Hi, I know many blogs go on about tactics and other issues associated with a class, but I thought I'd take a step back for those new to the game to explain a little about what you're in store for if you choose to level a warrior from scratch.
First of all, there are only two mindsets to be in when you decide to level a new warrior: The patient, and the dead.
Unlike many classes, warriors are not invincible machines that can just keep churning and churning through mobs like butter. Your main resource will be your life. When your life is gone, you'll have to run back, and notice I said "when" not "if." You will die many many times. It's ok, though, just remember that you're a warrior, and the goal as a low level warrior is to learn to think tactically, and apply the abilities you have at hand to accomplishing the goal you set before you.
Now, if you have infinite patience, you can level as Protection. Your damage will be low enough that you will frequently see Arms warriors running through levels 8 million times faster (possible exaggeration) but you will also die less and have more chance of surviving multi-mob pulls than them. If you choose this route, remember that defenses, armor, shields, stamina, those are your treasures. Stay away from fancy stuff that gives you more of anything else, unless it also gives you more armor, stamina, or a shield. A shield is your friend. About the only friend you have better than a shield is defensive stance. Once you get those two things together, you're ready to find out what being a tank is all about.
If you have less patience, you can level as Arms. Arms warriors have to be crafty, but they will go faster than protection warriors. You will need to control the size of the pulls you make on solo quests, keep them to 1-2 until you know you can deal with them. Remember, as a warrior, you have no escape routes. You're in it to win it or die trying. If you finish the goal, and kill the pack of 3 raptors guarding the chest of silver, you don't have to explain that you died and ran and rezzed and killed the last raptor to do it, you just turn in your quest and go on. Escape routes are for other classes. You're going to find that whether you're a female or male, this class will make you feel "macho." You're literally going to learn the mindset of attack and no surrender. Notice, as you go, you have charge (a way to go into combat quickly), intercept (another way to go into combat quickly), and intervene (a way to go into combat quickly, and help someone else get away). I dare you to find me one ability on your bar that says "helps you get out of combat safely." Oh, sure, Intimidating Shout looks promising, but 3/5 times once they're done running away from you and they come back and bring all their friends with them, you'll be wishing you hadn't. But as arms, you have a lot of things to make it easier to take some people down, you just have to learn to be on your toes all the time, ready to use the right skill at the right time.
If you're masochistic, you can level as Fury. Fury warriors (for soloing) are the ultimate in the warrior mindset. Just look at the explanation of Berserker Stance (where you'll spend most of your time): "An aggressive stance. Critical hit chance is increased by 3% and all damage taken is increased by 5%." in the words of Stan Lee, "Nuff Said." Fury warriors are the ultimate reckless fighting machines. You don't care if you die, you don't even care if you get hit, all you care about is trying to kill as many of them as you can before you go down. It makes a fury warrior a frightening prospect in pvp until other classes learn how to kite you. If you close with them, they're going to hurt, they have to hope they can survive your assault long enough to start kiting you, or they're going to be in a world of pain. If you level as Fury, just be aware that you're going to die more than any other warrior out there. Of course, you're also going to carve through some quests faster than them too. But some of your deaths will slow you down enough that you may find that Arms will end up being faster.
Warriors are not rogues, we do not have an escape route. We do not have a bubble we can use to avoid pain and misery when we're outnumbered. We can't avoid stopping to eat every so often to heal up. We LOVE the first aid skill, and we max it out as soon as we can. We continually struggle between moving faster to avoid rage loss, and moving slower to avoid health loss. The path of the warrior is a path of balancing rage and life. Depending how much weight you give to each side will determine which of our trees you walk along. If life is more important, you will choose Protection and learn the way of a tank. If rage is more important, you will choose Fury and become a sweeping path of destruction that can only be stopped by being killed. If you value them equally, you will choose arms and have a range of abilities and approach every situation tactically and carefully and ready to respond to whatever happens.
I don't know if this mindset affects anything else in our life, but I can promise you if you want to be able to "get away" from trouble, a warrior will not work well for you. Maybe take a hunter, or shaman. Really almost any class will work for that, just not a warrior. A warrior will surround themself with death. The deaths of others, their own death. They also hold lives in the balance, their own, and others. As protection, you hold yourself responsible for every life in your group. It can be very stressful, but when others appreciate you, you feel very good indeed. As any other kind of warrior, there comes a time when you will try to take up the mantle of tank, because if you don't, no one will. As an example, the other day, I went into a random dungeon which I specifically queued for as dps so I wouldn't have to tank. The DK tank that was selected apparently thought it would be funny to pull the first group of mobs and then drop group. Some people have no honor. So, there I am in my fury gear, berserker stance, taking extra damage, and crits, and everyone around me is panicking, so what do I do? I intercept straight into the heart of the mobs, hit a quick whirlwind to get their attention, and then swap to defensive stance and hang on for dear life while I Blood thirst, rend, and thunderclap like crazy. Demo shouts and the whole nine yards. The healer, being fairly pro also, didn't miss a beat. It's fair to say that in this situation, the priest had probably had more than a few warriors do this exact same kind of thing when tanks went down unexpectedly or whatever. People just come to depend on warriors to be able to do this. By the way, once the other 3 dps kind of calmed down and figured out what was going on, we took them down pretty quickly, and no one was scathed. I was annoyed, because I had to put on my tanking gear to blow through the rest of the dungeon, and that wasn't the responsibility I wanted right then, but I knew it was my job and I did it.
Don't ever expect to be given an "easy" way to do something. You might as well wish for Blizz to mail you a pony. I guarantee that no matter what you do, you'll have it harder than most everyone else. You'll be put to the test over and over again as you pull your way up from 1 to 80 and above. You'll become intimately familiar with where graveyards are in each zone and which areas you want to die the least in. You'll learn to pace yourself and watch your aggro radius carefully. You'll learn that it's NOT ok if you accidentally pull a second group of mobs. These are all things that other classes can do and laugh about once they're safely away. These are not things you can do.
If reading this hasn't dissuaded you from choosing to level a warrior, then I welcome you to our ranks, brother or sister. Strength and honor.
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