Warrior Leveling Guide (Level 1-60) - Talents, Rotations, Races & More

Priority:

1. Spirit: Warriors receive by far the most health regeneration from Spirit in WoW: Forever, making it a great stat for keeping high uptime. Synergizes exceptionally well with Trolls' Regeneration and High Order (Alliance) Skyborne's Read Leyline. Drops below Stamina in dungeons
2. Strength: Warriors' main stat, granting 2 attack power per point. Strongest damage per point
3. Agility: Grants Critical Strike, Dodge, and Armor
4. Stamina: Increases Hit Points. As long as you are not dying to a mob 1v1, I would prioritize this stat less than the previous stats
5. Intellect: Slightly improves the rate at which you level Weapon Skills

Generally speaking, picking the item with the highest number of total stats (barring intellect) is probably the best way to go. Note that the value of spirit will go down if you are unable to actually kill mobs. Monsters in Forever also have more health than their classic counterparts, ramping up after level 30, and we have not had any tests past 30. Later on, the value of Spirit is likely to drop to below Stamina.

Secondary:

1. Hit until soft-hit cap (8%): Increases your chance to hit
2. Expertise: Reduces the chance for your enemies to dodge and parry. Already strong not including parry, but doubly when you are leveling, as mobs will be facing you
3. Critical strike: Chance to deal extra damage
4. Haste: increases your rate of auto attacks
5. Hit above soft-hit cap (8%)

In Forever, you can have a consumable of every type active. There are far too many consumables to keep track of, but I'll list the more important ones

Well Fed, attained by eating food made by Cooking, grants a small boost to a stat and increases experience gained from killing monsters by 5%. This should be maintained at all times and is your most important consumable for leveling by far. The cheapest food will be available on the Auction House virtually for free.

Rough Sharpening Stone (and other sharpening stones) provide a significant DPS boost early on and should be used at all times

Elixir of Minor Strength (and other strength elixirs)

Elixir of Minor Agility (and other agility elixirs)

Longjaw Mud Snapper is an example of Cooking food

Always try to have a Healing Potion on hand for emergencies.

Always have First Aid bandages (like Linen Bandage+) on hand.

First Aid allows you to create and use bandages with cloth you can loot from Humanoids. This is the only profession I would consider 100% mandatory for Warrior, as it greatly increases your uptime. You can also pair Intimidating Shout with bandages to take out more difficult enemies. Note that this is a secondary profession and can be picked up by everyone.

Cooking should always be picked up as it allows you to pick up certain quests that require cooking, and allows you to drop Basic Campfire Kit to buff yourself, but leveling the profession is up to you. If your goal is leveling as fast as possible, you may elect to buy food buffs from the Auction House instead of leveling cooking. Like First Aid, cooking is a secondary profession that can be picked up by everyone.

As for primary professions, they will depend on your goals for your character. If you want to take leveling slowly and level professions as you level, I'd recommend pairing Mining and Blacksmithing, as you can craft yourself some pretty decent gear. Another strong pairing is Herbalism and Alchemy so you can create your own potions. Do note that these professions will probably slow you down, despite the consumables/gear you can craft. If your goal is getting to 60 as fast as possible, then I wouldn't level professions past 20.

Campfires are a new mechanic added in WoW forever, which allows you to use your profession items to add to a campfire (created with Cooking), granting a buff for 1 hour. You only need to get a profession to level 20 to be able to create campfire buffs, and the buffs will scale with your CHARACTER level, making it a good investment to get a profession to 20. The professions provide the following buffs:

Cooking provides Basic Campfire Kit, which is necessary for ALL other campfire fixtures

Blacksmithing provides Sharpening Wheel

Mining provides Lodestone

Leatherworking provides Camp Tent

Skinning provides Camp Chair. Probably the best buff option, especially when grouping, as critical strike chance benefits magical and physical damage dealers. The class-specific buffs it replaces is also the capstone spec for Balance and Feral Combat, making redundancy almost impossible

Fishing (secondary profession) provides Fish Bowl

Enchanting provides Enchanted Lute

Tailoring provides Faction Banner

Herbalism provides Incense Candle

First Aid provides First Aid Kit

Alchemy provides Mana Well

For PURE experience/hour gains, Leatherworking is a clear winner. Otherwise, Blacksmithing or Skinning should be the best choice for Warriors. Mining is strictly worse than Blacksmithing, especially considering a Paladin can buff you with a drive-by Blessing of Might

My first suggestion for picking a race will always be to pick what you want to play, as the racials, at least in PvE content, are all within ~1% of each other.

Horde

Orc

• Blood Fury is a strong offensive cooldown and can be paired with Death Wish and Recklessness for maximum effect
• Hardiness is a pretty solid racial, mostly for PvP, but sometimes in PvE also
• Shatter Curse is situationally incredibly strong, removing pesky curses while leveling, and also removing debilitating curses in end-game
• Command increases pet damage by 5%, which is useless for Warrior

Orc is a solid pick overall, but not the greatest offensively or defensively

Tauren

• War Stomp is strong as an on-demand interrupt, particularly in PvP
• Endurance is great for tanking
• Plainsrunning is nice quality of life, but becomes pretty useless after your mount at level 40
• Cultivation is mostly useless

Tauren is a solid pick if focused solely on tanking and PvP, but weak for dealing damage

Undead

• Will of the Forsaken is pretty redundant for a Warrior, as we have multiple fear breaks. Charms and Sleeps are much rarer, mostly occuring in dungeons, where you would want to be grouped with a Shaman anyways, who have access to Tremor Totem
• Touch of the Grave can be nice for sustain and 1v1s in PvP, and strong offensively. Slightly better as a dual-wielder
• Underwater Breathing is just quality of life and not useful in end-game
• Cannibalize is pretty weak for Warriors since we don't benefit from the mana return

Undead is among the strongest races for dealing damage, and the added sustain is nice to have in PvP or leveling

Troll

• Berserking, similar to Orcs' Blood Fury, is a strong offensive cooldown that lines up well with Death Wish
• Regeneration is actually very strong for Warriors as we benefit the most from spirit-based health regeneration, but useless in end-game
• Rapid Regeneration is a nice pick-me-up for Warriors while leveling, but its uses are more limited in PvP because you lack crowd control to be able utilize it outside of Intimidating Shout, and you would have bandages to use anyway
• Beast Slaying is actually really nice for leveling, and either useless or overpowered in end-game, depending on whether or not you are hitting a beast

Troll is by far the best Warrior race for leveling, but towards the lower-middle for dealing damage

Skyborne

• Wind Blessed provides a strong boost to damage
• Elemental Insight isn't super strong as elemental mobs aren't a super popular mob type, but can potentially be incredibly strong in end-game raids
• Walk on Air is probably my favorite racial ability, allowing for high jumps and increased mobility
• Skysight provides a pretty strong mobility boost

Skyborne is a small amount behind Undead in terms of pure single-target DPS, but the situational increased damage to elementals and movement speed boost puts it slightly ahead in my opinion

Alliance

Human

• Ruthless is strong offensively
• The Human Spirit is mostly useless in all content
• Will to Survive is potentially useful in leveling and PvE content, and very, very strong in PvP
• Perception serves no uses in leveling or PvE

Human would be my overall pick for Alliance warrior, being close to Night Elf in damage output, but having a very strong PvP racial to boot

Gnome

• Escape Artist is perhaps the strongest racial in the game for PvP
• Expansive Mind is mostly useless as reaching the Rage cap will almost never happen
• Engineering Specialization is mostly irrelevant
• Eureka! can be strong in situations where you've pooled rage prior and used your cooldowns, but does not increase auto attack damage

Gnome is incredibly strong in PvP but noticeably weaker in PvE

Dwarf

• Currently unnamed, Dwarves get a +1% to hit racial, which is strong in the early game, but ends up being the weakest combat racial bonus when gearing for raids
• Stoneform can be pretty strong while tanking or PvPing vs rogues, priests, feral druids, or other warriors
• Find Treasure allows for extra treasure in treasure chests. Mostly useless
• Big Game Hunter is pretty nice for leveling, and by far the strongest racial if fighting a beast

Dwarf is on the weaker side offensively and weaker in PvP compared to Gnome or Human

Night Elf

• Shadowmeld is a small threat drop in combat and largely useless out of combat
• Elune's Light lines up nicely with Death Wish and is potentially stronger than Human's Ruthless depending on fight length. Also great for helping to generate snap threat
• Quickness is nice for tanking and running around a little bit faster
• Wisp Spirit lets you run back to your corpse faster. Useless as we will not be dying ever

Night Elf would be my choice if I were primarily focused on tanking or PvE DPS

Skyborne

• Wind Blessed provides a strong boost to damage
• Elemental Insight isn't super strong as elemental mobs aren't a super popular mob type, but can potentially be incredibly strong in end-game raids
• Walk on Air is probably my favorite racial ability, allowing for high jumps and increased mobility
• Read Leyline can be strong for leveling but useless in the end-game

Skyborne is close enough to Human in terms of DPS and potentially much, much better vs Elementals, being a strong choice for PvE. Much weaker in PvP, however

• Always be moving to the next objective while leveling
• When moving from hub to hub, fight mobs on the way and don't stop moving
• Try not to fight mobs higher level than you
• Always plan an escape route
• Charging a neutral mob doesn't put you in combat with it if you don't attack it after
• Intimidating Shout + First Aid bandages can save you in a pinch
• The effects of Intimidating Shout differ depending on your target. The target you cast it on will stand in place and be broken out by any form of damage, including damage over time effects, but the targets who run in fear will be treated the same as Warlocks' Fear, meaning you can hit them without it breaking immediately
• Shield Block is useless against elemental mob types, except for Earth elementals, as you cannot block them
• Early on, pull caster mobs near corners to easily line of sight their casts. Remember to un-toggle your auto attack if it's too close, or it will cast on you through the wall
• Stand behind mobs in dungeons so you don't get parried
• Prior to fighting a strong mob, fight weaker mobs around it and pool your rage
• If you're low on money, you can skip additional ranks of Heroic Strike, Cleave, Overpower. Do not train Intercept, Shield Bash, or Pummel past rank 1. You can elect to skip Mocking Blow if you're not tanking, and Revenge if you're not protection. Only train Slam if you are playing Arms and have Improved Slam