Warrior PvP guide

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Classes:
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PvP guide:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr

Contents 1 Introduction 2 General PvP Tactics 2.1 Rogue 2.2 Warrior 2.3 Priest 2.4 Warlock 2.5 Mage 2.6 Druid 2.7 Hunter 2.8 Paladin 2.9 Shaman

Introduction

In PvP, many classes will avoid melee combat which will make defensive equipment significantly less usable, as well as Protection talents.

Nowadays (it wasn't always so) the warrior is a very capable player killer. His/her strength lies in the offensive nature of the class, and the ability to charge into a fight and deal a lot of damage fast without having to rely on 20 different skills or spells. The warrior always does damage. That combined with the excellent defense that is the warrior's trademark, makes for a somewhat unique but very effective PvP class, that however requires a bit of training to master. The problem is often to avoid being kited by more ranged-oriented classes. For this combat controlling abilities such as Hamstring and Intercept are excellent remedies.

These are general guidelines for PvP warriors.

Always have battle shout applied in any fight - it's a big damage bonus! Although this is open to debate, in battlegrounds most warriors use a big slow 2H weapon, and have spent talents mostly in Arms for Mortal Strike (MS). From the Fury tree you should almost certainly choose Cruelty (+ crit chance). You also MUST have Tactical Mastery from the Protection tree to keep rage when switching stances in battle which you will be forced to do often. This setup makes Heroic Strike almost redundant. It costs half the rage of Mortal Strike, true, but Mortal Strike is an instant attack so is an extra 'free hit.' This is the advantage of having a slow, heavy-hitting weapon as MS is unaffected by weapon speed. Heroic strike merely gives additional damage to a swing you get anyway. MS also does more damage and decreases the effectiveness of any heals. You will often find yourself with extra rage to 'dump' on your target while MS is cooling down. If this is the case, use it carefully, and always save enough so as soon as MS comes off cooldown you can spank your target with another big shot. Use Demoralizing Shout, Thunder Clap and Sunder Armor if you have extra rage to 'dump'; this may also be where you could use Heroic Strike from time to time. When fighting casters, never use all your rage; you may have to interrupt a spell at any time. Your talent build should comprise of the following essentials: Mortal Strike, Improved Overpower, Deep Wounds, Impale, Death Wish, Improved Intercept, Tactical Mastery, Second Wind, and Weapon Specialization.

Which weapon specialization you take is largely personal preference and has been the subject of hot debate. However as a general rule the mace is better in duels and 2v2 arenas, and the sword and axe's greater burst damage is better in 3v3 and 5v5 arenas.

General PvP Tactics

In PvP, warriors primarily focus on:

1. Keeping enemies within melee attack range (and facing the enemy).
2. Proper counters to enemies abilities, or proper usage of ability-attacks.

Against ranged classes, (Mage, Hunter, Warlock, Priest, casting Druid) the major theme in the battle is whether the warrior can keep the target within, or at least close to, melee range. While in melee, the warrior should be dealing significantly more damage to the low armor foe. Additionally, any non-instant spells cast by the warrior's opponent are in danger of being interrupted. If the target is kept within melee range, the secondary requirement for a warrior win revolves around properly interrupting key spells. Intimidating Shout can be used from 10 yards away and will stop the targeted enemy in place. This is very useful for closing the gap on ranged attacker or stopping them from damaging you while you wait for an immobilize effect to wear off.

Against melee classes, (Rogue, Warrior, Shaman, Paladin, melee Druid), the warrior tactics are much more class-specific. The common tool against all melee enemies is Disarm. This ability will deny enemy abilities that require a melee weapon (there are many of these for these melee classes), as well as maximize damage differential in the warrior's favor. The timing of Disarming a rogue is critical to preventing of the rogue's finishing move, whereas against Shaman and Paladin, you just want to get in this move as often as you can. Other than Disarm, increased melee combat means more "swings" of the melee weapons by both warrior and foe, providing more opportunities to use the high-value/rage warrior counterattacks of Overpower and Revenge (Revenge is only worthwhile if stun-talent added, and can be caused by shield-block). These two counterattacks can be the difference if they are used within their relatively small time windows (management of weapons and stances required).

Rogue

Notable Rogue Abilities:

• Vanish (Rend damage-over-time breaks stealth.)
• Stun Attacks: Gouge, Kidney Shot, Cheap Shot
• High Damage Finishing Moves: Eviscerate, Envenom
• Weapon Poisons: Crippling Poison
• Damage over time (DoT) bleed attacks: Garrote, Rupture
• Powerful cooldown abilities: Evasion, Adrenaline Rush, Blind

Rogues deal tons of damage and have lots of ways to control the fight. However since they must get down and dirty with your plate-covered self to do this; unless a Rogue catches you completely unaware, you will have a fairly easy time whacking them down if you know what you're doing and keep your head cool.

Use a two handed weapon and Overpower as much as possible. Rogues dodge quite a bit because they have bunches of Agility which simply makes them dodge. Remember to activate Beserker Rage before you switch to Battle Stance for Overpower, otherwise the rogue will Gouge you. You can use Hamstring and other instant attacks to 'probe' for a dodge. The improved overpower talent is amazingly effective, especially with a slow two handed weapon. Disarm can also be useful against rogues and it frequently surprises them and causes them to move away from you, which is the perfect time to Intercept.

Furthermore, many rogues will attempt to backstab you, or use any other attack through Stealthing, if you get your timing right, you can use a Demoralizing Shout or any other Area of Effect spell to remove their Stealth, if successful, you will have a large step ahead from the Rogue, since it's a large part of their Stun Lock tactics. The 'Second Wind' talent is very good at mitigating some of the damage done to you while incapacitated by one of the rogues stun lock abilities, but keep in mind that it cannot outheal a rogue's attacks. In order to avoid in-combat stealthing try to always have a Rend or Deep Wounds on the rogue.

Rogues' Gouge and Sap abilities are often used to buy them time, either to kill another target or regenerate their energy. If hit by either of these abilities while in Berserker Stance, you can activate Berserker Rage, giving you immunity to these Disorient effects and breaking you free to continue fighting. Since a rogue's lower armor makes it difficult for them to beat a warrior in a straight up fight, they often make good use of stuns and disorients to get in extra hits--by breaking a Gouge, you can often turn the battle in your favor.

Remember lots of the rogue's abilities revolve around positioning and by hamstringing him you seriously impair his ability to maneuver around you and use these abilities effectively. DON'T just stand still while fighting a rogue, run round, jump, spin about on the spot......anything you can do to make it difficult for him to use his incapacitate abilities on you, if he can't stun lock you he has no chance against you. Remember you have the upper hand in terms of damage and armor. As soon as it turns into a stand-up fight the rogue is simply outclassed.

A typical rogue fight goes like this:

The rogue saps you: If you're dueling you are in beserker stance and wearing 1h-shield to break sap and soak up the incoming damage.

The rogue proceeds to stunlocks you: You wait until you got some rage and break his stunlock with your pvp-trinket and immediately fear him. This buys you precious time to do Hamstring, and get ready to Overpower spam him in Battle Stance.

The rogue can now either try to continue stunlocking, which will be hard since there are diminishing returns and you are hitting him hard, or he can try to re-engage the fight with a new stunlock. The best way to avoid this is by having a Rend on him or keeping an eye out for any Deep Wounds ticks. If you see him trying to run away to stealth simply Intercept and hit away while he's stunned.

There is an increasing amount of rogues how will attempt to kite you, they do this by opening with garrote, building a few combo points, then using rupture, then running off, usually with the help of sprint. If they garrote and start to run around, use Piercing Howl to slow them down at first, then Hamstring them. If you have Improved Hamstring spam Hamstring until you get a proc. But don't get to cocky if it does proc they can still trinket it. if they manage to rupture you and are starting to run as far away as possible, use intercept. If their hanging around in front of you outside of intercept and melee range, back up a little and use intercept, when their hit with intercept stun, quickly change to defensive stance and disarm them (using Bloodrage if necessary) then try to do as much damage to the rogue as possible during disarm.

Warrior

Notable Warrior Abilities (Which you should know):

Warrior abilities are a guessing game as to what their talent build is, in order to guess effectively you must base your assumptions on what gear they are wearing as well as what weapons they are using (or by the less reasonable way of engaging them and hoping they will reveal their higher talent tree abilities). In general, a warrior using a two hander will be Arms, dual wielding will be Fury, and a one hander and shield will be Protection.

Arms/Fury Build Abilities:

• Mortal Strike
• Second Wind
• Improved Hamstring

Arms/Fury Warriors are specialized in dealing damage and dealing damage in quick bursts with a heavy two-handed weapon. It's like getting hit with a train, hitting rewind and getting hit with a train again. Talents like Second Wind and Improved Hamstring can be a major nuisance. Try to time your abilities better than they do and get them down quick. A good trick is to use Beserker Rage to increase your rage while you're getting hit, although it may leave your open to Fear if you don't have Deathwish.

Fury Build Abilities:

• Improved Intercept
• Piercing Howl
• Enrage
• Death Wish

Fury Warriors deal large amounts of sustainable damage and will have great amounts of rage to use, as well as greater freedom in mobility than arms and protection builds. A fury warrior will wear you down with strike after strike. Talents like Death Wish make them immune to your Intimidating Shout ability, they can usually intercept more often and they get a damage bonus and heal-over-time when struck with a critical attack. Play them like you would a combat rogue. Remember most Fury warriors do not have Weapon chain/gloves and are therefore open for Disarm which will severely gimp their dps and abilities, since warriors depend on a melee weapon for every ability except Thunder Clap. Treat them like a boss fight, use Thunder Clap, Demo shout and Disarm to totally diminish their dps-ability.

Protection Build Abilities:

• Last Stand
• Improved Revenge
• Concussion Blow
• Shield Slam
• Tons of armor and health

Protection Warriors take damage, and that's about all they do, no spectacular damage potential, they have limited use of stuns, simply do more damage to them then they do to you and it will be an easy win. Clever Prot warriors will toy around with disarming you, stunning at opportunistic moments and stripping you of armor. Almost no PvP-interested warriors spec Protection, so these are a very rare encounter.

Also, don't forget retaliation. It can be incredibly useful against warriors, as essentially the only way they do damage is in melee. And if they are taking all the damage they are dealing plus what you are dishing out...

Priest

Notable Priest Abilities:

• Power Word: Shield
• Mind Flay
• Holy Fire
• Devouring Plague
• Shadowguard
• Prayer of Healing
• Shadow Word: Pain
• Desperate Prayer
• Flash Heal
• Psychic Scream
• Mind Blast
• Mind Control

Holy/Discipline priests (i.e. pure healers) are usually overmatched by a Warrior, but Shadow priests are a different story. With the ability to jump out of their Fear using Berserker Rage and with use of Pummel to stop casting, combined with high physical damage that is the bane of casters it would seem that Warriors would have an easy time of them, but the combination of the defenses of a Priest (especially Power Word: Shield) combined with respectable damage of a type that warriors cannot mitigate can often make for an almost unbeatable combination. Beating on a Priest whose shield is up and who is draining the Warrior's life from behind it using Mind Flay is the definition of futility: the Shadow Priest can damage the Warrior, but the Warrior is powerless to respond. Nevertheless with a little luck, judicious use of Pummel to stop the larger, longer cast-time heals, and Bloodrage to recover from the loss of Rage while the Priest is bubbled, they can be defeated. As is usual with casters, a Warrior should try to get the jump on them with an initial Charge, fight always in Berserker Stance, and Hamstring them to keep them from getting out of melee range. If possible, it can help a great deal to save non-rage generating attacks for the shield, leaving your white attacks to generate rage when they can actually deal damage. Though the best advice for encountering a shadow priest is just to mount up and get out there if you can - there's no shame in a tactical retreat! You're 95% sure to lose unless you're seriously kitted out, which most of us aren't. Even with only half a health and mana bar they can often beat a full health warrior! A shadow priest is without doubt the warrior's worst enemy, even more so than the mage now - thanks to spell reflect.

Warlock

While you may often lose to a well-geared Warlock because of the heavily beefed-up damage-over-time spells they can spam onto you, which will eat your health away like popcorn, and the fact that most high-level warlocks have health pools exceedings yours, they are not entirely impossible to beat. To stand a chance against a Warlock you can't really afford to make any mistakes, and even then you can still lose if they don't either.

To fight against a warlock is to fight against the clock. The longer you fight the bigger the chance is that his DoT's will eat you up. So keep the initiative and attack him constantly. You can use your PvP-trinket to break his Death-Coil which will surprise most warlocks and still have your fear-breaking abilities ready. Always keep Hamstring on and try to interrupt his longer casts.

Additional notes: Since warlock play styles vary a great deal, it is very important to watch what spells your opponent is casting. If encountering lower damage dealt onto the lock than you would expect against a cloth player, the lock is most likely Soullink specced. If the warlock has a felguard out, he or she is definitely specced for soullink, and 20% of the damage you deal is transferred to the pet. Soullink is usually the hardest spec to deal with for a warrior since you're generating less rage and his dmg dealt to damage taken ration is in his favor. In a group situation such as arena it may be worthwhile to kill the warlock's pet, since they die quickly to focus fire or a few lucky crits. Destruction warlocks, while rare, can be even more deadly to a warrior if the warrior is not careful: Backlash makes for impressive burst damage. Generally you want to only deal physical damage to the destruction warlock when you are ready to finish him.

Other things to keep in mind: Pummel any shadow school spells. This will mean either an interrupted drain life, drain mana directed towards your healer, shadow bolt, fear or howl of terror. These are all spells you do not want him to cast. While this may leave him open to casting fire spells, generally they'll deal less damage and locking down the warlock's shadow school denies him most of his defenses. Another option is to quickly switch to a shield and cast spell reflect if the warlock is casting fear or shadowbolt, and if you are familiar with warlock playstyles you can occasionally reflect a death coil.

Mage

Notable Mage Abilities:

• Blink - instant cast, 15 sec cooldown, teleports caster 20 meters in front of the caster. frees the caster from stuns or bonds (roots)
• Ice Barrier (31 point Frost talent) - instant cast, 30 sec cooldown, absorb next 838 (at lvl 60) damage to caster, lasts 1 minute. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted.
• Ice Armor - instant cast, lasts 30 minutes, increases caster's armor by 560, enemy melee attacks have a chance to cause the attacker to have movement slowed by 30%, and attack slowed by 20% for 5 sec.
• Frost Nova - instant cast, 25 sec cooldown, enemies near the caster take 71-79 frost damage, and are rooted for 8 seconds.
• Polymorph - 1.5 sec cast, Transforms the enemy into a sheep, forcing it to wander around for up to 50 sec. While wandering, the sheep cannot attack or cast spells but will regenerate health very quickly. Any damage will transform the target back into its normal form. Only one target can be polymorphed at a time. Only works on Beasts, Humanoids and Critters.
• Cone of Cold - instant cast, targets in a cone in front of the caster take 335 to 365 frost damage and are slowed to 50% of their normal movement speed for 8 sec.
• Frost Bolt - 2.5 sec cast (with talents), deals 429-463 damage, reduces movement of target by 40%.
• Pyroblast (11 point Fire talent) - 6 sec cast, deals 716-890 damage plus 268 damage over 12 secs.
• Presence of Mind (20 point Arcane talent) - instant cast, 3 min cooldown, any mage spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds will cast instantly.
• Ice Block (21 point Frost talent) - instant cast, 5 min cooldown, encases mage in a block of ice protecting them from all forms of damage for 10 seconds and removes all negative effects (stuns, roots, disorients, magic, poison, disease, etc.) Mage cannot move or cast spells during this time.
• Arcane Power (31 point Arcane talent) - instant cast, 3 min cooldown, when activated increases mage spell damage by 30% while also costing 30% more mana to cast. Effect lasts for 15 secs.

Warriors have a good chance against mages these days (it was not always so). Generally speaking you should have no problems against Fire and Arcane mages so we'll be talking mostly about Frost Mages.

Mages are very soft targets so they will naturally try to put distance between you and them and for this purpose Frost Nova and the snare of Frost Bolt are very good. Always keep Hamstring on a mage (also after an Iceblock) and you should be able to run up to him or at least keep him from casting non-instant spells. There are several options to battle Frost Nova. The first is of course your PvP-trinket but cherish its long cooldown. Another good thing to remember is that the mage must be in melee-range to cast Frost Nova so you can easily fear him, making him waste his Frost Nova or his Iceblock.

Intercept is best used if done in reaction to blink, so that the mage cannot blink away immediately in response to intercept and leave you high and dry. Unfortunately, the mage will have to blink first - hopefully in response to a charge you've gotten off. A mage may actually blink *into* you in order to prevent the intercept and confuse you, so be ready for this. Forcing mages to blink before your intercept is difficult, but can be achieved through mace stuns, improved hamstring, fast dps through ice barrier as soon as it's up, or concussion blow if you're a little prot. Canny mages will do everything in their power to avoid blinking until you've used your intercept. However, blink will teleport the mage directly forwards, and if they are blinking out of your intercept they cannot turn to a new facing. So if you are forced to intercept a mage before they have blinked, immediately run in the direction they're facing. Depending on their reaction times and the openness of the terrain, it is possible to be back in melee range before they have a chance to do anything. Keeping the mage hamstrung really helps with this tactic.

Mages will often open up the fight by trying to sheep you. This allows them to re-establish range and open with long casts with no fear of a charge or intercept. Usually, you should just eat what they're throwing at you and save your trinket for cutting down the last few % of health while they try to kite you at the end of the fight, but it is occasionally worth trinketing out of the sheep. If the mage is trying a pyroblast, you will have enough time to get out of combat, trinket and steal the opener with a charge; in these circumstances the mage may even mistake your charge for an intercept. If the mage used frost nova before sheeping you, or you have just come from another combat, you will have enough rage to bloodrage/spell reflect if you trinket out of the polymorph.

Most Frost mages also have an Water Elemental who can do a ranged Frost Nova and some good damage as well. These fellows are very low on health so it can be wise to dispense of them when you see them and get some free rage. However, don't go chasing them on expense of the mage. Additionally most mages shoot themselves in the foot by Frost nova'ing you while having the pet firing at you through the fight, thereby making the Frost Nova's break very soon!

If you're quick, you can oftentimes reflect a mage's heavy nukes or polymorphs with a timely spell reflect. Be careful not to let a mage on low health be polymorphed for too long; cunning mages have been known to throw a polymorph when they know you can reflect it just to regain health and buy some time to let their cooldowns reset.

Druid

Druids are highly overrated against warriors in PvP, but they will kill you efficiently if they are overlooked. If a Druid engages you as a bear at the beginning of the battle he has about 1.5 to 3 times as much armor as you do, so do not expect a quick kill. In addition, the majority of Feral spec Druids tend to favour Cat form, which is substantially more fragile than Bear. Balance is by far the most effective Druid tree for PvP against warriors, but most of them aren't willing to respec to specialize as warrior killers, so they don't use it. A Cat form Feral Druid is unlikely to cause you significant problems, unless he is well geared or very smart. However, once Druids gain their level 62 skill Maim, they earn some of the stun-lock capabilities of a rogue and Cat druids become significantly more difficult to kill, as they can now stun, heal, and climb behind you for major burst damage at the middle to end of the battle.

As with all casters, shield bash/pummel is crucial to fighting a druid. If you are outside, the spell to look out for is Entangling Roots, which will root you in place. In melee combat, A warrior should always beat a druid. They should not be taken lightly though, a competent, power-shifting druid has many ways to stun, root, or disable you and you cannot afford to have them get off a heal or they simply will bleed you to death or tank you down.

Things to watch out for, druids (in bear form) have an ability to stun you for a few seconds. Expect them to use this as they are getting low in hitpoints. They stun you, change back to caster, heal, then back to bear. To counter this, make sure you are in berserker stance (ideally have your rank 2 PvP trinket for breaking stun ready and equipped). When they stun you, hit your trinket. When their hands turn green as they begin to case heal ... pummel them to stop the heal. Blood rage if necessary to get the rage for this, as that heal will likely mean death for you. Also if you are MS spec, keep that on them, that 50% healing reduction goes a LONG way in winning the battle as druids have several Heal Over Time spells, that your MS will nicely gimp. Another classic trick is to cast cyclone giving them ample time to heal. This can be prevented by using trinket to break the cyclone, then pummel his attempted heal. You can be sure hes gonna heal if he casts cyclone so get you finger on that pummel button! Remember to interrupt his Cyclones as they are easy to spot and got a considerate cast-time.

As druids are the best class at escaping slowing and snare effects be wary of a druid that get low on health as he can quickly shift forms out of a snare/speed debuff and run away much faster than you can catch him on foot. A good trick against an escaping druid is to continuously using Hamstring and Mortal Strike. The trick is to get the druid into his caster-form where he is a very soft target, and this is best done by causing massive damage to him in his other forms.

Be careful with druids. An equivalently geared feral druid who stays in bear form can usually take out a warrior without a problem.

Hunter

The advice for fighting warlocks applies to hunters as well, as does the bloodrage/intercept strategy used against mages. Keep in mind that chasing a hunter who is stunning/dazing you is an entirely futile exercise until intercept goes away; switch to a shield, shield wall if necessary, and build up rage on the pet while doing what you can to mitigate damage until intercept recycles.

Another option is to try to get close enough to where you can get off an intimidating shout. If you get the jump on them it's even easier, if not you can still get this to work. Make sure you are targeting them and not their pet, this will get their pet out of your hair for more than enough time to punish them. Most of the time they freak out that their pet is gone so all you got to do is hamstring, disarm whatever you have to do, MS, execute. It's that easy. If they get the drop on you do like he said above, build up rage intercept. That's one of your strongest weapons against the hunter.

One tactic to easily kill a hunter goes like this. If you charge in, likely they will have an ice trap waiting for you. BUT, have no fear. Spamming the AoE taunt ability (challenging shout) as you are charging in, you will likely get it off before you are frozen in the trap. This will force the hunter's pet to attack you, breaking the ice trap, and royally screwing over your enemy. Once the pet has broken the ice trap, you should immediately hamstring the hunter. Next (this is crucial) you should disarm your opponent. But hunters can't do much damage at a melee range, you say? This may be so, but taking away your enemy's melee weapon will take away their single greatest ability: Wing Clip. If a hunter can't wing clip you, and they are kept at 50% movement speed for 15 seconds, you will have more than enough time to destroy your opponent. Many hunters have high dodge-rates so it's an good idea to Overpower them for easy damage.

Most of the hunters you will meet will be Beast Mastery specced. This gives them around 18 seconds of immunity to fear/slowing/snare and all our goodies for keeping them in melee-range. However many hunters have become cocky and think of this ability as a I-WIN button against warriors. Their arrogance becomes their downfall of course. If you're dueling a BM hunter be sure not to stand in the open field, which is optimal ground for a kite-class, but try to find places to hide behind to make him come to melee-range. Most hunters will send their pet against you to debuff and damage and this is where the fun begins. You can use the pet to build 100 rage or you can simply kill it, breaking his Beast Mastery and making him very easy to kill again. My personal favorite is to build 100 rage and fight the hunter head on using every damage-doing ability i got. This is both fun and demoralizing for a BM-hunter who's used to being invincible.

Paladin

From a Paladin's point of view, warriors are probably their easiest opponents. Should you be fighting a Paladin, you can't afford any mistakes. You need to keep them in front of you in order to maximize your damage output, and try to stay behind them to receive the lowest amount of damage possible. Keep them Hamstring and have Rend applied at all times. If you are an Arms spec warrior, Mortal Strike won't do anything for you unless they heal before putting on Blessing of Protection or Divine Shield. If the Paladin puts up any of their "Protection" shields, stay back about 10 yards from them and bandage - this way you should be out of range for their Hammer of Justice and Consecration (which will interrupt your bandage). When the Paladin comes out of their shield, you should be far enough away from them to Charge; a paladin fight is all about rage generation. Without an ample supply of rage to fuel your abilities, you will be easily killed. Paladins are easily the most durable class, but also have the least DPS. They can survive for long periods of time with stuns, invulnerability, plate armor, and other abilities (e.g. Lay on Hands: Restores the Paladin to full health, and uses all their mana, 1 hour cooldown, lowered to 40 mins with talents. This drains all of the Paladin's mana but can even be cast at 1 mana. Luckily, most Paladins use this very rarely, saving it for a critical moment. If the Paladin had to use this to win, consider yourself to be the winner).

Keep in mind that since 1.9, 31 points in Holy tree is growing in popularity, allowing a Paladin to use the spell "Holy Shock", which will interrupt your bandage from 20 yards. Which spec a Paladin is using can often be discovered by looking at their gear: A Paladin wearing a 2h and low mana gear such as BG-rewards are likely to be retribution spec'd or protection spec'd. If they wear a shield and 1h they are either protection or holy-spec'd, the latter being more common. Also, Paladins with epic dungeon gear, Judgement and/or Lawbringer, are very often holy-spec'd.

Notes:

• MS MUST be applied whenever they are about to heal.
• Keep Rend on them.
• Keep Hamstring on them.
• Keep them in front of you.
• Stay behind them.
• Try to keep them disarmed.
• A Paladin survives based on their mana. A Paladin with no mana is a dead Paladin.

Most of the time, if you are able to beat a Paladin, he either made a big mistake or underestimated you. If they ever try to heal without their precious shields, punish them for their foolishness! Should they stun, just use your PvP-trinket, then pummel them immediately. Don't try to do anything else; what you need to do is silence them, not interrupt their spell! Remember, all the Paladin's spells are holy, so if you silence them, they can't use any of their shields, giving you the opportunity to finish them off before they even realize what is happening. (Correction: pallys can divine shield out of silence but a pummel which interrupts a holy spell locks out the holy tree which can not be shielded out of.)

If you're losing (which happens more often than not), there is really nothing you can do other than fight to your death and try to kill them. Watch out for their Hammer of Wrath from 25 yards, if they try to do it either pummel them, stand behind them, or Concussion Blow them if you have it. Your survival hinges on your ability to prevent this killing blow.

Now for the good news: Warriors who spec protection have a better chance of killing any kind of paladin. Shield Slam takes away their seals and blessings (unless they specced deep ret, then you would already have a much higher chance beating them), Improved Shield Bash silences them, and Improved Disarm takes away their weapon (which is devastating for any paladin, specifically ret specced ones which are starting to get popular). Remember that paladins do not stand around and heal most of the time, they do try to attack with their seals. Improved Revenge greatly increases your survivability when you parry/block/dodge their weak, seal-less attacks. If you can bash their heals, silence them and Shield Slam away their buffs, the "immortal" paladin is greatly crippled. Recasting buffs takes away precious time and mana, which is exactly what you need to kill them.

A paladin can't regenerate mana properly without Blessing of Wisdom, and if you take it away constantly, having them recast it again and again and finding out their mana pool is gone is priceless. To top it off, as a protection warrior you have Concussion blow which is usable every 45 seconds. Your concussion blow is not for you to beat on them while they're stunned (that's what improved revenge is for). Concussion blow is your queue to bandage (so prepare a macro for it!). Bandaging for at least 5 seconds every 45 seconds can keep you alive against a paladin for a very long time.

Keep in mind that if Paladins use Blessing of Protection, Bandage as much as you can. They can't stop you unless they remove their own blessing to interrupt your bandage (which they aren't likely to do). In the case of Divine Protection, you may try to bandage, but the paladin might just attack you to interrupt. Best thing you might want to do is switch to battle stance (if you haven't yet) and stay a good distance away to at charge them when bubble fades away.

Shield Slam can take away these buffs (which would generally kill non-protection warriors otherwise):
Holy Shield
Blessing of Sanctuary
All Seals
All Blessings

Shaman

Totems, totems, totems! Shamans depend on totems like Warriors depend on weapons. Bring down the totem and the shaman will fall. This is best done by simply using Hamstring on them, cheap and fast. You should easily be doing more damage to him than he is to you while in hand to hand combat (which, as a shaman, he cannot realistically avoid), especially with you having having disarmed him early on. This will pretty soon force him to resort to healing himself. Interrupt the heal attempt and you are on easy street. Just bash him down. Shaman probably are the simplest (though sometimes not the easiest) fight for a warrior. The formula is always the same - Charge; Hamstring; Disarm; beat him up and Pummel his attempts to heal. You do not really need to do too much thinking, complicated tricks or stance swapping as you would when fighting a mage or a rogue. One thing to look out for is when the shaman drops down to 20-30% and panics. He will then use Bloodlust and spam Lesser Healing Wave which can be impossible to interrupt. Be prepared for this and save your stunning and fear for this moment and quickly nuke him down.

While not a shaman ability, the Tauren racial ability Warstomp is worth mentioning. The vast majority of Shaman are Tauren, so you will likely see this ability used frequently. It can be very effective in close quarters. The simple solution to this is to use your trinket as soon as he uses Warstomp. He will be guaranteed to be attempting a heal when he does this. Just quickly trinket out and Pummel and you will be fine.

Throughout levels 1-50, a skilled Shaman will probably beat a warrior. Level 51-59, Shaman start to balance with other classes, and the better player (or more lucky warrior) will win. At Level 60, a well-played warrior should never lose to a shaman (with equal equipment levels).

At level 70, a warrior may begin to have problems with shamans again. Restoration shamans are near impossible to kill because of Earth Shield, so Mortal Striking early may be a better the solution in order to cut down the heals they get back (as opposed to Mortal Striking when they're lower on HP). Earth Shield is expensive to cast, so the less they benefit from it, the better. Well played shamans can easily kite you with Earthbind Totem and Frost Shock, so if you ever catch yourself at the center of the radius of the Earthbind Totem, destroy it immediately. You will spend less time destroying it to get out rather than just muscling out of the slowing radius (especially if you have the frost shock snare on you, which is makes you extremely slow). But if you ever catch yourself running into the Earthbind Totem, slap yourself. Consider using fast ranged weapons (throwing weapons are the fastest) to take out totems at a distance, as you need to focus your melee on the shaman.

In the case of elemental shamans (which have about the same or less survivability than that of an enhancement shaman), they are likely to put up Lightning Shield and kite using the method above. If you manage to close in (and stay in), dual wielders may suffer less from the Lightning Shield since they can get more hits in before the Lightning Shield can zap you again. Mortal Strike when they're low to reduce their survivability further(about 60-50% is low enough). Most elemental shamans at this point will stop kiting and try to get off a quick heal. This is your cue to get in there and murdalize them. If you don't have Mortal Strike, the fight will be a lot harder since most elemental shamans have the Nature's Focus talent which gives them a 70% chance to avoid interruption when casting heal spells. Still, DPS the hell out of them. The unfortunate part about not having Mortal Strike is that heavily elemental specced shamans can really break you with crits if you drag on the fight (as most shamans love spell crit rate). The key is to hit really hard, or hit really fast. You never want to allow them one regular Lightning Bolt. If their only form of DPS on you is their cooldowns and shocks, the fight is likely yours. If you have Mortal Strike, save your Pummel for their bolts, not their heals. If you don't, then pummel their heals and try to delay their bolts.