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Protection Warrior Tank Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.0.5
By Llarold
Last updated
2021/03/30 at 8:10 AM
View Changelog
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Table of Contents
Guide Navigation
Welcome to our Protection Warrior starter guide, which covers everything you need to start playing a new character in Shadowlands. While our other guide pages go into more individual detail, this simple starter guide covers all the basics in one place, whether you're a new Protection Warrior, a returning player to Shadowlands, hardcore, or casual alike, it's the best place to get a beginners overview on the class. Included are basic talent builds, simplified rotations, stats, legendary recommendations, and more to get you started as quickly as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get players started quickly as an introduction, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Protection Warrior Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page, and if you're leveling up in Shadowlands, you can take a look at our
leveling tips
.
Overview
NEW
NEW Best Covenant
Gear
Talent Builds
NEW Legendaries
NEW Twisting Corridors
NEW Conduits
NEW Kyrian
NEW Necrolord
NEW Night Fae
NEW Venthyr
Pre-Patch
Starter Guide
Rotation, Priority, and Abilities
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Consumables
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
NEW Castle Nathria Tips
NEW Mythic+
Common Questions
NEW Simulations
About the Author
This guide was written by Llarold! I’ve been tanking since Vanilla. During Mists of Pandaria, I saw an opportunity to begin writing guides, and I took it with the hopes of making myself a better tank and making the community into better tanks with me. I hope it’s working!
I am active in all of the tank class Discords but primarily contribute to theorycrafting discussions in
Peak of Serenity
and
Skyhold
(Monk and Warrior). I’m active on
Twitter
, where I mostly talk WoW (and basketball), and I’m half of the team responsible for the YouTube channel
WoW at Night
, which focuses primarily on tank guides and previews.
Best Protection Warrior Covenant
As a quick recap, we've created the table below to highlight the notable differences between covenants. If you want more detail, click the headers to go to their respective guides!
Best Raid Covenants
Covenants
Rating
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
Excellent
Pelagos
Necrolord
Great
Emeni
Night Fae
Good
Niya
Venthyr
Okay
General Draven
Best Mythic+ Covenants
Covenants
Rating
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
Excellent
Pelagos
Necrolord
Good
Bonesmith Heirmir
Night Fae
Excellent
Niya
Venthyr
Okay
General Draven
Best Protection Warrior Covenants for Raiding
Castle Nathria is filled with fights that feature adds and bleed debuffs. While there is a fair amount of movement in many of the encounters, there's nothing that requires the extra movement gained from a Signature skill like
Soulshape
. Kyrian comes in at a pretty significant advantage for every single tank in raid due to
Summon Steward
's
Phial of Serenity
. An extra health potion is a huge advantage. Beyond that,
Pelagos
' soulbind tree is pretty good, and Kyrian is clearly the best all-around option for Protection Warriors.
Combat Meditation
provides a big boost of stat budget.
That being said, there is value to the mobility granted by
Soulshape
and
Door of Shadows
on some encounters, so the competing options are not
worthless
.
With the redesign to
Conqueror's Banner
in Patch 9.0.5, Necrolord has jumped up in value, and it is a competitive choice for Protection Warriors looking to maximize group damage in organized raiding groups.
Be forewarned:
by using
Conqueror's Banner
, you become responsible for overlapping it with other players' cooldowns, which puts the burden upon them to play well in order for your Covenant ability to be worth using. It's a lot of responsibility being shifted into someone else's hands, so if you're not playing with a consistent group, it can be a real gamble. On top of that, you need to move to the two players you are trying to buff, so it's inconvenient to use well. Basically, it's a competitive option, but it tends to just break even or perform worse than more straightforward options such as Kyrian.
Best Protection Warrior Covenants for Mythic+
Covenant power is slightly different in Mythic+ than it is in raids for Protection Warriors. The defensive power and utility of
Summon Steward
still remains unparalleled by other Covenant signature abilities, which gives Kyrian a head start on all other Covenants. It's great for removing debuffs, Grievous and Necrotic affixes, and just as another instant heal.
Fortunately, you're not purely pigeonholed into running Kyrian as a Mythic dungeon-focused Protection Warrior. Night Fae is an extremely competitive, more offensive option than Kyrian.
Ancient Aftershock
adds more damage than
Spear of Bastion
, more Rage generation against 3 or more targets (assuming you are using
Piercing Verdict
as Kyrian and
Destructive Reverberations
as Night Fae, which you should), and substantially stronger crowd control. Ancient Aftershock deals quite a lot of damage, and while it can suffer from boss movement in raid situations, in Mythic+ it's a very strong control skill. The initial stun and the periodic knockdowns are not on the same diminishing returns as other stuns, so it's really effective at providing massive AoE CC that can help make quick work of nasty trash packs.
With the redesign to
Conqueror's Banner
in Patch 9.0.5, Necrolord has increased in value, and it is a competitive choice among Mythic+ Protection Warriors as well.
Be forewarned:
by using
Conqueror's Banner
, you become responsible for overlapping it with other players' cooldowns, which puts the burden upon them to play well in order for your Covenant ability to be worth using. It's a lot of responsibility being shifted into someone else's hands, so if you're not playing with a consistent group, it can be a real gamble. It does require moving toward the two players you are trying to buff, so it can be a little inconvenient to use effectively. It's a competitive option, but it tends to just break even or perform worse than more straightforward options such as Kyrian and Night Fae.
Best Protection Warrior Covenant
Kyrian Protection Warrior GuideNecrolord Protection Warrior Guide
Night Fae Protection Warrior GuideVenthyr Protection Warrior Guide
Best Protection Warrior Legendaries
For Legendaries, Protection Warriors have one primary option in
Reprisal
, which stands clearly above the rest in terms of both offensive and defensive value. For situations in which you can't move around to Charge consistently (rare raid fights), there are two potential fallback options.
The Wall
is a extremely reliable Rage increase that also massively reduces the average cooldown of Shield Wall.
Thunderlord
will greatly reduce the average cooldown of Demoralizing Shout in AoE situations, too, but it’s less reliable, as it requires at least 3 targets to be competitive.
Reprisal
is the #1 choice for both raiding and Mythic+, although it can become weaker on raid fights in which you can't Charge often.
The Wall
is good for raiding and Mythic+.
Thunderlord
is good for Mythic+, but typically weak in raids.
Reprisal
is the best all-around option. It’s a powerful legendary that provides a ton of offensive and defensive value. Iit's terrific in Mythic+, while also remaining excellent in raids. If you raid seriously,
The Wall
is an excellent alternative due to its simplicity and its increased reliability. Take a look at our
legendary guide
to learn more about the legendaries available to Protection Warriors, or our
crafting guide
to find all the materials you need to craft them.
Protection Warrior Legendaries Guide
Best Protection Warrior Talents
Protection Warriors use the same talents for a lot of content, although there are several spots where you can and should switch talents.
Ravager
is an excellent Mythic+ talent that gets overshadowed by the simple reliability of
Into the Fray
in raids.
The safe damage and cooldown increase of
Anger Management
is great in low-level Mythic+ and raid fights that aren’t too challenging, but the extra defensive value of
Bolster
is really, really valuable for high-level Mythic+ and intense progression raiding.
This talent build is primarily focused on raiding for players getting started with end game activities, but our
Protection Warrior Talent Guide
goes into more detail for each talent, as well as providing specific builds for questing, Mythic+, and Raids.
Protection Warrior Talents Guide
Protection Warrior Stat Priority
Unlike previous expansions, primary stats such as Strength are much more important than they used to be, and secondary stats are close enough together that item level is typically a larger factor when it comes to choosing gear. You can find out more about how stats work, including sample stat weights and scaling plots in the
Stats Guide
, or get an overview of the best-in-slot gear to look for from dungeons and raids in the
Protection Warrior Gear Guide
.
Strength > Haste > Versatility > Mastery = Crit
Strength
: Increases all damage done by native class spells, abilities, and auto attacks, and increases the value of your Ignore Pain. Historically the weakest stat, but now the most powerful, which makes raw item level more important.
Haste
: Compresses the rotation by reducing both the GCD and the cooldown of the rotational abilities Shield Slam and Thunder Clap, and the cooldown of Shield Block. Increasing your Shield Block uptime is immensely valuable to improving your survivability. It is the preeminent secondary stat.
Versatility
: Increases damage done and reduces damage taken by half the amount. It’s simple, but it’s great.
Critical Strike
: Increases damage done by abilities, auto attacks, and trinkets, and increases your chance to parry enemy autoattacks. The defensive value of parrying attacks is actually quite high, and historically Critical Strike has been one of the best stats for reducing total damage taken,
but
that’s not nearly as important as it may seem, and the moment-to-moment smoothness provided by Haste and Versatility is much more reliable and valuable. It’s pretty good offensively, for what it’s worth.
Mastery
: Increases your chance to block and Critically Block. It’s good for passively reducing your damage taken, and it’s more reliable than Critical Strike, but it’s still less reliable than Haste or Versatility, and it has less offensive value. It’s not a great stat.
Protection Warrior Stats Guide
Protection Warrior Enchants and Consumables
Cloak
: Increase stamina and tertiary bonuses. Avoidance is good for reducing unavoidable AoE damage, and Speed can help make dodging boss effects easier -
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Avoidance
or
Enchant Cloak - Fortified Speed
Chest
: Strength & Stamina -
Enchant Chest - Eternal Stats
Wrists
: Hearth cooldown? -
Enchant Bracers - Shaded Hearthing
Gloves
: Increases Strength -
Enchant Gloves - Eternal Strength
or
Enchant Gloves - Strength of Soul
(budget)
Boots
: Reduced fall damage -
Enchant Boots - Soul Treads
Rings
: Increases Haste -
Enchant Ring - Tenet of Haste
or
Enchant Ring - Bargain of Haste
(budget)
Weapon
: AoE damage proc -
Enchant Weapon - Lightless Force
Protection Warrior Enchants Guide
Best Protection Warrior Rotation
This is a typical Protection Warrior DPS rotation. More detailed information can be found in the
Protection Warrior Rotation Guide
.
Avatar
when available
Demoralizing Shout
when available
Use Covenant skills when available
Ravager
if talented
Shield Slam
Thunder Clap
Revenge
when free
Execute
to dump Rage
Revenge
to dump Rage outside Execute phase
Devastate
as filler (if not using Devastator)
Protection Warrior Rotation Guide
Back to Top
Our Protection Warrior guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Protection Warrior guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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