Warrior Best leveling spec...Bladestorm or Titan's Grip?

Krazen · #1 12-30-2008, 01:24 PM

Heya everyone, Krazen (Salzbury the warrior) here. I was just wondering, what is the best spec, starting from 70, to level with. Currently, I'm full arms minus 5 points in fury. It's working exceptionally well, but I do see a lot of Fury warriors running around too. Which is best?

**TaiSHi** · #2 12-30-2008, 01:50 PM

Prot.

Ok, I wanted to post just that and being an arse to you. But I wont.
Nowadays, prot has become the best leveling spec for it's survivavility (I think I spelled that so wrong) + a lot of damage.
But if you want to choose between those 2, I'd go TG. From my experience, fury is far more efficient on leveling than arms, also, you look hell cool with 2 2Hs

Hope it helps,

J

Krazen · #3 12-30-2008, 02:03 PM

Leveling as prot? I thought that was total blasphemy? Haha, again, I'm a since-original-WoW-beta priest and I also have a 70 rogue...so I dove headfirst into a class that seems to be the biggest need for my guild/underplayed on my server. That's why I'm here...to get a better understanding of my class.

**TaiSHi** · #4 12-30-2008, 02:41 PM

It used to be a total blasphemy, patch 3.0.3 has made warriors pretty much more interesting. As we can DPS quite a bit more than before, also being able to AoE tanks (almost) without problems. So partying a mage is a good choice =)

Regards,
J

thanatas · #5 12-30-2008, 03:16 PM

Its true, level prot. You never die, never need to really stop to heal (particularly once you hit 75 and get frenzied regen).

Just shield block, shield slam, revenge, conc blow, and shockwave.

Get the glyphs of heroic strike and revenge for leveling. I don't think they are good for raiding but many disagree with me.

**orcstar** · #6 12-30-2008, 05:10 PM

I have leveled prot 70-80 and it was a blast.
What helped was that I had a trinket with a self heal and the herbalism heal. Between them if I've eaten more then a stack of food 70-80 it's a lot.

As prot you do very nice damage, and have extremely low downtime.
Also everyone will love you in instances.

(ashamed: I still have to start leveling my bandaging because for the first time I just didn't need it)

I managed to convert a fury warrior friend who was at first laughing about it. He was TG 70-73 and then tried prot leveling a bit only to spec fury again after he got to 80.

Kahmal · #7 12-30-2008, 07:19 PM

Leveling is easy peroid, Blizz didn't scale the mobs to the new burst damage. I personally leveled a Warrior was Fury from 1-70 and one from 1-80 as Arms.

Many say and it has even been proven with math in a guild that Fury does still do more DPS while leveling, but I personally find Fury w/o the proper hit rating unbarable misses drive me crazy.

I personally think Arms is way better 70-80. You'll never die unless u get ganked. Bad aggro pull? Sweeping Strikes + Retallation + Bladestorm = ETERNAL CHAOTIC DANCE. Everyone dies. You wont be able to solo elite quest like Prot but there aren't too many of those and groups aren't hard to find. (some one is usually in the area anyway.)

Grizlor · #8 12-30-2008, 10:13 PM

Level prot. I was lolgrip until 75, when I gave up because my crit was down to around 22%. Last Stand + Enraged Regen = whee. Prot really doesn't farm much slower than arms/fury, especially when you take almost no damage and revenge/shield slam crits for retarded damage.

**Horacio** · #9 12-30-2008, 10:24 PM

Agree with the above. You don't have to be near as careful, you can handle multiple mobs and you can take most group quests solo. Because sitting around LFM for Quest X sucks.

I couldn't say too much about DPS specs as I have limited experience with them but you can put out alot of damage as prot.

Necanthrop · #10 12-31-2008, 03:45 AM

Hi everyone, I am in the process of leveling a prot spec'ed war and I have a question regarding the quest rewards and wich equipment to chose.
At the moment, I am lvl 73 and mostly wearing Kara and BC badges stuff I gathered for tanking Kara and hero.
Most of the quest rewards are plates with +atk, haste and huge +str bonus.
Should I stick to equipment tailored for prot spec or switch to the quest reward stuff we get in Wotlk ? As I see my SS crits droping when I do so.

What kind of equipment should one seek for a prot leveling war ?

Happy new year from France

edit : The World of Warcraft Armory

**tobarstep** · #11 12-31-2008, 04:03 AM

I kept most of my badge/Kara stuff. There are a number of nice quest rewards for instance quests that replace those items though. Those are the only things I would go for. The walrus faction (can't remember their name) has 2 very nice chest items that are obtainable at very low reputation. They Wyrmrest Accord also has some very nice items you can get at Friendly and Honored. Not too hard to do.

**Worldie** · #12 12-31-2008, 05:13 AM

Retarded Revenge crits are fun stuff. Prot leveling is the way.

jeff5 · #13 12-31-2008, 07:07 AM

Leveling is so easy, with so many quests, I honestly don't know if either arms/prot/TG will make a huge difference with how fast you level. (minimally faster/slower with any spec depending on your gear) I'm not geared for Prot, so I've been leveling as TG with fairly gimpy Kara/Badge gear and it seems to be going pretty fast to me

.

Lightmgl · #14 12-31-2008, 10:28 AM

As someone whos tried all 3 specs for levelling with multiple levels for each spec I wouldn't even consider levelling as any spec besides arms.

Being able to kill stuff in under 6 seconds per mob is just wrong. If you wanna solo elites just throw on tank gear and spam revenge nonstop cause of your no cooldown talent. If you're all about revenge spam for levelling you are still better as arms. It is an amazing ability with no cooldown and you are much better off using it 3 times as often over 20% more dmg. I levelled nearly twice as fast as arms over prot and I tried prot both in T6.5 tank gear and T6.5 dps gear. Its really all about the execute one shots and the slam spam. I didn't even bother with rend + OP cause it died so fast. Oh and bladestorm rules too for those times when you can get a nice pack. I usually had to eat afterwards though so I tended to not do it very often.

Prot AoE is fun, but the number of areas you can aoe in effectively is small. You really need to be looking at 10+ mobs for it to be viable. Taking no damage is also fun but killing stuff that fast counters it pretty well. Its completely viable though, just slower. Obviously if you have no DPS gear at all Prot is a very good choice until you build some up. Don't even think about doing Prot though unless you have really good tanking gear.

TG was definitely the worst. The hit penalty change should help it alot.

Get a nice 2h axe and some decent crit/ap and start that slam spam. Don't even MS unless you have alot of rage, just victory rush + slam + execute them to death.

**Forklift** · #15 01-01-2009, 01:08 AM

Source: Lightmgl
As someone whos tried all 3 specs for levelling with multiple levels for each spec I wouldn't even consider levelling as any spec besides arms.

Being able to kill stuff in under 6 seconds per mob is just wrong. If you wanna solo elites just throw on tank gear and spam revenge nonstop cause of your no cooldown talent. If you're all about revenge spam for levelling you are still better as arms. It is an amazing ability with no cooldown and you are much better off using it 3 times as often over 20% more dmg. I levelled nearly twice as fast as arms over prot and I tried prot both in T6.5 tank gear and T6.5 dps gear. Its really all about the execute one shots and the slam spam. I didn't even bother with rend + OP cause it died so fast. Oh and bladestorm rules too for those times when you can get a nice pack. I usually had to eat afterwards though so I tended to not do it very often.

Prot AoE is fun, but the number of areas you can aoe in effectively is small. You really need to be looking at 10+ mobs for it to be viable. Taking no damage is also fun but killing stuff that fast counters it pretty well. Its completely viable though, just slower. Obviously if you have no DPS gear at all Prot is a very good choice until you build some up. Don't even think about doing Prot though unless you have really good tanking gear.

TG was definitely the worst. The hit penalty change should help it alot.

Get a nice 2h axe and some decent crit/ap and start that slam spam. Don't even MS unless you have alot of rage, just victory rush + slam + execute them to death.

I was going to post the exact same thing.

Arms in 3.0 is the new leveling spec:

1. Rend scales with weapon damage, a slow 2h murders things with rend.
2. Rend tics procs Overpower
3. Overpower crits like 70% of the time
4. Crits bring Deep wounds
5. Overpower has no cooldown
6. Sweeping strikes has a lolcooldown.
7. Slam is 0.5s

You just charge, rend, slam spam until OP lights up, OP until mob is dead.

Tanking in instances is absurd with arms now. At low levels, you keep a 2H out and just murder things as if you were grinding. I tanked ulda in battle stance, with the whirlwind axe, and did 63% of the groups total damage. I mean, think about that for a second.

Getting into higher instances, BRD etc., just required me to switch to a shield, but revenge has no cooldown either with Arms, and so you just spam it for the entire duration.

Arms is way too fun.

blackhand · #16 01-01-2009, 01:35 AM

Fury is still pretty damn fast. Arms is nice for an panic button every 1.5 minutes but I felt on average I would kill a mob faster as Fury (I had plenty of hit) than as Arms. I felt Arms relied too much on RNG for fast kills. Sure I'd kill one mob because I got a lot of procs but the next one would go slower because I didn't get any. I felt fury was more consistent plus you have less down time because your healing yourself as you dps. But arms is good for AoE for sure.

**Norrath** · #17 01-01-2009, 02:40 AM

Warbringer has ensured I will never spec out of Protection again.

You might not kill things as fast, but you won't die either -- most elites are susceptible to stuns, and Protection has two on-demand stun abilities.

Sennex · #18 01-01-2009, 09:17 AM

Nevermind

Krazen · #19 01-01-2009, 03:15 PM

Okay, I've given Prot a go since leveling, and tanked Nexus and UK as well, and I must admit that I'm in love. Ha! Revenge/shield slam crits are insane, and I'm mostly in base cobalt gear. I am defense capped for 70, which was a nice relief for the healer, and I did notice that there's not much of a speed difference at all as it pertains to leveling.

Now onto the next question...
What's the best threat rotation for tanking instances and whatnot?

**Norrath** · #20 01-01-2009, 03:58 PM

For single target tanking, Shield Slam has main priority. Revenge has second. Devastate every cooldown you're not either using Shield Slam or Revenge. Spam Heroic Strike as rage (or the Revenge glyph) allows.

For multi-mob tanking, do much the same, except keep Thunderclap and Shockwave on cooldown as well, and replace Heroic Strike with Cleave.