PvP Warrior Guide

PVP Warrior: To Arms! Chances are you clicked on the link to read this article because your probably considering making a warrior but not sure where to start, suppressed by all the negative things about warriors floating around, or are seriously getting your butt kicked by warriors and need some first hand ideas on how to beat them. This article will address all of those things and go well into detail on fighting other classes, talent options, the donÂ’ts, and Macro suggestions. First and foremost, donÂ’t be discouraged by all the negative things going around about the warrior and the state of the current PVP system. The Warrior is a class that really starts to shine much later in the game, all of your talents and abilities start coming together and the PVP system is simply a mess right now. All these things combined can make a player understandably frustrated with selecting a warrior, giving up, and then posting negative things about the warrior. And with that letÂ’s move on. For PVP, you have a couple of choices in your warriorÂ’s direction, but I feel that only one is truly viable and that is the Arms tree. The other trees, Protection and Fury have very attractive abilities in them, but I can tell you first hand that they do not work.

The Protection Tree: At a first glance, this tree looks very attractive, and has awesome abilities to control the tempo of the fight, such as disarm, improved revenge, concussion blow and improved shield bash. But this route suffers from not being able to inflict enough damage on the enemy player, even with the recent changes to one handed weapon mastery; this tree does not offer any other source of damage.

The Fury Tree: The problem here is a lot of your talent commitment in this tree is garbage, getting to some of the abilities that really shine donÂ’t justify the things you have to invest in to get to, the 3rd layer of the tree is a good example of this, combined with the next layer which has Improved Execute and Enrage, both abilities you want, but you need to commit to something sub par. I firmly believe its very important to put all of your talent points to work with them being very scarce at higher levels.

The Arms Tree: This tree has everything you need and Ill explain why in further detail, it has a lot of great synergy with Improved Overpower, Axe Specialization/Polearm Specialization and Impale. And for any PVP Warrior it has the all important, Mortal Strike. By selecting the Arms tree over the other trees, your giving yourself the tools you need to fight other players that neither Protection nor Fury offers.

My Build: Deflection – 5/5 Improved Rend – 5/5 Improved Charge – 5/5 Tactical Mastery – 3/5 Deep Wounds – 3/3 Improved Overpower - 2/2 Two-Handed Weapon Specialization – 5/5 Impale - 2/2 Axe Specialization – 5/5 Sweeping Strikes – 1/1 Mortal Strike – 1/1 Cruelty – 5/5 Right now this is only covering up to level 46, which is more than enough to cover the bread and   butter of your warrior. And the rest of my Talents are unspent, and will more than likely find their way into the two defense passives of the Protection Tree such as Anticipation, toughness and/or Iron Will. Now ill go into detail with the important arms talents, IÂ’m not going to cover some that are there self explanatory, but the reasons for not selecting others will covered.

Tactical Mastery: ItÂ’s very important to be able switch to another stance and use ability right away, such as Pummel and Intercept or even disarm if youÂ’re crafty. But Disarm requires another point which is up to you. What I may end up doing here is once Intercept gets patched, Ill unlearn my talents and take out a point, right now Intercept is costing players 15 Rage.

Improved Overpower: This is your anti Rogue tool, with it you giving yourself a 50% increased critical strike chance, and this does stack with your existing critical strike chance. Rouges have abilities that increase their dodge chance, let them dodge all they want, because youÂ’re going to punish them for it.

Axe/Polearm Specialization: I really cant imagine not using one of these two weapons much later into the game in the arms tree, they improve your critical over all, as opposed to MaceÂ’s and Swords, which stack with nothing and are weak for a five point investment.

Sweeping Strikes: This is an anti mob tool only, has little application against players, but it does a good job against mobs allowing you to duplicate any attack you make on the two. I just hope you never have to use it against two players.

Mortal Strike: The holy grail of the arms tree. This ability is so important to a PVP warrior it easily dwarfs other abilities. The recent changes have a lot of players scratching their head including myself, but are understandable. With the old Mortal Strike at 200% Damage increase, with a Two Handed Weapon you could do 1500+ damage in one swing if Mortal Strike landed a critical at rate of ( Damage * 200% ) * 200%, With the new Mortal Strike that is no more at a rate of (Damage + Mortal Strike Damage) * 200%. This change is acceptable and makes it more applicable with One Handed Weapons. Some people may have other opinions on some talents, and ill go into some that I feel where worth mentioning

Improved Heroic Strike: This helps you early on when youÂ’re using heroic strike, but later on your simple going to stop using it all together. As I already said, I like to make sure IÂ’m always putting all my talent points to work.

Improved Thunder Clap: Thunder clap itself is very weak and only worth is against 4 or more mobs, and you should never be fighting that many at once, it has no PVP application.

Improved Hamstring: The amount that hamstring already reduces is by far enough to keep the player or mob in your Hand to Hand zone. And the amount it improves is very weak.

Player vs. Player: The Fight This section will go into the various battles with other classes, for the purpose of these examples, lets assume you just used your Retaliation / Shield Wall / Recklessness and it cannot be used for this fight. Because in most cases, you normally wont lose a fight when using these abilities against a player of equal level. All examples should follow using execute to finish off a player if the rage permits.

Druid: This is a fight you should never have a problem with, typically he will either entangle you and back off then try to kill you will spells or foolishly be in Animal form and fight you like that. In   most cases, Druids just try to get away from you.

Hunter: This fight is twofold, if he tracks you and Hunts you down; you have a problem, but if you charge him, apply Hamstring, and If the rage permits, use intimidating shout to remove his pet from the fight, your going to tear him up because heÂ’s just a sub par warrior at that point. But the other situation is where you problem is, he will hit you with a concussive shot, and sent his enormous pet barreling at you. You need to act quick, switch to Fury stance, activate Berserker rage then intercept him and change back to Battle Stance. This really difficult to do, but it can be done. The main thing you have to overcome is the initial stun from his concussive shot.

Mage: The most difficult fight of all, and the most frustrating, knowing that all you have to do is hit him once, its over, but a good mage never lets that happen. The fight is much like the Hunter fight, if you charge and hamstring itÂ’s almost a certain victory, but if he sees you first is the problem. If he sees you and you donÂ’t see him he will unload his high damage spell, Frost Nova you when you get into melee, hit you with more spells, Then Polymorph you and unload another round on you, almost a certain death and you never got into melee. The other circumstance is he sees you and you see him and he Polymorphs you, and fight flows the same way as the previous example. You need to get some Magic resistance, find some rings that give 10+ to your Arcane or Frost resistance; I prefer Frost resistance in attempt to resist his Frost Nova. You can also find other Magic Resistance Items and potions. So with all of the I have a macros that I can click that with automatically switch out those rings and Items for me. I will go into the macros in the next section. But again, switch to Fury Stance, Berserker rage and intercept him once you can.

Paladin: Probably the second toughest fight. The Paladin plans to outlast you as opposed to out damaging you, remember that is what you do better than him. What makes the match tough is that you want to keep sunder armoring him, but at the same time, you must keep Mortal Strike on him, or heÂ’s going to Holy Shield and heals up twice. ItÂ’s more important to keep Mortal Strike on him so donÂ’t compromise your rage. The battle always goes the same way, constantly exchanging hits until he gets less than half, at that point he shields up than heals, and if Mortal Strike wasnÂ’t on him when he healed, you lost. A more risky play is to save up all of your all of your rage, just exchange your hits, at about the point you expect him to shield, lay a mortal strike into him, and try to hit an execute. This has only worked for me once, most players donÂ’t chance the damage and shield at about half. But once you see his mana nearly depleted you know you won.

Priest/Warlock: simply put your easiest fights. You should have Berserker Rage, activate and have a field day. The priest fight is going to be longer, as he will try to fear you, active his shield and run, just pursue closely and once its gone, its over. Much easier if youÂ’re an Undead Warrior.

Rogue: Rogues are your worst nightmare before you hit level 35 or so, simply because your skills have not molded you into a fighting machine. You will fight many rouges, being its one of the most popular class choices. The fight is simple, he either has to out damage you and keep you stunned as much as possible, or fight you hand to hand, which at that point he will simply loose. Keep in mind; rouges have little armor in contrast to yours, and if you see them and charge first, you can win easily. If he goes into stealth, the fight becomes slightly more complicated, but he canÂ’t keep you stunned forever. Remember, without his stealth and stuns, he just a warrior with leather armor.

Shaman: This fight is about damage, and the enhancement Shaman is what you have to worry about. He can out damage and out heal you if your not careful, prevent any heal with pummel, but donÂ’t squander your rage. Keep damage pressure on him, once you interrupt his heal, the fight should be no problem.

Warrior: The fight will come down to levels, armor, and who has not used their Retaliation / Recklessness. Put a Mortal Strike on him at about half. If you have a potion use it about halfway, you donÂ’t want to be taken by surprise on an execute. The strange coincidence about this fight is   if youÂ’re fighting a fury warrior, youÂ’re in for it. Once you hit a critical on him, his enrage will kick in and his damage goes up, and his execute is cheaper than yours, so itÂ’s going to smash you hard. The best thing you can do is continue to sunder armor and hope his damage penalty exceeds the speed he can use his abilities in the fury tree.

Macros Create macros as you feel you need them, to switch out items, armor and weapons. There are many macro resources for you to use. The Blizzard forums are a great start and offer plenty of good solutions. I suggest making macros that with support what kind of player your fighting against, perhaps items with more resistance and less armor for casters, and vice versa. Also combining macros that equip items and use potions such as rage potions works well also.

Dual Wield / Shields I donÂ’t feel dual wield works well at all for a warrior. The damage penalty to your off hand it to great, and your rage generation is so poor with such low damaging weapons, you can never generate enough rage to use some abilities, it doesnÂ’t work well with overpower and sweeping strikes. The Fury tree is more idealistic for a dual wielding warrior although I still feel that you have to invest in to many weak skills in that tree for PVP. For shields, always keep a shield and a one handed weapon with you. This way when you do instances you can tank for other players.

Common Warrior Problems Far often I see warriors struggling and complaining, and they ask, what have I done wrong and why am I struggling, and I always ask them a few basic questions and those players typically answer themselves. Follow the next basic steps and you should be fine.

DonÂ’t Skip Plate: The first thing is at level 40, you will not be able to afford your mount and switch to plate, if youÂ’re a player that went for the mount and wonder why your struggling then your question has been answered, plate makes your life so much easier. DonÂ’t skip plate.

My Weapon Sucks:This is only possible if your not following through with large quests, there are so many quests out there that offer great items I donÂ’t see how you can possible have a sub par weapon. There are two key quests that offer you an incredible weapon, I donÂ’t like to spoil this for players, but if youÂ’re interested in finding them out you can search the web resources.

Go on Instance Runs: These places are the best places for items, quests and experience. Be sure your doing them. You can use and ware almost everything in the game so you can really benefits from a good group when players pass on items they can only use. You should get every plate item, and chances are every weapon that you can use comes your way.

Stamina and Strength: You should focus your attributes into these two, your damage benefits from strength and your life from stamina, you need both. DonÂ’t compromise either. That concludes most of everything I was hoping to say in this Guide. Believe me when I say I have re-rolled my talents 4+ times to try everything the warrior has to offer and its not uncommon to be disappointed and burnt out at times. Remember not to be discouraged when you get mobbed by higher level players, you cannot do anything about that, and until PVP gets changes thereÂ’s nothing you can do. Just stick with it, every character has its pitfalls, because I promise you, the Warrior is very rewarding later on.  

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