• 1.0 - Introduction
• 2.0 - Talents
• 3.0 - Skills and Stats
• 4.0 - Off-hand Weaponry
• 5.0 - Enchantments
• 6.0 - Gems
• 7.0 - Pre-Karazhan Gear Guide
• 8.0 - 1-80 Warrior Leveling Guide

This guide is simply intended to provide a general overview of the (Fury) Warrior class. For a more in-depth and highly detailed resource on all Warriors, from leveling to PvP to Raiding to earning gold, check out the Killer Guides' Warrior guide.

1.0 - The Fury Warrior

Fury warriors rank amongst my top three in terms of favored class and build, combining the awesome looks of plate armored warriors with the berserk fast-paced damage dealing capabilities of a true death-dealer.

Dual-wield is a large part of both the fury warriors image as well as general style of play, leading a role of primarily raid DPS and, should you choose to endure the pains, PvP or even arena play. 

Unfortunately the role of fury warriors has somewhat diminished from previous good times, however, it still remains an entirely viable raging whirlwind of destruction.

For more Warrior info, also see our Warrior Class Guide and Warrior Leveling Guide

2.0 - Talents

Fury Leveling Builds

A large part of what makes your fury warrior viable, having made the decision to properly gear/learn the correct rotations and so on, is the talent build you choose.

This isn't the "be all and end all" of builds, no build is. As always you can pick and choose which talents you agree with taking and perhaps drop a few points in more than a couple to pick up your own preferences, the pre-made build is only intended to provide a guide-line to establishing your own personalized style and build.

Many of the choices you make can be altered dependant on your level of gear.  Decked out DPS warriors from black temple, sunwell, and the Wrath Raids will require less of the rage generation talents and generally shoot for purely increased damage, lesser geared warriors may need more +hit and so on. Some talents are great for groups and useless otherwise.

Try the basic build and work out whatever you're missing/need to boost, move from there.

To get to level 80 as fast as possible, see our recommended leveling guide, below

Glyphs:

• Major:
  1. Glyph of Hamstring - Gives your Hamstring ability a 10% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.
  • Options: Heroic Strike and/or Execution
  2. Glyph of Bloodthrist - Increases the healing you receive from your Bloodthirst ability by 100%.
  3. Glyph of Whirlwind - Reduces the cooldown of your Whirlwind by 2 sec.
• Minor:
  1. Glyph of Battle - Increases the duration of your Battle Shout ability by 1 min.
  2. Glyph of Bloodrage - Reduces the health cost of your Bloodrage ability by 100%.
  3. Glyph of Charge - Increases the range of your Charge ability by 5 yards.

Patch 3.1 19/52/0 Fury leveling build - using dual weild to turn your warrior into an engine of mob destruction. Always keep yourself in the best weapons that you can afford/find.

2-hand weapon users, and those using weapon and shield, can drop the 5 points in Dual Weild and put them into Enrage. Look into getting into 2-hand weapon specialization in the arms tree.

2.1 - Attack Rotation at 40:

Bloodthirst is your main DPS strike at this level.

Auto-Attack - Bloodthirst - Whirlwind - Heroic Strike or Cleave (Excess Rage Only )

Rampage, if you have it, will refresh off your crits.

Slam becomes instant after your bloodthirst crits, so that's when you work it in.

2.2 - Level 80 PvP Fury Builds

From the Arena Junkies (AJ) site:

• 18/53/0 - 2 handed wpn build
• Arms:
  • 5/5 Deflection
  • 2/3 Iron Will
  • 3/3 Tactical Mastery
  • 2/2 Impale
  • 3/3 Deep Wounds
  • 3/3 Two handed weapon specialization
• Fury
• 3/3 Armored to the Teeth
• 2/2 Booming Voice
• 5/5 Cruelty
• 1 Piercing Howl
• 3/3 Blood Craze
• 2/5 Commanding Presence
• 5/5 Dual Weild
• 3/3 Precision
• 1 Death Wish
• 2/2 Improved Intercept
• 5/5 Flurry
• Bloodthirst
• 2/2 Improved Whirlwind
• 2/2 Furious Attacks
• 5/5 Improved Berserker Stance
• Heroic Fury
• Rampage
• 3/3 Bloodsurge
• 5/5 Unending Fury
• Titan's Grip

Major Glyphs to use:

• Glyph of Whirlwind
• Glyph of Bloodthirst
• Glyph of Hamstring OR Glyph of Execution

Is your PvP happening in the areana, BGs, or the open world? Are you laregly solo or do you have a pet healer? DK? Rogue? Shammie? Adjust your build accordingly. The Killer Warrior Guide contains more builds, plus strategies, tips, and a ton of Wrath Ready Warrior goodness to help you do just that. Get yours here.

3.0 - Skills and Stats

This section is dedicated to covering the numerous different stats you may wish to stack, hit rating, STR, crit, weapon expertise, etc.

Hit rating cap: 5% is the cap for all specials, 24% for dual weild. At level 80 32.8 rating gets you 1% hit. Raid bosses require more hit rating than leveling.

Now, using the first two numbers we’ll work out what you want to pick up first, and what can be maximized after you’ve achieved the essentials for DPS’ing.

First things first you’ll want a minimum of around 6 – 7% hit rating, that’s for bottom rank DPS even, more is always welcome beyond this point, however if you’re just pushing to make it into Karazhan or an equivalent dungeon then you’ll barely make it by with that amount.

Another point is about a common misconception surrounding +hit.  The more you hit does not magically = more criticals, instead +hit simply increases your white damage and +crit will always aid even at 0 hit rating.

However, given that white damage is quite a bit of help, especially in long battles as well as building rage, +hit is still a very valuable tool of guaranteed DPS increase, especially given the high miss chance of dual-wielding.

In general stacking up on STR is most effective at lower gear levels and becomes less so as your average abilities increase. +crit will eventually surpass str by a slight amount at the highest levels of gear/buffs.

Always try and increase damage stats along with +hit, never focus singularly on one stat to the exclusion of others as this will inevitably result in reducing your damage capabilities.

Finally, armor penetration rocks, especially once you have a lot of it.  Armor penetrations has a lot of math behind how it functions and such, however suffice to say that the more the merrier, just don’t gimp straight damage stats to obtain it.

4.0 - Off-hand Weaponry

Another question I encounter frequently is that of whether to pick up a slower or faster off-hand, fortunately this is a fairly easy issue to ignore entirely given minute differences either way.  Still, the basic issue is generally about flurry charges and other such procs/abilities.

Slow off-hands are technically better, however the improvement is slight enough to make it worthwhile to simply equip whatever weapon has the best stats on it as opposed to factoring in weapon speed.

Don’t drop a fast-offhand simply because it’s fast, only do so should you find an available slower off-hand with equal or greater stats, doing otherwise will simply reduced your effectiveness. 

Furthermore, as your crit rating climbs the less of effect slow vs fast becomes as all benefits of a slow off-hand are based upon yellow(special attack) criticals, not white damage.

5.0 - Enchants

For anything below the 80-90 DPS range, basically prior to picking up your real epics, either a crusader or potency enchantment will do, whichever comes cheaper honestly.  Still, you should be picking up some high damage weaponry quite easily given the increased access to gladiator gear nowadays.

Beyond blues and greens it’s a general rule of thumb to throw Executioner on main hand and either mongoose or potency off-hand, never use executioner on both as so far as I can tell the enchantments effects will *not* stack.

At the high end berserking adds a lot of DPS, but has an armor penalty. The penalty is 5% with a single weapon and 10% if dual weilding with berserking on each weapon.

6.0 - Gems

Gemming armor is a fairly simple process, for pure DPS you’ll find that you need only pick and choose from a small selections of gems depending on the items set bonuses and whether you truly need them.

As for set bonuses, they’ll likely only be worthwhile should they increase one of your specific damage stats such as STR or +crit rating, otherwise it’s often better to skip them entirely.

Red Gem: 8 STR – This also serves as your general socket gem of choice when skipping set bonuses entirely.

Yellow: 4 STR/ 4 +crit

Blue 4 STR/ 6 Stam

And finally as far as meta-slot gems go, only the relentless earthstorm diamond will prove worthwhile, anything else isn’t worth the sacrificed slots to achieve and you’d be better off with +8 str gem(s) instead.

7.0 - Gear Guide

This is strictly pre-karazhan to get you started on your way, past that I expect you'll begin instinctively finding the proper synergy of stats to maximize your damage.

Note: Many pieces of armor, as well as potentially weaponry, can be substituted by earning the Gladiator/Honor gear.

Helm:

Overlord's Helm of the Second Sight - Quest Reward
Hope Bearer Helm - Drop(Auchenai Crypts)
Ragesteel Helm - Crafted

Neck:

Choker of vile Intent - Vendor(25 Badges of Justice)
Natasha's Choker- Quest Reward

Back:

Cloak of the Inciter - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Blood Knight War Cloak - Vendor(25 Badges of Justice)
Auchenai Death Shroud - Drop(Heroic Auchenai Crypts)

Shoulders:

Slyvannar Champion's Shoulders - Quest Reward
Doomplate Shoulderguards - Drop(Heroic Underbog)

Chest:

Ragesteel Breastplate - Crafted
Doomplate Chestguard - Drop(Arcatraz)
The Exarch's Protector - Quest Reward

Wrist:

Black Felsteel Bracers - Crafted
Bands of Syth - Drop(Sethekk Halls)
Demolisher's Bracers - Quest Reward

Hands:

Doomplate Gauntlets - Drop(Heroic Blood Furnace)
Ragesteel Gloves - Crafted

Belt:

Deathforge Girdle - Drop(Talon King Ikiss)
Rubium War Girdle - Drop(Arcatraz)
Girdle of Siege - BoE World Drop

Legs:

Vanquisher's Legplates - Drop(Heroic Mechanar)
Legguard's of the Shattered Hand - BoE World Drop

Boots:

Sha'tari Wrought Greaves - Quest Reward
Obsidian Clodstompers - Drop(Botanica)

Rings:

Overseer's Signet - Quest Reward
Kaylann's Signet - Quest Reward
Band of Anguish - Quest Reward

Trinkets:

Bladefists's Breadth - Quest Reward
Core of Ar'kelos - Quest Reward

Weapons:

Latro's Shifting Sword - Drop(Black Morass)
Twin-Blade Ripper - Quest Reward

Ranged Weapon:

Wrathfire Hand-Cannon - Drop(Shadow Laybrinth)
Veteran's Musket/Marksman's Bow - Reputation Reward(Honor Hold/Thrallmar)

1-80 Warrior Leveling Guide

One of the commonly seen questions in the forums and in the game chat is something like, "Where do I go to level...?" You can grind endless groups of mobs, which a fury warrior does very well, or you can follow the quests as you find them, perhaps looking for quest details on a site like Thottbot.com.

Or you can consider a full blown Warrior leveling guide. The guide covers the entire 1-80 leveling path and it's laid out for you, step by step, Zygor's Guide automates that path, from start to finish, for your Warrior or any class you play.

Automation means you pick your starting point and the guide automatically updates and advances to the next step as you complete each step and quest, and also sets the next waypoint arrow automatically. In addition, the important quest info is included in the guide.

All you have to do is follow the arrow and check the guide (with its in-game window) to see what you have to do. You'll knock off the quests boom, boom, boom and you'll level with a surprising lack of stress.

You will probably never need to look at your quest log again, much less browse Thottbot. Grab your copy of Zygor's guide here or read our review.