Wow Warrior Guide

[burners]

Feeling a little angry? Hot rage flowing through your veins after a trogg killed and ate your dog Fluffy? Yeah, me too, you picked the right class, warrior, let’s kick some arse!



Ok, not just yet, first pick a race, any race, it doesn’t matter, they can all be warriors, some better then others, Humans on alliance get some nice bonuses for weapon skills and Tauren on the horde for a boost to life. Really, any race can kill, it all comes down to life, as each race differs, you are a mainly tank class, problem is you don’t have self heals so it’s best to have a lot of life.



Now, go create a vicious killing machine and come back for some lessons before we send you out to slaughter. Back? Great, let’s get you familiar with movement and your GUI. To move you just use the arrow keys, click and hold both mouse buttons at once, numlock for auto run and space bar, as always, is jump.



So, you can move, that’s cool, but you still need to know how to navigate. In the upper right-hand corner of your screen is your map, this is pretty simple to understand. When you travel around grey arrows will appear, these are pointing to the nearest towns. There are other arrows as well, like say you die, then you get an orange arrow on your map pointing to your body and a light yellow arrow represents team mates. Also, when you team, your team mate will appear as small dots with yellow rings around them on your map so they are easy to find.



Map learned, cool, still have buttons and backpacks. Let’s do buttons first, on the bottom left are icons with little numbers next to them. Those numbers coincide with the number row above all your letter keys. Press one, you attack normally, press two you use heroic strike. Simple as pie…well, pie is a little more complicated, but you understand.



Now, when you begin a battle you can’t use heroic strike instantly, that’s because, if you look to your upper left, you have no rage. The empty bar next to your picture is you rage bar, you need to fill that, to do that you just attack a monster and get hit, hit it, or block a hit.



In short rage is just like mana is to a mage or combo points to a rogue. You have to build rage up to use skills but don’t worry, you get a skill later that gives you rage without fighting, sure you take damage, but it’s worth it.



So now you know how warriors slaughter and I bet you are itching to get out and draw blood in the name of Fluffy, but you can’t, not yet. I need to give you the run down about bags and quests and the little icons to the right of the attack bar, talents, plus there are still stances to go over.



Time for the next set of icons! To your right you will see the next set of icons, these consist of game settings, quest log and character information, take a peek around. To your further right you will see an icon on the far bottom right, which is your backpack, right click to open it. In here you will see some heal items and a stone called a hearthstone.



Now the hearthstone is super nifty, just talk to your local Inn keeper and tell him you want to rest. Doing this makes it so that when you right-click the stone you are teleported straight to the last Inn you rested at. This is really nice when you want to return from a quest quickly or just want to skip on the long run from the middle of no where. You can only use it once per hour though so use wisely. There are also four other slots next to the backpack for further bags that you can find or buy later on.



Look around at the people near you, you should see a guy around you with an exclamation point above his head, talk to him, he has a quest for you.



Anyone you see with exclamation points above their heads has quests for you. After you complete the quest an orange question mark will appear over the NPC’s head showing that they are ready to give you a reward. Now, get your first quest and go draw blood in the name of Fluffy!



After you complete a quest or two you should been two or three and get a quest to see your trainer, lets go seem him. If you don’t have the quest look around for someone offering a quest, it should be there. After you have reached your trainer take a look at your skills, pretty straight forward. Here is some of what you should see.



• Battle Shout- Very nice skill, it increases yours and your party’s attack power for a short time. Level this up for sure.

• Charge- This is just what it says, you charge your target to start the battle, very nice since it stuns the target as well.

• Thunder Clap- This skill is great against multiple monsters because it slows attack speed of the monsters.

• Heroic Strike- You’ve been using it, you know, just damage.

• Parry- Get this, very nice when you parry away an enemies attack.

• Hamstring- This is great for running away from a single target. It does low damage but slows the target for a short time, enough to get away.

• Blood rage- This is the skill that you use when not in a battle to give you rage so that you might open combat with a special skill. It damages you but gives you rage points.

• Rend- This is just a DOT that does some decent damage.

• Shield Bash- Great for using against those pesky mages, does little damage but stops spell casting and prevents another spell from that class to be cast for a short time.

• Overpower- Useful only if your target blocks and you have to be watching for it but it does weapon damage plus a set amount on top of that.

• Demoralizing Shout- An awesome skill reducing the attack power of enemies for a short time, very nice.



There you can see a good list of the basic skills, there are others but you will understand them when you read them. Now let’s touch some on talents, one of the finer things you get at level ten aside from a pretty number.



Talents are special skills that you get from ten on, and every one of these skills can be reset, in open beta. Once the game launches be careful where you put your talents, this beta will give you a chance to learn.



What you want to focus on as a warrior is defensive talents Parry under the Arms talents and Shield block under Protection. You are the one who will take the most damage, its best to be able to reduce the damage as much as you can and avoid it if at all possible. Just remember, a tank can’t do its job if it doesn’t have its armor, that would be like a human stopping a bullet with his naked chest, it just doesn’t work all that well.





So, now down to some fine tuning, we have one more thing to learn about, that is stances.



There are three types of stances: Battle Stance, Defensive Stance and Berserker Stance. You start of with Battle Stance, this it the little icon above the rest of your hot keys. As your progress through the game you will attain the other two stances from quests. Be careful when in battle that you don’t switch stances unless intentionally because it will cause you to lose all your rage. Each stance gives you bonuses and allows you to use different skills. Let’s describe each one in detail-



• Battle Stance- This Stance is best used when you are soloing because it gives you more high damage moves and opens up a lot of health and damage altering skills. Skills opened by Battle Stance –

1. Charge

2. Overpower

3. Thunderclap

4. Mocking Blow



• Defensive Stance- Use this when you are tanking since it boosts your armor rating and allows you to take less damage when you will be taking the brunt of it. Skills opened by Defensive Stance-

1. Shield block

2. Revenge

3. Disarm

4. Taunt



• Berserker Stance- This is just when you go insane because Fluffy is dead and you can’t take it anymore! You will deal more damage but also take more, really best when you have someone else tanking so you don’t take huge amounts of damage and die. Skills opened by Berserker Stance-

1. Whirl Wind

2. Recklessness

3. Cleave

4. Berserker Rage



Now that you see how each stance works and where to use them and understand how rage and your skills work you are more then ready to slaughter in the name of Fluffy. Just remember that while you are strong, can take on multiple enemies and gut them like a pig doesn’t mean you are immortal.



Healers like Priests, Druids, and Paladins are your closest friends. Team with them to do harder quests and to level faster by taking on harder monsters. Remember to keep doing the quests to get nice gear, money and great experience rewards, and don’t forget to keep your armor up to date. Iron Forge Auction house is a great place to get armor and weapons, make sure to visit there if you are alliance. With power like yours, you’ll make Fluffy proud!



Have fun gutting,