Protection Warrior Dragonflight Class Guide

General Information

Welcome to our Protection Warrior Guide for World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. We will help you to learn and master Protection Warrior in either Raids or Mythic Keystone Dungeons.

Last Update: 16-03-2023

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Basics of Protection Warrior

Whenever you engage in a pull with many enemies dealing physical damage, Protection Warriors can really shine. With Ignore Pain, your damage taken is very consistent over time, while you can also block many attacks completly. With very short cooldowns, Protection Warriors can deal heavy amount of damage very consistent over the course of your dungeon run.

Stat Choice for Protection Warrior

General Stat Priority for Protection Warrior with our Build is:

Strength
Haste
Versatility = Critical Strike
Mastery

Basic Rotation

Please read our Rotation and Cooldown section for further information.

Use Charge
Cast Avatar
Use Shield Charge
Use Thunderclap which applies and maintains Rend
Use Revenge to spend Rage if possible, or when you get a free use
Maintain Ignore Pain at all time
Use Shield Block whenever heavy damage is incoming, or if it’s about to cap out.

Builds and Talents

General Talent Tree

Most Notable Talents

The bottom row talents offer the most iconic abilities, usually recognized by certain Warrior specs. Avatar, Thunderous Roar, Shockwave and Spear of Bastion can now be skilled by all Warriors, and these will have the most significant impact in your rotation and playstyle.

Other Damage Talents

Sidearm, Barbaric Training and Seismic Reverberation are located on the right side. These will increase the damage of your AoE abilities, and even further if they hit atleast 3 targets. Crushing Force and Frothing Berserker are located on the left side, and will grant certain abilities even more passive damage gain. War Machine in the top row will grant your auto attacks generate more Rage, while Weapon Specialization in the middle bottom will increase your damage using the correct weapon of your spec. Thunderclap is a new ability in your Talent Tree, which also can now spread Rend whenever using the Blood and Thunder Talent.

Crowd Control & Utility

Storm Bolt, Intimidating Shout and Piercing Howl are your Crowd Control abilities. Heroic Leap, Intervene and double charges on your Charge are your mobility Talents. Rallying Cry is your group utility, a strong cooldown whic increases the health of all party members.

Defensive Talents

Many talents are increasing your Armor or your Stamina. Impending Victory grants you an ability that makes you heal yourself.

Specialization Talent Tree

Single Target Talents

Our Single Target build orients itself on very strong Raid bosses, which we have to counter with more defensive cooldowns.

Impenetrable Wall reduces our Shield Wall cooldown by 5 seconds everytime we use Shield Slam.

Instead of using Ravager, we are using the remaining talent points on Champion’s Bulwark, which makes our Shield Charge to grant us Shield Block for free. Bolster reduces our cooldown on Last Stand by 60 seconds, making it a 2 minute cooldown. Additionally, it will now grant us Shield Block for its duration.

Sudden Death will be talented instead of Show of Force. Instead of dealing more damage with our AoE abilities Revenge and Thunder Clap, it now gives us a chance to proc a free Execute, usable without limitations.

Violent Outburst grants us a free Ignore Pain after using Shield Slam or Thunder Clap, as soon as we spent 240 Rage to gain enough stacks.

Multi Target Talents

Talent trees for Protection Warriors do not differ much between Single Target or Multi Target situations. Ravager grants us an additional damage against multiple targets.

Disrupting Shout grants us an AoE taunt, which also silences all enemies in a 14-yard radius, which has a 90 seconds cooldown. This can compete with similar abilities from other tanks like the Vengeance Demon Hunter’s Sigil of Silence, and provides us even more utility.

Indomitable is a very strong new talent, which grants us 1% of our health being healed whenever we spend 10 Rage. A simple Ignore Pain will therefore heal us already for 3% of our maximum health.

Booming Voice grants us 20% more damage against targets hit by Demoralizing Shout, which can then be utilized by our empowered Shock Wave and Ravager.

Mythic+ Talents For Protection Warrior

Import:

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Aberrus, The Shadowed Crucible

Kazzara, the Hellforged

Molgoth

The Forgotten Experiments

Assault of the Zaqali

Rashok, the Elder

The Vigilant Steward, Zskarn

Magmorax

Echo of Neltharion

Scalecommander Sarkareth

Aberrus, The Shadowed Crucible

Kazzara, the Hellforged

Molgoth

The Forgotten Experiments

Assault of the Zaqali

Rashok, the Elder

The Vigilant Steward, Zskarn

Magmorax

Echo of Neltharion

Scalecommander Sarkareth

Rotation and Cooldowns

Basic Rotation for Protection Warrior in Single Target

Use Charge
Cast Avatar
Use Shield Charge
Use Thunderclap which applies and maintains Rend
Use Thunderous Roar
Use Shockwave on cooldown
Use Revenge to spend Rage if possible, or when you get a free use
Maintain Ignore Pain at all time
Use Shield Block whenever heavy damage is incoming, or if it’s about to cap out.
Use Execute whenever Sudden Death procs
Use Execute when enemy health below 35%

Basic Rotation for Protection Warrior in Multi Target

Use Charge
Use Thunderclap which applies and maintains Rend
Use Demoralizing Shout
Cast Avatar
Use Shield Charge
Use Thunderous Roar
Use Ravager
Use Shockwave on cooldown
Use Revenge to spend Rage if possible, or when you get a free use
Maintain Ignore Pain at all time
Use Shield Block whenever heavy damage is incoming, or if it’s about to cap out.
Use Execute whenever Sudden Death procs
Use Execute when enemy health below 35%

Stat Priority

Stat Choice for Protection Warrior

General Stat Priority for Protection Warrior with our Build is:

Strength
Haste
Versatility = Critical Strike
Mastery

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Strenght is your primary stat, meaning that Itemlevel is superior in most cases. Higher Itemlevel will also increase your Stamina and Armor that you gain.

Critical Strike increases the chance for your abilities and spells to deal double damage.

Haste reduces your global cooldown, your time to cast spells, and reduces the cooldown of many abilities.

Versatility grants you a flat damage increase, but also a damage decrease for half of its value.

Mastery increases your chance to block, to critically block and your attack power. Greater attack power will also increase the value of your Ignore Pain.

The further we are getting into the expansion, the effects of diminishing returns start to limit your effective gain of your secondary stats. After reaching 30% (by rating) of any given stat, you will start to receive a penalty that reduces the gain from more of the same stat over this treshold.

Stat priority can differ on every character. Make sure to simulate yourself on Raidbots get the perfect results for you.

Gear and Trinkets

Best In Slot Gear for Protection Warrior

This List shows the current Best-In-Slot Gear for Dragonflight Season 1. Many Items can be potentially substituted with any Profession Gear, especially early on into the Season.

Additionally, there is the option for Profession Gear to be crafted with additional Buffs/Perks, which can benefit your character in certain situations.

Slot	Item
Head	Casque of the Walking Mountain
Necklace	Eye of the Vengeful Hurricane
Shoulders	Peaks of the Walking Mountain
Cloak	Acid-Proof Webbing
Chest	Husk of the Walking Mountain
Wrists	Shackles of Titanic Failure
Hands	Gauntlets of the Walking Mountain
Belt	Matriarch’s Opulent Girdle
Legs	Poleyns of the Walking Mountain
Boots	Kurog’s Thunderhooves
Ring 1	Seal of Diurna’s Chosen
Ring 2	Seal of Filial Duty
Weapon 1	Maul of the Earthshaper
Weapon 2	Broodsworn Legionnaire’s Pavise