The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling Up 41 - 58

The Care and Feeding of Warriors heads into the home stretch of this series of leveling guides with a look at the levels that used to be just before endgame, and which now are just before stepping through the dark portal. Luckily, Matthew Rossi has so many warriors that it's not terribly hard to find one he hasn't leveled that far yet. The poor tauren warrior in today's header was actually his first tauren warrior, only to fall away neglected when he rerolled on Malfurion. Looks lonely, doesn't he?We've covered getting your new warrior up and running, and we've covered getting her or him through the mid-level game. Now it's time to talk about the time before you can go to Outland, when you're finally wearing plate, running some of the most well designed instances in the game (hopefully, anyway) and finally getting access to the highest tiers of talents.

I've been asked in previous posts to tell people what talents to pick for the fastest leveling. I haven't done that because it really depends on if you're playing solo or grouping often. If you're running groups with a pack of like-minded, same level friends, then Protection is the strongest talent tree for leveling. Running instances and doing instance quests will get you to 58 faster than soloing, and Protection is probably the most useful spec for a single warrior in a five man group. If, however, you're going to be spending a lot of time solo, then Arms is probably the easiest spec to level in. Get some decent 'of the bear' or 'of the tiger' greens, keep them updated every couple of levels, get the biggest, meanest two hand weapon you can and go to town. I personally leveled my most recent warrior (draenei) to 55 in Fury just because I'd used arms for my human, my tauren and my orc (my night elf was all over the place) and while it can be more difficult, it's not as bad as you'll often be told it is if you have the right gear. Patch 2.3 has actually gone a long way towards fixing itemization for the leveling fury warrior. Either way, Arms or Fury are better for leveling than Protection if you are spending the majority of your time soloing. If you're running a lot of instances, go Prot.

These are the levels where you can actually feel your spec. Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam are in your grasp, the former kings of their respective talent trees. You'll be able to go 41 points in a tree, should you so desire, by level 50. So it is in this band that you'll be able to say 'I'm a Prot Warrior' and really be accurate.

Unlike previous posts in the series, this one is going to focus on talent trees because, frankly, you only get one ability between 41 and 58. It's a good one, though. At level 50, you get Recklessness. The cooldown is another atrociously long 30 minute shared cooldown (quite frankly, these three abilities either need to have their cooldown reduced to ten minutes or be delinked from each other so that using one doesn't lock the other two out for half an hour - just make them like the 20 minute shaman totems in that using one sets the other two on a cooldown so that you can't chain all three at once) but once used, you have fifteen seconds of almost assured critical hits, unless the target has some specific way to neutralize them. You also can't crit people if, say, you pop Recklessness and they root you and run away, or sheep you, or whatever. So make sure you're okay with possibly wasting the ability if you do use it. With those conditions kept in mind, Recklessness is an excellent ability for PvE DPS (especially on boss fights - how many times has a DPSing warrior seen a boss heading towards 20% health and begun hoarding rage for that big recked execute? fifteen seconds of guaranteed crits from more than one DPSing warrior when the boss is at 19% is a beautiful thing, if your tank is ready for it) and for PvP as well. You'll very rarely use it while tanking, as it increases the damage you take as well. I have used it once or twice as an emergency fear break when it was essential that I break a fear and I hadn't gotten my stance switched in time, but it hurts losing Shield Wall for that, so you'll try and get stance switching down instead.

Since you're now done reading about abilities you'll gain in this level range without considering talents, it's time to consider those abilities that are talent related, as they'll be the majority of new abilities you'll train. While levels 1 - 20 didn't really change much based on spec, and levels 21 - 40 were only starting to feel different from warrior to warrior based on spec, these levels are where you will be able to easily spot warriors of various specs.

We'll begin with Protection talented abilities. At 31 points in Protection, meaning level 40 at the earliest (and usually later) you can train one of the single best tanking aggro talents in the game, Shield Slam. For some reason, hitting things in the face with a shield really, really irritates them. It does nice damage (no one's going to mistake you for a DPS class using it, but it can deliver a solid punch) and also dispels magic effects about half of the time, making it very useful for when taking a mob with annoying magical abilities. And if you're planning on being a dedicated tanking warrior, at level 50 you can get the best of the three warrior 41 point abilities, Devastate. I say best because, to my mind, now that the sunder armor effect is built right into Devastate, it's the best realized and most indispensable for its planned role of the three talents. Arms warriors will often avoid their 40 point talent entirely, while Fury warriors are less likely to do so with theirs. But Devastate now does exactly what it should do, and I unabashedly recommend it for any protection warrior. (I was not as big a fan of the ability when I last discussed tanking, but I really like the changes to it.)

I'm going to take a moment and editorialize here. Both Arms and Fury are often more popularthan Protection, but frankly Prot is the best designed talent tree. Spending 48 points or more in Prot to become a dedicated tank is, in my opinion, the best results for investment in the game. A Fury warrior may go as high as 41 points to get Rampage, and an Arms warrior usually stops at 31 or so (I always go higher because I love Second Wind) but very few tanks will stop so low in Prot. If the folks at Blizzard who designed the world's single best-selling and most played MMO in the entire history of the genre for some reason decided to seek the advice of some dude whose main claim to fame was writing a really weird book that has nothing to do with gaming, I would tell them that they should redesign Arms and Fury so that people were less willing to forgo their higher tier talents, but Protection for the most part I would leave alone. It really is the dedicated tanking tree, and it does exactly what it should do. 

Don't worry, I still hate static threat as it is currently implemented. But Protection just worksto increase warrior tanking survivability and help them increase their aggro generation. It makes a man want to create a host of little shield babies.

Now that I've had my fanboy gush over Prot, let's talk about Arms, the spec I usually end up in. While it's generally thought of as the PvP spec, it's also a nice spec for leveling as the burst damage is high enough to finish off most mobs, it's not as gear dependent as Fury and it has low tier abilities like Deflection and Improved Thunder Clap that help mitigate damage coming in. However, can I talk about Arms warriors without talking about Mortal Strike? Yes, I could, just as I could swim in piranha infested waters or insult an extremely large and violent man's mother, but just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.

Things to keep in mind: Mortal Strike does not cause people to fall over dead the second you use it. Amazingly enough, based on what other people will tell you, Mortal Strike is a reasonably high damage instant attack (it's nice when it crits) but at the levels we're discussing, you will fail to get what all the hype is about. (Hint: the hype is about PvP, my friends). Don't make the mistake of growing overconfident just because you have a great big sword, axe, mace or polearm and you can whack things mortally with it. The ability really shines when you have a higher crit rate and more attack power, so for the 41 - 58 warrior it's more of a nice utility than the dedicated damage ability it will become. Use it, just don't expect too much of it. It doesn't one shot warlocks, cause rogues in the area to destealth immediately, or call a host of a thousand Spartans to your side. If you're fighting mobs that you know cast a heal, try and keep it in reserve for when you can't interrupt their heals for whatever reason. 

If you're intending to PvP, this is the tree for you. Most PvP specced warriors will go with some variation of a 31 point Arms/ 30 point Fury build. For leveling, I don't recommend that because you won't be able to spend that many points in two trees anyway. But you may want to stop at MS and cherry pick the excellent lower tier Fury abilities like Cruelty, Booming Voice, Commanding Presence and Piercing Howl. I always get 5 points in Cruelty no matter what I'm doing. However, there are some excellent higher tier Arms abilities for leveling, even if they're not as well regarded by most for PvP - Blood Frenzy is an efficient talent for increasing your damage especially if you'll be causing bleeds to your targets already, Second Wind helps with a small chunk of health regeneration and a nice dollop of rage when you're stunned meaning that you'll be able to use offensive abilities immediately after breaking out of the stun (Second Wind keeps ticking even after you're not stunned anymore, so you can use a stunbreak and still tick some rage) and if you feel starved for rage, Endless Rage is the 41 point talent. I like it, but you won't see a lot of PvP warriors going anywhere near it.

Finally, for our leveling Fury warriors, the first ability of note is Bloodthirst. (If you've gotten to 41 as a Fury warrior, you most likely already have Enrage and Flurry.) I used to hateBloodthirst, and it's been through more changes than almost any other ability. (I'm sure several other abilities were changed more and I'm equally sure you'll be letting me know which ones in the comments, I trust you guys) - it now deals damage based on 45% of your current attack power (Battle Shouted if you have it up) and gives the next five strikes you land a chance to heal you for 20 points. Okay, so the heal isn't really anything to sing about, but the ability itself is nice damage, it can be used even when you're unarmed, and it's a better instant attack than Mortal Strike if you're dual wielding, as it will be hitting those next five attacks while the Bloodthirst buff is up. Bloodthirst directly benefits from the 41 point Fury talent, Rampage. The attack power boost of Rampage, combined with the attack speed buff of Flurry, can reach critical mass if your crit rating is high enough to cause 'perma-flurry', the state where you crit often enough that almost all of your melee attacks are receiving the attack speed buff of flurry. You'll also, therefore, be critting enough that almost all of your attacks are under the attack power buff of Rampage, making each Bloodthirst hit harder. To ensure that the damage of your white hits isn't wasted during all this, you'll most likely want to take Precision as well. The top tier Fury talents have a nice PvE DPS synergy, but they do require a bit more in gearing yourself up than does Arms. You want attack power (Strength), crit rating (+crit and/or agi, with +crit being more efficient for the purpose as Agility adds to other stats as well), as much staying power as you can get (Stamina) and enough +hit to keep from missing all the time while dual wielding. It's a little easier to itemize since many pieces of gear have been updated, making them better for up and coming Fury warriors. 

Finally, there is the level 50 class quest to consider. It begins by sending you to the Blasted Lands to talk to the Fallen Hero of the Horde, who after making you jump through the usual 'kill x of y' quest hoops sends you into the Sunken Temple to collect Voodoo Feathers from the trolls in there. No, I don't know why a ghost needs feathers from voodoo trolls, I'm just trying to do a quest over here. The quest rewards are the Fury Visor, the Razorsteel Shoulders, and the Diamond Flask. It's a shame you can't get all three, although it needs to be said that all three of them are more DPS than tanking oriented. I'm just saying, a nice +def or high stam tanking weapon wouldn't be amiss here.

Since we've already covered a novel's worth here, I'll leave it up to you commenters: should next week be an instance and gear guide for these levels, or should we move on to Outland? For now, I'm leaning towards Outland, but I can be convinced to spend more time here.

Get to the Outlands already! ->

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 ->