WARRIOR in Cataclysm Classic: Was It Any Good Though?

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Cleaving their way through the battlefield, the warrior has remained a hugely popular pick throughout classic so far. This class has been a consistent top performer across PvP and PvE, so its really no wonder people keep going back to it.
Today we are checking out whats changing for the Warrior in Cataclysm, and seeing whether their streak of dominance is set to continue.
This is WARRIOR in Cataclysm Classic: Was It Any Good Though?
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Timestamps:
0:00 - The Warrior
00:49 - What's New Baseline?
06:20 - Arms Talent Changes | PvE
08:57 - Fury Talent Changes | PvE
10:39 - Protection Talent Changes | PvE
12:45 - How Do We Expect The Warrior To Perform In PvE?
16:26 - Warrior in Cataclysm Arena | PvP
17:37 - Warrior Tier Sets
20:03 - Conclusion
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Songs Used:
► WoW OST
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#wow #classicwow #mmorpg

[@WillEmmo]

Click this link sponsr.is/WillE and use my code WILLE to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev. That’s 25% your first month or your first year, depending on the subscription you choose.

[@joshframent9385]

I remember Prot in Cata... At the end of the expansion i was pumping heroic strikes/cleaves in between every gcd because it felt like rage was endless.

[@noogai131]

WE MAKING IT THROUGH EXECUTE PHASE WITH THIS ONE.

[@jointser1008]

WE WILL NEVER LEAVE THE EXECUTE PHASE WIT THIS COMMENT 🗣🗣📢📢🔥🔥

[@scottbyers9258]

This is the one I've been waiting for! Arms time to shine baby!!!

[@markomancikas]

Just to clarify, fury was quite ok at the start of expansion, especially in PvP AND PvE, but was very quickly outscaled by arms. It was mostly related to very low levels of ressi. But once arms gets going, it gets going. At the end of expansion during dragon soul with bis gear on bosses like Ultra, arms and fury difference is about 4k dps. 4k! This is because arms just goes off and fury scales on a more traditional manner, so it catches up at the end. Gurthalak helps a lot too.

[@johanneshb11]

In dragon soul bis gear arms will do 25-80% more damage depending on boss, so like 10-40k more. Morchok speedkills are where the differences are biggest. Unless it has ungodly bad luck arms will always greatly beat fury.

[@darylsdog9521]

Nope not with endgame talents and as the xpack goes in the gap only grows wider

[@markomancikas]

@@johanneshb11 There is literally a video for top 5 dragon soul dps by IGN with Preach, and once he discusses arms, he mentions fury for a brief evaluation and says that it is not that bad, around 49-51k dps throughput is normal for fury. Considering, fury gets free colossus smash for the t13 set as well, there is no way the difference is 80% off. And ofc, my numbers and experience are based on Cata private servers, so I do understand there might be... Different calculations. But I did play through OG Cata on Retail and I don't remember fury being THAT bad nor is fury that bad on any private servers I played. Where there is a discrepancy in numbers, i'd say even 90 percent, between fury and arms, is the number of people willing to play fury and knowing it will be behind. People consider Cata Arms to be one of the best iterations of arms warrior (even if I kinda find the 'prepare and dump' kind of playstyle tedious) and fury just... Well, no one plays it.

[@johanneshb11]

@@markomancikas I watched a few of preaches cata class guides, not the best. But I haven't watched any raid specific videos of his. All my knowledge is also from private servers, apollo if you've heard of it. Obviously arms isn't 80% better everywhere, not even close, but i got that number from morchok speedkills. Arms (with amazing rng) can hit 100k, fury about 60k. But obviously a below 1 minute fight is not the average. A standard singletarget fight like ultrax fury will do 40-50, whereas arms will do 50-60. Anything more than 1 target in a fight and the longer a fight goes on, the more arms will pull ahead. Can fury be played? Of course. But it's still a meme

[@markomancikas]

@@johanneshb11 Now, that I can agree with. Since the OG videos are old and don't stand the test of time really. And no, speed kills is not something most people will do, so I don't know if that is the cherry on top we are missing. And yes, I have played Apollo as well 😅

[@diaboliklord]

can't wait for the DK and rogue ones :)

[@joebagwell4009]

Just watched the whole thing, good vid

[@bstring7773]

Another great vid! Thanks WillE!

[@JohnnyWalker1077]

Warrior Tank was my favourite class to play during Cataclysm.

[@Muffnman007]

Same, we never wiped due to a tank death either, dunno why people say its squishy, maybe their healers are just really bad.

[@XThegamerofPC]

Very strong yeah and not sure why everyone shits on em there quite strong and people say their squishy cause they don't know what there doing or didn't gear properly I'd know my main back in cata was a prot warrior and I was server 1st just gotta know what to do with it uk

[@TheEvilToaster9810]

@@Muffnman007 Same here, progressed T11 and T12 25m HC with one of the tanks being a warrior, community perception is wild. Metas form, small differences get blown out of proportion, KZbinr Tier lists are made which makes things even worse, people blindly follow them "because favourite content creator said its bad/good" and eventually they become big enough that the community percieves the class as dead and not worth playing. IIRC it was back in BFA one of the Blizzard class designers spoke about how bad it is. The class they designed/balanced was perfectly fine on the numbers, but community perception made it out to be trash and it became bottom of the barrel in popularity.

[@kristoftoth9446]

I played prot on private server years Ago and it really is quit low..fun to play but not strong enough?

[@dmoore4520]

Prot Warrior ALL THE WAY!!! People just want that blood dk healing to ease it for groups but we'll still be ripping it.

[@TheWowzz]

I cant wait for this expansion… Im so hyped

[@Testifiable]

Warriors just wait till we get to MOP. HOLY that spec is goated in Mop

[@TheWowzz]

Good thing we’re getting MoP next summer. They’re rushing cata hard

[@Testifiable]

@@TheWowzz yuuuup

[@Rayne113]

Prot Warrior definitely struggles a bunch with the magic damage. But for Physical damage, it's amazing. (I recommend farming Tol Barad rep for resist trinket.) But for Dungeons it's amazing! It's a fun little alt on the side if you don't decide to main it.

[@ryanlapeer4230]

I did play cata with a warrior and dk main, and ill say this arms warrior at the beginning was great so much fun. You might want to look up the macros for it because, damn that stance switching can suck.

[@Ves189]

Excited that arms finally gets it's time to shine, the playstyle also seems very engaging.

[@Unregistered.HyperCam.2]

Was playing mostly Arms and Prot on Whitemane's Cata 4.3.4 server when it dropped last year, and it was wonderful playing a warrior. The only time either of those specs were as fun as I had them at that point were in Legion. _Maybe_ arms in 8.3, but that's only because of running 90% haste unbuffed.

[@mathieuraquepas6612]

​@@Unregistered.HyperCam.2 arms in nyalotha is the funniest spec ive ever played. The execute phase was so juicy, i remember doing 300-400k dps if we just counted the execute phase

[@Unregistered.HyperCam.2]

@@mathieuraquepas6612Was fun teeter-tottering on Maut on whether Execute will make you do massive damage or just outright kill you with backlash damage.

[@kyoden1928]

​@@mathieuraquepas6612S1 dragonflight was sick for arms😊

[@danlorett2184]

@@Unregistered.HyperCam.2 8.3 arms was STUPID fun but you needed REALLY good gear. All your essences, all your corruptions, fully upgraded cloak, 3x test of might, etc. Once you got there it was SO BROKEN though. I remember during the reflect phase on the 2nd boss of Mythic Nyalotha I did 150k dps and took 4x more damage than the tank LMAO

[@quinn562]

I always found it so odd that blood elves couldn't be warriors from the get go - it's like THE class that any race can be, I'm sure it was for faction balance representation reasons but I wonder if there was some kind of lore aspect to it as well

[@davidcardinal3654]

The lore behind is it blood elves are addicted to magic so generally can only play classes that are good at magic. Minus rogue for some reason.

[@ZadenWoW]

Always thought it was to force people who wanted to play plate to play paladin

[@quinn562]

@@davidcardinal3654 I was sold on that explanation until the rogue part lol, you get partial credit!

[@amnewl727]

I thought theyd counter casters too hard. My kid self pictured them using their racial to break out of freezes and silence casters

[@quinn562]

@@amnewl727 Yeah I thought that as well, I guess everyone has enough tools now so it's not as bad

[@IsaacFNghost]

I’ve always loved arms warrior. I levels a burning crusade era fury warrior using dual wielded one handed weapons. I always thought that fury was so much cooler when it used one handed weapons. Two two-handed weapons always seemed stupid to me

[@dabiggreasy]

I love that you can pummel in any stance now, bout time lol.

[@ahetzel9054]

Never been a warrior but leveling one in cata is an absolute blast. Will probably level one of everything just because it's so much fun and the world revamp is amazing despite what the plebs say.

[@Evan-mt7bc]

I don't think Fury is in line for any changes, Warriors have a viable dps spec just a respec away. Ret and Feral were buffed because they were the only DPS options for Paladin or non Intellect Druids and other bad specs like Subtlety, Beastmaster, Frost Mage and Arms didn't see love because they could just respec into a viable DPS. Prot might be in line for some changes though because it's just miserable as both a tank and a healer knowing if you were playing any other Tank everybody would be suffering less, that Dragon Soul 4 set though is absurd and you may actually consider at benching your offtank Bear for a Warrior to exploit that set bonus, makes so many fights so much easier.

[@phantom0456]

I mained a Fury warrior in Cata back in the day, and I was almost always at or near the top of the DPS meters. I wasn’t a cutting edge raider, but I and my guild did progress in Heroics and cleared several of the raids on Heroic. My advice is to play what you enjoy.

[@Davidhenry1210]

This is self destructive advice for modern day gamers. The people you played with were good if you did heroic but they will be trash cans compared to wow players now and fury warriors will be the trash that goes in them.

[@alexanderdiaz8464]

@@Davidhenry1210horrible take, Cata heroic was pretty hard especially fire lands, and BOT. Quit acting like every dude parses 99% now a days because they definitely don’t 😂

[@lvsoad22]

@@Davidhenry1210 brainlet

[@scottbowers7431]

@@alexanderdiaz8464 yeah i dont remember arms even being remotely competitive when you got gear on fury

[@dongero]

I'd say most warriors played Fury through most of Cata and probably will again. There's a lot of nuance to the strengths of Arms vs Fury, it's not as simple as Arms outperforms it hands down.

[@DrPluton]

I enjoyed Arms during Cataclysm, but I didn't hit level cap on my dwarf warrior until right before MoP came out. I just enjoy the fantasy of swinging the biggest weapons around.

[@derricksnyder6535]

Are you going to make a Shaman Video, I play druid and Pally in original Cata and I'm excited to be playing a different class this time through.

[@v4rh3n]

As someone who loves prot warrior gameplay wotlk just made me sad and reroll dk, hopefully blizz can throw us prot fans a bone and buff warr tanks a bit

[@borislovothered8124]

x2 i play prot for years and only play awarr in pvp and fury pve, i felt so nerf this expansion xd i still have fun with warr but the other melee classes are simple easier to deal with

[@andromidius]

Prot Warrior is okay as an offtank and has a few niches that it absolutely dominates at. Come Spine of Deathwing it'll be Prot Warriors dealing with the blood oozes like a complete champ. But yeah, compared to Blood DK's every other tank looks bad.

[@XThegamerofPC]

btw prot warrior does have mit for magic dmg its tied to their shield block ability with a talent quite useful and because its the last patch talents their in a good position if uk what to do with em

[@XThegamerofPC]

I mean they'd take less DMG then prot pally just saying

[@johanneshb11]

True, but it is i believe 6 seconds of 20% with a 30 second cooldown. Any sustained magic damage (which basically every boss has) can easily become overwhelming

[@XThegamerofPC]

@@johanneshb11 yeah but u can still deal with it and have CDs and trinkets like sindys and the baradin hold trinket for magic fights can still full res some magic types if ur lucky

[@somguy5035]

Something like the ulduar 4 set bonus would go a long way for prot warriors in cata

[@BigChopTV]

Ive been a prot warrior main all wotlk and ive cleared everything up to heroic LK it kinda sucks that there not the greatest I just feel like unlike other tanks to play prot warrior well just has a higher skill cap if you play with a skilled warrior who pushes his buttons at the right time they do well, Unlike a prot plly a half way average player can still do well in wotlk

[@donhaakon]

Same here. I have never had any problems with my prot warrior in wotlk and will not have it in cata aswell. Are so few of us prot. So think ppl just say they are bad cuz they dont know any better😄

[@BigChopTV]

@@donhaakon Ya also its alot harder class to be good at compared to other tanks like you really have to time every cd perfect or u just die so your average prot warr witch is majority of players makes em look bad but ive been in the top 50 in world most of wotlk and ive tanked heroic LK 20x can watch my vids like its just a skill thing

[@nickrowe4584]

I think they could make changes to Prot to make it more competitive if they want but fury has been top dog in Classic for a while now and I think arms having a chance to shine in pve is a good thing.

[@godseviltwin]

Warrior tanks are really good in wotlk. And depending on the player it will be fine in Cata. It's all about player skill.

[@ramones1314]

The issue with prot is that it is designed to handle a load of mobs that only auto, and no boss does this except spine of deathwing. Blocking IS their damage reduction, cuz lets be real, last stand and self regen are terrible tank cooldowns, leaving them with only shield wall. If you have tanks that actively swap aggro on the boss then it works fine, you can rotate between eachothers cooldowns, but that just doesnt pan out on a lot of bosses. Also BDK can kinda handle bosses just on their own, and self heal, meaning you dont need a 3rd healer a lot of the time, meaning more dps spots, meaning bosses die quicker, and yadda yadda yadda

[@ahetzel9054]

When did anyone ever run 3 healers in 10man?

[@ramones1314]

@@ahetzel9054 oh you sweet summer child

[@ramones1314]

@@ahetzel9054 i guess youd want an actual response. well everyone did when cata first came out, cuz you needed it due to the power levels of healers and tanks. fight depending of course. i could see people 3 healing shit like alakir, nefarian, and twin dragons, either cuz they have to or just to make it safer. but yes last patch balancing you can get away with 2 healing with holy priest/paladin as theyre just busted, but may struggle if you have shaman/druid as your core

[@johanneshb11]

@@ahetzel9054Zonozz spine and madness progression. After progress all bosses were 1-2

[@Hipp1062]

Does heroic leap work in an @target macro to function more like charge?

[@joshframent9385]

I'd recommend one that casts at your cursor location

[@superJ1047]

when will we see the DK videos can not wait for that one ?

[@johnnythersen4805]

Prot was insane in cata

[@danlorett2184]

Really only fury was kind of meh.

[@sarunas8638]

it was bad

[@Sara.Space.H]

I really hope they look at the viability of single minded fury. It's a fun call idea imo.

[@dongero]

SMF will be the top spec in early T12 with easy to obtain Obsidium Cleavers

[@afscrew123]

​@@dongeroim sure going from the single worst peforming dps spec and variation(smf) with 2x 372 lava spines from magmaw getting a 6 ilvl upgrade to 378 obsidian cleavers is gonna more than double its damage!!

[@dongero]

@@afscrew123 they get upgraded to 391 so you can reasonably obtain 2x 391 weapons in the first raid lockout

[@TheRealCeeJai]

POV: THIS IS THE ONE YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR

[@BasicMaffs]

🏳️‍🌈 I play a male night elf priest 🏳️‍🌈

[@aaronmcpherson1297]

No

[@BasicMaffs]

🙇‍♂️

[@picklechin3061]

That was paladin but okay

[@msucab480]

@WillE you musta missed deathwish prepull sets. Man I miss my demonology prepull set. All the mastery.

[@isaquemarechal]

What was the top ranking best 5 classes in pvp friend? Example: 1 - Hunter MM 2 - Rogue Combat 3 - Paladin retri 4 - Warlock Aff.....

[@saibot1050]

I am 100% sure Fury will shine, again. The same was said in TBC about Arms and we still had Fury pumping from early doors. People are normally too stuck in their ways, and i am sure that people will find a way to make it work. Always manage to do somehow.

[@johanneshb11]

The only thing fury has going for it is snapshotting death wish before pull, unless blizzard makes it dynamic instead of snapshot. But even with the snapshot fury is a complete meme

[@aweha]

They said protwar was "not viable" in WOLTK too and I still tanked Algalon 25, Zero Lights, Immortal ToC, LK HC 25, Halion HC 25 and top 1-100 ranks. It just requires more effort, gear and tweaking. #believe

[@jagosvujovic2086]

absolutely nobody said you couldnt clear all wrath content playing prot warrior, id imagine its not even that hard but its still just worse than prot paladin and less optimal. it will be the same in cata with prot warrior and blood dk

[@CrixGuides]

Holy hell I love your videos.

[@MoonTurky]

Bot, imagine drooling over wow content creators in 2024 na bro not happening

[@CrixGuides]

@@MoonTurky ? I thoroughly enjoy his class guides. What are you trippin on bud

[@ethanlieske9678]

Tanking as War at launch did not feel good. This was pre heroic nerf, basically people where saying you needed to all ready have heroic gear to tank heroics.

[@borislovothered8124]

grim batol ptsd enters the chat

[@dmoore4520]

I could have swore you already released this? Im sad being a prot warrior but realistically everything works.

[@jessikat6692]

Do Arms Warriors "Stance Dance" in Cata? It always turned me away having keyboard wars with the game.

[@rep8778]

After dragon soul with full gear, arms and prot warrior get insanely overpowered.

[@emilwetterlindhofgard5182]

But that’s at the very end of the expansion so won’t ruin the progression of raids.

[@rep8778]

@@emilwetterlindhofgard5182 yeah true prot pally is OP at the beginning of cata.

[@BuzzzdLightyear]

Are “stance dancing” macros a big deal for Arms Warrior in Cata?

[@TheOGDrDaddy]

Ready for the MOP “was warrior any good?” Then ques to Rekfuls pvp 84-1 arena video 😌

[@joelbommer9297]

Pls rogue next

[@PL-ex4ql]

@19:49 420% !?!.... Nice

[@yuelamaro1656]

waiting for the shaman video :( THUNDERS BRRR

[@Breylan1123]

They should absolutely consider small changes to protection warriors. Fury though? Nah, it's not as bad as everyone is making it out to be after you get some Firelands gear. IF you really wanted to play it just wait for T12 and a couple Firelands weapons.

[@General12th]

Hi Will! Video starts at 0:00

[@EternalAngel333]

1 year till MoP godbless that entire xpackpeak class designs

[@bomberwarren]

Still going prot in cata

[@nathanechelberry9518]

Same-Being the underdog thematically appeals to me. After all unlike the other tanks you really are just a dude with a shield 😂

[@Elaksomfan]

With the expected tuning of the dungs protwarr will be damn for spamming. Sure they might not be great for raids but all that CC really makes them shine in dungs

[@bomberwarren]

@@Elaksomfan my guild has never really had a problem with using specs that might not be the best, 12/12 heroic icc on prot warrior no dramas and such a fun class to play.

[@ABonafideSkeleton]

Honestly? Prot is absolutely fine in Cata, it's great for spamming dungeons and has it's own niches where it shines. The problem Prot has is the same problem the majority of the tank specs have in Cata: It isn't Blood.

[@Elaksomfan]

@@ABonafideSkeleton well stated

[@fdajax5107]

Execute phase let's goooooo

[@seanbrown4706]

Arms in Pvp was literally a nightmare to face, hated them so much i quit Pvp for good.

[@vaels5682]

At 5:00 "youll be able to use them every single global" the whole point of them as a rage dump is that they aren't on the GCD

[@Melodeath00]

His point was that you can reduce their CD to be the same as the GCD...

[@ugoboom]

yep the removal of this type of attack was one of the dumbest decisions that objectively made possible builds they could have given us less interesting

[@Extase3r1c]

Prot might need a little look at but fury doesnt imo. Let arms have their time in the spotlight after 3 expansions

[@noeltaber5430]

I remember arms being not much better than fury in cata original and it was more of a personal choice

[@wtfpwndomg]

Will Prot be OK in 5mans?

[@junee9072]

Rogue pls

[@T0ban]

Who needs sleep aniway 😂

[@coleamenta8299]

Imma say yea to the prot and fury changes. Glad arms is getting the time in the light now but 2 expansions where ur a meme spec till either late game or existing as prot definitely is a shit thing. Also totally fine with being an arms andy for the rest of cata.

[@Manakuski]

I was #1 parse world for a week or two on Deathwing and i had full bis gear, it was fun on my warrior :)

[@MoonTurky]

Me when I make shit up:

[@ChrisTehKiller169]

i played all tanks in cata and the discrepency between prot warrior and literally any other spec was massive, my full 400 ilvl warr still had trouble spots on the ds 5 man dungeons that my 360 paladin did not.

[@borislovothered8124]

yeah it sucks that every other tank can handle themselfs but warrior cant, maybe if victory rush give more healing and vengence gave dmg reduccion instead of dps it would work fine but i had to learn to play pve awarr for ds since no one allow me to tank xd

[@johnny_eason_iii]

👏👏👏👏👏💯💯💯💯💯

[@vel7771]

Crits do not generate double rage.

[@Melodeath00]

The part about buffing Fury makes no sense unless they start touching other classes. Fury is weak compared to Arms. It is not weak in a general sense with all classes and spec included. Shamans (both Dps specs) would cry tears of joy if they could have the output of a Fury Warrior in Cata...

[@afscrew123]

aint no way you just said that

[@Melodeath00]

@@afscrew123 Fury is still objectively a strong spec no matter what you might think about it. It's only "weak" compared to Arms and other top specs like Fire and Legendary Rogues.

[@Klaisak]

Wait, so in Cata warriors cannot dual wield unless specced into fury? huh TIL.

[@Darkchosen051987]

i want cata HC

[@xXSinForLifeXx]

Ah yes the spec with 2x 2h weapons is worse than the single 2h weapon because logic lol

[@randomrandom7208]

GURTHALAK!

[@Ashanthala]

avoidance, not mitigation

[@JayTheProduct]

Shaman gonna be last nooooo

[@premoszeheeen4785]

Warrior had break the cycle in wotlk alrdy. Lvling was easy

[@qlida4465]

Will stop posting these vids, i cannot handle getting addicted again pls

[@Cutsc3ne]

Fury is better for PvP as seen in swifty videos

[@Prophacyx]

the pvp part is not true, warriors in cata are dogshit in arena. Theyre only decent when they get that tentacle weap

[@coletonbelcher]

It depends. Prot is great against all melee groups. The problem is how likely is that?

[@MrNatify]

Yeah warriors are definitely weak in pvp, especially when casters get gigabuffed in Firelands when they get the new legendary

[@johanneshb11]

They can manage fine in the right arena comps. But in 1v1s warrior is probably the worst class in cata

[@houjunhuizhong4220]

Fury is trash in cata?

[@wotwathorigl5446]

this sucks ass i have bis fury warrior in wotlk right now

[@afscrew123]

Respec is cheap

[@NICO-mr4ll]

DELETE DEMON HUNTER , THEY TAKE AWAY EVERYTHING !! ARMS ARMS YAY WARRIOR VIDEOS MAKE ME HPY

[@polkle122]

YOU KNOW WAS NOT GOOD THOUGH? CATA, STOP HYPING THIS CRAP IT WONT BE A SUCCES, NOBODY CARES, CLASSIC DIES ON WOTLK

[@MoonTurky]

How about you just shut the fuck up and stop pretending like anybody cares about your opinion? Who are you? Nobody. So stop parading your personal opinion around as facts when even your own mom doesnt care about you. Go play classic wow so your autism does not get an overload with all of the changes made to the game.

[@duramajin3118]

Lol cata

[@JoshLineberry]

Cata is amazing noob.

[@ToHonorKnowledge]

Cata content hard L