Warriors excel in melee combat and play the role of damage dealer or tank. Warrior play style is unique because they rely on “Rage” rather then Mana or Energy to power thier abilities. Rage points are limited to 100 with most abilities costing between 5 and 30 Rage points. Rage can be generated either by dealing damage or taking damage, often in a PvP enviroment Warriors will either be killed as quickly as possibly, or constantly crowed controled to limit his rage generation and thus his ability to be a threat to the warriors opposing team. This often means a warrior must rely on a group or atleast a dedicated healer in order to excel.

Warriors are ideally suited to tanking because they can wear plate, sheilds, dodge, and parry Warriors are able to mitigate and/or avoid a large amount of damage. Warriors have unique shield ability known as “Shield Block” which makes then ideally suited for end game raiding because the frequency of the most devistating NPC attack, known as a “crushing blow”, can be greatly decreased. However a Warrior must spend a considerable amount of time and effort in getting gear with the apporiate stats (Stamina, Defense, Shield Block, Dodge, Parry, Agility, and Strength) in order to truly excel. Warrior tanking is also the most involed of the three classes which are viable tanks (Paladins and Druids being the other two) requiring the use of a myrid of spells including but not limited too: Sunder, Thunder Clap, Demoarlaizing Shout, Revenge, Heroic Strike, Devistate, Revenge. Warriors also have access to commonly refered to “oh shit” buttons, because certain abilities are normally only used when the tank is dire straights, these abilities are known as Last Stand and Shield Wall.

Warriors can also viable melee damage dealers, and have two trees dedicated to damage dealing: Arms and Fury. However Warriors lack a “Threat Dump” which helps the Tank regain aggro from the “Mob” meaning a Warrior must be aware of his threat generation at all times and understand threat mechanics to stay alive and prevent failed encounter.

A Warriors main draw back is his unique play style. Because a Warrior Rage meter starts at 0, a warrior must generate rage by either dealing or taking damage in order to use his abilities. Warriors do have two “abilities” which helps generate rage at the begining of the fight. The first is “bloodrage” which does generates a small amount of rage, however unless talented this ability is sometimes not provide enough rage for warrior to use the ability he needs, but also using this before “charge” also means he is unable to use the charge ability. “Charge” is the second methood of rage generation, which allows a warrior to not only close the gap between him and his target allowing him to deal damage, but also generates a good amount of rage. However it is only usable in Battle Stance, and because its range is less then that of all casting classes and can only be used when “out of combat, a common tactic is to damage the warrior by the smallest amount denying him of charge and providing the warrior with very little Rage in which to do anything else.

A Warriors threat generation and/or his damage capabilies are also hindered in the early stages of a fight because if a group/raid member prematurely takes aggro away from the tank, before the tank has established aggro or has sufficent rage to use his abilities it is almost impossible for the warrior to regain aggro which can result in a failed encounter or “wipe”. Also as a Warrior becomes more suited to mitigating damage, the amount of threat he generates against weaker enemies decreases which makes tanking “lower” level instances (even level 70 5 man instances) increasinly difficult unless the warrior brings a separate set of gear which provides less mitigation.

Furthermore, when change “stances” in order to access diffrent ability a warrior can lose all but 10 to 25 rage points depending on his talents further compounding the rage problem.

Rage also decays rapidly when out of combat, causing many warriors to try and “hurry up” in order to prevent further rage decay. At the ire of his group mates.

Of course with great disadvange comes a great advantage, while a warrior is very weak in the early stage of battle, as the battle grows longer, the warrior becomes stronger, which is why when supported by a Healing class, a Warrior is one of the strongest classes in the game. But alone the Warrior is by far one of the weakests.

Battle stance: It reduces threat generation slightly and has no negative effects.
Defensive stance: Increases threat generation and decreases damage taken and dealt.[19] This stance is generally used for tanking. This is the stance in which a Warrior can Taunt, which is an Area of Effect Aggro- Generating ability.
Berserker stance: Increases critical strike chance, damage taken, and reduces threat generation slightly.[20]
Some warrior attacks and abilities require them to be in a specific stance. Switching stances reduces rage, although some rage can be retained with certain talents and abilities.

Warriors, like all other classes, have three talent trees. The ‘fury’ talent tree increases rage generation and attack speed, and is good for dual wielding. ‘Arms’ improves burst damage and usage of two-handed weapons. The protection talent tree is the only one of the three that isn’t intended for improved damage; instead it increases defensive skills and threat generation.