Warrior Leveling Guide – Warrior Basics

You have found Khor’s Warrior Leveling Guide!  Here I will focus on the beginning aspects of leveling a Warrior in World of Warcraft.  I chose a Warrior to level pre-Cataclysm for two reasons, the first being I am finding myself with some extra time in WoW now that ICC raiding is slowing.  Second, I really wanted to experience old world content one last time.

This is my fourth venture into leveling alts in the last two months.  A Paladin, Warlock, and Druid have all come and gone.  Now the Warrior stands alone amidst 4 mighty level 80 toons.  I chose a Warrior because I like melee DPS, and I like using 2-handed weapons.  I’ve done a Death Knight several times before, but could never really get into the class.

I leveled a Warrior to 70 in Burning Crusade, but he didn’t make the cut when I transitioned to WotLK.  Bearing the same name, I now set forth in Azeroth as a mighty level 1 Warrior, eager to etch my path one last time before Cataclysm scars the land forever.

Basic Goals for Warrior Leveling

These are my basic goals for leveling as a Warrior.  I am definitely nixing going Prot spec, so that leaves me to choose between Arms and Fury.  It would seem I will be on a Fury, Arms, Fury path, respeccing at levels 20 and 60.

As I sat down analyzing how I was going to go about this leveling process, I came up with a list for myself on what will keep me motivated.  I hate slow leveling, I hate slow DPS, and I hate inefficient time usage.  So here is a list of goals for Warrior leveling:

1. Heirloom Gear. Use it, and as much of it as possible.  Get the XP gain, and create a small gear set that can be carried throughout the entire leveling process.
2. Stack Stamina. Warriors do not possess healing abilities like Paladins.  They must bandage and eat.  Rolling my eyes at the thought of actually sitting to recover HP.  Whugh.  Stack gear with stamina on it, and enchant gear with stamina.  This will be highly beneficial at earlier levels, slowly tapering off as more DPS abilities take precedence in later levels.
3. Keep Current Leveling Zones 2-3 Levels Below Current Character Level. Whatever zone I am in, I want to make sure I am about 2 to 3 levels above the average mob level for content I am working on.  This will keep my Warrior killing things faster, moving quickly through quests, and reducing the likelihood I will be needing to regain HP (a huge time sink).
4. Attack Mobs in Packs or Chains. More on this later, but keep attacking as long as possible.  Attack packs of mobs, and keep Rage and Abilities procced and running.
5. Keep Healing Pots Supplied. The less time eating and bandaging, the better.
6. First Aid is a Priority. Loot everything for cloth, or even better, send stacks of cloth to your Warrior from another alt to powerlevel First Aid.  First Aid will be much better than eating to recover HP.
7. Kill Everything. There is no longer a need to grind for levels with all the xp boosts, but killing mobs helps speed up the leveling process and will help keep your level on par with the zone you are in, as well as the zones you are about to enter. The worst thing is to enter a zone under the minimum level requirements, as that slows down leveling tremendously.

Gear

My gear is going to consist of heirloom gear with a set of entry mail armor buffed with stamina enchants.  I will gradually replace the enchanted gear around level 10 or so, and will periodically replace them every 5-10 levels after that.

• Unadorned Chain Leggings
• Unadorned Chain Gloves – With +7 Strength enchant
• Unadorned Chain Bracers – With +9 Stamina enchant
• Unadorned Chain Boots – With +7 Stamina enchant
• Unadorned Chain Belt
• Blood Elf Bandit Mask (level 5)
• Polished Spaulders of Valor
• Polished Breastplate of Valor with +3 to all Stats
• Bloodied Arcanite Reaper with Crusader Enchant
• Dread Pirate Ring
• Swift Hand of Justice
• Inherited Insignia of the Alliance

I also start with Netherweave Bag x4, giving me four extra 16-slot bags.    Really, this is exactly identical to what I was using when I leveled my last Paladin.  The approach will generally be the same, I will just will be working without heals this time around.

Levels 1-7

Starting off, I ran to Kharanos to pick up all my gear from the mailbox in front of the inn.  After I made sure I had everything, I hearthed back to Coldridge Valley.  I began my quick questing, making sure to snap a couple screenshots along the way.  At first, the only ability available is Heroic Strike, which you must use to help speed up the killing.  With the heirloom gear equipped, every mob should be one or two-shotted.

I quickly bounced to level 4, and immediately sought training.  At level 4, a Warrior gains:

• Charge
• Rend

With these two new abilities, I quickly shifted my DPS rotation to Charge > Rend > Heroic Strike.  Questing was very easy, and stride for stride I was moving through these beginning levels as quickly as my Paladin did.

At level 6, I went straight to the Warrior trainer again, this time picking up 2 very, very key abilities:

• Thunder Clap
• Victory Rush

Thunder Clap and Victory Rush are the meat to my DPS cycles.  Any instant attack for a Warrior is a must-use for killing mobs quickly.  Heroic Strike can still be used, but it’s timer coincides with a normal melee attack, thus you must wait for a normal swing for it to take effect.

Victory Rush only takes effect after a killing blow delivered on a mob that yields experience, so it is important to keep moving from mob to mob to make sure.  However, this delivers a lot of damage, so you’ll want to use this every time you can.  When engaging multiple mobs at a time, Victory Rush is crucial in getting the pack cleared quickly.

At level 6, my rotation evolved to:  Charge > Victory Rush > Thunder Clap > Rend  > Heroic Strike for fighting multiple packs of mobs.

At level 6, my rotation evolved to:  Charge > Victory Rush > Rend > Thunder Clap  > Heroic Strike for fighting single mobs.

I finally cleared every quest in Coldridge Valley, emerging into Loch Modan as level 7.  I chose to travel the land north of the road all the way east to Kharanos, fighting every mob I could along the way.  I arrived in Kharanos as level 8.  From here, I would head to Ironforge, catch the tram to Stormwind, and move on to Northshire Valley.

Levels 8-9

In Northshire Valley, I did all the beginning Human quests to get an easy jump into level 9.  I think it took me less than 15 minutes total to knock all the quests out.  After I had level 9 notched in my belt, I rushed over to Goldshire to start the quests there. 

It wasn’t very long before Elwynn Forest quests took me to level 10, which opened up Defensive Stance, Blood Rage, Taunt and Sunder Armor.  Of these, Blood Rage is the ability I would implement into my DPS rotations.

Continuing my questing in Elwynn would takemy Warrior all the way to level 14, so it is important to do every quest you can there, in addition to killing any mobs in your path, when traveling from objective to objective.  On that note, I would stay OFF the main roads when traveling, to force yourself to kill mobs for the additional XP gain!

Levels 10-20 coming soon!