Got any good advice for a (mostly solo) warrior?
How should I plan my talents?
Swords, axes or big hammers?
Will I need the shield plus weapon combination anywhere outside of instances and raids?
Will I be able to keep myself competetive (in PvE) with the stuff I make for myself with blacksmithing?
Any advice regarding blacksmithing?
Swords, axes or big hammers?

So, I take and thank you for your advice about the fury tree then.

I've noticed with my low-level smiths (<120 skill) that it's nice to eek out those armor points and damage points, buuuuuuuut...chances are you'll shortly get a better item, for a given value of "shortly" (longer for Orcs and Trolls, it would seem, far shorter for everyone else). Personally for a warrior, especially a soloer, I'd worry more about cooking, fishing, and first aid.

Have you considered engineering? I have insane amounts of fun playing with explosives. Plus it seems like I'm constantly making stuff for other tradeskillers, which is nice for the money.

I consider tradeskilling on any of my characters more a recreational vocation than anything else. The advantage tradeskilling in WoW has is that it's so bloody easy. Even acquiring mats is relatively easy.

And that is only the first level, the specialist only smith weapons are upgradable to 3 levels if I remember correctly.

So at least you have a shiny, ludicrously high dps light at the end of the tunnel

Vorago fucked around with this message on 02-01-2007 at 08:10 AM.

Blacksmithing has brief, sporadic rewards amidst a bunch of crappy stuff. Useful in PvE as it is in PvP.

Alchemy has consistent, worthwhile rewards all through.

Leatherworking has low dividends, but occasional good sellers (like the Helm of Fire).

Engineering is the only profession I really like. I picked up Gnomish Engineering with my Paladin. The grenades give me a third stun to use with my Seal of Command as well as some good range. Further, nothing is quite so satisfying as the Gnomish Mind Control Helmet...unless it's the Gnomish Battle Chicken.

Reconsider.

edit: As a druid I can outdps a lot of rogues while tanking and generally outdo a warrior as a tank at level 67. Just saying. Warriors are pretty gimp right now in PVE and PVP

Kegwen fucked around with this message on 02-01-2007 at 11:57 AM.

quote:

---

Tarquinn had this to say about Optimus Prime:
Got any good advice for a (mostly solo) warrior?
How should I plan my talents?
Swords, axes or big hammers?
Will I need the shield plus weapon combination anywhere outside of instances and raids?
Will I be able to keep myself competetive (in PvE) with the stuff I make for myself with blacksmithing?
Any advice regarding blacksmithing?
Swords, axes or big hammers?

---

1&2. Sadly, as Parcelan said, you might want to reroll. If being a dude in a suit of plate armor is your thing, be a paladin. They can play support and tank. If you want to tank and do DPS, and you don't mind being a cow or purple elf, roll a druid. If you feel like you've gotten too far with this current character though, and don't want to reroll, I suggest getting the biggest 2 hander you possibly can and smashing things to bits. Also, I suggest maxing out Tactical Mastery ASAP (or at least before level 30). Other than that, Arms tends to be pretty good for a solo warrior, but for raiding go Fury for DPS or Protection for tanking.

Here's a little bit of shock and awe: My brother, who has played nothing but warriors since World of Warcraft was released, is now playing a paladin, and he's quite happy with it.

Also, a question for someone else: Do druids get lots of +def stuff in high end BC? If they don't, I'm pretty sure warriors still do, which would still make at least a couple of warriors required in high end raiding.

3. Which ever has the highest DPS. Or just don't equip weapons you don't like. Seriously, I'd never equip a dagger on a Horde shaman.

4. You'll need a weapon and board any time you kill a group required target and you are the main tank. Otherwise you'll want to be doing as much damage as possible, so you'll want to be dual wielding or smashing with a two hander.

5. Yes. More so than people who do not have blacksmithing. While I've seen it argued time and time again that gathering tradeskills, alchemy, or engineering are the only tradeskills worth picking up before the level cap, I still find it easier to level a character that has smithing, leatherworking, or tailoring. If you keep your tradeskill up and keep it to where you're constantly making equipment around your own level, blacksmithing will be a boon for your character. It allows you to make cheap and decent upgrades for your character as you gain levels, allowing you to fill in gaps between dropped and quested gear. It's not nearly as good as having a ton of cash to twink yourself with, but generally you'll stay better equipped than characters who are only living off of quests and drops.

6. For starting off, the best places I've found for each mineral thus far:

Copper: Durotar and Elwynn Forest.
Tin: Redridge (Seriously. There's quite a bit scattered all over the zone.)
Iron: This one is a pain because Iron is found in a lot of mid-level areas, including quite a few that you can't survive in when you start needing Iron. But I've found that there's a good bit scattered throughout various regions of Ashenvale, so check that place out when you start needing Iron.
(Note, this is coming from a guy who has only played Alliance characters for a nice long while, so my information regarding anything Horde has slipped.)

7. I personally like swords and hammers best, but whatever.

quote:

---

Tarquinn's fortune cookie read:
The last thread was really helpful (thanks guys), and my affliction warlock is already at level 32. It is fun, and together with the priest I have survived some unsurvivable encounters. However, because the horde consists of only Blood Elves on my server, I'm slightly tired of leaving the melee fun to the the others, and because Undead are kinda still my favourite race in WoW, I made a Warrior twink.

Got any good advice for a (mostly solo) warrior?
How should I plan my talents?
Swords, axes or big hammers?
Will I need the shield plus weapon combination anywhere outside of instances and raids?
Will I be able to keep myself competetive (in PvE) with the stuff I make for myself with blacksmithing?
Any advice regarding blacksmithing?
Swords, axes or big hammers?

---

1. If you want to be able to solo hard encounters (such as even-level Elites or groups of roughly even-level mobs) and don't mind killing individual targets a little slowly, I would suggest speccing Protection and using a shield. In such encounters, the extra survivability ends up helping you a lot more than the extra damage you'd get with a two-hander and Arms spec or two weapons and Fury spec. Just don't stay in Defensive Stance the whole fight, unless you've taken Improved Revenge.

2. That depends on what you want to do. I will, however, say that the new Protection talents are really, really good for everything, while the new Arms and Fury talents suck (with the exception of Second Wind). If you plan on sticking with Arms or Fury, don't expect to be tanking anything, since Feral Druids do a better job than a DPS Warrior, even after the Druid threat nerf.

3. That depends on whether or not you're Arms specced, and if so, what you're doing. If you're PvEing as Arms with a low crit-rate, axes. If you're PvEing as Arms with a high crit-rate, swords. If you're PvPing as Arms, maces or swords. If you're not Arms specced, it doesn't matter what weapon you use.

4. Much like the last question, that depends on whether or not you're Protection specced. A Prot warrior with the right equipment can actually do quite a bit of damage with Shield Slam, especially if he has One-Hander Spec (every Prot warrior should have this), Shield Mastery, and 5/5 Vitality. Outside of instnaces, Arms should stick with two-handers and Fury should stick with dual-wielding.

5. There are too many ways to answer this question.

As others in this thread have said, right now it's pretty hard to remain competitive as a Warrior in general.

As for the gear you make from Blacksmithing, the only really good items you get from that are the smithing-specific items (Armoursmithing BP, Axesmithing axes, etc.). You can't sell these items, since they're BoP, and you can only use them while you have Master Smithing of that type, so I would assume that if you ever dropped that kind of Master Smithing for another tradeskill, you can no longer use that item unless you get that type of Master Smithing back. If you're not going for the uber items, then you can find better stuff than most of what you can craft in dungeons for free.

6. If you're not going for the uber items, don't bother.

quote:

---

Mr. Parcelan Model 2000 was programmed to say:
Leatherworking has low dividends, but occasional good sellers (like the Helm of Fire).

---

Unless something changed since I quit, Helm of Fire has extremely retarded material requirements to make and it's more profitable to sell those than the actual helmet.

quote:

---

Tarquinn had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
The last thread was really helpful (thanks guys), and my affliction warlock is already at level 32. It is fun, and together with the priest I have survived some unsurvivable encounters. However, because the horde consists of only Blood Elves on my server, I'm slightly tired of leaving the melee fun to the the others, and because Undead are kinda still my favourite race in WoW, I made a Warrior twink.

Got any good advice for a (mostly solo) warrior?
How should I plan my talents?
Swords, axes or big hammers?
Will I need the shield plus weapon combination anywhere outside of instances and raids?
Will I be able to keep myself competetive (in PvE) with the stuff I make for myself with blacksmithing?
Any advice regarding blacksmithing?
Swords, axes or big hammers?

---

1. Arms is your friend and you'll want to stick with two-handers until the higher levels as it's easier to find one good two-hander than two good one-handers. You'll be replacing your gear about every 10 levels; if you don't do that, you'll end up sucking.

2. See above. This is how I'd do a warrior if I ever get around to playing one again.

3. The stereotypical Arms Warrior wants a big, slow two-handed axe or polearm to maximize crit chance. I'm personally fond of maces for the stun chance.

4. One-hander and shield come are good to keep around. Rare of the occasion might, they do come in handy once in a while.

5. That'd depend on how much time you want to spend farming materials. If you're willing to spend a large amount of time on that, then yes, but this is time to the tune of 3 or 4 hours of play every 5 levels or so.

6. Be prepared for an expensive tradeskill that won't reward you much until you're close to the level cap and, then, expect it to cost you a metric fuckton of money to get those rewards.

7. Your call.

The advice above regards Druids and Paladins is sound. Having seen how Warriors have fallen behind of late, I decided I'd roll a Paladin. They have this neat Captain America type ability at the end of the Protection tree that I'm looking forward to.

quote:

---

Mr. Parcelan obviously shouldn't have said:
Playing a Protection Warrior is like playing a Paladin that can't heal, do damage or do anything useful.

---

Depends on what gear you're using.

If you're in full tanking gear 100% of the time, then of course your damage is going to suck. Even if you get a lot of +block value from your tanking gear, your Shield Slam damage is going to be pretty low overall due to having a low crit rate.

If you've gor some +Strength/+Agi/+AP/+Crit gear on, and only wear the tanking pieces that give you high +block value, then you can deal decent damage with Prot, especially after taking the talents I mentioned. You won't be able to match 3k+ Mortal Strikes from Arms warriors, but you'll have considerably higher survivability from your shield and Prot talents alone. The only downside I can see here is that it's kinda hard to fit +Resilience gear in, which is going to hurt a bit if you like to PvP.

Crafting trades are not for making money.

If you are selling the things that you craft, you are doing something wrong. Only in the rare exception of craftable epics that you can sell to complete fools, or possibly on very new, low-pop servers will you be able to sell crafted items with any worthwhile margin.

You will almost always be able to make far more money just by selling raw mats. If all you're interested in is making money, take up SKINNING and HERBALISM. Ore, in my experience, sells somewhat slower than herbs.

There are only two reasons to take a crafting trade: 1) Resist gear or good pots for your guild, and 2) BoP craftables for yourself.

quote:

---

The logic train ran off the tracks when Maradon! said:
2) BoP craftables for yourself.

---

Frozen shadoweave is sex.

I've taken herbalism as my second trade. Being able to supply mats for any potion I need and selling of excess is awesome.

quote:

---

Tegadil had this to say about Cuba:
I havn't been following WoW a great deal lately, but IIRC fury sucks at lower levels. Arms is less gear based and pretty good till you get higher up and fury overtakes it. But then again, there's probably a bunch of new good lower level gear, so I may be wrong.

---

Lower level gear hasn't changed any.

Unless you go to the Draenei or Blood Elf 1 to 20 areas, then there's SOME different stuff there, but in general nothing has changed under 60.

quote:

---

What is a Willias? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk... Have at you!
Lower level gear hasn't changed any.

Unless you go to the Draenei or Blood Elf 1 to 20 areas, then there's SOME different stuff there, but in general nothing has changed under 60.

---

If the equipment from quests in the Blood Elf 1 to 20 areas is even remotely equivilent to that in the Draenei areas, I honestly see absolutely no reason why anyone would spend time levelling a character of any race outside of these places.

[Edit for clarification: Levelling a character from 1 to 20 outside of those places, obviously]

Densetsu fucked around with this message on 02-01-2007 at 02:58 PM.

quote:

---

And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Kegwen was all like:
edit: As a druid I can outdps a lot of rogues while tanking and generally outdo a warrior as a tank at level 67. Just saying. Warriors are pretty gimp right now in PVE and PVP

---

Warriors are still better overall tanks, but they really do need to be protection, put more work into tanking, and they're not going to put out as much damage as a bear tank. I'd agree in general though. Your average feral druid is going to tank better than your average druid.

I'm waiting for a nerf to swipe, clearcasting, and druid gear to take down DPS down actually. DPS is just too high right now for bear tanks when facing multiple mobs.

quote:

---

From the book of Densetsu, chapter 3, verse 16:
If the equipment from quests in the Blood Elf 1 to 20 areas is even remotely equivilent to that in the Draenei areas, I honestly see absolutely no reason why anyone would spend time levelling a character of any race outside of these places.

[Edit for clarification: Levelling a character from 1 to 20 outside of those places, obviously]

---

Well, there is the factor of reputation.

Do you get much reputation with other Alliance factions while in the Blood Elf 1 to 20 areas?

I know as a Draenei, if you complete all quests in Azuremyst and Bloodmyst, you leave Honored with all Alliance reputations except for Exodar, which you'll have at Revered.

quote:

---

I suppose the same could be said of all Williass...
Well, there is the factor of reputation.

Do you get much reputation with other Alliance factions while in the Blood Elf 1 to 20 areas?

I know as a Draenei, if you complete all quests in Azuremyst and Bloodmyst, you leave Honored with all Alliance reputations except for Exodar, which you'll have at Revered.

---

Who the hell gives a shit about rep with your own faction? Cross-faction mounts? 30 marks from WSG, AB, and AV get you any mount type you want practically. Rep with alliance/horde is pretty useless.

quote:

---

From the book of Densetsu, chapter 3, verse 16:
Who the hell gives a shit about rep with your own faction? Cross-faction mounts? 30 marks from WSG, AB, and AV get you any mount type you want practically. Rep with alliance/horde is pretty useless.

---

Not everyone wants to PVP

Cross out Warrior as a list of choices

quote:

---

What is a Falaanla Marr? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk... Have at you!
Not everyone wants to PVP ;)

---

Grinding marks is nothing compared to grinding rep. Especially if you're horde and you win most WSG and ABs anyway. That means 50 total BGs gets you any kind of mount. Alliance it's more like 70 :o

quote:

---

Densetsu had this to say about Tron:
Who the hell gives a shit about rep with your own faction? Cross-faction mounts? 30 marks from WSG, AB, and AV get you any mount type you want practically. Rep with alliance/horde is pretty useless.

---

Because not having at least Honored with certain reps sucks ass?

That 10% discount makes a difference when training, and I doubt people want to run all the way back to Silvermoon every time they gain 2 levels. Also useful when training various tradeskills as well.

Was pretty cool starting off with that discount with the entire Alliance with minimal effort as a draenei.

quote:

---

Delidgamond wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Reroll to a druid if you want to tank
Reroll to a Paladin if you want burst damage with survivability

Cross out Warrior as a list of choices

---

I'm hearing paladin can tank pretty damn well too.

quote:

---

Willias had this to say about Cuba:
I'm hearing paladin can tank pretty damn well too.

---

Yes, yes they can. I have them as tanks frequently and I can go pretty much go nuts with Shadow Bolts witout getting any aggro. Given that they hit for 1200 on average and crit for 1800 to 2000, that's pretty awesome.

But absolutely speaking, warriors are pretty okay. I've been gearing up with quests and instances and just hit 11k HPs, 10k AC and 470 defense unbuffed in tank gear. With only 18 points in Protection (currently am 34/9/18), I've been able to hold agro on 4 mob situations in every single instance so far. It's a mighty amount of work though, especially compared to bear tanks, but hey -- the extra challenge is what's keeping me interested in instances.

However, I hear that warriors are useless on Heroic instances. But then that's coming from Warrior forums which, so far, have been completely exaggerated compared to my personal experience. Right now there aren't enough in my guild with Heroic instance keys, so I can't tell you how that goes.

In any case, I doubt things are going to stay that way forever. My hypothesis is that warriors will be lagging behind a bit until they get some epic gear and whatnot. Anyone who played a warrior and maintanked MC and above can confirm this, warriors are pretty crummy until you get sufficient gear. Bear tanks just get insane % bonuses to what HPs and AC they currently have, which is why they're so good right now. When your warrior passes up your bear on Defense again, they'll be better.

But to be fair, warriors could hardly be worse off right now. Someone starting a warrior right now will probably see positive changes by the time they hit 70.

Enough about the end game though, and on to actual levelling. As stated earlier, warriors aren't too good until you get some gear. And you don't really have time to gear up while you level, so there's only one recommendation I have: Pack a good blue weapon. Whether from the AH if you're twinked, or from instances, try as much as you can to keep your weapon no more than 4-5 levels lower than you are. That's all you need to be a killing machine.

If you're loaded, use engineering. Bombs, exploding sheep, target dummies were all extremely useful to me, allowing me to survive 2 mob situations with 2 unexpected adds, among other things.

As for spec, go Fury until 40. Arms is nice and all, but you don't get that many passive bonuses from Arms early on, at least none that are as useful to level as Fury's. Use fast weapons, and with unbridled wrath you'll get plenty of rage. Stick to mobs that are about 2 levels below you and you'll hardly have any downtime. Piercing Howl is great for running away from adds.

At 40, get a great 2 hander and respec Arms. Second Wind is simply awesome, Mortal Strike and Imp. Overpower together give you a good fighting chance against mobs 2 levels above you. Endless Rage is just a disguised counter-nerf to the rage normalization, but it doesn't hurt to get it while you're there.

So yeah, I think I covered most of what has to be said. Warriors are rather fun no matter what people are saying. Hope this non-jaded point of view helps a little. =p

quote:

---

Densetsu had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
Grinding marks is nothing compared to grinding rep. Especially if you're horde and you win most WSG and ABs anyway. That means 50 total BGs gets you any kind of mount. Alliance it's more like 70

---

It took me 2 days of questing to go from honored to exalted with Astraanar. =p

With typical alliance PvP queues, and constant PUG losses in AB/WSG on my battlegroup, it'll take me a lot more time to earn 30 of each mark than quest for 2 days.

quote:

---

Nina had this to say about Matthew Broderick:

I've been gearing up with quests and instances and just hit 11k HPs, 10k AC and 470 defense unbuffed in tank gear.

---

What the HELL gear are you in that gives you 11k hp unbuffed? I only have like 9k in my tanking at 67 :-(

quote:

---

Manticoreing:
What the HELL gear are you in that gives you 11k hp unbuffed? I only have like 9k in my tanking at 67 :-(

---

70 warlocks I've talked to have 11k+ unbuffed.

quote:

---

When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Maradon! said:
70 warlocks I've talked to have 11k+ unbuffed.

---

I could be wrong, but I think warlocks generally have more health than warriors. Also, they have the imp-- or is that not a buff?

quote:

---

x--ManticoreO-('-'Q) :
I could be wrong, but I think warlocks generally have more health than warriors. Also, they have the imp-- or is that not a buff?

---

Historically warlocks focus on +dmg first and +stam second, putting them slightly behind warriors in terms of HP, but now they're about even.

And no I'm not counting the 950hp you get from blood pact

quote:

---

Maradon! had this to say about pies:
70 warlocks I've talked to have 11k+ unbuffed.

---

If they're going heavy stamina gear and ignoring all else, sure. They might be able to push 12k too.

Thing is, you're NOT getting that kind of HP in normal gear. At all.

For comparison, I was at around 11,810 HP when i bought a full suit of level 65 pure +STA greens.

There's no way you're going to hit 11k hp and have any reasonable amount of +damage/+crit. Right now, I'm at (unbuffed) about 7000 HP/6700 Mana/+890 damage/19% crit

Falaanla Marr fucked around with this message on 02-01-2007 at 10:43 PM.

Alaan fucked around with this message on 02-01-2007 at 10:53 PM.

Yes, I have heard that warriors are kinda underpowered at the moment, but this might change any time now (or never). I don't really care about that, as long as MOBs one level above do not pose an impossible challenge to me.

And yes, if I would be interested in moneymaking with tradeskills, I probably would have chosen skinning/mining, but I do it just for fun.

Also, when can warriors use two one-hand weapons simultaneously? Did I miss a talent or don't I need one?

quote:

---

Tarquinn thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
Yes, I have heard that warriors are kinda underpowered at the moment, but this might change any time now (or never). I don't really care about that, as long as MOBs one level above do not pose an impossible challenge to me.

---

Every time I play my warrior I get really, really whiny and irritable, and I'm in the top 5% for my server gearwise (Or was, pre-BC). When I play my new mage, on the other hand, I'm content as can be.

quote:

---

Also, when can warriors use two one-hand weapons simultaneously? Did I miss a talent or don't I need one?

---