One of the most important skills to develop in World of Warcraft is understanding the mechanics of leveling a particular class type. There are essentially three major categories of classes in World of Warcraft. There are the melee classes: warriors, rogues and hunters which rely primarily on physical combat in order to defend themselves and do damage to monsters. There are also the spellcasting classes: mages, warlocks and priests, which rely primarily on magical abilities to defend themselves and do damage to monsters. Then there are the hybrid classes: paladin, druid and shaman, which, depending on how the character is developed, have a choice as to their primary abilities in combat.

This article will cover the leveling strategies for the melee classes: warriors, rogues and hunters.

The melee classes are capable of unlimited combat stamina. In other words, properly managed, rogues, warriors and hunters can engage in combat with an unlimited number of monsters without the built-in limitations faced by spellcasting classes such as mana regeneration. Although a hunter's special abilities require mana, hunters have a number of standard abilities like auto shot and their pet's combat abilities, which allow them to continue to engage a monster offensively while requiring no mana be expended.

Warriors are the reverse of hunters. The longer a warrior fights, the more rage they accumulate, and the more special abilities become available to them. Only the use of those special abilities can reduce the amount of rage available to a warrior engaged in melee combat. Warriors gain rage from certain abilities like bloodrage and charge. They also gain rage from doing damage, sometimes very large amounts of rage depending on the type of hit and the condition of the warrior at the time. Warriors also gain a limited amount of rage from being damaged by physical attacks, which is useful for warriors that are defensively minded and have put most of their talents into protection abilities.

Rogues are a combination of the two. Rogues regenerate energy at a certain fixed rate over time. This ability can only be affected by a very limited number of special abilities including high-level talents like adrenalin rush, or the use of reagents like thistle tea. The "ticks" of a rogue's energy regeneration must be carefully timed and managed in order for a sufficient amount of energy to be at the rogue's disposal when the use of a special attack or ability requires it.

It is vitally important that a melee class properly manage their special attacks and their mana, energy or rage while battling monsters for purposes of leveling. The reasons for this are fairly complex, but the concept is generally fairly simple. The speed with which a particular character can level depends on one thing, and that is the average amount of time required to defeat each monster in any given series of battles. In each battle, there is an optimum number of special abilities and attacks which can be used without depleting rage, energy or mana too quickly, while preserving the necessary amount of rage, energy or mana so that the next battle can begin with little or no delay from the defeat of the previous monster.

Delay between battles is the enemy of fast leveling. Anything that causes a character to have to stop and eat, drink, bandage, flee, or run back from a graveyard only adds to the time required to reach the next level. In this particular respect, melee classes have some important advantages over spellcasters, because it is not entirely necessary to have mana, rage or energy in combat. Hunters, warriors and rogues all have the ability to fight using marginally effective auto attacks. While this not optimal, it still gives that character the ability to do moderate damage where a spellcaster would be able to do almost none.

What a warrior, rogue or hunter must do is establish a rotation of attacks which will do the maximum amount of potential damage while preserving the maximum amount of mana, rage or energy for the next battle. By doing so, it will become possible for them to remain in combat nearly continuously, and therefore be able to accumulate experience as fast as possible for their level and class.

Players can have entirely different rotations of attacks depending on their weapons, talent builds and gear, and talent builds can be used to enhance the effectiveness of a particular attack rotation. For example, hunters with enhanced traps might rely on a damage-over-time strategy to do maximum damage by combining serpent sting and immolation traps, where a hunter with more points in beast mastery talents might prefer to use their pet to do damage while using increased attack speed and auto shots.

If it is necessary to heal between battles, melee classes should learn and keep their first aid skills current, as bandaging is much faster and less expensive than eating food to regain health. The reason it is less expensive is that cloth which can be made into bandages can be looted from humanoid monsters, and usually in quantities large enough to not only maintain a good supply of bandages, but provide additional money from the sale of the cloth.