The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling Up 21 - 40

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is focusing again on getting new warriors up to speed.Matthew Rossi has done this quite a few times (at present, all of his warrior alts are at least level 45 except for the tauren on Zangamarsh, poor neglected tauren) and he's not always done it very well, so at least we can all point and laugh and learn from his mistakes. It's fortunate he makes so many of them for us to learn from, really. We're blessed by his unique way of finding the pitfalls in our path by blundering straight into them.So now you're a newly trained level 20 warrior. You've definitely decided you're not going to twink for the 19 WSG bracket, you're geared up and looking forward to the next twenty levels and finally getting a freaking mount so that you can keep up with all the Aspects of the Pack, Cheetahs, Spirit Wolves and Blinks out there. You're not at all bitter about your lack of a travel form, especially is this is your fourth or even fifth warrior and you're saying to yourself 'man, I forgot how much it sucks to have to run all over the freaking place'.

Oh, sorry. That might just be me.

Anyway, time to talk about the warrior specific quests, class abilities and other aspects of the class you'll be picking up in this swatch of the class. 20 to 40 is when warriors really start to feel distinctive based on their spec. It's when you can actually start to seriously tankanything and when you'll be getting your final stance and a nice warrior specific weapon. (If you like two handers, anyway.)

Oh, and the image with today's column doesn't really reflect any of this. I was just mad that they shrank my hat, and I wanted to show you what they did.

The general advice from last week still holds true and always will for a warrior. Get the best gear you can, and keep it updated as best you can. Keep yourself in bandages and food and pots. Use these resources, especially potions, as they can keep you alive longer and minimize those rather horrifying repair bills. If anything will ever truly bring warriors and paladins together, it will be standing together and laughing as the clothies gripe about their repair costs. Embrace this fact now, and learn to see the humor in it. And be grateful that this has been reduced, my first two warriors shelled out a lot more on repairs and learned to hate everyone else as they complained about the cost of a wipe with the white hot fury of a thousand rabid wolverines who have awoken to find themselves in pink, frilly dresses in a dollhouse being made to play tea party with a Raggedy Ann doll.

Well, I just assume they would hate that. I mean, wolverines aren't very social animals. And they don't look good in pink.

We covered the general class abilities gained at 20 last time, so now I'll just cover the wide variety of abilities, more or less the bulk of abilities gained, now. These are the non-talented ones everyone in the class can get, as this is more a general guide, but we'll cover some talents later. First up is one of the best abilities you'll ever get, Intimidating Shout. You'll use this every single time it's up in PvP, hurling yourself into crowds and sending several of the enemy running away until they hit their trinket a second or two later rendering it meaningless and putting the shout on cooldown, but even with those issues it's a powerful means of interrupting several people at once and helping to disrupt a mass of enemy players. It can also be used in various ways in PvE, from interrupting a single target to bandage yourself (you have to be fast on the bandage after you use the shout so as to not hit the mob you're using it on, but you'll get used to that fairly quickly), a means to get rid of an add long enough to finish off your first target, a minor panic button to give yourself a chance to run away and I'm sure there are other uses I'm forgetting. Intimidating Shout remains one of our best abilities even after the maximum number of targets it works on was reduced to the current level. 

At level 24 comes Execute, a standout ability for a great many situations. Well, a great many situations wherein something you're trying to kill is at 19% health or less, anyway. Execute, it's not just for Vael fights anymore! Never really was. You'll use Execute when grinding or soloing/questing, you'll use it instances (especially if you're DPS), you'll use it in PvP whenever it is up, especially if you happen to have a lot of rage and you see that magical little icon come to life while trying to catch that warlock who has dotted you to death three times in a row outside of Icewing Bunker. The limits of execute are its dependency on how much rage you yourself have... it's possible for a full rage bar execute crit to approach obscene numbers, but you won't get the chance to do that very often at all outside of a boss fight, and even then you'll probably only get to do it once at the absolute most. The ability consumes all the rage you have when you use it, so you'll be autoattacking for a while after you do, so if you're using it on someone who can survive it you're in a catchup phase afterwards. Still, it's not really possible for me as warrior to say anything bad about execute.

Level 26 brings us Challenging Shout. A very limited ability, you'll rarely use it and be glad you have it when you do. It's basically a 6 second AoE taunt. it's got the sizable limitations of only lasting a few seconds, not adding any threat (so after the time is up, if you haven't done anything to add threat to you the mobs go right back to killing everyone else) and it has a whopping ten minute cooldown. This column isn't about what I would change about warriors if I could, so I'll just say that you need to be really sure that everything is going south when you use this, and be aware that it's not going to magically fix everything when you do. Some people hit this button as soon as taunt fails, but I say don't be one of those people. Switch over and use Mocking Blow first, save CS for a last resort. You don't want to not have it later because you blew it saving one person. This is a pure tanking talent, make no mistake.

At level 28 you get another tanking talent, one of the absolute best in the game, Shield Wall. It has other applications as well... if you absolutely have to return a flag in WSG or EoTS, or are trying to run away to the safety of some friendly town guards while being beaten on by many, many mobs it can be used then, but for my money you want to save Shield Wall for when you're tanking on a boss. It's not a pally or priest bubble. It doesn't eat a specific amount of damage and then fail, or just make you immune until its time is up, it reduces all incoming damage by 75% for the duration. (It can be improved in duration with talents.) With a long linked cooldown, it's not going to be used on every fight, but when you need it there's very few abilities that will make you smile like a nice shield wall, especially when combined with other tanking abilites or items. 

Level 30 brings you a present in the form of a quest to gain Berserker Stance. The quest chain begins with The Islander, leading you to The Affray, a gauntlet style quest that will grant you zerk stance once you complete it. You can bring help (a healer is nice) or solo it, although it's not super-easy to solo (it's not impossible, either, you'll just need to be on the ball and have a couple of consumables to use). It's also at level 30 that you begin the quest chain that leads to the Cyclonian. While that quest is a huge part of the 30 to 40 game, we've already discussed it in detail in a previous post, so I'll leave that link to speak for itself. Level 30 is also when you gain Intercept and Slam. Intercept's utility in PvP is obvious and it serves as a useful spell interrupt in PvE, especially when soloing. I also often used it before the abilityIntervene was introduced to the game to help me chase down a mob that was going after a healer, and before 70 you may find use for it in that fashion as well. Slam is an ability you'll primarily use to dump rage without generating as much threat as other abilities like Heroic Strike, but I really recommend (and this is one of the few times I will recommend this, as I hate math) checking out the WoWwiki link and really taking a look at the math of the ability. Slam is a very situational ability, but when it is called for, it can be extremely powerful.

At level 32 you'll be rewarded with your first fear break (non-talented, anyway, and I don't think you'll have Death Wish with 23 talent points) as well as a means to generate more rage from being hit, Berserker Rage. This ability, usable only in berserker stance, is one of the reasons you will need to learn to stance dance as a tank. Even with the changes to fear and targeting in 2.3, having a fear break available so that you can snap out of the fear and work to keep aggro while those outside of fear range can continue to DPS or heal is one of a warrior's real strengths, learn to maximize it. Also, while tanking, getting more rage for being hit is never a bad thing. In PvP you'll primarily use it to break fears since you'll probably be in zerk stance a lot anyway. Level 36 brings Whirlwind, an ability often used as a rage dump which can hit up to four targets anywhere around you. You'll need to be careful not to break CC with this, but it has many uses besides straight damage and rage dumping. A warrior tanking can use it in conjunction with Thunderclap as an AoE tanking ability if she or he is skilled enough at stance dancing, it now hits with both weapons so it's a nice DPS ability for fury warriors, and an arms warrior will still use it despite normalization because he'll usually be using a weapon with nice top-end damage.

The last non-talented ability you'll gain in this level range is Pummel. It's a spell interrupt. Learn it, love it, use it, it doesn't take a lot of discussion or explanation. Pummel spellcasters in PvP, pummel them in PvE. Really, I think we all know what we're doing with this one.

Levels 20 to 40 bring you a wide variety of talent options. Quite frankly, they bring you such a wide variety of talent options that I think it likely that will have to be a post of its own - you will have 31 talent points to have spent by level 40, enough to get Mortal Strike,Bloodthirst or Shield Slam, the keystone spec defining abilities even now and the former pinnacles of each spec before The Burning Crusade. These abilities are what I like to call the tipping points for a warrior - it's impossible to spend as many points in any other spec once you have them, so even if you're a 31 arms/ 30 fury warrior for PvP, you're an arms warrior. Everyone approaches the idea of spending talents differently. I personally always spend my first five point in Cruelty, so unless I'm going for fury early, I never have a 31 point talent by 40. Without writing another post as long as this one, I'll just say that you should evaluate what you intend to do with your warrior in the future as you spend points in talents now. Do you intend to twink at 29 or 39? Are you trying to get to 70 and tank for a bunch of friends as fast as you can? (Personally, if you're trying to shoot for 70 as fast as possible, a prot spec may be the worst move unless you have a group of friends you know you'll be running a lot of instances with. Then it's fine for leveling.) Try and keep from respeccing now if you possibly can, you'll want to save gold on respec costs when you're 70 and trying to settle into a final spec. (You may want to respec once at 60 for the last ten levels, but we'll cover that when we get to leveling in TBC.)

Instances to run in this level zone overlap a little with the previous ones: You'll probably still get some nice gear out of Wailing Caverns and Shadowfang Keep as you hit 20. Keep in mind that the drops have been improved in 2.3 and the instance levels tightened up. I really enjoyBlackfathom Deeps for a level 20 warrior looking to gear up for the later dungeons, and bothGnomeregan and Razorfen Kraul will get you ready for the 30's. Between 30 and 40 you will probably run Scarlet Monastery the most, especially with the winged design you'll see again later in Outland dungeons. You'll also have Razorfen Downs and even Uldaman in the late 30's as you get ready for the 40's and beyond.

Of course, we can't spend all our time in instances. The zones available for us to quest in are many, and just got better with the new patch and the introduction of a major quest hub in Dustwallow Marsh. While some are Horde or Alliance specific, most can be quested in by a warrior of either faction and include Redridge, Duskwood, Hillsbrad, the Wetlands, the Alterac Mountains, Arathi Highlands, the Badlands, the Swamp of Sorrows and Stranglethorn Vale on the Eastern continent and Ashenvale, the Stonetalon Mountains, Thousand Needles, Desolaceand Dustwallow Marsh on Kalimdor. I especially recommend Arathi as an alternative to the early 30's range in STV as the quests are now all soloable with smart play, the elites having been demoted in patch 2.3. Warrior questing, especially solo questing, still requires careful pulling and use of food and bandages but with those caveats at these levels your talents and abilities mean that you can start to feel more secure in your soloing and can make a steady grind with minimal downtime. Some zones, like Ashenvale, are at times frustrating for a warrior on foot, but with Forest Song and Splintertree Post as useful quest hubs for Alliance and Horde respectively, there's a lot to do there. Also, please don't neglect Thousand Needles and Desolace; there are a lot more quests there than usually appear on the surface (even for Alliance there's the Shimmering Flats quests) and if you're leveling on a PvP server you can avoid a lot of ganking by skipping STV until you're nearer to 40 by using these zones judiciously.

That seems like a reasonably comprehensive overview, all limitations considered. Now I'll throw the comments open to you all to help correct those inevitable errors, provide tips and suggestions for your fellow warriors, and otherwise discuss what else we should keep in mind for these 20 or so levels. What gear shouldn't we miss? What dungeons don't you think worth the effort? Where's the best questing? 

Next week we'll either cover leveling up to get ready for Outland, or discuss talents in more detail. We'll see which way the hawk isn't a handsaw.


Turns out Matt wants to talk about Talents for the next 20 levels ->

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling Up 1-20

The Care and Feeding of Warriors anticipates Patch 2.3 the way Cookie Monster rips the plate from your hands and devours the cookies with a 'gnom gnom gnom' sound and flying crumbs everywhere. Matthew Rossilearned to do a mean Cookie Monster, Grover and Elmo impersonation when he was in his twenties. He doesn't like to talk about it.
Since we have in the past been accused of focusing too much on the 70 game, this week's installment of TCAFOW will be spending some time with the brand new warrior. Since we know Patch 2.3 is on the way with improvements to leveling and instancing between 20 and 60, it behooves us to be level 20 or thereabouts when it hits, and that's what this post is all about. While it's not terribly hard to level to 20, it never hurts to discuss the do's and don'ts of the initial 'trying-on' period of the class.

The first few pieces of advice are general ones. First off, if you can, go to the Draenei or Blood Elf starting zones to level grind. The quest progression is better, the rewards are better, the zones are well designed to funnel you from place to place, and you can solo almost everything you'll come across with a few notable exceptions that will require grouping as you near level 20. Do as much in these zones as you can, perhaps even set your hearths there if you don't mind being fairly cut off from other zones. The blood elf starting zone has the benefit of a transporter in Silvermoon that will take you to Undercity, and thus the zeppelins for transport to Kalimdor, while Azuremyst and Bloodmyst isle are a touch more isolated, requiring two boat trips to get to. But at low level, a few corpse runs are no major impediment compared to the experience you'll gather in those zones.

There are things you can always do to make a new warrior's life easier if you have a higher level main: they're obvious, and I won't cover them here because either you have such a higher level character and can figure it out pretty easily, or you don't and therefore don't have recourse to them. Similarly, higher level friends can help you, but if you don't have them you don't have them. This post assumes you just bought the game.

Levels 1 to 10 of the warrior are, like most classes, incredibly basic. You start off with Heroic Strike and Battle Shout at level 1, gain Charge and Rend at level 4, Thunder Clap at 6,Hamstring at level 8. Clearly, since these are all the abilities you are going to have, and you won't have gained any talents yet, these are the abilities you will be choosing from. You may not even have a ranged weapon yet: get one as soon as you can. While charge is fun and awesome and a rage generator, there will be times you're going to want to pull a mob over to where you can more easily control the fight. Remember, adds are not your friend at this level, as you have no real way to deal with them.

At level 10, you gain several abilities including Bloodrage, Sunder Armor and Taunt. To unlock the last two, you must complete your Defensive Stance quest. The horde can get this quest in the Barrens or Tirisfal Glades, so if you're leveling in the Blood Elf lands you'll be making a trip to Brill, but luckily that's not terribly difficult. If you're leveling in the Draenei zones, they have their own version of the quest so you won't have to leave the zone at all. Either way, the quest can be challenging but is not impossible or even particularly difficult to solo, and is the first of several warrior specific quests you'll get as you level up. The Defensive Stance quest usually leads into another quest for a decent green quality weapon at about that level, which you should complete even if you've been lucky enough to get a equivalent or better weapon, as it's more experience and a chance at some money.

While there's not much call to tank anything while soloing, if you can get groups for quests at this point you can start to practice. If soloing you'll probably not switch out of battle stance, and it is possible to get to level 20 without tanking anything at all. I don't recommend this. Try and get in some tanking as you level and gain new tanking abilities -Shield Bash at 12, Revenge at level 14, Shield Block at 16. Disarm is useful whether or not you're tanking, as it reduces the damage the mob can do to you, as does Demoralizing Shout.Another advantage of trying to get in some tanking practice between 10 and 20 is that it can help you develop your stance switching. 10 -20 is also when you first gain your talent points. By level 20 you will have spent 11 of them, so now is the time to consider what style of warrior you want to level up as. 

Many warriors choose to level as arms. I personally always spend my first five talent points inCruelty. This may or may not work with your desired playstyle, I merely offer that a 5% boost to your critical hit rate at these levels is nothing to sneer at. Either way, while leveling try and make sure that you control the fights you pick as much as you can. Clear around quest objectives, killing everything as safely and quickly as you can, and pull harder mobs away from where there will be respawns if you can arrange it. At this level, warriors simply aren't well-equipped to deal with adds and unless you're very fortunate on your gear, you can often be overwhelmed by a mob that you'd expect to kill easily based solely on its level. A poorly equipped warrior is a very weak warrior.

While leveling up, there are a few instances you can consider running. For Horde, you can start running Ragefire Chasm at level 13, and there are several quests available for it in Orgrimmar. You may have to do some grinding in Durotar to get all the quests available, but that's never a bad thing. Most alliance and a few horde may start running Deadmines at around level 15, which is to my mind one of the best designed and most fun instances in the game and which will see gear upgrades in the next patch. If you run it and get a green drop from a boss, hold onto it for a while, if the patch comes while you're still in possession of it you may get a nice upgrade. Just as both factions can run Deadmines but only the alliance get quests to, both factions can run Wailing Caverns at about level 16 or so, but only horde get quests that take them there. Since it is in the barrens, it's easier for Horde to run it, but the boat at Ratchet makes it possible for either group to get their fairly easily and there are some nice drops here for a warrior, many of which will be getting better in 2.3. Finally there'sShadowfang Keep, very accessible to the horde via the Sepulchre and somewhat less accessible to alliance via Southshore. Many of the drops in this instance, once improved by 2.3, will be worth keeping for a while.

General advice for leveling warriors would include taking a gathering profession. Skinning or mining are often good choices. Mining can help you take a crafting profession and level it for later in the game as well as selling your ores on the AH for gearing money (you probably won't be able to craft anything you'd actually use at this level, it's more aimed at later in the game) and skinning is good because at this level you often kill things that are skinnable, allowing you to auction or even vendor the skins for quick cash. Note that auctioning is almost always more profitable, but vendoring can be much faster if you're trying to level more quickly. 

At level 20, you gain the first of your 30 minute cooldown abilities, Retaliation. Once an absolute powerhouse of an ability worthy of having so long a cooldown, it's been nerfed since until it is merely a good ability, but at 20 you won't have any other panic button so it's still welcome. You'll also gain Cleave and Dual Wield if you so choose. I personally find DWing to be frustrating until I can talent and gear to reduce the miss chance and increase the offhand damage, so at level 20 I rarely do unless I'm trying to up a weapon skill by grinding relatively lower level mobs. Finally, at level 20 you gain a quest, either Yorus Barleybrew for alliance or Speak with Ruga for horde, that ultimately leads to the creation of an excellent mail chestplate for a warrior. Both the Fire Hardened Hauberk (seen on the Draenei next to today's post) and the Brutal Hauberk are well-worth getting for the XP as well as the items themselves. 

This should leave you in a good position to begin running to 60 once the patch comes out, if that's your intention.

Next week, we may tackle level's 21 - 40 or we may hit Outland for a 58-70 gear guide, or we may do something else. I know, I'm mercurial.


There's more to the next 20 levels than Taunt ->