Warrior - Dps or Tank?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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new to Warrior class never really touch them or melee in general but yes i can heal/dps wanting to learn to tank or experience tanking in classic then try in retail.

i already know imma get asked to tank 5mans so i was wondering is it just better to go more of a prot build or stick to more of a dps build? i do plan to tank until end game and possibly raiding; i dont mind leveling speed being slow ive literally leveled in retail long ago in full healing spec and yes it took me a very long time this was back when i didn’t know how to play nor did dungeons to level.

i can swap dps at end game if need be but of course i do plan to tank at some point and i have no lv 60’s in classic. end goal - just to learn how to tank in classic; leveling speed isn’t an issue.

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DPS or Tank? Yes.

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You can tank everything up until lvl 50 stuff with a dps build. Also, you can tank everything up until about SM Cath or RFD with a 2 hander.

Most likely, you won’t find a steady raid tank role, so you’ll be fury for raiding. Good news is, fury is the best dps in the game at this point. Bad news is, you’re going to need quite a bit of gear to make it work, and you’re going to be tanking for that gear and rolling against plenty or rogues and other fury warriors. If you go for the standard preraid bis build, you’ll be spending a ton of cash. Especially for Edgemasters. Warriors are fun, but to really get the best out of them, you have to commit. Also, warriors really shine their brightest with support, so you’ll want to be in a quality guild to help you get all that gear you’ll need.

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You can tank everything in the game until they literally rework Warrior so you can’t tank without being prot. Not sure which expansion did that, but it was after Wrath at some point. I tanked everything, including Raids in Vanilla through Wrath as Arms no issues.

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If you build your warrior as fury, you will have the easiest time tanking, but leveling especially it doesn’t really matter what spec you are to tank anything 5 man. It is easier as prot of fury but arms can tank as well if you need too. If you learn how to use the warrior this is more important then spec in 99 perc of the cases.

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Going with a prot build is maybe one of the most edge-casey cases among the edge cases.

Personally, I really like the Arms tree, and always have.

In Classic, you could probably select skills in any tree at random, as a warrior, and still be able to tank 5 man instances, relatively OK.

There are some variations on how you might want to spec while leveling, but personally, I’d got for 31 points into Arms as a priority, to get Mortal Strike.

Some might prefer to get 5 points into Cruelty in the Fury tree earlier on toe increase crit chance. You could that that first, after your 31 points in Arms, or later/never, but it’s pretty nice.

Here’s more or less a base build that I would level/PVP with as a warrior, that leaves 4 points as situational:
https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/warrior/023250213515100001-05-5023001

Some may argue a couple of my decisions here. And I would argue some of them, also, situationally, but I like this for an all around build (without having a strong preference for what to do with the remaining 4 points. Obviously, Last Stand is a pretty strong choice for 1 of those points, and I think if someone is using this base, in most cases, that’s a good choice.

But, beyond that, 3/3 Imp Revenge vs say 3/5 Booming Voice or Demo Shout, or 3/3 Heroic Strike, might be some considerations, and I’d likely swap out depending on content, if Classic was similar to Retail in allowing that.

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That’s interesting!

I started to come of age, I suppose you could say, as a Tank during Wrath, and was under the impression that you needed 10K health, and (I forget the exact numbers now), but def cap as your sort of “pre-bis” set, i.e. tank heroics, ready to start tanking raids.

Even though we got dual spec at some point during Wrath, I very much stuck to a tanking spec/role for a long time, and was loathe to work on my DPS as a warrior in particular (though I did play all tanking classes, and at least druid, dk, warrior in end-game, during wrath).

It took me a while to warm up to Warrior DPS, and I still would trade the Fury Tree for a Paladin’s Holy Tree in a heartbeat, if I could. I have never liked Fury.

EDIT:

And yes, the Holy tree would benefit a lot from the Crit from the Fury Tree, but I think a 31 Arms/20 Holy spec (even if you lost the ability to wear plate) would be a very fun Warrior Monk.

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Dont lvl as prot itll be painful just go fury or arms and keep an up to date shield for instances. Talk to your healer to see if they even want your shield on sometimes the enemies dont do enough damage to warrant a shield.

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I don’t personally think Fury is that great at lower levels, if you don’t have +hit (and are going dual wield), but Arms with a two-hander is.

Shields aren’t really as good as you might think, and I wouldn’t assume that a healer would (or should) have a better idea of how you should play your class than you.

If you don’t know what your stances do, read the tooltips, and understand that. If you don’t know what your shield does, read the tooltip, and understand that.

There’s a pretty good guide from early Classic on Tanking, specifically for instance tanking (there’s also a lot of good discussion in the comments):

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Fury tanking is for raids. Tanking 5-mans is much easier with prot unless you have epic gear due to imp taunt, conc blow, etc.

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Which 5-mans?

For higher level, e.g. Strath/Scholo/DM, maybe if your DPS isn’t better geared than you and your healer isn’t specc’ed for healing.

But, this is situational. In some situations TPS is the only thing that matters, and Prot doesn’t seem to be the best TPS.

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You’re not going to have the gear to DW fury and cleave in a 5-man as a fresh 60 or leveler because your hit will be 0% with no crit to support flurry. Prot is great while leveling and fresh 60 if you’re tanking because you can just juggle taunt/conc, sunder is cheaper, etc.

I mean you can do it, but it doesn’t really shine until you get some decent gear and with trash prot is better for a 5-man. We’re not talking about holding aggro on raid dps.

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While levelling you don’t have a choice. You will tank and get into any group you want to or you won’t tank and never get into a group.

For tanking dungeons arms/prot is actually the best build.

Fury/prot is poor for dungeons because you can’t stance dance, but it is the premier warrior raid spec.

Full prot is primarily an offtank spec. It feels great to play and it is much more powerful than fury/prot while playing solo/PvPing, but I wouldn’t touch it before 60.

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Sure.

Meh.

I’d say Arms puts you in a better situation as a fresh 60, maybe with some points into Prot, because you can still do decent DPS, and tanks are pretty easy to come by.

So are very well geared DPS and Healers.

And you won’t have issues holding threat in a deep Arms spec.

Of course, that’s my personal preference. Playstyle, and player behavior will determine what’s best for the individual, among other things, I suppose.

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I understand what stances do thanks also you can do 2 hand fury it’s not as good as arms but it isnt bad. When I’m saying talk to your healer I’m not suggesting that he ask him how to tank I’m suggesting that he find what the healer is comfortable with adapting to the pug situation is generally best.

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Arms/prot is the best dungeon tank spec. You’re super durable and you can hold aggro REALLY well.

Full prot feels amazing to play but I wouldn’t touch it before 60.

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DW fury is bad in dungeons anyway. If you get knocked back you’ll waste the entire pull trying to get aggro back while your healer runs away and hopefully keeps himself alive

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Personally I leveled as deep prot. It really wasn’t that bad. If I had to do it again though, I’d probably go fury.

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Certainly, as a level 60 warrior, I would expect that you do. That comment was not aimed at you.

The context was:

Which is likely true for someone who is new to Warrior. Stances aren’t a thing in Retail at the moment, so I wouldn’t expect most people to know that if they hadn’t played Classic and are playing warrior for the first time.

I feel like this is something that could be proven with numbers, but there’s also some subjective preference here. (I say this, because I’ve personally never liked Fury, and so have never been very good with Fury - in Retail, though I have mained warrior for several expacs).

That’s exactly what I’m responding to. If you are leveling in pugs, I would not (personally) expect my healer to know enough about how stances work (and how shields work) to be able to give a reasonable response to any communication of this, unless you are trying to gauge metrics in realtime with the healer during the instance (and that seems like it would require a lot of communication - an unnecessary amount, imo).

But, to be fair, when I leveled my warrior, I always said at the start of runs, something like,

“I’m using a two hander. I’ll swap to shields when I have a lot of phys dmg mobs on me, but if you feel I should be using a sword and board for the whole run, then let me know.”

Because some people don’t care about metrics, and don’t understand what’s going on, so they will point the finger if something goes wrong at what they don’t understand.

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Does fury even work for levelling, considering how starved for hit you are and the fact that Flurry is almost a non-factor?

I thought Fury was the consensus pick for worst levelling spec, was I wrong to think that?

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