Rage

Warrior player frame with Rage bar

For the fist weapon, see Rage (fist weapon).

Rage is the Warrior's version of the caster's Mana bar or the Rogue's Energy bar, but works differently in several ways. Rage is required for the execution of many of the Warrior abilities, although standard attacks don't depend on it at all. By default the rage bar is empty, and builds only by being hit, by dealing damage, or by using certain Warrior Abilities. When out of combat, Rage drains or depletes at a constant rate. A Druid in Bear Form also uses Rage to perform certain abilities.

The size of the rage pool and the degeneration rate are both constant - they do not increase or decrease with levels, and are not related to any statistics. However, there are a few talents which make certain abilities cost less rage to use. And there are a few talents which affect your rage in other ways. Improved Charge (Arms) makes Charge generate 3 (6) extra rage (1 [2] points). Unbridled Wrath (Fury) gives a chance of an extra rage point per hit you deal based on your attack speed, and Anger Management (Arms) which generates 1 rage every 3 seconds.

As of patch 2.0.1, Before The Storm, the Warrior skill Stance Mastery will allow the Warrior to retain up to 10 of his rage points when changing stances. Any additional rage is lost, unless the Warrior has allocated talent points to Tactical Mastery (Protection), which allows conservation of a further 5/10/15 Rage, (1/2/3 points). Stance Mastery must be trained or else the Tactical Mastery talent has no effect. The combination of these allows for a Warrior to retain a maximum of 25 Rage when switching stances.

Druids in bear form also gain a rage bar for use of certain Bear Form abilities, making the druid able to perform melee combat using the rage system.

Using rage is a bit of a paradigm shift from using mana:

There is no equipment that grants you more than the 100 points possible on your rage bar.
There is no added bonus for getting a full rage bar. If your rage reaches 100, you're probably not using all the abilities you could be using.
Few abilities use up more than a quarter of your rage bar at a time.

In short, if you have some rage built up, use it.

Rage generation

Rage can be generated by the following methods:

Being hit

Being hit by an attack generates rage based on damage taken.
Attacks that are blocked or parried also generate rage.
The druid feral talent Natural Reaction allows druids to generate a fixed amount of rage when they dodge.
See Formulas:Rage generation for the formula for the amount of rage gained from damage taken.

Dealing melee damage to enemies

Dealing damage to enemies by regular melee attacks generates rage based on damage dealt.
Special attacks against an enemy do not generate rage.
Attacks which damage a shield (such as Power Word: Shield) but not the opponent themselves do not generate rage.
See Formulas:Rage generation for the formula for the amount of rage gained from damage dealt.

Using rage potions

Rage Potions are crafted by alchemists.

Rage Potion yields 20-40 rage.
Great Rage Potion yields 30-60 rage.
Mighty Rage Potion yields 45-75 rage and increases Strength by 60 for 20 sec.

Talents and Abilities

Warrior
- Charge
- Shield Specialization (warrior) (Protection talent tree, tier 1) can generate 2 rage every time the warrior blocks.
- Unbridled Wrath (Fury talent tree, tier 2) allows additional rage generation per hit. With 5 talent points invested, it yields a 40% chance to add an additional point of rage on normal attacks only (correction - this % is adjusted for weapon speed, and is no longer a flat %. I can't find solid data on the exact formula, but it seems likely the 40% is normalised around a 2.2s swing speed).
- Bloodrage (Protection ability tree, level 10) generates 10 rage on use and another 1 rage per second for 10 seconds, to a total of 20 rage. It also removes a flat 7% of your health. The amount of rage generated on use can be increased by 3/6 with investment of 1/2 points in Improved Bloodrage (Protection talent tree, tier 1).
- Anger Management (Arms talent tree, tier 3) generates 1 rage per 3 seconds. Before the patch 2.0 the tooltip claimed it reduced rage decay out of combat by 30%, but it was always generating rage in combat since day one (most likely due to a bug that was nontrivial to fix) and the tooltip was just clarified to reflect the real use of the talent.
- Berserker Rage (Fury ability tree, level 32) increases the rage generated by being hit for a short duration (10 seconds). Can also generate 10 rage on use with investment in Improved Berserker Rage (Protection talent tree, tier 6).
Druid
- Enrage generates 20 rage over 10 sec, but reduces base armor by 27% in Bear Form and 16% in Dire Bear Form. The amount of rage generated on use can be increased by 4/7/10 with the investment of 1/2/3 points in Intensity.
- Furor gives you a X chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear or Dire Bear Form.
- Primal Fury gives you a 50/100% chance to generate 5 rage any time you get a critical strike while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.

Using Equipment to Generate Rage

The quest reward [Fire Hardened Hauberk] (Alliance) or [Brutal Hauberk] (Horde) can be used for 30 rage once per hour.
[Barbaric Belt] is a rare world drop leatherworking pattern that can be used for 30 rage once per hour.
[Gri'lek's Charm of Might] is the warrior's Zul'Gurub Trinket and can be used for 20 rage every 3 minutes.
The [Spinal Reaper] from Ragnaros can generate 20 rage on a killing blow if the mob would give experience. This effect is limited to once every 10 seconds.

Using Buffs to Generate Rage

The 2-piece bonus for the Druid Tier 3 set (Dreamwalker Raiment) causes the Druid's Rejuvenation spell to have a chance to generate 2 Rage every tick. Rejuvenation ticks 4 times per cast.
The druid Restoration talent Replenish allows Rejuvenation a chance to generate 4 rage (or 8 energy or 1% mana or 16 runic power) per tick.

Rage Decay

Rage does not decay while in combat.
While not in combat, rage is lost at an average rate of 1 rage per second (2 or 3 each 2.5sec tick)
It's quite possible for a warrior to bank rage for extended periods of time. To maintain a constant rage value out of combat, 60 "RPM" must be met, or 40 with Anger Management. These are the RPM values gained from keeping cooldowns spinning:
- Bloodrage = 20 RPM (consider 30 if no AM)
- Improved Bloodrage = 26 RPM (consider 36 if no AM)
- Improved Berserker Rage = 20 RPM
- Gri'lek's Charm of Might = 6.66 RPM (occupies trinket slot)
- Potions can be consumed at their cost as well as occupying your 2 minute potion cooldown:
  - Rage Potion = 10-20 RPM
  - Great Rage Potion = 15-30 RPM
  - Mighty Rage Potion = 22.5-37.5 RPM
- The class quest chest and LW belt (1 hour CDs) would be 0.5 RPM each, negligible over time
- Attacking critters like snakes or rats can be excellent for banking
- The long term results of some fury combinations using only abilities:
  - impZR + impBR + AM = +6 RPM, rage banked, even gained
  - impZR + regBR + AM = 0 RPM, rage barely banked
  - impZR + impBR = -4 RPM, rage slowly decays (~20rage/5min)

Rage generation formula

Bornakk on the apparent change for Rage Generation in WOTLK

In the formulas people are using, there is a constant value which is labeled as ‘c’. At some point in the past, someone calculated a formula for determining c based on their level and that formula is not correct past level 70 as this value needs retuning from time to time like when a new expansion comes out. The value listed for c is 320.6 when it is actually 453.3.

We modified the system for displaying power bars in Wrath of the Lich King to have the client display its best guess of how much power they have, which is very deterministic for mana or energy, but not so much for rage. This most likely results in the displayed rage being off slightly at times, making the data collection more difficult. The client displays its best guess and the server validates the power usage against the value it knows they actually have - the two can be out of synch occasionally which throws the data off.

Some of the testing was done with ungeared characters hitting for very small amounts. There is a component to the calculation we haven’t previously mentioned that will make the rage gained from those attacks sometimes not match the formula. Basically, the normal formula is Rage = (7.5d/c+f*s)/2. However, that result can never be larger than (7.5d/c)*2. This essentially means that very low damage attacks have a limit on how much they can be averaged up by the f*s component of the equation.

To try and clarify things for the number crunchers, conceptually, here is the formula for rage generation:

Determine rage based on damage done divided by a level constant (7.5*d/c)
Determine how much rage would be 3.5 rage per second when factoring in the hit made and the weapon’s speed (f*s)
Average the two of them together (the divided by 2 part).

Source: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/17367760070-newly-discovered-rage-ghost-nerf-unveiled.html