Night Elf is the best Warrior race on the Alliance for damage in WoW Forever, while Orc is the best all-round pick on the Horde, Windshaper Skyborne leads Horde raid damage, Tauren and Dwarf make the sturdiest tanks, and Human and Orc lead PvP. Every one of the ten races can be a Warrior, and the gap is small: community simulations put every race within about 2% of the leader. The October 26 racial update still shuffled the old order: Human lost half of its crit, Orc lost its crit passive but got a 2-minute Blood Fury back, and both Skyborne branches keep permanent Haste. Below, we rank all ten races for Fury and Arms, Protection, PvP and leveling, and explain how to line up each racial with your own cooldowns.
A Warrior gets something from almost every racial, but three kinds matter most: damage cooldowns to stack with Recklessness and Death Wish, passives that add crit, hit or Haste to every swing, and defensive tools that keep you in control in PvP or alive as a tank. Weapon specialization racials are gone in Forever, so your race no longer decides whether you use swords, axes or maces.
The table grades every race on a simple scale: S is the top pick, A is close behind, B gives up a little, C has nothing for that role. In damage, community simulations put every race within about 2% of the leader, so the DPS column matters most if you chase every last point.
| Race | Faction | Key racials for a Warrior | DPS | Tank | PvP | Leveling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orc | Horde | Blood Fury, Hardiness, Shatter Curse | A | A | S | B |
| Windshaper Skyborne | Horde | Wind Blessed, Elemental Insight, Skysight | S | B | C | A |
| Troll | Horde | Berserking, Rapid Regeneration, Regeneration | A | B | B | S |
| Undead | Horde | Will of the Forsaken, Touch of the Grave, Cannibalize | B | A | A | S |
| Tauren | Horde | Endurance, War Stomp, Plainsrunning | C | S | A | S |
| Night Elf | Alliance | Elune's Light, Shadowmeld, Quickness | S | A | A | A |
| High Order Skyborne | Alliance | Wind Blessed, Elemental Insight, Read Leyline | S | B | C | A |
| Human | Alliance | Ruthless, Will to Survive, Perception | A | B | S | B |
| Dwarf | Alliance | Stoneform, Artisan's Precision | B | S | A | B |
| Gnome | Alliance | Escape Artist, Eureka!, Expansive Mind | B | C | S | B |
Every race and class combination is listed in our WoW Forever races and classes chart.
Orc is the safest Horde pick for every Warrior role. Blood Fury adds 10% Attack Power for 15 seconds, and since October 27 it is back on a 2-minute cooldown, so you press it on the pull with Death Wish and get three uses for every two Death Wish windows. Recklessness has a 30-minute cooldown, so it joins only once in a boss fight. Orcs lost Savage, their 1% crit passive, on October 26, and the shorter cooldown only softens that loss: simulations put Orc a little behind Windshaper Skyborne and Troll in Fury and level with Troll in Arms. In PvP, Hardiness cuts every stun on you by 20%, which helps most against Rogues and Paladins, and Shatter Curse removes Curses and Banes and cuts Magical damage taken by 5% for 8 seconds. Command, the Orc pet passive, does nothing for a Warrior.
Blood Fury is also a strong tank button. Pressed on the pull, it gives you a big threat lead in the first seconds, when the rest of the group opens on the same target.
Windshaper Skyborne tops the Horde in raid damage simulations. Wind Blessed adds 2% Haste to every swing all the time, which means more Rage and more Heroic Strike casts over a long boss fight, and Elemental Insight adds 5% damage against Elementals, which helps on the Elemental bosses of Molten Core. The trade-off is PvP: Skysight and Walk on Air are travel tools, so a Skyborne Warrior has no answer to stuns or fears. Skysight adds 15% movement speed, or 30% while you are Charged from an elemental convergence, and Charged is removed when you enter a raid. The race also needs the Skyborne Heroic Pack or a higher edition.
Both Skyborne branches and how to unlock them are covered in our WoW Forever Skyborne race guide.
Troll is one of the best Horde damage races: simulations put it right behind Windshaper Skyborne. Berserking adds 10% attack speed for 15 seconds, up from 10 seconds since October 27. While leveling, Rapid Regeneration heals 50% of your Health over 6 seconds every 3 minutes, and Regeneration keeps 20% of your health regeneration going in combat, which cuts the eating breaks that slow every Warrior down. Beast Slaying adds 5% damage against Beasts, which also helps on the way to 60. Any movement, action or damage cancels Rapid Regeneration, so it does nothing while you tank.
Tauren has no damage racial and sits last in damage simulations, but it is the toughest Horde tank. Endurance adds 5% Health, and War Stomp stuns up to five enemies for 2 seconds every 90 seconds, which saves a healer when a pack runs loose. Before your first mount, Plainsrunning builds up to 60% movement speed over about 2.5 minutes of running. Taking damage or standing still reduces it, and it no longer works on a mount.
Undead is a solid all-rounder, mid-pack in Fury simulations and close to the top in Arms. Will of the Forsaken breaks fear, charm and sleep, and Touch of the Grave has a 20% chance on hit to drain up to 5% of your maximum Health, at most once every 15 seconds since October 27. Because that drain grows with your Health, it also helps a tank. In PvP, Berserker Rage makes you immune to fear, but it needs Berserker Stance and has to be up before the fear lands. Will of the Forsaken works in any stance and clears a fear that already hit you, so the two complement each other. While leveling, Cannibalize heals you on humanoid and undead corpses.
Night Elf leads Alliance raid damage and comes first in both Fury and Arms simulations. Elune's Light adds 10% critical strike chance for 15 seconds every 3 minutes, and crit is what triggers Flurry, which speeds up your next 3 swings and brings in more Rage. Shadowmeld used in combat discourages enemies from attacking you, so a damage Warrior who pulls aggro has a way out, and in PvP a well-timed one can make casters lose you as a target and restart a cast. Quickness adds 1% dodge and 2% movement speed.
High Order Skyborne sits level with Night Elf or just behind it in raid simulations. Wind Blessed adds 2% Haste to every swing, and Elemental Insight adds 5% damage against Elementals. Read Leyline raises Health regeneration by 50% for 15 seconds, or 100% while you are Attuned from a leyline. Attuned lasts an hour and is removed when you enter a raid, so this is mostly a leveling tool for a Warrior. Like the Horde branch, it has nothing for PvP.
Human is the PvP pick and still a strong damage race, a fraction of a percent behind Night Elf in simulations. Will to Survive removes every stun once per 3 minutes, and Perception finds Rogues before they open. Ruthless adds 1% crit to every attack with any weapon. It was 2% until October 26, which is why older guides still rank Human first for damage. The Human Spirit adds 10% Spirit, which does little for a Warrior in combat, and with no on-use damage racial Human is a weaker pick for threat as a tank.
Dwarf is the Alliance tank race. Stoneform reduces Physical damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds and removes and blocks bleeds, poisons and diseases, a cooldown worth pressing before a heavy hit. Artisan's Precision adds 1% hit, which means fewer missed Sunder Armor and Revenge casts on the pull. Simulations rate it a little below 1% crit, but they assume gear at the hit cap, so it is worth more while your gear is still under it. Big Game Hunter adds 5% damage against Beasts.
How much hit a Warrior needs is explained in our WoW Forever hit cap guide.
Gnome is a PvP specialist. Escape Artist removes every slow and root and makes you immune to them for 3 seconds, so Hamstring and Frost Nova stop deciding the fight. Improved Berserker Rage can do part of that job, but it sits deep in the Fury tree, so Escape Artist is worth even more on Arms and Protection. Eureka! makes your non-periodic damaging abilities cost 10% less Rage and deal 10% more damage for 8 seconds every 2 minutes, and Expansive Mind raises your maximum Rage by 5%, a cap you will rarely reach. In raid simulations Gnome lands mid-pack or lower, depending on spec and sim.
The best Warrior race depends on what you plan to do at 60. This section sums up the picks by role, so you can go straight to your own plan.
Night Elf and High Order Skyborne lead the Alliance, with Human close behind. On the Horde, Windshaper Skyborne leads the simulations, and Troll and Orc follow: Troll is slightly ahead in Fury and level with Orc in Arms. Fury gets a little more from crit and Haste than Arms, because its Rage comes from fast, frequent hits, while Arms leans on big Mortal Strike hits and gains as much from Blood Fury and Elune's Light windows. These simulations ran before the November 2 base stat fix described below, so small shifts are possible.
Dwarf and Tauren are the sturdiest tanks: Stoneform for the Alliance and Endurance with War Stomp for the Horde. Orc and Night Elf hold threat best: Blood Fury and Elune's Light on the pull give the tank a head start, and since the October 31 hotfix Revenge scales with Attack Power at every rank, so Blood Fury feeds it directly.
Every tank class is ranked in our WoW Forever tank tier list.
Human and Gnome lead the Alliance: one breaks stuns, the other breaks slows. On the Horde, Orc with Hardiness is the safe pick, and Tauren adds a group stun with War Stomp. Undead is good against Warlocks and Priests, because Will of the Forsaken clears a fear that lands while Berserker Rage is down or you are out of Berserker Stance. Both Skyborne branches are the weakest PvP Warriors.
Troll, Undead and Tauren level fastest on the Horde: Troll eats less thanks to Rapid Regeneration, Undead heals itself with Touch of the Grave and Cannibalize, and Tauren runs faster with Plainsrunning. Windshaper Skyborne adds Skysight for travel. On the Alliance, Night Elf and High Order Skyborne save the most time, with Quickness and Read Leyline.
The full route from 1 to 60 is in our WoW Forever Warrior leveling guide.
Warriors who plan to solo dungeons at 60 look at sustain first. Undead is the efficient choice, since Touch of the Grave scales with your maximum Health and grows with your gear. Troll is the build-around option: Regeneration keeps part of your health regeneration going in combat, which rewards Spirit gear, and Rapid Regeneration restores half your Health if you make distance with Piercing Howl or break line of sight. On the Alliance, Dwarf adds Find Treasure, which can give extra items from most chests.
Blizzard reworked every race in the October 15 beta build and made a final pass on October 26, with cooldown changes added on October 27 and fixes listed in the November 2 notes. These are the changes that moved the Warrior rankings.
No racial changed in the class hotfixes of October 31, but Revenge now scales with 25% of your Attack Power at every rank, which makes Attack Power racials better for tanks. Most community simulations were run before the November 2 fixes. Every racial with exact numbers is in the tool below.
All class and racial changes are collected on our WoW Forever patch notes page.
A racial cooldown is worth the most when it lands on top of your own. These habits come from players who tested every race in the beta.
Your weapon matters more than your race in the early levels: our WoW Forever Warrior weapon quest guide shows how to get a Whirlwind weapon at level 30.
These guides cover the rest of the Warrior class and race choice for every class.
These are the questions players ask most about choosing a Warrior race.
Night Elf on the Alliance for damage. On the Horde, Orc is the best all-round pick and Windshaper Skyborne leads raid damage. For tanking, Tauren and Dwarf, and for PvP, Human and Orc.
Orc. Blood Fury on a 2-minute cooldown and Hardiness make it strong in raids, as a tank and in PvP. Windshaper Skyborne leads raid damage simulations but has nothing for PvP.
Night Elf for damage, Human for PvP and Dwarf for tanking.
Yes. Berserking now lasts 15 seconds, and Rapid Regeneration makes Troll one of the fastest Warriors to level. As a tank it is weaker, since any hit cancels Rapid Regeneration.
No. Sword, Axe and Mace Specialization were removed for good, so any race can use any weapon without losing damage.
Yes. Blizzard corrected them in the November 2 notes: a Tauren Warrior now starts with +5 Strength over a Human instead of +2, and both Skyborne branches were fixed as well.
No. Every race sits within about 2% of the leader in damage simulations, far less than gear, talents and how well you use your cooldowns.
