Hello regulars and new players.
After playing Smolderforge for quite some time now I have been toying with the idea of making a guide or an instructional Video for new players and existing players who are looking to develop their skill set while playing a warrior. I have over 6 years Experience with warriors and have lived through most patches my highest retail arena rating was 2640 playing TSG on Xavius in 3.2 ( Azkahn on AJ ). With the things I have learned over the years I plan to give some of it back to the Smolderforge Community through this introducational guide to a warrior.
First thing is first "KEYBINDS" its imperil that you have atleast some of "if not all" the major abilities keybound to make your time as a Warrior easier
( ex Charge, Intercept, Pummel/Shield Bash ) There's nothing worse than having to click pummel and being 0.2 seconds to late And having to sit a full cyclone.
Second and Third I would put down to spec and gear choice, as a warrior you really rely on resilience to keep yourself afloat since damage taken is your best way of rage generation outside of bloodrage "trading HP for rage". Desired you don't want to drop below 300 resilience at the lowest but high 300's/400's are the ideal breeding ground for the raid boss you want to front yourself as. There are a lot of Different variations to warrior specs depending on who you are with, if it is arena or battlegrounds, duels or being pocket healed. Below you will find Some specs I have wrote up test them out and play what better benefits your play style ( I personally play both 35/23/3 and 41/17/3 ).
Deep Arms - http://tinyurl.com/nzbhmv2
Sweeping Strikes - http://tinyurl.com/ozudv7y
Cleave'Tastic - http://tinyurl.com/pgo7rst
Improved Slam Arms - http://tinyurl.com/nwlj6bc
Arms Survival - http://tinyurl.com/ouzr55f
Shield Slam Prot - http://tinyurl.com/nok732d
Viable Hybrid - http://tinyurl.com/ocl9vl6
Concussion Blow Arms - http://tinyurl.com/qgntfgv
Pve Fury - http://tinyurl.com/owlbfba
Pve Arms - http://tinyurl.com/p27zgss
Spec Analysis Pros, Cons, Usage.
I will just cover the specs that need explaining, you can implement the explanations of these builds to explain how the others mentioned operate.
Deeps Arms: The build is far superior to the others in terms of rage generation and sustainable damage, 1v1 vs a damage dealer its Not going to win you any prizes due to the lack of enrage but overall the build is balanced. Ideally the perfect cookie-cutter build and most used warrior Arena spec of its kind. The pros to this are you can Down healers of any kind even Holy Paladins and Resto Shamans which we all have a nightmare with. Due to Your never ending rage pool for Damage Done you have the extra rage to use on sunders snares and peels without worrying about dropping below the spell reflect deadzone "below 25 rage". The Cons to this are clearly the lack of Disarm Reduction and the lower Ranked Enrage.
Sweeping Strikes: The most preferred spec by all warriors has got to be this although most roll deep arms due to not being able to juggle the rage starving. Played correctly this can be better than a 47/x/x spec but times will come when you will find yourself pulling your hair out from having no rage from damage done especially vs plate/mail healers. This is the perfect damage dealing build providing you can hold your rage, One of the best thing with this build you can do is not Stance Dance When you have more than 25 Rage, Dump it and switch stances. The Pros to this build are your higher damage output, Disarm reduction and the best ability for a warrior, Sweeping Strikes. The Cons are lack of rage generation.
Arms Survival: I only ever used this build for 5v5 and Double Dps 2v2 Since the warrior in both of these is the usual kill target. The same explanation as the Sweeping Strike Build but this time you have no enrage, disarm reduction, and no sweeping strikes. The Pros are you can tank and deal decent damage, The Cons are no real special damage output And rage starvation.
Shield Slam Prot: I played this for a while and I have to say its fun, I only ever played it in bg's and 2v2 with an sl/sl lock both pleasant experiences. The damage From this build is high burst but lack of sustainable damage over a long period of time, Relying mostly on your Gnomeragon auto Blocker and Deathwish to time high Shield Slam Hits. The Pros are being able to lock people down for a long period of time and high burst. The Cons are lack of survivability since the build revolves around stacking pve gear To get high Block Value since Shield Slam scales with it, Rage Starvation, Intercept Cooldown, Sustainable Damage.
Offset pve gear is nice to have but don't make a habit of it, you will see some flavour-of-the-month warriors running about with hunter swords, two pve rings, cloak, trinket, ranged Neck, belt, chest etc. Don't do it! Only mix and match what you need to dish out enough damage but also keep it level headed in the stam/resi department. On my warrior "Outskilled" I have the following stats, 352 Resi 1834AP 38.41% Crit ( berserker stance ) 11756 Armor 12884 HP. I use 4 part Brutal, the only none pvp items I have are JC & BS crafted neck/chest, and shadowmoon destroyers drape ( the cloak is best in slot for warriors ). Tailor your gear set to suit your palystyle, if your the type of warrior that runs in to break a group up then you want to give yourself a little survivability but as I said it is all down to how you play a warrior, just don't gimp yourself as it is the most gear Dependant class in the game. Gems are standard 1x 12crit 1x 24ap if you want, rest str and str+crit, meta gem can be either 24ap run speed increase if you want to use sure footed or 12 agil 3% crit if you do not, to get this use 2x str+stam gems to get the bonus.
I want to keep this plain and simple, macros as a warrior make your life a lot easier since most of your abilities require you to be in a stance, Its always better to have them in the same "macro" rather than two separate keys an example being ( Line 1 /cast berserker stance Line 2 /cast pummel ) that time it takes to hit the stance key and hit a pummel could be the difference between a win and a loss. Here is the link to all the macros I have on my warrior *some of them are for the User Interface but I will speak about that in another segment. http://tinyurl.com/Osmacros2
There's nothing wrong with using dominos, bongos, bartender or any other bar addon, It is achievable through the default blizzard UI also, Using commands to hide/show bars, move them, scale them.
All the same as any addon you can pick up for 2.4.3 but without the interface lag. The UI is down to personal choice it wont make you a better player or a worse player just because of a user interface
So what ever you choose is up to you. Some addons are crucial to your time as a warrior though especially a focus frame ( Xperl comes with one but I use EUF Extended Unit Frames ) I will speak about
Focus after this, Here's a picture of my UI on a s2 char all addons named. The red bars are hidden with /run commands that are located inside the link to my macros they are just on show for the screenshot. http://i.imgur.com/0E39oIv.jpg Under my default bar there is Interrupt bar http://i.imgur.com/zvQoR7W.png although AESA tracks cooldowns sadly it is only for focus/target interrupt bar will track any major cooldown in a certain number of yards, The reason I choose to use grid as a melee is plain and simple, Intervene. Intervene when used correctly can save a players life and even your own, slowed from a rogue and he has evasion up? Intervene out and intercept him for a free disarm "cant dodge when stunned". Since my intervene for battlegrounds is /cast [target=mouseover] If I see a person in range that has been cheapshot "or KS is coming off cooldown on interrupt bar" I can intervene them and 9/10 times catch the kidney for them, The situational awareness of a warrior is key to dominating the battlefield.
People have been asking me for addons that dont conflict and working versions, so here you go ->
All Addons are uploaded to MegaCoNZ
Aesa Enemy CoolDowns - http://tinyurl.com/nwc6sqp
Class Portraits Inside the Char Frame - http://tinyurl.com/ndpu5cc
Clique KeyMapping for Grid - http://tinyurl.com/plko6rt
Combat Log Cleaner - http://tinyurl.com/p84wjbl
Duel Decliner - http://tinyurl.com/pvb89oc
Doom CD Pulse - Icon when cooldowns renew - http://tinyurl.com/pq88ejk
Extended Unit Frames - Turns Default UI Into X-perl - http://tinyurl.com/oxf47qc
Gladdy Arena Frames - http://tinyurl.com/nq3sdp2
Grid Party and Raid frames - http://tinyurl.com/p4yyejo
Interupt Bar - http://tinyurl.com/nfmfh3p
LoseControl With Working Timers - http://tinyurl.com/p9oqwdn
Quartz Casting Bars - http://tinyurl.com/nvtdab3
Tracking Ability bars near party frames - http://tinyurl.com/qcq4btc
Speedy Actions, Allows abilities to be used on press, not release - http://tinyurl.com/pgzfw4a
Spell Alerter - http://tinyurl.com/o4s76b8
Props to Shacka from Nextgen for the working party cooldowns and losecontrol! \o
Focus frames are a utility that I could not live without when playing any class especially a warrior. Focus is mainly used to monitor another player outside of your target. With focus frames you can cast without targeting them with the "/cast [target=focus]" action, here's an example of proper use of a focus frame. Your in a group of people and a enemy healer runs in "/focus mouseover" your beating your target and you notice incoming heals "/cast [target=mouseover] pummel" casts start again "/cast [target=mouseover] Intercept" Inc Cyclone because he cant get any heals off due to you locking him down so hard "spell reflection", needless to say without the focus bar you Would only be able to guess if it was a clone or a heal without targeting him and the skillcap with focus frames is what you make of it.
There's a load of commands that you can use in game to get that custom interface and position feel that you get when using moveanything/xperl, only the harder way. You don't need to have these addons to get their features though a cool addon named "extended unit frames" comes with the ability to move target/player frames and has a built in focus that is macro-able. http://i.imgur.com/y0ajelD.jpg With a few macros this can be done. Listed here are the commands and what they do. http://tinyurl.com/prfokx9
///Buff and Debuff Scale
For a while I have wanted larger buff and debuff scales but without having to use any addons that will overload my ui. Came across these commands while on a search for some addons they do exactly what they say on the tin, Scale up the buffs/debuffs makes it a lot easier to track what you have on you at any given time. http://tinyurl.com/nuy6wj9
Sweeping Strikes -> -> ->
Some tips on how to get the most out of your abilities, First off Sweeping Strikes. You *CAN NOT* dodge a Sweeping Strikes attack, If your being hit by a rogue with evasion or a feral in bear form that you cant hit you can hop on the nearest target and hit the dude you were with sweeping attack since they are not dodgeable, a trick with Sweeping Strikes that is the holy grail of damage is the Clear Target !Sweeping strikes trick. In a nutshell anything with a pet, or more than one target you can bounce sweeping attacks off and cleave to hit the person and anyone around for two or more attacks. How it works > /cast !Sweeping Strikes /cleartarget /cast Whirlwind, This also works for cleave if you cleave a warlock's pet with sweeping it will hit the warlock for 2x the weapon swing you did on the pet. Quite cool when used correctly.
Spell Reflection vs Traps + General Hunter Tips -> -> ->
Charge + Bloodrage = 25 Rage, This means that you charge a hunter and are going to land on a trap since charge gives you the rage before you get to the target you can spell reflect while moving and reflect the trap ( Or Challenging shout the pet ) To pull yourself out of the pet, Another tip vs. hunters always disarm them, since this is not WOTLK you cant disarm the ranged but if you take the mainhand they cant wing clip you. Always piercing howl hunters and don't hamstring them unless they are stunned "cant dodge while stunned*, due to the amount of pve gear available here on Smolderforge and the general agility stacking of hunters they have insane dodge, most hunters will use aspect of the monkey and sit on about 30% dodge, that dodged hamstring could have been a proc and won you the game.
Demo vs Piercing howl for stealthed players -> -> ->
With the talent "blooming voice" you have a 15 yard range vs. 10 yard range to pull stealthed targets out or as I like to call it, pulling them out from Africa.
Shield bash + Heroic Strike -> -> ->
Not many people utilise this enough, even when fighting melee and your sword+board you can shield bash the target "which also Dazes/Slows them* and heroic strike, Dazed target take additional damage from heroic strike.
Shield Block spam -> -> ->
Really good especially when fighting rogues, if you can call when an ability is coming you have a 80% chance to block it, self explanatory 10 rage, 5sec Cooldown.
Disarm vs Stunned targets -> -> ->
Stunned targets cant dodge, If you manage to get a stun off on a rogue its a free disarm, 10 seconds of two hander is a lot of damage...
