Best Protection Warrior Conduits - Shadowlands 9.2.5

By Llarold Updated: 2022/11/28

Conduits

Potency conduits enhance your class' throughput potential

Endurance conduits focus on your defensive toolkit, by providing things like cooldown reduction or amplification to sustain/defensive cooldowns

Finesse conduits enhance niche parts of the spec's toolkit

Conduit OverviewPeak of SerenitySkyholdTwitterWoW at NightBest Potency Conduits for Protection WarriorsProtection-Specific Conduits

Conduit

Description

Raid verdict

Mythic+ Verdict

Show of Force

Provides a minor buff to the damage of Thunder Clap after casting Revenge. It's a very minor DPS increase, and not really worth going out of your way to get. It is technically the most reliable AoE DPS increase available to all Protection Warriors, but really, it's not great.

Minor AoE DPS gain

Moderate AoE DPS gain

Ashen Juggernaut

Execute is a strong single-target Rage dump, but that's all it is. This can be a terrific DPS increase in single-target that isn't particularly threatening, but when tanking difficult content, dumping a ton of Rage into Execute can be a little risky. It's not super easy to maintain this buff while tanking a hard raid boss, but it can be worth a lot of damage if you're able. In Mythic+, this conduit's impact is pretty minor in normal trash pulls, but it can add up to a lot of damage on bosses or lieutenants.

If you are playing Necrolord and using the full 4-piece Tier Set, you will have a ton of Rage available. This makes using Execute more often against raid bosses a lot easier to justify, and the damage contribution you can get from this Conduit in that situation is excellent.

Note: If you're in a situation where you are able to spam-cast Execute, this is a great DPS increase. If you are struggling defensively, this is largely worthless.

Situational, but potentially super strong

Good on bosses and mini-bosses, very weak in normal packs

Adaptive Armor Fragment

Added in Patch 9.1, this is a generic Potency Conduit available to all tanks, and it's okay. More primary stat is good, and this provides a decent amount of it on relatively high uptime (~50%). It's not terrific, but it is a decent generic option that provides a little bit of all-around value. This is the best defensive option of the three choices available in this section, because it's the only one that provides any real defensive value at all.

Modest stat gain

Covenant-Specific Potency Conduits

Covenant

Conduit

Description

Raid verdict

Mythic+ Verdict

Kyrian

Piercing Verdict

Makes Spear of Bastion deal a significant chunk more burst damage, and generate more Rage. It's a simple option, but it's very good and lines up nicely with Protection Warrior's cooldown-heavy, burst damage playstyle.

Good burst DPS gain

Necrolord

Veteran's Repute

Conqueror's Banner is a good bonus. This Conduit adds a decent chunk of stat budget onto Conqueror's Banner. That's great. Running the Necrolord Covenant Legendary (Glory) adds a huge boost to overall stat budget thanks to this Conduit. Very nice!

Good extra stat budget

Night Fae

Destructive Reverberations

Ancient Aftershock is a great damage cooldown, and this makes it available ~15% more often and deal slightly more damage per cast. The cooldown reduction is the real draw here, and even though it desyncs Ancient Aftershock from your base Avatar and Demoralizing Shout cooldowns, it's still really, really good.

Good burst DPS gain

Venthyr

Harrowing Punishment

Barely increases the damage of Condemn, a single-target skill, while in AoE. This is a badly designed bonus. It's a small bonus on top of a weak skill.

Weak

Best Raiding and M+ Potency Conduits for Protection Warriors

Piercing Verdict if you are Kyrian

Destructive Reverberations if you are Night Fae

Veteran's Repute if you are Necrolord

Adaptive Armor Fragment

Ashen Juggernaut for a slight ST DPS increase, or if you are Venthyr

Show of Force for a slight AoE DPS increase

Best Endurance Conduits for Protection Warriors

Conduit

Description

Raid verdict

Mythic+ Verdict

Stalwart Guardian

Reducing the cooldown of Shield Wall is a very minor bonus on its own. However, when combined with the cooldown reduction effects of The Wall and Anger Management, this can bring the average cooldown of Shield Wall down quite a lot. Ultimately, this Conduit winds up being the least important factor of the equation, only cutting the cooldown of Shield by roughly 5-10 seconds if everything is working well.

Great

Unnerving Focus

A weird bonus that tacks a bit of extra all-around value onto a pure defensive cooldown. It's not that strong, given the low uptime on Last Stand, but it is a Rage generation increase when you need it most, so that's a pretty good positive. There is a small synergy between this and Bolster due to the increase in uptime. Generally, this is a decent, not-bad-but-not-great-either bonus with limited impact.

Great

Brutal Vitality

Causes a modest amount of your damage to Leech into your Ignore Pain. This has a benefit that Leech does not, in that it doesn't overheal. It does require an active Ignore Pain to function, which means it's not really always going to be active. It's a pretty minor defensive bonus, but it will provide a steady trickle of damage absorption. It scales up in value as you deal more damage, obviously, so it is slightly better in AoE than single target, but not to a massive degree.

Small self-shielding bonus

Fueled by Violence

Adds self-healing value onto , which sounds great. It adds up to literally dozens of healing per second, even in all-out AoE. It's undertuned on its own, but has decent synergy with the new Tier Set bonuses added in Patch 9.2.

Very minor

Indelible Victory

Extra self-healing while world questing. Barely useful at all under normal tanking circumstances.

Condensed Anima Sphere

This Endurance Conduit was added in Patch 9.1 and provides a decent trickle of self-healing. It is a decent, boring self-healing conduit. Good, not great.

Good

Best Endurance Conduits for Protection Warriors for Raids

Stalwart Guardian helps lower the cooldown of Shield Wall, which is good! It's not mandatory, just in case that hasn't been made clear yet, but it is a decent enough defensive bonus to be worth taking whenever possible.

Unnerving Focus adds a decent chunk of Rage generation value onto Last Stand, which is not bad. The uptime is not great, but it is Rage generation when you need it most, so it's not bad. It's not mandatory, but it's a decent, modest bonus.

Condensed Anima Sphere is a decent trickle of self-healing. It's a great third option, arguably even worth using ahead of Unnerving Focus depending on how comfortable you are with maximizing the value of that Conduit.

Brutal Vitality is a modest defensive bonus. It has interesting synergy with the Tier Set bonuses, but it's not quite as good as the other 3 options most of the time.

Neither of the other options are appealing or useful.

Best Endurance Conduits for Protection Warriors for Mythic+Best Finesse Conduits for Protection Warriors

Conduit

Description

Raid verdict

Mythic+ Verdict

Inspiring Presence

Adds a small boost of duration and defensive value onto Rallying Cry, an already-good group defensive cooldown. It's not a mandatory bonus, baseline Rallying Cry is typically good enough on its own to keep people alive when you need it, but this isn't bad. It's arguably about on par with some of the second-tier Endurance Conduits -- basically, it's not mandatory, but it's okay!

Pretty good for a Finesse Conduit

Safeguard

This adds a teensy layer of defensive value onto Intervene. It's not bad, technically speaking, since you can use it as a very minor defensive cooldown on a party member to help them survive a boss mechanic, but you could also never take it and be totally fine outside extremely niche high-level Mythic+ pushing scenarios.

Good for a specific niche,
otherwise not good

Disturb the Peace

Adds a bit of cooldown reduction to Shockwave, which can synergize with Rumbling Earth to provide more AoE stuns. Of course, Shockwave really isn't a great skill, and you'll probably get more use out of just sticking to Storm Bolt if you love stuns so much.

Mostly bad

Cacophonous Roar

Intimidating Shout can last through a little more damage. This is some kind of PvP bonus or something. As for tanking? It's not useful.

Best Protection Warrior Conduits - Shadowlands 9.2.5

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