Best leveling spec in Cata?

[17arkOracle]

I plan on making a warrior come Cata, although I was wondering with all the changes what would be the best to level with now.

Ideally I'd like to be able to take a few mobs without risk of dying, and not much downtime when just fighting a mob at a time, otherwise just highest DPS. I'll be in (almost) full heirloom gear too.

I'll dual-spec at 40 and get prot for dungeons (if I'm not already) but I don't want to level all the way through with it, just try to hit each one once.

Anyway, any advice is appreciated.

Thanks.

(Sorry if this topic's been made before, I found a few on leveling but I was wondering about specifically with the Cata changes.

[Deleted]

i'd say prot. I know u think u might not give a ton of dmg, but in heirloom u will. and the near exstreme survival u have makes u able to go with no down time what so ever.

If u feel like have some down time u can always mass pull and aoe them down, this might save time in the long run due to the very litle down time with very huge kill/time ratio.

Plus easy access to instances.

[Arteous]

heirloom items won't work past lvl 80 .. you'll have to buy totaly new heirloom items for 81+ leveling (and you need to be 85 to buy that stuff) I'll stick to my sanc t10 for my main (hopefully heroic sanc by time xpac comes out)

[Chogall]

Fury.
Fury 9 times.

BEST way to go.

[Ssateneth]

Tank AOE has gone down the shitter. If you think you'll do a lot of damage as prot, I wouldn't rely on it for early levels. Thunder clap hits like a wet noodle (Only 300 with 5300 gearscore) and it feels like rend damage went down too, though I blame that on armed to the teeth going away. Shockwave damage went down a little as well.

But theres also a bunch of broken dps specs that are doing ridiculous amounts of damage which makes tanking very hard in level 80 heroics. BM hunters and ele shamans easily do 12k with no outside buffs at level 80.

[Donano]

Fury you can bash your face on the keyboard with the right glyphs and take on decent sized packs. I took on a pack of 4 just make sure to use victory rush everytime it comes up.

[Chogall]

To add on to my previous post,
Fury is already an AoE beast.
and will have a ton of self-healing.

Optimal for leveling.

[Backpack]

I'm currently leveling as prot with no heirlooms and its super easy. I just hit and 70 and once you have improved revenge, you just slaughter groups of 4-5 easily. Plus you can do all 2-3 man quests by yourself.

[Nide]

Whatever you have the weapons for really, sticking to one spec all the time if you have crappy weapons can really slow you down.

I'd go fury and Prot for leveling since they can share the same weapons, very few pure tanking weapons at low levels so most of the time you'll be grabbing DPS one handers until northrend or outlands if you're lucky.

[17arkOracle]

heirloom items won't work past lvl 80 .. you'll have to buy totaly new heirloom items for 81+ leveling (and you need to be 85 to buy that stuff) I'll stick to my sanc t10 for my main (hopefully heroic sanc by time xpac comes out)

Sorry, I should've clarified. I'll be leveling from level 1 (goblin warrior) so I'm not really concerned about 80-85 (yet).

I'll have heirloom weapons, so I don't have to worry there, (DalRend/Thrash with Crusader/Lifestealing if I'm fury, one of the two if I'm prot).

I'm leaning towards maybe prot early on and fury later. I'd probably go SMF in the case of fury.

Any more advice would be greatly appreciated. Also if anyone has a good build to use I'd be very thankful.

[Jessie1024]

As it has been said before, Fury is ultimately the best leveling spec for Warrior. Constant heals from Bloodthirst and Victory Rush give you almost zero downtime so you can just keep killing things.... one... after one... after one. Go fury, or prot if you have the gear.

Also, WotLk Heirlooms don't work in Cataclysm past 80. In beta the old heirlooms don't scale past 80. Althou you get two new ones that scale over 80 and prolly more will come.

[nomerz]

Is fury really better than arms now for leveling? even the early levels?

[Deleted]

Fury.
Fury 9 times.

BEST way to go.

Yeah... except that's not true.

Fury deteriorates brutally with each level gained (far more than it had been while leveling 1-80). At 81 you can already say goodbye to your capped hit and by 83 you see so many misses on screen that you just wanna cut yourself.

Crit shortly follows suit - less and less flurry procs... less and less rage...

It's basically the same story as with today's "why leveling as fury is the least effective option" issue. It's even more true with brutal ratings calculation that you have to deal with on 80-85.

[Alianthos]

Fury.
Fury 9 times.

BEST way to go.

Wut ?

Revenge is SO op, it beats the shit out of anything fury could pull.
Also with victory rush, everyone gets a reliable self healing.

Prot all the way. Fury is probably the worst leveling spec.

[Eldrea]

Is fury really better than arms now for leveling? even the early levels?

I am curious about this as well, since I'll be leveling a warrior from level 1 in the expansion

[Foibles]

Wut ?

Revenge is SO op, it beats the shit out of anything fury could pull.
Also with victory rush, everyone gets a reliable self healing.

Prot all the way. Fury is probably the worst leveling spec.

This, though imo Arms is just as good as Prot depending on what you are doing. Great single target and nothing kills 4-5 targets faster than Blade Storm.

[Dedweight]

Wut ?

Revenge is SO op, it beats the shit out of anything fury could pull.
Also with victory rush, everyone gets a reliable self healing.

Prot all the way. Fury is probably the worst leveling spec.

After having leveled three different warriors to 60+ I'd have to agree with most of you post but disagree with your comment on Fury. Currently Fury isn't as bad as you seem to make it out to be though I will say don't go Fury until about 40 when you can get Whirlwind and some of the other Fury attacks. Before that definitely go Arms or Prot.

Come Cata though I can't say, haven't got any of my Warrior's over to the PTR and haven't bothered to try and level one either.

[Freedom]

What's thunderclap like for fury for leveling? I like to stance dance and use it on trash in ICC when ww is on CD and was wondering what it hits for.

[Eldrea]

Any thoughts from people that are on the beta/ptr for leveling specs?

I'm not really interested in tanking instances but would prefer simply questing in the expansion, but if prot is just as good for soloing as arms or fury, any suggestions on a cata spec?

I made some guesses at the talent calculator but I am sure someone more knowledgeable can whip up something a lot better than I can. I'd really appreciate it!

[Mickeyd228]

Any thoughts from people that are on the beta/ptr for leveling specs?

I personally have tried a little bit both Fury and Arms. I would say with BOA gear Arms absolutely wrecks. Having Mortal Strike at 10 helps a TON. Also the change to Victory Rush makes it so you can chain kill mobs very easily. At level 16 with 3/3 War Academy and 1/2 Field Dressing, Victory Rush was healing for around 170. The change is very noticeable. The amount of healing and damage output at that low of level is quite amazing for Arms. Will be interesting to see if it will make it to live.