One view holds that you should push straight down whichever branch of the connected 53-node tree gives you the strongest early nodes, and stay there until the next dungeon bracket. The other view says you should spread points across Arms, Fury, and Protection early, since the tree stays connected and a narrow path can leave you short on survivability while leveling solo.
I lean toward the narrow path, but only under the condition that leveling is mostly solo overworld content, where sustained single-target damage matters more than the utility a broader spread gives you. If leveling routes through dungeons like Ruins of Lordaeron in that 15-20 bracket, the calculus flips, because group content rewards the survivability and control nodes a spread build picks up.
This is all based on the beta build 1.60.1.69893 tree from the warrior talent guide, so node costs and placement can still change before live. Has anyone logged actual kill-time or damage-taken numbers comparing a narrow build against a spread build in that same level range. Without measured numbers this is just two reasonable guesses against each other.
