Updated as of 1/16/2016.

6.2.3 Changes

Enrage now increases all damage dealt by 15% (up from 10%).

6.2 Changes

Improved Defensive Stance now also decreases damage taken by 5%. Simply a passive buff to our damage taken.



Bastion of Defense now increases block chance by 15% (up from 10%). This increases your passive block chance by 5%, this is only a buff to us while not using shield block as block has 100% chance.



6.1 changes

Avatar now lasts 20 seconds with a 1.5-minute cooldown (up from lasting 24 seconds with a 3-minute cooldown). This makes Avatar better for short fights, bloodbath is still better for most situations. Basically if your kill a boss ~3mins or less Avatar can be an increase.

Second Wind now increases Leech by 25% (up from 10%). This is huge for soloing content and pvp, you shouldn’t be at that low of health in pve for very long but it is great for mass puling dungeons.



Execute damage decreased by 11.4%



Shield Barrier now absorbs 24.4% more damage. Shield barrier still isn’t going to be used over block for melee damage but this is a needed buff to make barrier much more useful.



Thunder Clap’s snare effect now lasts for 10 seconds or 8 seconds while in PvP combat (up from 6 seconds). This change seems to have been put in to allow for better use of Glyph of Resonating power in PVP.



Improved Defensive Stance now increases armor by 10% (up from 5%). This is a nice little buff, warriors we were a bit squishy for some fights; also this should scale well later in the xpac with even more amounts of armor.



Index

Introduction

The Protection warrior, Warcraft’s original tank, has been a staple to many raid teams throughout the games history. Currently we are doing well from a survivability stand point. Even one of the top raiding guilds, Method, used a protection warrior as a main tank (Sco of Method) throughout their WoD Raiding Progress. We can also do massive damage as tank at the play right levels, don’t forget iconic warrior abilities like bladestorm can now be used as a tank.

Throughout this guide I hope to give you a better understanding of the Protection spec as well as to give you advanced tips and tricks on how to better tank as a warrior.

Cooldowns and Special Abilities

Defensive Cooldowns

Shield Wall : Our Highest Damage mitigation Cooldown. Use it to soak up LARGE amounts of damage. I generally use this for “OH SHIT” moments.



Last Stand: This can be used before your about to take burst damage to help soak a large hit, or to help your healers recover if your health drops low. Some abilities heal you based off of your max health. I generally try to find the best place to use this on an encounter basis. I.E. if you know you may be out of range of healers, or there will be a lengthy spiky damage done to you. With the Tier 18 tier set this becomes an extremely powerful cooldown. Not only is it’s cooldown reduced by 50% but the healing it lets you do is absolutely massive.

This can be used before your about to take burst damage to help soak a large hit, or to help your healers recover if your health drops low. Some abilities heal you based off of your max health. I generally try to find the best place to use this on an encounter basis. I.E. if you know you may be out of range of healers, or there will be a lengthy spiky damage done to you. With the Tier 18 tier set this becomes an extremely powerful cooldown. Not only is it’s cooldown reduced by 50% but the healing it lets you do is absolutely massive. Demoralizing Shout : Can and should be used often! Very short Cooldown with a pretty decent amount of damage reduction.

: Can and should be used often! Very short Cooldown with a pretty decent amount of damage reduction. Ravager : Don’t forget that this also brings an eleven second long 30% parry buff! (slightly passively increasing damage/mitigation as well with the extra revenge procs)

Special Abilities



Abilities I think deserve a second look, or that have great utility!

Vigilance is such a great cooldown for the other tank!

is such a great cooldown for the other tank! Berserker Rage can break fears. Don’t forget to use this off cooldown in your rotation for rage generation.

can break fears. Don’t forget to use this off cooldown in your rotation for rage generation. Spell Reflection is probably the most underused warrior ability and it has so many uses.

Heroic Throw now has no cooldown so it’s great for picking up mobs at range. I also spam this whenever I’m away form melee range.



Intervene can be used to help the other tank avoid melee swings. I use it as often as I can when I’m not tanking and Revenge is on cooldown, to possibly parry and reset Revenge.

Safeguard While using this means you dont have a major tank CD or the free taunts, generally this does help your off tank more then igilance . Obviously if your going to be away from the other tank most of the encounter this is terrible.

Special Thanks to players who have helped this guides growth (comments and criticisms always welcome!)

ER_Ryuk

Skullflowers (inspiration from his guides)

Changelog

4/6/2015 Broke the guide down into easier to navigate pages rather then one giant page.