Vanilla Warrior Leveling Tips

Even if you do not like to follow a guide, it helps when you do not where to go next.

General Tips

  • Keep battle-shout up and get used to it for the rest of your Warrior life!
  • Grind green mobs along the way, scout for chests, do kill quests, use rested bonus (log out in inns/capital cities)
  • Pick and level Skinning and your non-Engineering (final moneymaker) profession during leveling. Sell leather and keep some for leveling Engineering later
  • At lvl16 and above you are fine to tank dungeons, regardless of spec as long as you have a one-handed weapon, a shield and Tactical Mastery
  • Do not buy items off the AH or vendors, save the gold to get your 60% mount (you probably won't get it at lvl40 right away without friends lending)

Talents

31/20/0 leveling spec

31/20/0 Arms is best for leveling. It provides damage value on every tier compared to Fury, which only yields cruelty on the 1st tier and has a drought till the 4th tier (enrage). Arms also includes tactical-mastery which is great for tanking in dungeons and world PvP.

First 31 points into Arms:

  1. 3/3 improved-rend
  2. 2/5 deflection
  3. 2/2 improved-charge (or take 2/5 tactical-mastery first, if you intend to start tanking already)
  4. 3/5 tactical-mastery
  5. 2/2 improved-overpower
  6. 3/3 deep-wounds
  7. 2/2 impale
  8. 2/5 two-handed-weapon-specialization
  9. 4/5 tactical-mastery
  10. 1/1 sweeping-strikes
  11. 5/5 axe-specialization
  12. 5/5 two-handed-weapon-specialization
  13. 5/5 tactical-mastery
  14. 1/1 mortal-strike

Then the last 20 points into Fury:

  1. 5/5 cruelty
  2. 5/5 booming-voice
  3. 1/1 piercing-howl
  4. 3/3 blood-craze
  5. 1/5 improved-battle-shout
  6. 5/5 enrage

Axe spec is always preferred while leveling, even if you do not always have an axe. You have some freedom with the Tactical Mastery, Two-Handed Weapon Specialization, Improved Charge and Improved Hamstring talents (indicated by *). If you do not (need to) kite or you play on a PvE server, you may want to skip improved-hamstring completely. In the Fury tree, you may also want to substitute Booming Voice with unbridled-wrath and Blood Craze with more points in Improved Battle Shout (again indicated by *).

Skills NOT to buy

Do not train all class skills from the trainer while leveling! The primary objective is to have enough gold at lvl40 to buy the normal 60% mount.

  • Only learn up to rend, DO NOT buy the higher ranks. At lvl40 and above you want to prefer spamming your 31pt talent skill. Even starting with lvl10, sunder-armor should be preferred
  • Only learn thunder-clap, DO NOT buy the higher ranks
  • Only learn shield-bash, DO NOT buy higher ranks
  • Only learn mocking-blow, DO NOT buy the higher ranks
  • Only learn cleave, DO NOT buy the higher ranks
  • Only get intercept from the quest, DO NOT buy higher ranks. Maybe wait a few levels with the quest (lvl32-34)
  • DO NOT buy ANY rank of slam
  • Only learn pummel, DO NOT buy Rank 2

Gear

  • Anything items with Str, Agi, Stam (greens with Tiger/Bear/Monkey suffixes) work. It does not need to be mail or plate gear.
  • Always use your best weapons, it does not matter whether that is a 2-hand or 2 1-h weapons! Even if you are Arms and 2-hand specced!
  • Starting at lvl30: work towards whirlwind-axe

Finally 60! What now?

You may also want to improve your gear, make some gold and optimize your supply chain.