Warrior PvE Specialization Guides

The Protection Warrior is a high-threat generating and highly mobile tank specialization in World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Classic. They have seen many new abilities and talents and changes from how they work in TBC that are necessary improvements to the way the class is played. This guide is intended to cover level 80 end-game content for Prot Warriors in WoW Classic: WotLK.

Life As A Warrior Tank

Like all Warriors, they bring a couple of buffs, either Battle Shout or Commanding Shout and apply some useful debuffs to the target as well in the form of Demoralizing Shout and Thunder Clap. These are used to reduce the attack power and attack speed of their targets and provide and Protection sometimes chooses to improve both of these with talents. They are also usually responsible for Sunder Armor, freeing up DPS Warriors of that task.

Their damage is fast and higher than other tanks and can sometimes even compete with DPS in Multi-target encounters. They have great mobility and lots of controlling effects with taunts, stuns, kicks, silences and a disarm.

However, they don't have great defense against magic damage and with only few defensive cooldowns they need to rely on the support of other classes more than Paladins or Death Knights.

Rage generation is vital to all Warriors but for Protection it is especially crucial, as they need to be hit in order to effectively build more. It can sometimes be a problem with tanking weaker targets as their hits won't generate as much rage for you.

Defensive Stance is the go-to stance for Protection as it generates the most threat. With the inclusion of the new talent, Warbringer there will never need to be in Battle Stance or Berserker Stance when tanking.

Best Race Choice For Protection Warrior

For the Alliance, the top races available to Protection Warriors are as follows:

1. Human
   • Have a strong passive buff with Sword Specialization and Mace Specialization allowing them to use those stats for more Stamina. They also have Will to Survive, which has limited uses in PvE but is very strong in PvP.

2. Draenei
   • Provide Heroic Presence for themselves and the party which is also just as useful as Human traits. Gift of the Naaru is not very powerful as attack power is a low-priority stat.

3. NightElf
   • Have the passive Quickness which is good for slightly increased survivability.

4. Dwarf
   • Mace Specialization is less often used as swords are generally more favorable in WotLK. Stoneform is a very weak cooldown overall and doesn't see much use.

5. Gnome
   • Have Escape Artist to help with some movement but no other useful benefits.

For the Horde, while Arms and Fury see great DPS benefits, they are not nearly as powerful as Protection Warriors:

1. Orcs
   • Are only slightly ahead of Trolls, favoring the Axe Specialization if it can be utilized properly when not wielding a Sword. Blood Fury has about as much use as Berserking when it comes to generating threat.

2. Trolls
   • Have Hardiness and Da Voodoo Shuffle for increased mobility, as well as the previously mentioned Berserking for threat generation.

3. Taurens
   • As Endurance is only affect by base health it is very weak in end-game content. War Stomp, however, does see some use in a few PvE encounters.

4. Undead
   • Will of the Forsaken is not utilized in many encounters, and Shadow Resistance is also pretty weak.

Draenei provide Heroic Presence which not only benefits the player, but also their party members

Best Talent Build For Protection Warriors

The standard build for Protection Warriors is provided in the image below.

Variations

If rage generation is low then players should make the following changes.

• Remove 2 Points from Cruelty and 1 Point from Shield Specialization and place them all into Focused Rage. (Highlighted in the image above in Pink).

For more defensive cooldowns, remove 2 Points from Cruelty and place them into Improved Disciplines for more Shield Wall uses or Safeguard for Intervene usage. This works especially well when paired with Glyph of Shield Wall

Best Glyphs For Protection Warrior

Major Glyphs

The standard Major Gylphs chose above can be changed depending on the scenario.

• For scenarios that would work better with more uses of Defensive cooldowns use Glyph of Last Stand and/or Glyph of Shield Wall instead of Glyph of Revenge and/or Glyph of Devastate.
• For Multi-Target encounters use Glyph of Cleaving instead of Glyph of Revenge.

Stat Priority For Protection Warrior

There are 2 important metrics for tanking that players should consider when choosing stats. Survivability and Threat Generation.

For Survivability, the most important factor is:

• Defense Rating: reducing the chance that a Critical Strike will land against them. The cap for this is 689 Defense Rating to reach 540 Defense, 400 of which is acquired through the defense skill and 140 from equipment.

Players can also look for stats such as block, dodge, parry, and stamina to further improve their survivability.

For Threat Generation, players are relying on their healers more to keep them alive and their DPS more to finish the fight quicker. If the tank can't hold aggro, then the rest of the party will be the target of big damage.

Important stats for Threat Generation are:

1. 26 Expertise (213 Expertise Rating, 6.5%)
2. 264 Hit Rating (8%)
3. Strength
4. Crit Rating
5. Block Value

Hit Rating and Expertise are important to make sure that your attacks land and effectively generate threat. It may be necessary to get more Hit Rating (to 446 Hit Rating, 17%) to make sure that Taunt never misses in cases where multiple tanks need to step in or swap bosses. For this, always make sure to use Glyph of Taunt. If there is a Balance Druid or Shadow Priest present they can provide an extra 3% with Improved Faerie Fire and Misery and Draenei for an additional 1% with Heroic Presence.

Expertise has two thresholds, one for Dodge and one for Parry. Most players will aim for the Dodge cap, and only increase it towards the Parry cap once their healers and damage dealers are competent and geared enough to complete encounters faster.

• Dodge Cap: 26 Expertise (213 Expertise Rating) for 6.5% Dodge
• Parry Cap: 56 Expertise (459Expertise Rating) for 14% Parry

Skill Rotation For Protection Warrior

Just like we've seen with many other classes getting more abilities receiving procs all specializations of the Warrior are no different. The majority of the time players will be using 4 key abilities:

1. Shield Slam (and when granted use from Sword and Board)
2. Revenge
3. Devastate (to apply Sunder Armor)
4. Heroic Strike (to use excess Rage)

For Multi-Target encounters utilize the following:

1. Cleave
2. Thunder Clap
3. Shockwave
4. Retaliation (ideally used before initial pull)

Players should also keep Vigilance and Demoralizing Shout up at all times and use their many taunts; Taunt, Mocking Blow, and Challenging Shout accordingly.

For the initial pull of an encounter follow this sequence of abilities:

1. Berserker Rage
2. Bloodrage
3. Battle Shout or Commanding Shout
4. Indestructible Potion
5. Charge or Heroic Throw

The Defensive Cooldowns that all Protection Warriors should know when to use are:

1. Shield Block
   • Greatly reduces melee damage received and boosts the damage of Shield Slam to generate more threat.

2. Shield Wall
   • Reduces all damage and is used fairly often as it can be glyphed to reduce the cooldown.

3. Last Stand
   • Increases health to prepare for big incoming damage. Can also be glyphed to reduce the cooldown.

4. Enraged Regeneration
   • Regenerates a small amount of health.

Consumables For Raids

Protection Warriors in end-game content would benefit from the following buffs in order to easily complete the content.

• Flask:
  1. Flask of Stoneblood
  2. Alternatives: Elixir of Protection, Elixir of Mighty Agility, Elixir of Mighty Fortitude, Elixir of Mighty Defense

• Food Buff:
  1. Blackened Dragonfin
  2. Alternatives if relying on food buffs to reach stat caps: Rhinolicious Wormsteak, Snapper Extreme. Otherwise: Blackened Dragonfin, Worg Tartare, Dragonfin Filet

• Potions:
  1. Indestructible Potion

• Scrolls:
  1. Scroll of Stamina VIII

Best Gems For Protection Warrior

Blue sockets are the best gems for Protection Warriors. They will be filled with Stamina Gems. For the Meta gem, as it only requires 2 Blue Gems and 1 Red Gem, use a prismatic gem.

Protection Warriors that have Jewelcrafting (350) should use 3 Runed Dragon's Eye when possible.

Blacksmithing (400) provides 2 extra sockets with Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves

Best Enchants For Protection Warrior

Following the stat priority principles outlined above, there are a number of different enchants that players can choose from depending on their preference of threat, or damage mitigation with more defense rating, armor, or health.

Some professions provide Enchants that are more powerful than the ones listed above. Again, following the stat priority needs, outlined above, use these instead:

Best In Slot Pre-Raid BiS Gear For Protection Warrior

Best Weapon

The first option on the list is suitable for all races due to its significant amount of stats. Orcs can make effective use of the second option due to Axe Specialization. Keep in mind that slower weapons have higher Damage (not DPS) that tends to be better for cleaving skills.

Shield Slot

The top three options are all pretty close in rank as they have similar stats. If your still looking for a Pre-Heroic Shield go with the crafted Saronite Bulwark from Blacksmithing.

Ranged Weapon Slot

Ranged weapons are almost entirely a piece of gear that is purely used for their stats, not their damage, so they are not a priority item to obtain. The top pick here is crafted with Engineering, and it is quite expensive to craft, but it won't be getting replaced any time soon. The second option is good if you still require more defense rating, otherwise any of the others are also good for threat stats.

Head Slot

Neck Slot

The top two options are fairly expensive, the best necklace being almost on par with raiding gear. The other options mostly come down to stat preference.

Shoulders Slot

By far the best shoulder piece is, unfortunately, a BoE that will be very hard to find and be very costly at the Auction House.

Back Slot

Players would be best suited with the Cloak from Stratholme. The BoE option might be hard to find, but the reputation or PvP option can be farmed fairly easily.

Chest Slot

The best choice by far is the Tier 7 chest piece. While it does cost a lot of Emblems the stat values on it are very high and well worth the investment. The last option on this list here is better for damage and threat-generation.

Wrists Slot

The best wrist item is not too difficult to obtain, for the horde there is a quest reward that provides fairly decent stats and there are also the PvP Bracers as another option well.

Hands Slot

For the Hand slot the Tier 7 option is amazing, especially if able to activate the 2-set bonus.

Waist Slot

The top two choices on this list are about the same in terms of value, the second being a great source of block rating.

Legs Slot

Definitely get your hands on the top pick here, it has far more stats than anything else in this slot. At the very least, the blacksmithing leg piece is also a budget option.

Feet Slot

For the feet the best option is also an expensive option, crafted with Blacksmithing. PvP boots are also acceptable and the ones that require reputation have decent stats on them as well. Interestingly, the 3rd and 4th picks have the same stats, so you can choose how best you want to obtain them.

Rings

Trinkets

Unfortunately, the best options for Tanks are the Jewelcrafting trinkets, with their sockets and useful on-use abilities there's no competition in this phase. The 3rd option is a solid choice all around and the on-use is good for heavy physical damage. The 4th option is really only good for AoE tanking as the proc rate is very low.

Conclusion

Protection Warriors are certainly a great tank spec to play throughout Wrath of the Lich King Classic. Be sure to check out our other guides for Arms, Fury, and their Best In Slot Items as you'll definitely want to have a second specialization be a DPS.