Forever's warrior still lives on Rage, stances and plate, but every tree was rebuilt. Twelve talents are new, thirty-one work differently and twelve are gone. The biggest shifts are a single weapon talent that adapts to whatever you wield, a self-heal on the trainer, and a Protection tree that finally lets you Charge without leaving Defensive Stance.
At a glance
| Topic | Details |
|---|---|
| Roles | Melee damage (Arms, Fury) and tank (Protection) |
| Resource | Rage |
| Armor | Plate from level 40, shields |
| Races | All ten, including both Skyborne factions |
| New on the trainer |  Victory Rush at 20,  Tactical Mastery at 14 |
What changed from Classic
- One weapon talent instead of four. Axe, Mace, Polearm and Sword Specialization are gone.
Weaponmaster in Arms gives axes and polearms 5% crit, lets maces and staves ignore 15% of armor, and gives swords a 5% chance for an extra attack. You take it once and it follows your weapon. - Tactical Mastery is a trainer skill. You learn it at 14 and keep 10 Rage when you change stance. Improved Tactical Mastery raises that to 25.
- Victory Rush. An instant strike after you kill something that heals you for 10% of your maximum health. It changes how fast a warrior can chain pulls while leveling.
- Slam is a real button.
Improved Slam cuts its cast time by half a second, stops it from resetting your swing and shortens its cooldown by 3 seconds. - Fury fights with both hands.
Raging Blows makes Whirlwind strike with the off-hand as well, 
Furious Precision adds 10% hit to off-hand attacks, and 
Gore Drinker turns Enrage, Bloodrage, Berserker Rage, Death Wish and Bloodthirst into small heals. 
Bloodthirst hits for 35% of your attack power plus 30 and gives 10% movement speed for 10 seconds. 
Death Wish now raises Physical damage by 20% but increases the damage you take by 5%.- Protection generates its own Rage.
Shield Specialization gives 5 Rage per block, 
Master of Defense 5 Rage per dodge or parry, and 
Focused Rage cuts 3 Rage off offensive abilities. 
Bastion adds 10% damage while a shield is equipped. - Arms gets new tools.
Bloodthrill lets main-hand hits on a target with your Rend proc Overpower. 
Spearing Strike deals 40% weapon damage, plus 80% more against Giants, Dragonkin and mounted targets. - Removed: Toughness, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Improved Battle Shout, Improved Cleave, Improved Demoralizing Shout, Improved Shield Block and Improved Taunt.
Arms
Mortal Strike with a big two-hander, Cruelty and Unbridled Wrath from Fury, and Enrage for uptime on the damage bonus.
Arms is the two-hander spec and the best way to level. 
Mortal Strike arrives at 40 and stays your main attack. The build reaches into Fury for 
Cruelty, 
Unbridled Wrath and 
Enrage: 5% crit, extra Rage from every hit, and a 10% Physical damage bonus whenever something hits you.
Single target, in order of priority:
- Mortal Strike on cooldown.
- Overpower whenever it lights up after a dodge.
- Slam as the filler between them. With Improved Slam it no longer resets your swing, so it costs you nothing to weave in.
- Execute once the target drops under 20%.
- Heroic Strike to spend Rage you would otherwise waste.
Sweeping Strikes turns the next five swings into cleaves, which makes Arms the stronger choice on trash packs and two-target fights. 
Deep Wounds and 
Impale both feed off crits, so crit rating goes further here than for most melee.
Choosing a weapon. Weaponmaster makes the weapon type matter. Axes and polearms are the safe pick because 5% crit always works. Maces and staves shine against high-armor bosses. Swords give the most burst through extra attacks. Your race can tip the scale: Humans get 2% crit with swords from 
Sword Specialization, Orcs 1% with axes and Dwarves 1% with maces.
Worth testing: Bloodthrill is not in the raid build, but on fights where Rend can tick, it turns every main-hand hit into an Overpower chance.
Fury
Bloodthirst and Whirlwind with two one-handers. Raging Blows makes Whirlwind hit with the off-hand too, and Furious Precision covers off-hand hit.
Fury dual-wields one-handers and fights from Berserker Stance. The rebuild gives Fury the off-hand support it always lacked: Dual Wield Specialization now adds 25% off-hand damage and 50% more Rage from off-hand hits, Furious Precision covers off-hand misses, and Raging Blows makes Whirlwind a two-weapon attack.
Single target, in order of priority:
- Bloodthirst on cooldown.
- Whirlwind on cooldown.
- Heroic Strike as a Rage dump, queued on your main-hand swing.
- Execute below 20%.
Improved Berserker Rage for an instant 10 Rage and to break movement effects.
Save Death Wish for burn phases or the first thirty seconds when buffs are fresh, and remember it raises the damage you take. 
Flurry keeps your swing speed up after crits, so Fury's damage climbs quickly with crit rating once you have enough hit.
From Arms the build takes 
Anger Management, Deep Wounds, Impale and Spearing Strike, which hits hard against the Dragonkin and Giants you will see in endgame raids.
Protection
Shield Slam scales with Block Value, Bastion adds 10% damage with a shield, and Master of Defense turns dodges and parries into Rage.
Forever's Protection tree is built around the shield. 
Shield Slam deals 421 to 439 damage at its first rank plus your Block Value, has a 50% chance to dispel a magic effect, and causes very high threat. 
Defiance adds 15% threat in Defensive Stance with a shield equipped.
Threat on one target: Shield Slam on cooldown, Revenge whenever it is available, Sunder Armor with 
Improved Sunder Armor as the filler, and Heroic Strike with spare Rage. On packs, open with Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout, then tab through targets with Sunder Armor.
Vanguard lets you Charge in Defensive Stance, so pulling no longer means a stance dance. For emergencies you have 
Last Stand (30% of your maximum health for 20 seconds), Shield Wall, with 11 minutes taken off its cooldown by 
Improved Shield Wall, and the stun from 
Concussion Blow.
The Fury points buy Cruelty and Unbridled Wrath for threat and Rage, plus 
Blood Craze for healing after big hits.
Stat priorities
Forever items list ratings instead of flat percentages. In Forever, 10 Hit Rating gives 1% hit, 14 Critical Strike Rating gives 1% crit, and 10 Expertise Rating reduces the chance to be dodged or parried by 1%. Blizzard has not published raid hit caps for Forever yet. Classic's familiar figure was about 9% hit for special attacks against a raid boss, and dual-wield auto attacks need far more, so treat the lists below as starting points until the first raid logs arrive.
| Spec | Priority |
|---|---|
| Arms | Hit up to the special-attack cap, Strength, Critical Strike, Expertise, Agility |
| Fury | Hit, Expertise, Strength, Critical Strike, Haste, Agility |
| Protection (survival) | Defense, Stamina, Block Value, Armor, Dodge and Parry |
| Protection (threat) | Hit and Expertise, Block Value, Strength, Critical Strike |
Block Value earns its place on both Protection lines because Shield Slam scales with it. The gear planner totals every rating and converts it to percentages for you.
Leveling
Level as Arms with the biggest two-hander you can find. The Arms build's point order takes 
Improved Heroic Strike, 
Improved Rend and Improved Tactical Mastery first, Anger Management at 23, Deep Wounds at 24, Sweeping Strikes at 32, Weaponmaster from 33 and Mortal Strike at 40. If you would rather open every fight with more Rage, 
Improved Charge adds 6 Rage to each Charge and is a fine early detour.
- Open with Charge, put up Rend on anything that will live long enough, and fill with Heroic Strike.
- Victory Rush after every kill is free healing; it is the reason a warrior can now chain two or three mobs without eating.
- Keep Battle Shout up and use Demoralizing Shout when you pull more than one target.
- Pick up a shield and a one-hander for dungeons you tank on the way. Vanguard makes a Protection respec painless at 30 or later.
- Enable the Talented Legacy perk if you have it. It unlocks each talent point five levels early, so Mortal Strike comes at 35.
Races
Every race can be a warrior. The ones that stand out:
- Orc:
Blood Fury adds 10% attack power for 15 seconds, 
Axe Specialization adds 1% crit with axes, and 
Hardiness shortens stuns by 20%. - Human: 2% crit with swords is the best weapon racial in the game, and
Will to Survive breaks stuns. - Night Elf:
Elune's Light grants 10% crit for 15 seconds on demand. - Troll: Berserking adds 10% attack speed for 10 seconds.
- Tauren:
Endurance gives 5% health and 1% hit, and 
War Stomp stuns up to five enemies. - Skyborne:
Wind Blessed adds 1% haste and 
Elemental Insight 5% damage against Elementals.
See every racial on the races page.