As a warrior (and really for tanks in general) your role is that of an enabler. You enable your team to get kills, and provide them with the space and safety they need to get their job done. You don’t provide as much damage as a DPS but you bring strong cc, a very powerful debuff and high burst damage while having versatile tools that can be used both offensively and defensively.
Strengths
+Highest tank burst damage
+Powerful, high uptime 10% damage debuff for your whole team to take advantage of
+Very strong personal defensive options that can be staggered out to survive, with Inner Beast being arguably the best personal defensive ability in the game.
Weaknesses
–Cooldown based team defensives. Your team defensive options aren’t up nearly as often as Dark Knight or Paladin’s, and when they’re on cooldown you’re reliant only on smart stuns and heavies, with the stun having the longest cooldown of all three tanks.
– Unusual learning curve. While WAR is easy to pick up and play, truly mastering it requires some clever thinking on how to use their tools instead of just ungabungaing your way to victory. – Gauge reliant. Fell Cleave, Inner Beast, and Onslaught are some of your most important abilities and all have a gauge cost. You may find yourself unable to build enough gauge to get burst damage out at the right time or not have enough gauge for an important stun.
Skills, Abilities, and Your Gauge
Beast Gauge is your job specific resource for using some of your most important abilities. It gates the usage of Onslaught, Inner Beast, and Fell Cleave. You build gauge by using Skull Sunder, Butcher’s Block, Maim, and Storm’s Path. Being starved of gauge impacts both your offense and defense so try to keep high uptime so as to not be caught without beast gauge during important moments.
Butcher’s Block is arguably your most powerful ability, and one of the most powerful abilities in the entire game mode. At 1500 potency it’s your hardest hitting combo finisher, and applies a powerful 10% damage taken debuff on the target that lasts for 15 seconds. This will be your most used ability in a match due to it’s damage and to keep high uptime on the debuff. You can keep it applied on one target continuously or spread it between two targets, whichever the situation calls for. It also still provides you with 10 gauge, helping you build enough per combo to at LEAST get enough gauge for an onslaught. This combo does everything!
Be careful being too obvious about your burst targets with this. If the ranged DPS is all the way in Zimbabwe and you waddle over to apply Butcher’s Block you’re giving away the fact that they’re the next target or will be a target soon. There’s some mind games you can play with this, and it’s not always necessary to have it applied to secure a kill.
Storm’s Path is what the designers intended to be your gauge builder, since it grants you 20 gauge instead of the usual 10. Sadly this isn’t really the case, and you’ll often find you will go multiple matches without using it. It’s rare that using Storm’s Path is better than using Butcher’s Block, for a couple of reasons.
It cuts into your Butcher’s Block uptime. It’s a crazy good debuff, that benefits your entire team. So any time it’s not up on the target not only is it a damage loss for you, but it’s also a damage loss for your whole team. You also can’t keep Butcher’s Block up on multiple targets if you choose to use Storm’s Path, since by the time you finish one combo the debuff will soon run out before you can finish the next.
The whole combo deals piddly amounts of damage. Both Heavy Swing and Maim deal 750 potency of damage, and Storm’s Path only 1250. This seriously cuts into your overall pressure during a match, even if it may result in more fell cleaves over time.
Even in situations where you’d THINK Storm’s Path would be a good idea, it falls flat. If you’re at high stacks and need gauge for survivability , one could argue that more Butcher’s Block uptime and pressure on the enemy DPS creates a bigger safety net then extra Inner Beasts. They’ll have trouble killing you if it’s not safe to do so.
Some players think Storm’s Path has its uses for building gauge on objectives like Adrenaline boxes or the Wolf’s Heart, but I’d also argue dealing more damage to the boxes in the first place to secure them is even more important. The only time I would consider using Storm’s Path useful is building gauge shortly BEFORE boxes spawn for Fell Cleave and Onslaught usage to get the boxes.
Fell Cleave is your burst damage ability. It deals the most damage out of anything in your kit, and is what you’ll be using to assist your teammates in taking a target down. You don’t want to be too trigger happy with this skill, while the damage is pretty good it, it’s usually easily healed when used on its own, and it has a hefty 50 gauge cost. That gauge is generally better spent on Onslaught, which can help peel for your team or lock someone down for burst. Especially with the increased aggression this season. There are still opportunities outside of burst windows to use it though, Fell Cleave being the best skill you have to secure boxes, and if you get some opportunities for kills from your DPS, like a caster LB debuffing a target, or during Culling Time when damage is very high.
Inner Beast is the big daddy of all tank defensive abilities in the game. Since it’s gated behind gauge, this means it’s available as often as you want it to be, and with smart usage you’ll never feel like you don’t have it when you need it. It replaces Fell Cleave whenever you’re in Defiance, deals 500 potency less in damage, but heals you for the damage dealt AND decreases the damage you take by 10% for the next 5 seconds. 10% is not enough to completely negate the damage penalty of 4 Heavy Medal stacks but, it still serves as damage reduction at any medal stack below that. The heal isn’t too impressive, but it’s icing on the cake. Whenever you want to reduce damage with this ability you have to make sure you time it correctly, you don’t want to use it too late or too early. For instance if you’re the target of a melee LB, you don’t want to use it at the beginning of the cast bar. Try to use it just before the majority of damage you will take goes off, but not too late that the damage sneaks through unmitigated. Also don’t be afraid to use back to back Inner Beasts with Inner Release if you have to, tank kills can result in some wild swings back to the enemy being ahead and potentially winning the match, your survival is often extremely important.
During some dangerous moments during a match, you may find yourself hesitant to leave Defiance. While Inner Beast is not as strong as Fell Cleave in terms of damage, it’s still higher potency than anything else you have due to it ignoring the damage penalty inflicted by Defiance. You can help your team burst with Inner Beast, it’s better than not assisting them or attempting to assist them and dying. If you’re feeling confident enough you can also use an Inner Beast first for the damage reduction than toggle Defiance off and continue with Fell Cleaves. This is something you’ll have to feel out throughout a match, and you’ll get better at doing with experience.
Onslaught is your final gauge spender. At 20 gauge it’s pretty cheap, you’ll have enough gauge to use it after any combo you use. It’s a 2 second stun, a dash, and is off the global cooldown so it can be used while you’re attacking with other abilities. It’s extremely fast and responsive, the fastest gap closer in the game. You’ll be using it to lock targets down, peel for your team, or to stun the enemy healer during opportune moments. Be careful not to abuse this ability too much though because it does have a 10 second cooldown, and while that may not seem very long, it’s twice as long as the other two tank stuns.
You can use this ability for some extra damage to help secure boxes. 750 potency isn’t a lot but you can use it in conjunction with Fell Cleave or Butcher’s Block for that little extra boost. Just be very careful that it’s safe to do so, otherwise you’ll not have a stun ready for important targets like a melee that is casting their LB.
This ability can also work as an escape if you find yourself in danger. If your healer is down and you’re running away, you can use it on boxes if they’re up to create some distance between you and the enemy, or if your healer is alive and you’re being targeted you can dash to a distant enemy like the healer or ranged DPS to create distance between you the enemy tank/melee pair.
Tomahawk is your TP spender, your ONLY TP spender. It’s ranged, off the global cooldown, deals minor damage and applies a 50% heavy effect for 3 seconds. It can be used to peel for your team or to slow a target down to put them in range for your team to reach. WAR isn’t a very TP starved job so this ability can be used pretty liberally.
Tomahawk can be used during burst windows for a little bit of extra damage. It’s not much, but every little bit counts.
It can also used to remove Concentrate from enemies. Concentrate is an additional action that some healers and DPS take that prevents 1 CC effect on them within the next 10 seconds. Since Tomahawk is the lowest impact of your CC abilities, you can use this to quickly remove the Concentrate buff and then respond with either Onslaught or Holmgang. So if you see one of the enemies has Concentrate as their additional action you’re going to want to be a bit more conservative with your Tomahawk uses just in case.
Since it’s ranged it can be used to help secure kills if you’re chasing or a target manages to get away. 500 potency is very low but it’s better than nothing.
Inner Release is your burst damage cooldown and emergency defensive. It allows you to use all of your Beast Gauge abilities at no cost, and makes you immune to all forms of cc for the next 6 seconds. You will be using Fell Cleave or Inner Beast during these windows. It’s rare that using any other global cooldown will be more beneficial than those two during that 6 second period.
Do not pop this ability too early after using an attack, if you use it right after you just get done using a global cooldown, you will actually cut into how many abilities you can use with it and only get 2 global cooldowns out of it instead of 3.
Don’t be too trigger happy with this ability, while you may want to get lots of uses out of it during a match it’s better to use this ability effectively rather than as often as possible. Quality over quantity. If you know the enemy team is low on defensive options, or has none available those are the best times to use it for offense.
On the other hand, don’t be too conservative with this ability especially when it comes to defense. Because Inner Release makes you immune to CC effects and can grant you free uses of Inner Beast it can become an extremely powerful defensive ability. Chaining Inner Beast back to back will heal you for however much damage it deals and extend the damage reduction, AND prevent you from being locked down.
It is situational, but you may use Inner Release for Inner Beast defense buff and immediate switch out of tank stance and use Fell Cleave after. If you need to defend yourself before bursting.
Defiance is your tank stance and unlike pve it’s actually really useful! It decreases the damage you take by 20%, and replaces Fell Cleave with Inner Beast. Before patch 4.5, this ability would only increase your max HP but has no changed to instant 20% mitigation, making it more useful to swap to if you get caught with your pants down. Still, it’s important to be aware of your surroundings and be in Defiance before any major damage comes out, and why being too greedy very often kills newbie warriors.
How much time you spend in Defiance during a match is something you’ll have to feel out. Some teams, especially at lower ranks, never even think to touch the tank in which case spending time in Defiance is wasted. Once you get to higher level matches though, kills on tanks or at least attempts on them will become much more common, and personally I often find myself spending the majority of my time in Defiance once I stack. Remember that your death can cause wild swings back into the enemy’s favor and while it might not lead to full team wipes like a healer death can result in, it’s still really bad. You also drain more of your team’s resources to keep you alive when you’re out of Defiance, leaving less options available to protect the rest of your team. It may feel bad using Defiance especially if you’re very used to the warrior playstyle in pve but pvp is a very different game, don’t fall into that trap. Besides you’re still capable of helping your team out through peeling, offensive cc, and you STILL provide the Butcher’s Block debuff.
Always be in Defiance if you 4-stack.Previously WAR was the premier 4 heavy medal stacking tank, after the changes to Defiance and Inner Beast the jury is still out on whether or not this is worth doing. I haven’t had enough time to test out whether it’s worth doing, but if you DO end up with 4 stacks stay in Defiance or your death will cause a 100 medal swing back into the opponent tying, or back into their favor.
Thrill of War is your unique party defensive. It’s an aoe heal, that heals based on 20% of your individual party member’s maximum HP. This means it heals you the most, followed by your healer, then melee and finally your ranged party member.
Unlike its pve counterpart, Thrill of War does not increase maximum HP, it only heals. So you can’t use this preemptively to give someone an HP buffer. It’s a purely reactive ability now, and using it when there’s no damage taken by your party members means it goes completely to waste.
Use it to save individual party members. Don’t just save it for the rare times when everyone needs a heal, the cooldown isn’t super long so you can get a good amount of uses throughout a match.
Since it’s based on max HP, it will heal you for more when you’re in Defiance, and will be ever so slightly stronger (by 100 HP) if you take the Increased HP trait.
Holmgang is the swiss army knife of your kit. It’s your invincibility move, strong cc and displacement. It has a fairly short cooldown for how impactful it is, at 45 seconds. So you don’t have to be stingy with it.
It’s the closest thing you have to an “Oh shit” button, but you have to be careful. It has a short duration, and doesn’t prevent you from losing HP. It just prevents you from dropping below 1 HP so you still need to be healed, and it also keeps you in place. Mistiming this can be fatal, especially if the enemy team baits it out and deals their damage just as the effect ends and you can’t run away.
You can use it offensively to keep a target in place, usually to combo with your damage dealing party member’s LBs.
It can also be used as peel for your party, pulling dangerous enemies away and holding them in place while your party members create some space. Note that it does not prevent the target from attacking, just from moving, so any ranged abilities they have can still be used. So it’s a bit less effective on enemy ranged DPS.
You can use its displacement effects to grab enemies behind walls, preventing line of sight from the enemy healer. Or alternatively you can Holmgang the enemy healer behind a wall, also preventing them from having line of sight on their party members. Do be careful that the target isn’t already moving by the time you use the ability though, because there’s a slight timeframe where the ability goes off but the target can still move, resulting in them being chained on the other side of the wall…
Also try to stay still as you use this ability. If you move too far, you’ll still prevent the target and yourself from moving but there will be enough space between you and the target that you won’t be able to attack them. Standing still prevents this from happening.
Aegis Boon is your adrenaline rush, also referred to as “tank limit break” or “tank LB” by players. It’s shared between all 3 tank jobs, and you’re guaranteed to get at least ONE use out of it during a match, with the potential of a second one depending on when you use it and whether you get some extra adrenaline kits from your team. It’s essentially an aoe Safeguard so it’s very powerful. Using this ability correctly is difficult and is something you will learn to use effectively over time, because it can make or break matches.
Aegis Boon can help completely negate, or lessen the effects of culling time. When one team has this buff and the other doesn’t, it makes a huge difference. Try to time it well so that you don’t waste it by popping it too early during culling, as it will allow the enemy team to back off until it wears off.
When your team has a significant lead it’s often better to take the adrenaline kits for yourself if you know you’ll get an extra tank LB use out of it, and if you feel confident you can time it correctly.
If you still have tank LB during the last 10 seconds of a match, you may as well pop it if you’re in the lead. The enemy team won’t be able to work around it and will be forced to burst into it or take a guaranteed loss.
Additional PvP Actions
For Warrior there aren’t too many options when it comes to additional actions. You’ll often find yourself using the same ones, but there are at least some choices available.
Safeguard is the most important and mandatory of additional actions for tanks. As the “primary” medal carrier, you can often find yourself becoming the juiciest target on your team, and with your high medal stacks you’ll be taking significantly more damage, with your death being very costly due to the amount of medals you drop. Without safeguard, you’ll become much easier to take down and even if you don’t you’ll drain much more resources out of your team just to keep you alive.
Safeguard is NOT an “Oh shit” button. Similarly to pve, you want to have this cooldown up BEFORE any major damage is dealt to you rather than in reaction to damage. If you panic and use it too late it won’t save you and will just be wasted. Be aware of your surroundings, as you gain more experience in Feast you’ll know what signs to look for.
Recuperate is generally the most preferred second action taken. It has a short cooldown, heals you for a hefty amount since it’s based on max HP, and there’s not really any other additional you’d really be willing to take with the exception of two, so most will default to this.
Since it’s based on max HP it will heal you for more in Defiance and if you take the Increased Maximum HP trait
Bolt is a less common but still viable additional action, especially at low ranks when tanks are less likely to become targets. It’s the pvp equivalent to sprint, increasing your movement speed for 10 seconds.
Warrior mobility is already quite good, but making it better can still be useful. You can use this to chse down targets, or to help you kite away if you’re in danger.
Purify is a potentially useful additional. I’ve toyed around with this one for a bit, and it can be used as a replacement for Recuperate. If used with good reactions it can prevent you from being locked down before you can use your other defensives like Safeguard, Inner Beast, Holmgang and tank LB. I would not use this if you’re new to the mode though, I’d save this for more experienced players, I just felt it worth listing as an alternative.
Any additional actions not listed are currently not worth taking under any circumstances.
PvP Traits
Pvp traits are passive bonuses that boost your stats or reduce cooldowns. Most of them are fairly minor boosts, but there are some that are definitely better than others when it comes to Warrior. Any traits not listed are not worth taking.
Increased HP is the most useful defensive PvP trait for warrior. It provides more effective HP than Decreased Damage Taken and comes with some extra benefits.
Since Thrill of War and Recuperate are based on max HP, they’ll both heal for slightly more when you take this trait. Nothing too major, but it’s an extra perk
Increased TP Regeneration is another useful trait. While you only have one ability that uses TP, this gives you breathing room to use it a lot more often, resulting in more peel for your team (especially during emergencies) and making sure you have enough TP for that extra little Tomahawk damage. Again, a minor boost but still a useful one.
Increased Damage Dealt does exactly what it says on the box. Makes you do more damage, by 3%. A small boost but it’s better than anything else you have access to most of the time, and more damage is never bad. That extra bit of damage can help secure kills, and if your DPS players also take this (which they most likely will) it adds up.
Decreased Damage Taken is the other defensive trait option for warriors. You can take this when the enemy team is filled with some crazy good DPS, which is something you’ll have to figure out through experience. You can also take it when against players you know will target you often, pair this up with Increased HP.
If you do take this trait, both Increased TP Regeneration and Increased Damage Dealt can be swapped out based on preference or whether you feel like the extra TP/Damage done is needed.
Priorities and “Rotation”
PvP is not like PvE, it’s much more dynamic and there is no set in stone “rotation”. Instead I’ll list some priorities, but do note that these priorities can and do change throughout a match
Enable your team do not be selfish and use your abilities for personal gain, that is rarely the correct choice. The game is balanced around teamwork and playing just for yourself almost never works. You do not have enough damage to solo someone, and you shouldn’t use your team defensives like tank LB or Thrill of War for yourself IF you have other, personal options available like Safeguard, or it’s absolutely crucial to you winning by making sure you don’t die towards the end of the match.
Keep high uptime on Butcher’s Block, that ability is probably the biggest reason as to why the warrior job is so strong. The damage adds up, even outside burst windows it makes it so healers have to heal more often and dissuades enemy DPS from going full aggro if they know they’re going to be a target soon.
Keep your global cooldown rolling if you can hit someone, hit someone even if they’re not your intended target. You build gauge by attacking people, so any time you’re not attacking you can find yourself gauge starved. Obviously during burst windows you’ll prioritize damage on the target but otherwise doing some damage is better than doing no damage, especially since downtime will allow enemy healers to regenerate MP.
Be mindful of you and your team’s positioning, being at the wrong place at the wrong time can be catastrophic, do not overextend just because you’re a tank. You’re naturally bulkier than other roles but you will still fall over and die if you’re too far away from your healer, and can result in teammate’s dying if you’re also too far to assist them. This is very important if your team is ahead and are all stacked with heavy medals. The match can easily swing back into the enemy team’s favor if you’re not close to help.
As for rotation, really the only thing is your Inner Release window which is very basic.
Try and have Butcher’s Block on a target before a countdown happens, if not don’t fret too much about it and just join your DPS with your burst rotation.
Finish whatever global cooldown you have available, prioritizing Fell Cleave if you have enough gauge for it → Tomahawk + Inner Release → Fell Cleave + Onslaught → Fell Cleave + Tomahawk → Fell Cleave
There are mind games you can play with this rotation, but I’ll save that for a more advanced section at a later time.
Helpful Macros
Here are some helpful macros that can make targeting a bit easier for you. They can all be adjusted to your liking
This first macro is for Onslaught targeting. Instead of having to tab target or click, pressing this will use the ability on whatever you set it it to, assuming they’re in range I would recommend keeping the standard version of Onslaught on your bar too for standard stuns
/micon “Onslaught” pvpaction
/pvpac “Onslaught” <e2>
So the <e2> in the macro stands for “Enemy 2” which is whichever enemy member is in the second slot in the party order. By default this is the healer, but it can change if you’ve reorganized your party order settings.
E1 is enemy tank
E2 is enemy healer
E3 is enemy melee
E4 is enemy ranged
I’d definitely keep one for the enemy healer and enemy tank, since you’ll much more likely to be targeting the enemy DPS you don’t need a specific macro for them unless you really prefer it. The macro can also be used with any of your abilities that require a target including Tomahawk
/micon “Tomahawk” pvpaction
/pvpac “Tomahawk” <e3>
I keep a macroed Tomahawk set to the melee handy since melee is the most likely to take Concentrate, and as I mentioned earlier in this guide it can be used to remove the Concentrate buff, allowing you to cc them after it wears off. Again, this can be changed to any enemy target and you can even keep multiple copies for each individual party member if you choose to.
And of course it can also be used with Holmgang
/micon “Holmgang” pvpaction
/pvpac “Holmgang” <e3>
Changes/Edits
1/13/2019: Defiance changed to 20% damage reduction and Inner Beast nerfed to 10% damage reduction.
