World of Warcraft/Classes/Warrior
The Warrior is one of the three primary tanking classes, with the ability to access almost all of the weapons and armor in the game. The warrior uses a Rage system, where attacking an enemy and being attacked in turn generates Rage and Rage powers your special attacks. Different special attacks have different rage costs and sometimes require other conditions as, such as just having been blocked or parried, or simply having a weapon equipped.
The warrior is the best tanking class for tanking single mobs such as bosses, and negating physical damage. The warrior's weaknesses compared to paladins and druids is maintaining aggro on multiple foes, and withstanding large amounts of elemental damage. The latter can be more easily negated with gear, however.
Warriors have access to three stances, all with different effects. Many abilities are only useable in a specific stance. The stances are:
- Battle Stance, carrying no specific advantages or drawbacks. The abilities in Battle stance are well rounded, with no particular focus. The Arms tree is the talent tree mainly intended for battle stance, but an arms warrior is by no means limited to this stance.
- Defensive Stance, which decreases damage taken and caused by the warrior by 10%. This stance also increases threat, and as such it is the ideal stance for tanking. A warrior who is tanking should never be in any other stance unless very specific strategies are being carried out. The abilities available in defensive stance focus on defense, retaliation, and generating large amounts of threat. Specializing into the Protection tree will greatly enhance your abilities in defensive stance.
- Berserker Stance, which increases damage taken by the warrior by 10%, but also increases the warrior's critical hit chance by 3%. The abilities in Berserker stance are highly offensive, often targeting multiple mobs and allowing quick movement across the battlefield. Berserker stance syncs up well with the Fury tree, but like all warriors, the fury warrior should be prepared to find himself in all stances over time.
