enemies will flee (run in a random direction). When using this ability on multiple enemies, be careful of fleeing mobs getting social aggro with other mobs. This ability is best used as an escape, allowing you to run away after casting.

Piercing Howl

Piercing Howl is an AoE slow from the Fury tree that can be used as an escape ability. It only lasts 6 seconds, but that can be enough time to let you successfully run from a bad situation. Most players will not have this ability until they acquire Thrash Blade, as it is in the Fury tree.

Pummel

Pummel is your main interrupt ability at higher levels. Unlike Shield Bash, it does not require a shield to be equipped for it to be cast. However, it does require Berserker Stance, so speccing into Tactical Mastery for stance dancing makes this ability much more effective.

Core Stance Cooldowns

Each stance has one main cooldown which matches the theme of the stance. These abilities all share a 30 minute cooldown.

• Retaliation is the Battle Stance ability. It can be used when engaging large packs, allowing the warrior to easily take down pulls that would be certain death otherwise. Mobs that hit you from behind will not get hit by Retaliation.
• Shield Wall is the Defensive Stance ability, and is a powerful defensive cooldown which can easily save your life. You must have a shield equipped to activate Shield Wall.
• Recklessness is the Berserker Stance ability, and has limited use in Hardcore due to the increased damage taken. It can be a powerful offensive cooldown when fighting a single mob that you need to burst down, but the increased damage taken makes it risky. The only time I used Recklessness was the transition between Phase 1 and Phase 2 of Onyxia, where she does no damage and you cannot pull threat.

Professions

The two top-tier profession combinations for warriors are Herbalism / Alchemy and Mining / Engineering. If you want to try the Self Made achievement, or just want to mix things up, Mining / Blacksmithing is another option, but it is far more work for far fewer benefits. A nice trick to make some silver early on is not to pick up any crafting profession right away, and instead go Skinning while you level the other profession. You can vendor all of the leatherand make some easy silver. If you plan on learning Engineering, you can save some of the leather for your goggles.

Herbalism / Alchemy

Alchemy allows you to make your own potions, which provide passive boosts to many stats, including strength, agility, health, and armor. You can also make your own health potions, Free Actions Potions, Elixers of Waterbreathing, and much more. Additionally, alchemists can make Frost Oil, which is required to complete the questline for Nifty Stopwatch, a useful escape tool. Herb/Alch provides the strongest passive benefits.

Mining / Engineering

Engineering is useful for three types of items; goggles (i.e. Flying Tiger Goggles), grenades (i.e. Iron Grenade), and target dummies (i.e. Target Dummy). The goggles are an early head piece and a nice boost to stam. The grenades do good AoE damage and also stun enemies, providing a brief break from damage, or allowing you to make an escape. Grenades are also great for getting threat on multiple mobs at once when tanking dungeons. Target dummies are the most useful part of engineering, and serve as an excellent panic button to facilitate an escape. Later in the game, engineering provides a host of fun trinkets. It is also the best profession for end-game raiding.

If you are planning on making goggles, you will need Light Leather and Medium Leather. The easiest way to do this is to go Mining / Skinning until you can skin level 16 mobs (the threshold for medium leather), and then keep enough light and medium leather for both pairs of goggles. When you are ready to craft your goggles, drop Skinning for Engineering. Alternatively, you can get the leather from chests, or from fishing up Floating Wreckages which appear as circles in the water with floating wood debris. These can be found on the coastlines of zones such as Eastern Plaguelands, Swamp of Sorrows, Tanaris, Westfall and on the docks of Ratchet and Menethil Harbor.

Mining / Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing is all but required for the Self Made challenge. It can also be a good choice if you are a duo with a paladin who elects to pick up Enchanting. Normally enchanting is not viable in hardcore, because the rods require Blacksmithing to make. However, if you are blacksmithing, you can make your duo rods as well as armor, and you can both benefit from the enchants they bring to the table. However, blacksmithing is incredibly material-intensive to level, and takes a great deal of time and commitment. Get used to farming ore.

Class quests

Warriors have class quests to get Defensive Stance (Level 10), a questline that rewards various pieces of gear (Fire-Hardened for Alliance and Brutal for Horde), a questline to get Berserker Stance and Whirlwind Axe (Level 30), and the Sunken Temple class quest to get Diamond Flask.

Defensive Stance - Level 10

Each starting zone offers their own level 10 warrior questline (started at any warrior trainer), which leads to unlocking Defensive Stance (and base abilities Sunder Armor and Taunt), and also rewards a green 1H weapon which is quite strong at that level. These quests generally require you to go out and defeat a named mob or two, and to gather an item. These questlines can be done at level 10. Additionally, you can do them in each starting zone.

Fire Hardened (Alliance) / Brutal (Horde) Gear - Level 20

Each faction gets a long questline starting at level 20 that rewards various pieces of gear, the best of which being Fire Hardened Hauberk / Brutal Hauberk and Fire Hardened Coif / Brutal Helm. Though this questline begins at level 20, the first piece of gear requires killing Roogug in Razorfen Kraul, which is typically done in the early 30s. After the first piece of gear, the rest of the quests are fairly easy and straightforward, mostly involving killing mobs that you have already killed before for other quests.

Berserker Stance - Level 30

At level 30, class trainers will give you a breadcrumb quest that sends you to Fray Island in the Barrens. You can swim to the island from the shore (be careful to stay within the lightly-colored water on the minimap to avoid fatigue), or, if you are Alliance, you can jump from the boat from Booty Bay to Ratchet. Once on Fray Island, you will be given The Affray, requiring you to fight a gauntlet of fighters with little to no break, ending with Big Will. There is a trick to this quest that makes it absolutely trivial—if you cast Demoralizing Shout at the combatants, it operates as a fear effect. By continuous use of Demo Shout, you can essentially take 0 damage until fighting Big Will. Using this technique, this quest can be done at level 30. If you’d rather play it safe, you can wait until 32+. After defeating Big Will, you will learn Berserker Stance and Intercept.

Getting Whirlwind Axe in Hardcore

Once you've learned Berserker Stance, you're sent off for the second part of this questline which rewards Whirlwind Axe. First, you must gather:

• 30x Bloodscalp Tusks
• 8x Liferoot
• 1x Essence of the Exile.

Bloodscalp Tusks can be gathered from Bloodscalp Trolls in Stranglethorn Value. You must have the quest to loot these items, unlike the other items. Liferoot can be gathered if you have Herbalism, or alternatively can be looted from Kurzen Medicine Men. The Essence of Exile is created by combining 8x Burning Charm, 8x Thundering Charm, and 8x Cresting Charm, gathered from the elementals in Arathi Highlands. Farming these charms is the most difficult and dangerous part of this questline, as the elementals hit very hard and are level 38-39.

After you gather all of the above materials, take them to Bath’rah the Windwatcher in the Alterac Mountains (up the river from Hillsbrad Foothills) and prepare to fight Cyclonian. Cyclonian is a dangerous elite elemental, who does significant damage and has several abilities. There are two main strategies to take down Cyclonian safely. Firstly, if you have alchemy, craft 2x Nature Protection Potions. You can pre-pop one, wait two minutes, begin the fight, and pop the other when the first one is depleted. I used this strategy at level 38, and Cyclonian did not even deplete the first potion. Secondly, you can use thrown weapons and the river to cheese the fight, as seen below.

Choosing your reward

After Cyclonian is defeated, you can choose between Whirlwind Axe, Whirlwind Warhammer , and Whirlwind Sword. Whirlwind Axe is generally the best choice, because it has the highest weapon damage. If you are Alliance your next weapon will be Bonebiter, so choosing Whirlwind Axe allows you to benefit from the Axe Specialization talent for both weapons.

Sunken Temple Class Quest

The warrior Sunken Temple class quest starts with the Fallen Hero in Swamp of Sorrows. Firstly, he will send you to Blasted Lands to kill Helboars. Secondly, he will send you into Sunken Temple to loot Voodoo Feathers from each of the balcony minibosses. When done, you will have the choice between Diamond Flask, Fury Visor, and Razorsteel Pauldrons. Diamond Flask is a must-take here, no matter how tempting the other options may seem.

Weapon progression

See below a list of weapons you should be looking to pick up as you level. Please note these are from an Alliance perspective, so some quests not may not be available if you are playing Horde.

Two-Handed Weapons

One-Handed Weapons

But What About Heroic Strike Queueing?

If you’ve spent any time in Warrior Discord channels, you’ve probably seen debates about Heroic Strike Queueing. Heroic Strike Queueing is a bug exploit where if you have Heroic Strike toggled to go off on your next auto attack, the offhand weapon hit reduction penalty is removed. Essentially, if you activate heroic strike right after your mainhand melee goes off, and then cancel it (using a stopcasting macro) right before the Heroic Strike actually casts on the next auto attack, you can remove the weapon hit penalty from your offhand without wasting rage on Heroic Strike. Done correctly, this adds approximately 20% hit to your offhand weapon, increasing dual wield dps.

While in theory HS queueing is a dps boost that increases the viability of dual wielding while leveling, accomplished(?) warriors generally regard the mechanic as a meme. HS queueing vastly increases your APM (actions per minute) and is generally tedious, for a moderate dps increase which still fails to out-dps a two-handed arms build. Additionally, in Hardcore the extra focus required to HS queue properly could cause you to overlook other threats such as patrolling mobs. It makes a simple rotation needlessly more complex for underwhelming dps gains.

Dealing with danger

Because warriors are so much more vulnerable than other classes, to keep danger low you should fight primarily green mobs (mobs 3 or more levels below you), and complete primarily green quests. Against green mobs you will have higher hit and crit chances, mobs will do less damage to you, and you’ll have a higher chance to resist hostile spells.

As a warrior, you want to be fighting one enemy at a time, or two if you have Sweeping Strikes. If you pull 3 or more mobs you either (1) run or (2) use Retaliation. If you think a pull might pull 3+ mobs, pull using a ranged weapon so that if 3+ mobs do in fact pull, you can run and reset before they reach you.

Warriors have less escape tools than other classes, so if you get in over your head there is a much higher chance of death. If you need to escape with multiple mobs on you, try using Intimidating Shout, Piercing Howl, or Hamstring. Remember to backjump, and be careful not to keep mobs leashed for longer than necessary.

Best duo partners

Shaman is your best friend, for those lucky Horde players out there. They can heal, making for easier leveling, less downtime, and faster dungeon groups (all you will need to find is 3 damage dealers). Through their totems, they also offer a lot of utility that warriors lack. Most importantly, however, they have Windfury Totem, the single greatest dps boost a warrior can ask for. Have your duo drop Windfury and watch the numbers fly.

Priest is the best healer in the game, making for easier leveling, less downtime, and faster dungeon groups (all you will need to find is 3 damage dealers).

Paladin can heal, making for easier leveling, less downtime, and faster dungeon groups (all you will need to find is 3 damage dealers). Additionally, because they are also mail/plate wearers, if one of you goes Blacksmithing you can make armor for each of you. Going Blacksmithing also unlocks Enchanting as an option, allowing both of you to increase the effectiveness of your gear.

Two-Hander or Dual Wield?

For the vast majority of leveling, using two-handed weapons is strictly better than dual wielding, assuming weapons of roughly equal quality. Dual wielding is especially weak for two reasons:

1. your offhand weapon has a 50% dps penalty - weapons in the offhand slot only do half of the listed damage;
2. offhand weapons have a significant miss penalty. Because of the additional miss penalty, your offhand weapon will do significantly less damage even than the 50% weapon dps it is limited to. Because there is virtually no +hit gear before level 60, dual wield is not very viable. Additionally, some higher level abilities such as Mortal Strike, Whildwind, and Sweeping Strikes, are based on weapon damage, so they will tend to do more damage with two-handers than one-handers (Sweeping Strikes is not technically based on weapon damage, but it is limited to 5 charges, so the more damage per hit you do the more damage you will get out of the ability, which will favor two-handers).

However, there are at least two situations in which dual-wielding outshines two-handed dps. The first is when you have outleveled your two handed weapon, and get a nice new one-hander upgrade. If the one hander does nearly as much damage as the two hander by itself, it may be worth swapping to dual-wield until you get a two-hander upgrade.

The second is after you finish Maraudon (around level 50) and acquire Thrash Blade,. This is up to personal preference, but once you acquire Thrash Blade you can respec to fury, and go dual wield (likely with Vanquisher's Sword from Razorfen Downs) until 60.

Dungeon tanking as an Arms Warrior

Warriors make the best dungeon tanks in Hardcore, and learning to tank dungeons will also reduce the amount of time you spend looking for dungeon groups. Additionally, the easiest way for groups to wipe in dungeons is bad tanking/pulling, so learning to tank and pull effectively will increase your chances of smooth dungeon runs. Tanks are the leader of dungeon groups—you decide what to pull, when to pull it, what strategies to use, and when to use various types of CC. Communicate with your group and tell them what you are doing, when you are doing it, and what you need from them.

Being overleveled is important for running Hardcore dungeons, and is especially important for tanks. I prefer to run dungeons at the higher end of the level range, where I do more damage/threat, take less damage, and have lower chances to body pull mobs I don’t intend to.

All dungeons can be tanked in arms spec, there is no need to respec to run dungeons. When tanking, swap to Defensive Stance, as you will take 10% less damage, and do 10% more threat. Your goal is not to maximize damage, but to hold threat on as many mobs as possible and survive. Your primary abilities should be Sunder Armor and Revenge to generate threat. You should also be utilizing Demoralizing Shout and Disarm to minimize incoming damage. Shield Block can be used to block incoming damage, especially on hard hitting bosses. You can also use Thunder Clap if you wish, but because it requires Battle Stance it can be more trouble than it is worth.

Most mobs and bosses can be tanked with your regular two-handed weapon. For large pulls or bosses that hit exceptionally hard, be sure to wear a shield. Research each dungeon ahead of time to see the abilities each boss has, and which bosses are worth wearing a shield for (such as Verdan the Everling in Wailing Caverns).

When pulling mobs, you should be pulling with ranged weapons unless you know that Charge is 100% safe to use. This means that you are sure you won’t pull extra mobs, the mobs won’t fear you into other packs, and you will maintain LoS with your healer. When ranged pulling caster mobs, break LoS after pulling to make them stop casting and run to you.

Lastly, warriors have 3 taunt abilities, which work in different ways. Taunt is your main taunt ability, but it can be resisted. If successful, Taunt will force the target to attack you for 3 seconds, and will raise your threat to match the current highest threat target. Taunt does not generate any threat if you are already first on threat. As such, Taunt should only be used when you lose threat on a mob. If Taunt resists, you can stance dance to Battle Stance to cast Mocking Blow. This forces a target to attack you for 6 seconds, but does not have a threat-matching component. That means that unless you work your way to top threat within those six seconds, the mob will go back to attacking the prior target. Lastly, there is Challenging Shout, and AoE taunt which works like Mocking Blow. Be sure to equip a shield when using Challenging Shout and communicate with your healer—be prepared to take a lot of damage.

Advanced tips

Thrown Weapon Kiting is a strategy that can be used to solo higher-level elite mobs. The general idea is to use an object like a fence or a river that the player can jump over, but the mob cannot. This causes the mob to run around the object each time the player jumps over it. Done correctly, the player can kill an elite mob using only throwing weapons without ever taking damage. This strategy is commonly used on Hogger, Vaagash, Mor'Ladim, and Cyclonian. This same strategy can be done with bows, crossbows, or guns, but they take much longer to fire, making thrown weapons the premier choice.

Stance Dancing is the process of switching stances to use stance specific abilities. Because swapping stances does not trigger the GCD, you can swap stances and instantly cast important abilities such as Pummel or Taunt. If you are in Defensive Stance but wish to cast Mocking Blow, for example, you can very quickly cast Battle Stance, Mocking Blow, and Defensive Stance to cast Mocking Blow with very little time spent out of Defensive Stance.

Leashing - If you run away from a mob for a certain time/distance, mobs will reset and stop attacking you. However, if you use abilities on the mob it will reset the leash and the mob will continue to attack you for longer. For more information, see this video by Tommysalami.

Hardcore Warrior Leveling Guide

Looking for a step-by-step leveling guide that is tailored for the Hardcore Warrior leveling experience?

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Macros

Shield Bash

#showtooltip Shield Bash
/equip (your mainhand here)
/equip (your shield here)
/cast Shield Bash

Dual Wield Weapons

/equipslot 16 (your mainhand here)
/equipslot 17 (your offhand here)

If you don’t want to change stances manually to use stance-specific skills, you can macro stance swaps with abilities.

Taunt

/cast Defensive Stance
/cast Taunt

Mocking Blow

/cast Battle Stance
/cast Mocking Blow

Overpower

/cast Battle Stance
/cast Overpower

Pummel

/cast Berserker Stance
/cast Pummel

Hs Queueing

If you really insist on Heroic Strike queueing, here is the macro to do so. Pressing it queues HS, pressing it again cancels the queue.

/stopcasting
/cast Heroic Strike