I’m a ‘hit it and smash it till it’s dead‘ kinda guy. Sure, I have a number of ranged DPS toons that I have fun with, but there’s something about getting up close and personal that draws me in.
Warcraft has a number of melee classes, but its the Warrior that I almost always want to roll first on a new server. I think it’s a combination of the Warrior’s play style and what a Warrior stands for. Matthew Rossi summed it up best in this old The Care and Feeding of Warriors post:
You want to kill things. You want to rip them into bloody gobbets and leave their ruined, looted corpses in your wake. You want to wear two huge weapons crossed on your back and reach up to draw them forth as soon as things get ugly, which can’t come soon enough in your opinion. You want to get on up there and rip things heads clean off. You’re the kind of person who thinks Grom Hellscream had a good idea but didn’t go far enough with it.
(I get goosebumps reading that!)
It’s the thug life. You don’t sneak around in shadows and stab/claw people in the back. You’re not some Holy protector of the innocent, or an element infused totem tosser, casting spells and healing yourself when things turn ugly. Mana? What the hell is that, and why would I want to take a break killing things to drink some Sweet Nectar?
Hell no. You strap on the heaviest of plate armor, grab two huge hunks of blacksmithed iron, and charge into battle fueled by nothing more than your rage for wanting to kill things! You have no fall-back plan. No spells to heal yourself. If you bite off more than your axes can handle you have to kill something, anything, in order to get a bit of rush to stay alive. Think about that for a sec. You KILL to stay ALIVE!
The Specs
Warriors have two DPS specs, Fury and Arms, and one tanking spec, Protection. Fury is the dual-wielding death bringer spec. Arms is positioned for PvP, swinging one huge two-handed weapon into your opponent’s skull while maiming their hamstring so they hobble around as you hit them some more. Protection is the tank spec, strapping a barn door to your arm to both block attacks and to smash into someone’s/something’s unsuspecting face.
The Leveling
The Warrior on our adventure is level 39 at the moment, and just finished up the Southern Barrens quests. I’ve played around with each spec and have ruled Arms out for the rest of the adventure. I felt like it was taking forever for rage to build up.
Fury has been the spec I’ve been on the most, and it mows through mobs the fastest. But like Arms, I do feel myself having to wait for a button to light up every now and again (at least until rage builds up.) Protection on the other hand seems to be the spec that generates the most rage, always giving me a button to mash. It typically takes three buttons to kill a mob (remember, I don’t have heirlooms), which is similar to Fury, except I find that once I’ve beaten on a mob or two and my rage has built up I’m taking out mobs with two hits.
As always, I’m having a blast with the Warrior. I absolutely love the Warrior’s play style, much more than the Paladin’s. I like that every button on my action bar is another way of hitting my enemy. I have no Holy spells to toss as filler. And unlike the Paladin, which is almost immortal, I like the tense feeling I get when one too many mobs comes my way. Yes, I’ve died a few times already on my Warrior, but I went down screaming and swinging each time. (I just died while writing this. I guess a lvl 39 still can’t take on the 35 Elite Mankrik. I just wanted to tell him where I saw his wife!)
Status and Opinions, At This Time
Like I said above, I’m having a great time on the Warrior. I switch between Fury and Protection every few levels just to keep it fresh and to get a feel for leveling both specs. Soloing a Warrior means you’re going to die now and then, unless you have some expensive potions with you or you carefully pull only the mobs you know you can handle. I do neither. I’m typically 1/2 way into my rage-fueled Charge before I realize I’m down to half a health bar. Unlike The Paladin’s single death, The Warrior is at 14. And that’s why, as I mentioned in my last post, after about 20 levels or so I typically roll a Paladin. The immortal feeling is nice, though you have to sacrifice a bloodthirsty play style for being a part-time caster.
A Change in the Line-Up
FYI, I’ve made an executive decision and decided to stop leveling The Paladin (for the moment. I’m a damn altoholic so I’m never sure.) Even though he’s fun as hell running around smashing things with his shield, I took a quick inventory and realized I already have a lvl 100 Paladin on Alliance (the one I leveled last weekend. I also have a 91 pally on Horde.) Since one of the purposes of the adventure is to level up toons that I already don’t have at 100, I need to leave The Paladin back in Stormwind. This will allow me to focus on The Warrior, The Shaman, and The Druid who you haven’t yet met. I’m still deciding on whether to level a Warlock or a Mage. I already have a Horde Warlock at 100, and a boosted Horde Mage sitting at 91, so I can go either route on the Alliance side. We’ll see in the coming week which way I’ll go…
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