Leveling the Warrior: Protection at 51

I know I promised to give an overview of arms leveling up to 40, but the truth is: I'm not interested in Arms anymore. It really isn't anywhere near as compelling as protection leveling, especially from level 51 on. From level 1 to 50, you can make a good case for arms: you've got a big enough damage output that you can kill anybody you face, and if you get a multiple pull you've got tools for that - sweeping strikes, cleave, and if you change stances - whirlwind. The downside is that your health pool drops relatively quickly, so you spend time eating, and a 4+ multipull can lead to problems with dying. Since you don't have any really good ways to escape combat, and you don't have stealth, this can be an issue.

Protection on the other hand can easily deal with 4 mobs at once - it's better that way, since with shield block up you don't take much (or any) damage, and all those hits are a constant source of rage via shield specialization. Spam cleave and go to town. From 1-50, protection is a decent way to level, although you end up taking longer to kill solo mobs, you can handle multimob grinds with ease and you hardly ever have to stop to eat.

At 51, it all changes for the better, because you get two talents that totally revolutionize your play: Warbringer and Devastate. Devastate is great because it's a spammable attack that does decent damage. Before, you have to sit and wait for a revenge proc or for shield slam to cool down before you had a button to press. Now you've got devastate on GCD. My devastate is relatively cheap (between focused rage and a point in puncture), and at later levels with sword and board, will proc a free shield slam from time to time (which is very significant given how hard shield slam hits, but how much rage it costs).

Warbringer is also awesome: it makes charge available to use in defensive stance, and able to use in combat. Unlike the similar talent in arms (Juggernaut), it doesn't extend the cooldown on your charge. So now you have a great way to open combat, one that generates rage to boot. Even better, since you can charge while in combat, you can do stuff like round up a couple of mobs on your horse, then charge the last guy you want to fight. In long fights, you might still be in combat when the cooldown breaks, which makes charge useful for picking up runners, especially the ones you forgot to cleave (or the caster mobs which run off and start shooting at you from range.

Leveling Radish (who is now 60) has felt like two very different chapters. Before 51, the going was acceptable, but a little slow. I had to deal with rage starvation and boring waits in combat. I didn't die much (or take much damage), and if I ever wanted, I could get an instant PuG for an at-level instance. But it was still a lot of work grinding the levels. Starting at 50 when I got devastate, and moving on since then, Protection is the only tree for me.