Leveling a Warrior to 20

How to level a Warrior in WoW Forever from 1 to the level 20 beta cap: Rage and stances, every ability as you learn it, the published leveling talent builds, what to press, class quests, gear, and the mistakes new Warriors make.

The WoW Forever beta is capped at level 20, and level 30 is expected around mid-October 2026. Abilities, talents and tooltips here come from the Forever beta client. Anything taken from Classic's data, such as class quest givers and places, is labelled, because Forever may have changed it.

The Warrior in a nutshell

The Warrior is a melee fighter: you walk up to enemies and hit them with a weapon. You can level as a damage dealer (the Arms and Fury talent trees) or as a tank, the player who holds enemies' attention in a group so they hit you instead of your friends (the Protection tree). You can switch between these later, so you don't have to decide on day one.

Your resource is Rage, not Mana. The bar starts empty, fills up when you deal and take damage, and slowly drains away once you leave combat. Almost every attack costs Rage, so a Warrior plays in a rhythm: build Rage, spend it, build it again. That is the biggest difference from other classes, and it's covered in detail below.

The Forever client lets Warriors wear cloth, leather and mail from level 1 and plate from level 40, and carry a shield. You can use almost every weapon: one- and two-handed axes, maces and swords, daggers, fist weapons, staves, and polearms from level 20. You can dual-wield (hold a weapon in each hand) from level 20. Bows, guns, crossbows and thrown weapons go in your ranged slot, mostly for pulling an enemy from a distance.

Good at

• Hitting hard with a good weapon. A Warrior's attacks add to your weapon's damage, so every weapon upgrade makes everything stronger.
• Taking hits. Mail armor, a shield if you want one, and Defensive Stance make you hard to kill.
• Groups. Every group needs a tank, and a Warrior who can tank finds dungeon groups quickly. Battle Shout also makes every melee player in your party hit harder.

Not so good at

• Healing yourself. You have no healing spell, so you eat food between fights to get health back. This rest time is called downtime.
• Fighting several enemies at once early on. Until your area attacks and talents arrive, two or three enemies at once can go wrong fast.
• Starting fights. Rage is empty at the start of a fight, so your first seconds are slow unless you open with Charge.

Choosing a race

Every race in WoW Forever can be a Warrior: Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnome and High Order Skyborne for the Alliance, and Orc, Undead, Tauren, Troll and Windshaper Skyborne for the Horde. Blizzard reworked the racial abilities so that each race has two active abilities and two passive ones, tuned to give a similar amount of power. No race is the right one: pick the look, faction and starting zone you like. The table lists the racials that matter most for a Warrior, from the Forever client's tooltips.

Racial tooltips are from the Forever beta client and are still being tuned.

Watch out: Gnome Eureka!: the client tooltip still says it lowers the Energy cost of your next 3 damaging abilities, which a Warrior doesn't use. Blizzard's September 24 development notes say it was changed on every class to a discount on Mana, Rage or Energy abilities, so it should work with Rage in the current beta.

Read more in Races, classes and reworked racials. The Skyborne start on their own island, Zephras Isle; see Meet the Skyborne.

Rage and stances

Rage is what makes the Warrior different. You gain it by hitting enemies and by being hit, and you spend it on attacks. Two abilities give you Rage on demand. Charge (level 4) rushes you to an enemy from range, generates 9 Rage and stuns it for 1 sec. Bloodrage (level 10) generates 10 rage at the cost of some health, then more over the next few seconds.

Out of combat your Rage drains away, so you start almost every fight near empty. That's why the usual opening is Charge: it gets you to the enemy and gives you Rage to spend straight away.

A stance is a fighting mode that changes how you fight. You can only be in one at a time, and you switch with a button on your stance bar.

• Battle Stance (level 1) is your starting stance: balanced, and the one you level in with a two-handed weapon.
• Defensive Stance (level 10) decreases damage taken by 10% and damage caused by 10%, and increases all threat generated by 30%. Threat is how much an enemy wants to attack you, so this is the tanking stance. Solo, use it to survive a pull that has gone wrong.
• Tactical Mastery (level 14) is new in Forever: you keep up to 10 Rage when you change stances, so switching no longer throws away your whole bar. The Arms talent Improved Tactical Mastery raises that.
• Berserker Stance, the third stance, isn't available until level 30 in the Forever client.

Speculation: Classic data: in Classic, some attacks only worked in certain stances. For example Charge, Overpower, Thunder Clap, Mocking Blow and Retaliation needed Battle Stance, while Taunt, Revenge, Shield Block and Disarm needed Defensive Stance. The Forever client doesn't list which stance each attack needs, so this may have changed. If an attack stays greyed out, try the other stance: Tactical Mastery means it costs you little Rage.

Tip: Blizzard's September 24 notes say Warriors are one of the first classes that can test the new Cooldown Manager, which shows your important cooldowns in one place you can move. It is off by default: turn it on in Options, under Gameplay Enhancement. Gamepad players also get a stance flyout on the action bar.

Abilities by level

You learn new abilities from a Warrior trainer in your starting area and in every capital city. In the Forever client, Warriors get something new at every even level from 4 to 20, so visit a trainer at 4, 6, 8 and so on. This table lists everything the trainer teaches up to level 20, straight from the client:

Everything a Warrior learns from the class trainer up to level 20, from the Forever client.

The client also lists Improved Challenging Shout and Improved Pummel at level 1. They only change abilities you don't have yet (Challenging Shout comes at level 26 and Pummel much later), so you can ignore them for now. Here are the abilities that matter, in the order you get them:

• Heroic Strike, level 1: your basic attack that turns spare Rage into damage. It replaces your next normal swing instead of firing at once, and it causes a high amount of threat.
• Battle Shout, level 1: raises the melee attack power of every party member within 20 yards and lasts 3 min. Keep it up all the time.
• Spearing Strike, level 1, new in Forever: a weak attack on most enemies, but against Giants, Dragonkin and mounted targets it deals an additional 80% weapon damage and knocks riders off their mounts.
• Charge, level 4: your opener. It can't be used once you are in combat, so it only starts fights.
• Rend, level 4: makes the target bleed over time. Use it on enemies that will live a while, and skip it on ones that die in a few hits.
• Thunder Clap, level 6: your first attack on several enemies. It hits up to 4 of them and makes them attack 20% slower.
• Hamstring, level 8: slows the enemy's movement by 40%. Use it when an enemy turns to run, so it can't bring friends back.
• Defensive Stance, level 10: the tanking stance, covered above.
• Bloodrage, level 10: Rage when you need it. It puts you in combat, so use it after Charge, never before.
• Sunder Armor, level 10: lowers the target's armor and causes a high amount of threat. It stacks up to 5 times, and it's the tank's main tool.
• Taunt, level 10: makes an enemy attack you. It's for tanking, or for saving a friend who has pulled an enemy off you.
• Overpower, level 12: a cheap weapon hit that you can only use right after the target dodges, and that can't be blocked, dodged or parried. Press it every time it lights up.
• Shield Bash, level 12: needs a shield. It interrupts a spell and stops that school of spells for 6 sec, your answer to enemy casters and healers.
• Demoralizing Shout, level 14: lowers the melee attack power of all enemies within 10 yards for 45 sec. Great when several enemies are hitting you.
• Revenge, level 14: a counterattack that lights up after you block, dodge or parry. Protection Warriors press it constantly.
• Mocking Blow, level 16: a backup way to make an enemy attack you.
• Shield Block, level 16: needs a shield. It raises your block chance by 75% for 7 sec, for up to 2 blocks.
• Disarm, level 18: takes an enemy's weapon away for 10 sec. Great on elites that hit hard with a weapon.
• Cleave, level 20: like Heroic Strike, but it also hits a second nearby enemy.
• Slam, level 20: a strong weapon hit with a short cast. Blizzard gave it a cooldown in Forever, so it's a regular extra hit rather than something you repeat.
• Retaliation, level 20: for a short time you strike back at every enemy that hits you in melee from the front. It has a very long cooldown, so save it for emergencies.

Coming at level 30

These are in the client for when the cap rises, which Blizzard hasn't confirmed yet:

• Intimidating Shout at level 22: makes nearby enemies flee in fear. Careful: running enemies can pull more.
• Execute at level 24: a finishing blow on enemies at 20% health or less.
• Challenging Shout at level 26: makes every nearby enemy attack you, the tank's emergency button.
• Shield Wall at level 28: a big cut to the damage you take for a short time.
• Berserker Stance and Intercept at level 30: the third stance, and a second charge that deals damage and stuns.

Talents: which spec to level with

You get your first talent point at level 10 and one more each level, so 11 points by level 20. That is enough to reach the third row of one talent tree. You spend them at your talent pane (press N).

If you have not recently changed your talents, the cost is now 1 silver to re-spec. This is temporary for the Beta only. After your first talent reset, the subsequent cost will be much higher, but it will drop to 1 silver after 1 hour has passed. Blizzard, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes (September 24)

So during the beta you can try all three. ForeverDB has a published leveling build for each tree. You can see every point and the reason for it on the Warrior builds page, and plan your own in the talent calculator.

Summaries of the published level 20 leveling builds. Talent tooltips are from the Forever client; most ranks above rank 1 have no text in the client yet.

Which one should you pick?

• Arms if you want a simple, strong start with a big two-handed weapon. It is the build that most directly fixes the Warrior's early problem, an empty Rage bar.
• Fury if you like critical hits and want talents that work without extra buttons. The builds note that Fury's playstyle only really changes at level 30, with Improved Slam.
• Protection if you want to tank dungeons, or you find you die too often. It is the slowest to kill things, but the safest.

Whichever you pick, the level 30 versions on the builds page carry on from the same points. Arms heads for Sweeping Strikes, Fury for Improved Slam, and Protection for Last Stand and Concussion Blow.

Watch out: Two Protection talent slots (in rows 2 and 3) point to spells that the client doesn't describe; their effect is set by Blizzard's servers. The published builds skip them. Blizzard's notes also say Focused Rage and Bastion swapped rows, but the current client doesn't show a Focused Rage talent, so check your talent pane in game before planning past 20.

What to press

This is the level 20 order from the published builds, in plain terms. Earlier on, skip the steps you haven't learned yet.

One enemy (Arms or Fury)

1. Before you pull, shout Battle Shout. It lasts long enough to cover several fights.
2. Open with Charge from range. It can't be used once you are in combat.
3. Right after Charge, press Bloodrage for extra Rage.
4. Put Rend on enemies that will live a while. Skip it on ones that die quickly.
5. Press Overpower every time the enemy dodges and it lights up.
6. Use Slam right after a normal swing lands, whenever it is off cooldown. Its short cast delays your next swing, so timing it just after a swing loses the least.
7. When you have more Rage than those attacks need, spend it on Heroic Strike.
8. Against Giants, Dragonkin and mounted enemies, use Spearing Strike on cooldown. On other enemies it isn't worth the Rage.
9. When an enemy turns to run at low health, Hamstring it.

Several enemies

1. Start with Thunder Clap: it hits up to 4 enemies and makes them attack 20% slower.
2. Add Demoralizing Shout so they all hit you for less.
3. Use Cleave instead of Heroic Strike while two enemies stand together.
4. Put Rend on a second enemy if the fight will last.
5. If three or more are beating on you and it is going badly, press Retaliation, or change to Defensive Stance and fight on. Tactical Mastery keeps some of your Rage when you switch.

Protection (sword and board)

1. Open with Charge, then change to Defensive Stance.
2. Press Bloodrage for Rage.
3. Keep Shield Block up while the enemy is hitting you. With Shield Specialization, every block also gives you Rage.
4. Press Revenge every time it lights up after a block, dodge or parry.
5. Use Rend on enemies that will last, and Heroic Strike with spare Rage.
6. Interrupt casters with Shield Bash.
7. On two or more enemies, open with Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout.

Watch out: Heroic Strike and Cleave don't fire at once: they replace your next normal swing. Blizzard lists a known issue in the beta where queuing one of these attacks disables the spell queue window, so your next ability may feel slow to respond right after you press them.

Class quests

Speculation: Classic data: the quests below are in the Forever client, but who gives them, where they start and what they reward come from Classic's data. Forever may have moved or changed them.

At level 1, the first quest giver of each starting area hands Warriors a note that sends you to your class trainer. In Classic's data it's Simple Letter from Marshal McBride (Human), Simple Rune (Dwarf) and Simple Memorandum (Gnome) from Sten Stoutarm, Simple Sigil from Conservator Ilthalaine (Night Elf), Simple Parchment (Orc) and Simple Tablet (Troll) from Gornek, Simple Note from Grull Hawkwind (Tauren), and Simple Scroll from Shadow Priest Sarvis (Undead). Do it: it's free experience and shows you where your trainer stands. There is no Classic version for the Skyborne, who start on Zephras Isle.

At level 10, each faction has Warrior quest chains. Classic's data has them starting here:

Level 10 Warrior quest chains that the Forever client has. Giver and place from Classic's data.

The chains then lead on: in Stormwind to Harry Burlguard and Bartleby, in Ironforge to Muren Stormpike and Tormus Deepforge, in Darnassus to Elanaria and Mathiel, in the Barrens to Uzzek and Thun'grim Firegaze, and in Tirisfal Glades to Deathguard Dillinger and Coleman Farthing. Classic's data opens all of them to every race of the faction.

Speculation: In Classic, these level 10 chains taught Defensive Stance, and follow-up quests such as Grey Iron Weapons, Weapons of Elunite, Forged Steel and Heirloom Weapon offered a weapon. In the Forever client Defensive Stance is a trainer ability at level 10, so the chains may now reward something else. The client doesn't say.

At level 20 there are more: Classic's data has Yorus Barleybrew from Wu Shen in Stormwind, leading to Redridge Mountains, for the Alliance, and Speak with Ruga from Sorek in Orgrimmar, leading to the Trial at the Field of Giants in the Barrens, for the Horde. Most of their follow-ups are level 22 to 30 quests, so treat them as something to pick up now and finish after the cap rises.

Speculation: Classic's data lists The Islander, The Affray and The Windwatcher as level 30 Warrior quests; in Classic they led to Berserker Stance. In the Forever client Berserker Stance is taught by the trainer at level 30.

Gear, weapons and professions

Your weapon matters more than anything else. Overpower, Slam, Cleave and Spearing Strike all deal your weapon's damage plus a bonus, so a better weapon makes every attack better. For Arms and Fury, pick a two-hander with high damage per swing. For Protection, use a one-handed weapon and the best shield you can find.

Stat order from the class guides: Arms wants weapon damage, then Strength, Hit, Critical Strike, Agility and Stamina. Fury puts Hit first, then Strength and Critical Strike. Protection wants Stamina, Armor and Defense. In Forever, melee, ranged and spell hit are one stat, and so is critical strike chance.

The Warrior PvE page has a gear list for every slot at level 20 for each spec, with where each item comes from, and the gear planner lets you compare items. Right now the level 20 lists for Arms and Fury put new Forever Blacksmithing mail near the top of several slots, such as Veteran's Silvered Chain Helm and Veteran's Chain Leggings. The Protection list is full of the tanking versions, such as Guard's Chain Leggings and Protector's Chain Leggings.

Tip: Quest rewards are your main source of gear while leveling. When a quest offers a choice, take the weapon if it's an upgrade, since it counts for more than any armor piece.

Professions: Mining and Blacksmithing suit a Warrior, because Blacksmithing makes mail armor, weapons and sharpening stones, and those crafted mail sets rank well in the gear lists. Blizzard's Deep Dive also says Blacksmiths can place a Sharpening Wheel at a campfire for an Attack Power buff. First Aid bandages cut your downtime, since you have no healing of your own. See the professions guide for how to start.

Groups and dungeons

Warriors are welcome in any group. As a tank, you walk in first, pull enemies and keep their attention with Sunder Armor, Revenge, Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout. If an enemy runs at your healer, Taunt it back. As a damage dealer, let the tank hit first: Heroic Strike and Cleave cause a lot of threat, and an enemy that turns on you is your problem.

The dungeons within reach before 20 are Ragefire Chasm (from level 13), Deadmines (from 16), Wailing Caverns (from 17) and Shadowfang Keep (from 18), with minimum levels from the Forever client. Start with Your first dungeon, and use the planner to look at the bosses before you go.

Tip: Battle Shout reaches every party member within 20 yards, so shout it before each pull. The melee players in your group will thank you.

Common beginner mistakes

• Pressing Bloodrage before Charge. Bloodrage puts you in combat, and Charge can't be used in combat. Always Charge first.
• Skipping the trainer. Warriors learn something at every even level from 4 on. A missing rank of Heroic Strike or Rend costs you damage in every fight.
• Keeping an old weapon. Your attacks scale with weapon damage, so a green two-hander from a quest can feel like a new class.
• Pulling too many at once. Fight one or two enemies at a time until you have Thunder Clap, Demoralizing Shout and some talents. If three come, use Defensive Stance and Retaliation rather than running (you'll often be too slow to escape).
• Leveling solo in Defensive Stance with a two-hander. It lowers your damage, so every fight takes longer. Use it for emergencies and tanking.
• Wasting Spearing Strike. It only shines against Giants, Dragonkin and mounted enemies.
• Letting runners go. Humanoids flee at low health and come back with friends. Hamstring them, or finish them before they get far.
• Starting a fight hurt. Eat back to full health between pulls. It's quicker than dying and walking back.

What Forever changed for Warriors

Compared with Classic, the Forever client and Blizzard's notes show these changes up to level 20. See the changes tab and the Warrior outlook for the full list.

• New abilities: Spearing Strike at level 1 and Tactical Mastery at level 14, both flagged as new in the client.
• Slam is learned at level 20 and has a cooldown. It's flagged as new in the client.
• Several tooltips changed from Classic Era: Battle Shout lasts 3 minutes instead of 2 (though each rank gives less attack power), Thunder Clap slows attacks by 20% instead of 10%, Demoralizing Shout lasts 45 seconds, Shield Block stops two attacks instead of one, and Revenge hits harder.
• Defensive Stance's tooltip now states the threat bonus, 30%.
• The Arms talent Anger Management generates Rage in combat as well as slowing Rage loss out of combat.
• Racials were reworked (see the race table above).

Slam’s cooldown has been increased to 18 seconds (was 15 seconds). Improved Slam now reduces the cooldown of Slam by 1.5/3 seconds. Blizzard, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes (September 24)

Sunder Armor: Corrected the threat values on all ranks, including a small increase to threat generated from Attack Power. Blizzard, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes (September 24)

For the whole game's changes, see our write-up of the September 24 development notes.

Checked against WoW Forever beta build 1.60.1.70009.