Basic things about warrior in Vanilla

[Essex]

Well, i and my friend decided to remember good old days in Vanilla, and when it came to selecting our classes we stuck.
At the end we decided to play in a warrior-mage tandem, and we've got some questions about warrior in Vanilla.
First of all, what are warriors in Vanilla? Are they enough competitive in PvP and PvE? On first levels they look weak, but how do they show themselves on top levels? Are they good choice for raids? Are they good choice for PvP? Can they compete with such a powerful class like mage? Thanks in advance.

[chunass]

Warriors are terrible to level because they are the most gear dependant class. At level 60 they are however a top dps class as fury, and the only truly viable tank class for raids. They're also great in PvP while specced arms, but they have a hard time in many 1v1 matchups, so bring some healers to a battleground and you can blow people up. Mage is a pretty hard counter to warriors since they can slow and root you, it's basically impossible to win against them on low levels.

[Dr. Doom]

Essentially read chunass' post. My main character is a warrior and I tanked with him very often and got to Rank 11 in pvp. All my experience matches his recount. You are really vulnerable to CC in pvp, you can't self sustain due to no self heals, but you can do quite a bit if someone gives you a hand.

Only disagreement I could have is that other tank classes, I feel are viable. But I use viable with the literal meaning: "capable of working successfully; feasible." Meaning, is it above the minimal requirements? Whereas people in here use viable to mean optimal.

[Jointed]

Warrior is my favorite class by far. As was stated above, you get rekt by CC and you are pretty vulnerable when you aren't the one that initiates the fight, and the class is extremely gear dependent to the point where I will usually end up spending money upgrading my gear as I level up, just to be able to kill things more efficiently and have the ability to defend myself in PvP. But with that being said, the warrior class definitely has a high potential to enjoy when you fully master it. This is my 5th time leveling a warrior, including my very first original character on vanilla retail, and I've really enjoyed myself so far, on this server especially. I've had some great PvP on my way up also; if you can master the warrior class and be aware enough to prevent the jump most of the time, and you initiate the fight yourself, you'd be surprised what you can do with a proper spec and a decent weapon.

Only disagreement I could have is that other tank classes, I feel are viable.

Sure, Druids and Paladins can tank, but they can never be raid boss tanks for a target like Nefarion; they will always be limited to tanking trash or 5 mans because the gear in the game and the abilities they have prevent them from pushing crushing blows off of a raid bosses' attack table and achieving crit immunity against a raid boss target. (I think paladins may be able to get enough defense to become crit immune at the cost of hp, but I know for a fact that they can never push crushing blows off of an attack table. Even still the sacrifice in HP makes this completely nonviable)