WRITTEN ARTICLE · WARRIOR LEVELING
WoW Forever Warrior leveling guide: Rage, Victory Rush and talents to 30
How to level a Warrior in the WoW Forever beta: when Tactical Mastery, Victory Rush and Berserker Rage arrive, how Rage now works and which talents to take to level 30.
How do you level a Warrior in WoW Forever?
Pick up Tactical Mastery at level 14 and Victory Rush at level 20, and build your fights around them. Tactical Mastery lets you keep some Rage when you change stance. Victory Rush is an attack that heals you after a kill. Both are now trained abilities for every Warrior, not talents.
Blizzard also rebuilt Rage. Armour no longer reduces the Rage you gain from being hit, and critical strikes give extra Rage. Our suggested plan to level 30, the current beta cap, is Arms with a two-handed weapon, but Fury and Protection both gained leveling tools as well.
In this article
Diagram: ForeverWisp Editorial.
Warrior milestones from level 10 to 30
Talent points start at level 10 and you gain one per level, so talent point 16 arrives at level 25 and point 21 at level 30. Blizzard added a 16-point gold medal talent to each tree alongside the familiar 11, 21 and 31-point talents.
| Level | What changes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Talents unlock. Visit your class trainer for the level 10 Warrior quest. | Blizzard deep dive |
| 14 | Tactical Mastery: keep 10 Rage when you change stance. | Blizzard deep dive |
| 20 | Victory Rush: a 30-second cooldown attack that heals you for 10% of your maximum health. It becomes usable for 20 seconds each time you kill an enemy that is not trivial for your level. | Blizzard deep dive |
| 25 | The earliest level for a 16-point talent, such as Spearing Strike, Raging Blows or Vanguard, if every point is in that tree. | Blizzard deep dive |
| 30 | Berserker Rage, moved from 32 on October 1. Level 30 is also the current beta cap. | October 1 notes |
How Rage works in Forever
Blizzard’s September 30 deep dive set out two rules. Rage from taking damage now ignores your armour and any damage absorb, such as Power Word: Shield. Rage from dealing damage is fully normalised, so the Rage you gain now depends on the speed of the weapon that hit.
Critical strikes give extra Rage. Blizzard planned 75% more and raised it to 100% more in the October 1 notes.
The October 8 notes fixed several bugs in Rage from taking damage. One used the Warrior’s own health in the formula instead of the expected creature’s, so more Stamina gear meant less Rage. Blizzard also rebalanced the formula for questing Warriors. It previously assumed a tank’s 50% armour and now assumes 20% to 40%, depending on level. Blizzard says a typical Warrior should now gain more Rage from being hit.
Which talents to take while leveling
Our Warrior talent guide uses an Arms plan for a two-handed weapon, finishing at 31 Arms and 20 Fury at level 60. Up to level 30 it spends all 21 points in Arms. It starts with Improved Rend, Deflection and Improved Overpower, finishes Improved Tactical Mastery at 21, takes Anger Management at 22 and Deep Wounds by 25, then adds Two-Handed Weapon Specialization, Impale and Sweeping Strikes. Since October 8, Deep Wounds is again required before Impale. The plan is our own theorycraft and has not been tested in the beta.
Arms also gained Bloodthrill, which can let you use Overpower when your main-hand attacks hit a target with Rend. Its chance went up to 4/8/12/16/20% on September 24. Spearing Strike, the Arms 16-point talent, needs Battle Stance but no longer needs a two-handed weapon.
Fury had a large pass on October 1. Whirlwind now always hits with both weapons without a talent, Lingering Rage delays Rage decay after you leave combat and Bloodthirst’s Attack Power ratio rose from 35% to 45%. On September 24, Protection moved Focused Rage, which lowers the Rage cost of offensive abilities, up to row 5. Blizzard said this should make leveling smoother before Shield Slam. Vanguard, the Protection 16-point talent, lets you Charge in Defensive Stance.
How to play a leveling Warrior
These habits follow from the changes Blizzard has published. They are suggestions to try, not measured results.
- Open with Rend or Sunder Armor. Since October 1, both tag the enemy to you straight away, so another player cannot take the kill.
- Save Victory Rush for after each kill. It heals 10% of your maximum health, which can cut your downtime between pulls.
- Use Tactical Mastery to change stance without losing all your Rage, for example to use Overpower in Battle Stance.
- Thunder Clap now works in Defensive Stance and scales with Attack Power, which helps when you pull two or three enemies.
- Since October 8, a macro can again swap more than one weapon in a single global cooldown, such as from a two-hander to a sword and shield.
- Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall no longer share a cooldown, and Retaliation and Shield Wall are down to 15 minutes, so keep them for pulls that go wrong.
Weapons and Weaponmaster
Arms no longer has separate Axe, Mace, Sword and Polearm Specialization talents. Weaponmaster, a row 5 talent, combines them and gives a bonus based on the weapon you hold. Axes and polearms add critical strike chance, maces and staves ignore some armour, and swords can give an extra attack.
That means you can take the best weapon upgrade you find without changing talents. Watch your weapon skill when you switch weapon types, and check where to learn new weapon skills.
The level 10 Warrior quest
Wowhead’s Forever quest database lists the Warrior class quests. As a Human in Stormwind, for example, talk to Harry Burlguard, then find Bartleby the Drunk. If you started elsewhere, visit your class trainer at level 10 to see your chain.
Finish the chain while you are in the city. It is easy to leave it half done when your next quest is in another zone.
What is still changing
On September 30 Blizzard acknowledged Rage bugs that could take a couple of weeks to track down. The October 8 fixes addressed several, but Rage values may still change in later builds.
Dual Specialization unlocks at level 40, above the beta cap, so you cannot keep a separate tanking build while leveling to 30. In September, players also reported a delay after changing stance in a macro. That report predates the current build and is covered in our Warrior beta changes article. ForeverWisp has not playtested a Warrior, so treat this guide as a plan built from Blizzard’s notes.
Related reading and guides
Sources and review notes
- Blizzard: Priest and Warrior class deep dive, September 30
- Blizzard: September 24 beta development notes
- Blizzard: October 1 beta development notes
- Blizzard: October 8 beta development notes
- Forever quest record: Bartleby the Drunk
Written October 12 from Blizzard’s September 30 Priest and Warrior class deep dive and the September 24, October 1 and October 8 beta development notes. The talent order comes from our own untested plan. ForeverWisp has not playtested a Warrior in the beta.
