Warriors are one of the most popular classes in World of Warcraft for good reason. Blizzard has taken the typical tank class and added to it to make a class that is versatile and fun for many different playing styles. This guide assumes that you’ve already made your decision to be a warrior, but in case you are still deciding, here are a few pros and cons of the class for you to consider.
Pros
●Most hit points of any class
●Able to stand up well in melee
●Good for both groups and soloing
●Available for all races
●Huge armor advantage
Cons
●Some vulnerability to spell casters
●Less ranged options
●Non-melee combat not an option
●Lots of warriors means competition for group slots
If you’re concerned with the lack of ranged attacks or want to play a spell caster, then warrior is not for you. However, if you’re looking for a class that is able to take it and dish it out in melee, warrior is one of the most fun classes to play in WOW.
Starting A New Character
When creating your first warrior, you have to consider a lot of play options, from choosing a race and faction to deciding which server type is best for you. Here are some of the things you can work with inside of the warrior class to customize your character even more.
Understanding Statistics
While World of Warcraft does not make you buy your statistics through a point system like many MMORPGs, you do have a say in which of your statistics are greatest through the modifiers on the equipment that you wear and enchantments/enhancements that you get. There are five main statistics that you can modify.

Strength
Strength modifies the pure physical power of your warrior. The higher the strength is, the more power your attacks will have. This statistic is also used to figure out how much damage you can block if you use a shield. Needless to say, this is one of the most important statistics for a warrior.
Agility
Agility helps your armor rating, your chance to dodge and your chance to critical on an attack. A warrior with a high agility will be able to sustain large amounts of damage while dealing far more much of the time.
Stamina
Stamina is your hit points, pure and simple. As a melee character, you will want to boost this as much as possible to achieve a large amount of hit points – thus increasing your staying power in melee combat.
Intelligence
Intelligence for a warrior is only used to determine how fast your skill with a weapon may increase. It is the least important statistic for the power-focused warrior and should not be increased. You can safely ignore this statistic.
Spirit
Spirit will increase the rate your health regenerates. Health regenerates fairly quickly in WOW anyway, so this usually isn’t worth specifically increasing, especially if you are doing so at the cost of one of the more important statistics such as stamina or strength.
For a warrior most of the time you’ll want to increase stats in the following order of importance: Strength, Stamina, Agility, Spirit, Intelligence. However for certain talent builds you may want to switch some of the first statistics around, for example if you want to focus on critical hits you may want to switch Agility and Stamina.
Statistic Formulas
To figure out what these statistics actually mean to your game, there are several formulas you can use. Most of these are fairly simple, and there are few that you will need to calculate on a regular basis. However, if you are having trouble figuring out which armor is better, the one that gives a high armor rating but a low Stamina boost or the one with the high Stamina but lower armor, these can help you work that out to the exact amount of damage reduction and hit point increase.

I personally don’t like to do a lot of math while gaming if I can help it, so these formulas represent the sort of split-second decision makers that I usually use to decide between pieces of equipments. They are not always reliable to the exact number, but they do a good job of giving an approximate number.
Hit Points
Hit points, also known as Health, are generated for a beginning warrior using the Stamina statistic as follows:
HP= 50 * (STA -20)
The one exception to this is a Tauren warrior who gets an extra 4 HP, but this is a good basic formula to work with.
Damage Reduction
Damage reduction is still being worked out for exact numbers, but a formula that has worked for me and others is this one:
(armor / (armor + ((85 * level) + 400)))
This again is not exact, but serves as a good idea of what will happen.
Attack Power
Level * 3 + STR * 2 – 20
This will also give you the amount of damage you will be able to do per second (DPS), if you divide this number by 14. For every 14 points of attack power, you will do 1 point of DPS. Note that this will also be affected by what equipment you are using and how good you are at using it.
Critical Hits
There are a lot of complicated formulas that try to figure out what you exact CH% will be, however I have found that your critical hit percentage can be approximated by taking your agility divided by 20. So, for about every 20 agility you have, your CH% will go up 1%.
Armor Class
Your armor class is determined by the armor rating you have as well as your agility. Every point of agility brings your AC up by 2.
AC = armor + AGL*2
These are the basics, if you are able to figure a few of these when choosing equipment, you will be better informed and able to make a good decision. My experience is that these are not really crucial for beginning characters, however, so you may want to leave these until higher levels when equipment can really make the difference between two similar PVP characters.

Races, Factions and Racial Abilities
The warrior is unique where choosing a race is concerned, as it is the only class that all races have available. Thus, there are a lot of choices out there and several things you’ll want to consider when choosing a race for your character.
First, figure out which faction you want to join. Alliance is comprised of Night Elves, Humans, Gnomes and Dwarves, while the Horde claims Orcs, Tauren, Undead and Trolls. These sides are of course at war, which means that you won’t be playing with the opposite side very often. In fact, your chat messages won’t even translate to the other side, so you will only be able to communicate with emotes. This being the case, be sure to pick the same side that your friends are playing on, or you will not be able to really play with them.
Each race in WoW has its own unique special abilities, regardless of which class you play. Some of these abilities are useful to warriors, and some really don’t matter. Also, each race has slightly different starting statistics.

Human
●Perception (Active) – Activate to increase stealth detection radius by 10 yards, lasts 20 seconds with a 3 minute cool down.
●The Human Spirit (Passive) – Increases Spirit by 10%.
●Diplomacy (Passive) – Increase faction point gain by 10%.
●Sword and Mace Specialization (Passive) – Increase sword and mace skill by 1%.
Dwarf
●Stoneform (Active) – Activate for +10% AC and immunity to all poisons, disease and bleed effects, last for 8 seconds with a 3 minute cool down.
●Treasure Finding (Active) – Activate to locate treasure on your mini map, lasts until cancelled, no cool down.
●Frost Resistance (Passive) -- +10 to frost resistance.
●Gun Specialization (Passive) – increase chance to crit with guns by 1%.
Night Elf
●Shadowmeld (Active) – Activate to enter stealth mode, lasts while immobile and out of combat, or until cancelled.
●Quickness (Passive) – 1% dodge chance increase
●Wisp Spirit – Become a wisp when dead, increasing speed by 50%.
●Nature Resistance (Passive) -- +10 nature resistance
Draenei
●Gift of the Naaru (Active) – Activate to heal your target for 35 + 15 per Level over 15 sec - 40 yd range - 1.5 sec cast - 3 min cooldown.
●Heroic Presence (Passive) – Chance to hit increases by 1% for you and Warriors, Paladins and Hunter within 30 yards.
●Inspiring Presence (Passive) – Chance to hit with spell increases by 1% for you and Priests, Mages and Shaman within 30 yards.
●Gemcutting (Passive) -- +5 jewelcrafting skill
●Shadow Resistance – +10 shadow resistance.
Gnome
●Escape Artist (Active) – Activate to break out of immobilizing and speed reducing effects, Instant cast with a 1 min 45 sec cool down.
●Expansive Mind (Passive) -- +5% increase to intelligence

●Arcane Resistance (Passive) -- +10 arcane resistance
●Technologist (Passive) -- +15 engineering skill
Orc
●Blood Fury (Active) – Activate for increase of attack power by 2+lvl*4, and decreases healing done to the user by 50% for 25 seconds. 2 minute cool down.
●Hardiness (Passive) – 15% resistance to stun and knockout effects
●Command (Passive) -- +5% pet melee damage
●Axe Specialization (Passive) -- Increases chance to crit with axes and two-handed axes by 1%.
Undead
●Will of the Forsaken (Active) – Activate for immunity to sleep, fear and charm effects. Lasts 5 seconds with a 2 minute cool down.
●Cannabalise (Passive) – 7% health regeneration every 2 seconds for 10 seconds while eating a Humanoid or Undead corpse. Cancelled by action or damage.
●Underwater Breathing (Passive) – Increases breath meter time by 300%.
●Shadow Resistance (Passive) -- +10 shadow resistance
Tauren
●War Stomp (Active) – 0.5 second cast to stun up to 5 enemies in the nearby area, lasts for 2 seconds with a 2 minute cool down.
●Endurance (Passive) -- +5% health
●Nature Resistance (Passive) -- +10 nature resistance
●Cultivation (Passive) -- +15 herbalisim skill
Troll
●Berserking (Active) – Activate when wounded for a maximum of 30% increase to melee and casting speed, lasts for 10 seconds with a 3 minute cool down. Costs 10 Energy, 5 Rage, or 7% of base mana.
●Regeneration (Passive) -- +10% health regeneration, 10% regeneration active while in combat
●Beast Slaying (Passive) -- +5% damage to beasts

●Throwing Weapon Specialization (Passive) -- Increases chance to crit with Throwing Weapon by 1%

This is a lot of information to digest, so let me highlight a few important notes here. First, keep in mind that while your choice will make for a very different beginning game, once you hit higher levels it really won’t matter very much which race you are, except in terms of faction. A warrior may have some minor differences due to race, but what really makes one warrior different from another is 1) equipment and 2) talents. We’ll get into those later.
However, when you are first starting out as a warrior your game play style should dictate which race you choose. If you are going to be rushing into the fray without a lot of strategy involved, you will want the race with the most hit points, the Dwarf, or the Tauren for War Stomp and the extra HP later. However, if you’re a role player, you may find that a Gnome warrior is a lot of fun just for the oppertunities for story telling. A tactics oriented person may want to try Night Elf because you have to play a little smarter with less advantages right off the bat. The important thing to remember is that there are no really bad choices here. A Draenei warrior is a good choice if you want to solo as Gift of the Naaru will heal every 3 minutes. As well as being able to increase 1% hit chance to your group.
For the player who wants the greatest advantage starting out, I believe the Tauren is the best choice. The ability to stun can be a big advantage when you most need it, and the HP and power attack are both extremely high. For an Alliance player, a Dwarf can also be a good choice here – Stoneform can keep you alive longer and help defend against spell casters, and the Dwarven statistics are also very high. It is also worth pointing out that Trolls get an advantage with ranged attacks immediately and health regeneration, and also that the Undead’s Will of the Forsaken can come in very handy while fighting casters. The Gnome’s Escape Artist can also be useful against mages and druids.
Whatever you choose, be sure to familiarise yourself with your race’s advantages and disadvantages, so that you can best use them on the field of battle. These can greatly help you during your beginning game.
Server Types
The last decision you will need to make before you begin playing is that of choosing a server to play on. World of Warcraft divides its servers into three types: Normal, Role-Playing, and PvP.

For most players, Normal is the best choice for a new character. There are little restrictions on your character’s name (other than the usual bans on offensive naming) and you are unlikely to get ganked as often at low levels. Normal play style is appropriate for warriors who want to play the game just for the game, and aren’t terribly concerned about role-playing or PvP. On a Normal server, you are still able to do both RP and PvP, but you are not required to do so, and you are flagged less often and only for doing something obviously PvP related.
PvP servers involve an entirely different style of gameplay. The biggest difference is that neutral ground is considered contested and therefore you are likely to be killed often and by players you don’t have a chance against if and when you venture into these areas. Some of the contested areas are as low as level 10, so if you sign up to a PvP server, expect to die. A lot. At the same time, however, there are numerous guilds that you can join for protection of sorts, and your faction is usually more than willing to help you out. Raids tend to be more common on these servers, and many people feel that this is the only server type that truly gives you the experience of being in a war in this online world. After all, in a war there are no truly “safe” areas, and this is as close as WoW comes to that feeling that just around the corner, you may run into a higher level character who will kill you on sight. You may not level as quickly on a PvP server due to the distractions of PvP, which you do not get experience for. However, with the introduction of the new honor system and the PvP rank rewards that WoW has recently put out, the PvP experience offers other rewards that you cannot get by pure leveling. If you enjoy group play and fighting other players, PvP is for you.
The last type of server is the Role-Playing servers. These servers function just like a Normal server for PvP purposes, but it has more restrictions on names and chatting to produce a better RP environment. You are liable to get yelled at by players or even flagged by a GM if you name yourself something out of character or try to talk about your upcoming Physics test. If you’ve created a great backstory for your warrior and you want to play with other people who enjoy pretending to be the characters they are playing, you will want to play on a RP server.

Whatever server you choose, realize that WoW only allows you to change servers once in a while, to allow players to help in server load-balancing. It is best to pick the server that your friends will be playing on and the type that you enjoy the most, as it is unlikely that you will change.