Warrior Talent Templates

There are tons of possible talent builds for a warrior, but you can categorize a little by generalizing to the keystone talents. [ed: updated for 1.8 patch 10/6/05]

The Default: Arms/Fury Damage build
31 Arms / 20 Fury.
Key Talents:

• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery (not necessarily maxed), Deep Wounds, Imp. Overpower, Sweeping Strikes, Mortal Strike.
  
• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl, Enrage (or 3 Enrage + 2 Imp. Execute)
  

Why?

• Maximize damage output. Good for Soloing, PvP, and still able to tank if played well.
  

Why not?

• Cookie Cutter Phobia. Primary interest in tanking.
  

The Alternate Default: Fury/Arms Damage build
33 Fury / 18 Arms.
Key Talents:

• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl, Unbridled Wrath (if dual wield), Enrage, Death Wish, Flurry, Bloodthirst, Imp. Zerker rage.
  
• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery, Deep Wounds, Imp. Overpower.
  

Why?

• Reported better sustained damage than the default build (when geared & played correctly). More reliance on passive abilities potentially makes tanking slightly easier than primary default. Key to PvP with this build is sticking to ones target like glue, as opposed to the "jousting" involved with 31/20.
  

Why not?

• Lack of MS. Dislike of dual wield's miss rate or difficulty countering kiting. Primary interest in tanking. Less Burst damage potential than 31/20 unless you gear provides a ridiculously high amount of attack power.
  

Also very popular: The MS Tank Build.
31 Arms / 15 Prot / 5 Fury
Key Talents:

• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery (not necessarily maxed), Deep Wounds, Imp. Overpower, Sweeping Strikes, Mortal Strike.
  
• Prot: Shield Specialization or Anticipation, Toughness (or Last stand line), Defiance.
  
• Fury: Cruelty.
  

Why?

• Gets the majority of protection's mitigation ability while still dealing good damage. Little easier to tank.
  

Why Not?

• Slightly slower solo play and some weaknesses PvP (mainly lack of enrage damage). No Piercing Howl.
  

The Arms Heavy Build.
35-40 Arms / 11-16 Fury and/or Prot
Key Talents:

• Arms: All but the most sucky ones (probably just one specific weapon specialization).
  
• Fury: Cruelty, maybe Pericing Howl.
  
• Protection: Likely just anticipation / toughness.
  

Why?

• Likes the tree and wants to be a true master of a weapon type. Heavy solo emphasis.

Why not?

• Lack of Enrage, danger of committing to weapon just to find a beter one in different category.
  

The Fury Heavy Build.
33-40 Fury / 11-18 Arms and/or Prot
Key Talents:

• Fury: Most of 'em, but especially Imp. Beserker Rage and Bloodthirst.
  
• Arms: Deflection and Tactical Mastery, maybe Imp. Overpower / Deep wounds.
  
• Prot: Probably just Shield Specialization or Anticipation.
  

Why?

• Room for flurry + improved beserker rage + improved slam (for the ultimate stationary 10-15s burst damage, as opposed to instant burst) + improved execute (raid utility) + improved intercept (pvp utility). 31 point builds don't have enough to get 'em all.
  

Why not?

• Inevitably some of the choices in the fury tree will see less use (i.e. lots of improved slam, not much improved intercept, or vice versa). Not the most efficient tank build.
  

The Flurry Light Tank Build.
31 Fury / 13 Prot / 7 Arms
Key Talents:

• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl, Unbridled Wrath (if dual wield), Enrage, Death Wish, Flurry, Bloodthirst.
  
• Prot: Shield Specialization / Anticipation, Last Stand, Defiance (2).
  
• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery (2)

Why?

• Gets some key protection talents while still dealing good damage. With passive dmg output from flurry, tanks reasonably well (esp. good at rage generation / holding aggro).
  

Why Not?

• Less Tactical Mastery than one might like. Marginally slower solo play and some PvP weaknesses (less burst damage potential).
  

The Mostly Protection Build.
31 Prot / 7-15 Arms / 5-13 Fury
Key Talents:

• Prot: Shield Specialization, Toughness (maxed or combined with Last Stand mix), Defiance, 1H Mastery, Shield Slam.
  
• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery (not necessarily maxed) - maybe Imp Overpower or Deep wounds.
  
• Fury: Cruelty - maybe Piercing Howl.
  

Why?

• Heavy tanking emphasis while retaining a few of the goodies from other trees, a decent foil to other melee classes in PvP.
  

Why not?

• Slower soloing, PvP weaknesses vs. classes whose damage ignores armor (less burst damage than MS).
  

The Heavy Protection Build.
33-44 Prot / 7-18 Arms and/or Fury
Key Talents:

• Prot: Most of the tree.
  
• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery, maybe Anger Management.
  
• Fury: Probably just Cruelty.

Why?

• Desire to be a brick wall. Able to get most of the early tree talents (including iron will which is hard to justify when points are scarce) while still getting 1h mastery.

Why not?

• Not well suited outside a raid or hard instance. Weakness in 5-man easier intance team is low damage contribution (can be countered by wearing dps gear for 5-mans).
  

[nb: this is the original author's current build (35/11/5)]

---

NON-31 builds: all lack an instant burst damage / rage dump talent! ------------

The Tactical/Howl Medium Tank Build.
29 Prot / 11 Arms / 11 Fury
Key Talents:

• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl.
  
• Prot: Shield Specialization/Anticipation, Toughness, Defiance, Concussion blow, Imp. Shield Bash, 1H mastery (4)
  
• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery, Anger Management
  

Why?

• Gets the low lying utility talents from both arms/fury while relying on 1H mastery for a consistent damage boost. Given tanking gear with high skill defense and low crit %, potentially better damage aggro than enrage/flurry (which rely on enemy crits and player crits).
  

Why Not?

• Slightly slower solo play and lack of multiple sources of burst PvP damage (stuck with Whirlwind and non-improved Overpower).
  

The Flurry Concussion Build.
30 Fury / 21 Prot
Key Talents:

• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl, Unbridled Wrath (if dual wield), Enrage, Death Wish, Flurry.
  
• Shield Specialization/Anticipation, Toughness (maxed or with Last stand mix), Defiance, Concussion blow.
  

Why?

• Two high tree keystone talents - good damage and good stuns. Tanks fairly well.
  

Why not?

• No Tactical Mastery, no Deflection, no burst damage talent. In a rough spot for using quick intercept in PvP (due to rage loss).
  

The Sweeping Strikes Concussion Build.
21-30 Arms / 21 Prot / 0-9 Fury.
Key Talents:

• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery (not necessarily maxed), Deep Wounds, Imp. Overpower, Sweeping Strikes.
  
• Prot: Shield Specialization/Anticipation, Toughness (maxed or with Last stand mix), Defiance, Concussion blow.
  
• Fury: Cruelty.

Why?

• Two high tree keystone talents - good damage and good stuns. Tanks fairly well.
  

Why not?

• No Piercing Howl. No enrage reduces damage potential when tanking. No burst damage talent.
  

The Enraged Tank Build.
21 Fury / 21 Prot / 9 Arms
Key Talents:

• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl, Unbridled Wrath (4), Enrage, Death Wish.
  
• Shield Specialization/Anticipation, Toughness (maxed or with Last stand mix), Defiance, Concussion blow.
  
• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery (4)
  

Why?

• Gets many key protection mitigation and aggro holding talents. Uses tanking role as a means to get a crit to trigger Enrage.
  

Why Not?

• The better you tank and the more you stun the less likely you are to be critted, so this somewhat works against itself.
  

[thanks for the addition Craziel]

The Jack of All Trades Build.
16 Arms / 14 Prot / 20 Fury (among other mixes - hard to categorize)
Key Talents:

• Arms: Deflection, Tactical Mastery (not necessarily maxed), Deep Wounds, Imp. Overpower.
• Prot: Imp. Bloodrage, Last Stand.
• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl, Unbridled Wrath (if dual wield), Enrage.

Why?

• Grab all the tasty good talents at the bottom of the trees. Relatively versalite.
  

Why not?

• No high end keystone talents (Sweeping, MS, Conc. Blow, Flurry).
  

The Control Freak.
26 Arms / 25 Fury
Key Talents:

• Arms: Imp. Charge, Tactical Mastery, Anger Management, Wep Spec of Choice, Imp. Hamstring.
  
• Fury: Cruelty, Piercing Howl, Imp Execute, Imp Intercept, Deathwish.

Why?

• Focus on controlling the range/movement of others (charge/hamstring/intercept/PH) while retaining control of own movement (Death Wish). Pretty much a specialized design for intercepting flag carriers in CTF Battlegrounds. If opting for mace spec, can also be a high stun % build (complementing the control theme).

Why not?

• No damage enhancing talents except for cruelty and perhaps 2H/Weapon spec leaves the DPS lower than an MS or Flurry build. The theory is staying in melee range for longer amounts of time will compensate, but in practice that may not be the case. Very little in the way of tanking support talents.
  

Feel free to comment / add more templates if you can think of ones that significantly vary from these. Please attribute your edits.
--Olon97 22:52, 3 Feb 2005 (MST)