Warrior PvE Tanking Guide - Classic WoW

By ImAlive Updated: 2024/11/21

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On this page you will find a brief overview of the Warrior class as it was in Classic WoW, to help familiarize yourself with the class as it was years ago. If you are looking for detailed information on how to master the Warrior in Classic WoW, click on our Classic WoW Warrior Class Guides below.

Classic Tank Warrior Guide - Within this guide you will find the following sections:

Tank Warrior Overview - Best races, professions, and class strengths and weaknesses.
Tank Warrior Talents and Builds - Notable talents, the best builds, and talent tree overviews.
Tank Warrior BiS Gear Guide - Best gear, pre-raid and post-raid, for every Classic phase.
Tank Warrior Rotation and Abilities - Summary of all Warrior abilities and how best to use them for maximum Tank.
Tank Warrior Stats - Rankings of the best stats and summary of the benefits of every stat.
Tank Warrior Enchants - Best enchants for every gear slot.
Tank Warrior Consumables - Best consumables for all situations.
Tank Warrior Beginner Info - For those that want the most important tips on how to quickly learn a class.
Tank Warrior Addons - Best addons to use while playing your Tank Warrior.
Tank Warrior Macros - Best macros available to the spec, to maximize your potential.
Tank Warrior PvP Guide - All the best advice while engaging in PvP combat against other players.

Classic DPS Warrior Guide - Within this guide you will find the following sections:

DPS Warrior Overview - Best races, professions, and class strengths and weaknesses.
DPS Warrior Talents and Builds - Notable talents, the best builds, and talent tree overviews.
DPS Warrior BiS Gear Guide - Best gear, pre-raid and post-raid, for every Classic phase.
DPS Warrior Rotation and Abilities - Summary of all Warrior abilities and how best to use them for maximum DPS.
DPS Warrior Stats - Rankings of the best stats and summary of the benefits of every stat.
DPS Warrior Enchants - Best enchants for every gear slot.
DPS Warrior Consumables - Best consumables for all situations.
DPS Warrior Beginner Info - For those that want the most important tips on how to quickly learn a class.
DPS Warrior Addons - Best addons to use while playing your DPS Warrior.
DPS Warrior Macros - Best macros available to the spec, to maximize your potential.
DPS Warrior PvP Guide - All the best advice while engaging in PvP combat against other players.

General Guides

Warrior Leveling - Best talent builds, essential abilities to train, and notable gear from 1-60.
Warrior Class Quests - The most important class quests to complete while leveling.
Advanced Melee DPS Guide - Learn about the core concepts of playing a Melee DPS, to help you improve at your DPS Warrior.
Advanced Tanking Guide - Learn about the core concepts of playing a Tank, to help you improve at your Tank Warrior.

The Unmoveable Fortress! Warrior Tank PvE Guide!Classic Warrior RacesBest Horde Warrior RaceOrcBlood FuryUndeadWill of the ForsakenBerserker RageTaurenEnduranceWar StompTrollBest Alliance Warrior RaceNight ElfQuicknessDwarfStoneformHumanThunderfury, Blessed Blade of the WindseekerWarrior Talent BuildsClassic WoW Talent CalculatorLow-Geared Deep Prot (12/5/34)Last StandImpale Prot (17/3/31)Duel Wield Tank (0/32/19)NEVEREssential Warrior Consumables for RaidClassic WoW Consumable Overview

Elixir of the Mongoose

Juju Might

Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops or Smoked Desert Dumplings

Elixir of Superior Defense

Juju Ember for bosses with heavy fire damage.

Juju Escape for bosses that enrage or use heavily threatening abilities such as from Broodlord Lashlayer.

Scroll of Protection IV

Crystal Ward

Crystal Spire for AoE tanking

Greater Stoneshield Potion

Flask of the Titans

Spirit of Zanza after Zul'Gurub is released.

Major Healing Potion and Whipper Root Tuber.

Gordok Green Grog

Classic Warrior ProfessionsClassic WoW Professions OverviewEngineeringDense DynamiteGnomish Battle ChickenArcanite DragonlingGoblin Sapper ChargeForce Reactive DiskMiningLionheart HelmAnnihilatorArcanite ReaperWeapon SkillRaiding PlaystyleSingle Target

; for dual-wield tanking.

Dump any excess rage into

TauntAoE Tanking

Use as much as possible. This ability will generate threat per enemy hit making it extremely good for picking up many mobs.

Dump excess rage into

Essence of the Pure Flame

Thorium Shield Spike

Heart of the Scale

Challenging ShoutFinal Thoughts

Comments

Comment by Ainarik

Thanks for the guide.
My 2 cents as I used to tank as a warrior during vanilla (all raids cleared up to and including parts of AQ40). As far as I remember, the defense skill was much more important than what you suggest in that it granted critical strike immunity when reaching 440 defense skill. The naked defense was 300 for a level 60 toon. So a tank needed 140 additional defense skill from gear and/or talent. Every prot warrior guide from that time used to tell this was a mandatory goal.
Getting an additional 140 defense skill from gear is quite difficult (look at Battlegear of Wrath which has only 61 additional defense, despite being the tier 2 tanking set) so the Anticipation talent is a very big deal and should not be skipped.

About your comments regarding threat and how we should give priority to threat generation on boss fights: I don't recall threat ever being an issue during vanilla. Even with his very little damage output, all of prot war attacks or spells used to generate truckloads of threat while in defensive stance, and the taunt was pretty efficient in case it wasn't enough.
So while threat was an important tanking component, survavibility was probably more important, and should be given more focus.

So in term of talents build, I'll go along with something like this: https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/warrior/AvCAATAF_xTw00A

Comment by SentencePWN

Hey, nice wrapup!

When do you write the "Debuff priority lists" guide? :)

Comment by Miztiva

I've watched some clips of dual wield tanks and thus decided this shall be my long aspiring goal.

In the videos I've found that many of the dw-tanks use thunderfury, not really a surprise given that the guilds prominent tanks often were given this weapon.
So while dreaming of grandeur I toyed with the thought of combining thunderfury with the only other prominent tank-sword I could remember, Quel'Serrar.
This mindgame sparked a question that's been bothering me for a while, though. IIRC weapon-speed and the flat damage of a weapon greatly impacted the abilities you used, hence rogues for example used a fast offhand to apply poisons and a slow hardhitter for backstab and whatnot.

Quel'Serrar is the slower weapon, with higher flat damage, which according to my assumtions, would count towards yielding higher numbers. The offhand weapon, on the other hand, had a higher miss-chance than the weapon wielded in the mainhand.
Thus I subject this to you:

Would a dw-tank use THE most legendary sword in the game as a offhand, to get higher numbers?
OR
Would a dw-tank use Thunderfury in mainhand, despite having lower flat damage, in order to benefit from the proccs of the weapon?
OR
Would a dw-tank scoff at Quel'Serrar, and choose a faster weapon as offhand to keep the Thunderfury as mainhand?
OR
Is the speed and flat damage such a minor aspect of the dw-tanks gameplay that it doesn't matter?

Food for thought... Thank you for reading.
Mizt out

Comment by Victarious

Hello! Thanks for this guide! So, noob question here - I didn't start raiding until Wrath, and tanking in Cata, so Vanilla is a completely new experience to me. My question is on Tactical Mastery and stance dancing. which I've heard of but never really experienced - I remember having to flip to Berserker to pummel things as DPS, but that's about it.

Looking over the abilities, and what you're recommending as the basic rotation for threat, it seems like we can do what we need to do in Defensive Stance. So, I'm just wondering why Tacitcal Mastery is needed - I'm assuming there's something I just don't know and am not seeing (maybe for charging?). Any clarification would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Comment by alphasigmasigma

Although I am interested in playing a Protection Warrior in Classic, in the past I didn't really start playing a Warrior until Wrath of the Lich King, when Thunder Clap and Rend seemed to be part of a Protection Warrior's rotation (as evidenced by the "Blood and Thunder" talent at the time). I am curious about the absence of those two abilities from the recommended rotations here.

My guess in the case of Rend would be that a boss can only take so many dots, and it's one less for the DPS if the tank uses Rend; or that the damage from Rend does not translate into enough threat to make it worthwhile. Are either or both of those guesses correct, or is there some other reason not to use Rend as a tank?

And why is Thunder Clap not good for aoe tanking?

I know I have a lot to learn, and unlearn...

Comment by Sibed

When it comes to races: Firstly, there is at least one major tanking axe in the game. Secondly, your logical for Tauren is completely faulty. Of course you're just repeating the mantra of bad players "oh the healers aren't doing the jobs!" When it comes to hardcore progression, you are battling situations where you will die, then Tauren are the best, it is often the difference between winning and losing, and sometimes healers cannot keep up with the damage. The Troll racial has so many variables (it is only worth activating at 50% health, which isn't often at the start of the fight when you need the most aggro, it has a long cooldown, and short uptime) that it is far less reliable than the Tauren. Of course this doesn't mean they aren't bad tanks, but people tend to overstate how good their racial is based on (bad) theorycrafting. We know that actual classic bosses will have higher parry rate, this means their attacks can speed up more often than on private servers. Having extra health in these situations is far better.
Troll racial ALSO depends on healers being bad and not keeping you topped up to be the best it can be. Even if you did use it at the start, the uptime is still that short. Tauren racial has less variables and is a simple: if you get hit with a hit that knocks you to -5% you will not die. Also Tauren have a larger reach, which may make approaching mobs easier. Add to this the fact that Fury/Prot may be a variable spec, and more of a defensive stat like HP is even far more beneficial. Maybe hardcore guilds will find Troll better (there are some fights where this is true), we don't know yet. But right now Tauren are still the safer option.
Basically, if you can say "your tank and/or healers are likely doing something wrong." with the Tauren health racial. Then equally it can be said, "your DPS are likely doing something wrong." with the Troll racial. Nor is the Troll racial a "massive threat increase" as you suggest. It is a minor threat increase. Funny enough, when you need threat the most, you probably won't be able to use it at its most effective capacity.

Comment by Rekrutass

Damn I'm so hyped for Classic, far more than recent 8.2 patch on retail. I'm planning to create warrior tank and this guide is really cool. I wasn't sure about the race but I found here everything I needed to know. See you in Classic then! :)

Comment by Muffpotter

Impale prot is nonsense and here is why:

Impale only affects your damage dealing abilities, which as a prot warrior are Revenge (which only does very little damage), Heroic Strike/Cleave (which you barely have the rage to use unless in a raid boss fight), and Shield Slam. And it only increases the damage of their crits by 10% overall. So, let's say you have 25% (which without 5/5 Cruelty is a lot unless you have full world buffs and everything), that's still only a 2.5% damage increase of only those three abilities. You are better off just putting those points into Cruelty and increase your overall damage by 2%.

Deep Wounds gets worse the faster your weapon. The damage is not only weaker with a fast weapon, but also gets overwritten more easily. It's designed for slow 2H, not for fast daggers and swords which tanks should usually go for. It's also completely wasted on raid bosses.

Imp Rend is what it is, but basically you are spending 8 points for talents that will do very little for a protection warrior and are much better spent with Cruelty, Deflection or Imp HS.

Warrior PvE Tanking Guide - Classic WoW

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