I’m relatively new to the game and i decided to try prot warrior because i heard that prot warrior self heal is back in shadowlands (indomitable will heal based on rage spent). However, i am having hard time on learning the ropes of this spec. I’ve levelled a prot warrior toon to 110 but i still feel immensely overwhelmed by the class.
Between the 4 buttons rotation, 6 situational cooldowns and 2 proactive damage mitigation, i dont know how you guys could keep everything on track. I will either: 1. Forgot to keep my damage mitigation up and thus overcapping my rage, 2. “Oh, i forgot i have this cooldown” moment so i’ll just mash all of them at once, 3. Messing up my rotation on avatar phase, or 4. Forgetting to interrupt/stun because i was so occupied on getting the rotation/damage mitigation/cooldowns correctly. Usually all of those combined in a stressfull pull situation/tough bosses.
How do you guys train yourself to become a better prot warrior? Training dummy wont help me peruse my cooldowns / interrupts at the correct moment. General questing is easy enough that i wont be needing to use my abilities other than general rotation and 1 or 2 cooldowns. I wont be welcomed in most mythic dungeons/raids scenarios as i am still learning the class. Soloing WQ bosses/world bosses is fine at first but someone will eventually come along to kill the boss 2/3 mins later.
Biggest thing about prot warrior is getting that shield block uptime (Last stand included as you take the bolster talent. That may change in SL).
Getting a weak aura to track that can help a lot. Get your main defensive rotation down first. A weakaura will tell you exactly when shield block falls off and then you press it again as soon as you see if fall off. Think of last stand as a part of your rotation instead of an emergency cd.
There are cases where shield block wont do anything (Against specific fights where they dont auto attack normally / do magic damage). It can be hard to tell so I say dont worry about it until you start doing harder content. But spell reflecting when you see a cast is about to go off on you is very useful.
Thunderclap / Shield Slam on cd. For the most part you demoralizing shout on CD. You can ignore pain / revenge to dump rage (Id recommend ignore pain until you get comfortable). Interrupt yourself as much as possible.
Avatar on CD for dmg (unless there is a big juicy pack coming up very very soon)
There is a lot of other small stuff but thats the gist of it.
Knowing all of this, it just comes down to repetition. Just try and to have as much up time on shield block (+ last stand) as much. Which will come down to not spending to much rage at the wrong time plus awareness (weak aura will make it really easy).
If you have details, try checking after every dungeon or boss fight how much shield block + last stand uptime you have. Set up another meter that will show damage taken per second. Warrior is mitigation, so if you play it well, you will be not taking a lot of damage per second compared to other tanks (but you wont heal much).
Defensive rotation, get that down and you will start performing greatly. Warrior is all mitigation, focus on that defensive rotation.
Yeah! I agree it is an awesome write up indeed. I thought the main damage mitigation for warriors is ignore pain (i remembered the outcry when ignore pain was included in the GCD) but it seems that is not the case.
If you dont mind me asking, shield block only have 6 sec duration so it wouldn’t be possible to keep it up all the time right? So how do you deal with that? Isn’t it better to save shield block when you are expecting to receive a lot of damage? And keep ignore pain up as much as possible instead?
Maintaining mitigation (Shield block or bolster/last stand) > thunderclap > Shieldslam/revenge depending on current rage and/or revenge procs and quantity of mobs infront of you. Dump extra rage into IP when needed and use reflect and demo shout liberally.
Probably the biggest thing you can do is set up clear nameplates and a good UI. Being able to filter out noise and focus in on the things you need to pay attention to will reduce the amount of stuff overwhelming you.
From there, practice. You need to apply yourself and know dungeon mechanics. Oh, and try to have at least 26%+haste to get close to 100% uptime on SB.
Like if you are at max leveling running full expedient you can easily have 100% uptime. But you wouldn’t normally have that much haste.
A typical rotation is like SB -> SB -> SB -> LS -> SB -> SB -> SB. (SB = shield block. LS = last stand). This may change depending on the haste you have, you may get more SB cast off before you need LS.
If mythic plus packs shouldn’t last long enough and in raids the tank swap mechanics usually don’t let you run out of SB.
If you do find a situation where you dont have SB / LS up you can do several things. One universal thing you can always do is shield wall. You might see this sometimes in high level mythic plus where you always have to have some form of mitigation up or you die. Speaking of mythic plus, you can also leap away or shockwave (aoe stun) to buy you some time in keys. But the aoe stun is better used for other things IMO.
Shield block is mainly for enemy auto attacks. It completely counters melee attacks, which is usually a big chunk of dmg mobs deal.
So in a coordinated environment, every cast is being interrupted. This means the mobs are really only auto-attacking, and prot warriors counter that with shield block. Its part of the reason they are so good in high-end mythic plus. 0 cast are going off, and when mobs are only auto attacking, prot warriors become immortal.
But you might get trucked in mythic plus pugs because cast are going off. But you can try your best to interrupt things as much as possible. You can use fear as an aoe interrupt.
Ahh i see now. That makes perfect sense. But one thing bugging me is, if in pugs the warrior got mauled because no one interrupts, we got trucked for it? Haha. It almost look like paladin is better in pug tanking as they have tons of death prevention cooldowns + heal as reactionary mitigation + ranged interrupt though. Am i correct to assume this?. I dont have friends who plays wow (sad, i know) so i was expecting to do a lot of pugs so do you think prot warrior is the right choice for me?
Yes, you are correct to assume that on any keys below 20 or so. Pally has a crap ton of utility and self heal. Past that, warrior pulls way ahead as they mitigate nearly all phyiscal damage. In keys that high, if your dps aren’t kicking, you’re going to die anyways so it really doesn’t matter.
I recommend building up gradually. Start with Devastate and Thunderclap as your offensive rotation, mostly because they don’t use rage. Then add Demoralizing Shout to your rotation as a rage generator and start using Shield Block on cooldown as mitigation. Make sure you taunt and interrupt as appropriate for actual tanking. These basics are sufficient to do gear appropriate dungeons up through M0 at least.
Practice in dungeons. Queue for Normal dungeons as you level up and Heroic dungeons as you start gearing up at level cap. Once eligible, start tanking in LFR, and you can start doing M0 at the same time. You will catch some toxicity, but ignore it; a thick skin is a key tanking skill. M0/M+ are a particularly important progression point, because those groups basically can’t kick you.
Gradually add additional buttons. Ignore Pain should be the first; use it when you have sufficient rage beyond what’s needed to keep Shield Block up. Then add Revenge and Shield Slam to use on proc, and as rage dumps in situations where you don’t need mitigation, such as when you’re not the active tank in a raid. Personally I have not found it necessary to include Last Stand in my rotation for Heroic raiding and single digit Mythic+, though I probably would for Mythic raiding and high Mythic+. Instead I use Last Stand and Shield Wall as emergency buttons, such as when my cotank misses a taunt.
Avatar is really a different rotation, so learn that whenever you’re ready to add a second rotation. Fortunately the Avatar rotation is simpler; I basically alternate Thunderclap with whatever else is appropriate. If you’re not ready to manage two rotations yet, you can just use your regular rotation when Avatar is up.
As for the comparison with Paladin, I think currently Protection Paladin is comparable to Protection Warrior, and much easier to play. I particularly envy the multitarget shield taunt and more frequent interrupt. Warrior has been more consistently near the top through most of BFA, though, and I’m hoping it will stay that way in SL.
It basically does tho. Add in constant trickle healing from trinkets/azerite traits and of the 2-3% of damage you take you auto heal for that.
We did a nasty 4 pack pull on 22 SoB last night right after 2nd boss and all the healing I got was via beacon. My pally didn’t shock me once because my healthbar didn’t move.
Must have been weak mob pack. Try doing that on harder hitting packs and you’ll be in trouble. Also lets not forget fortified, bolstering, necrotic.
The point was just to inform people reading the thread learning about warrior that shield block is not a dodge or parry. It does not negate melee damage, it reduces melee damage.
Getting a weakaura to track certain cooldowns and uptime on buffs helps. I recommend downloading the weakauras addon then googling prot warrior weakaura to copy and paste into the addon. Weakaura can be a bit confusing to use at first but it’s the best addon in my opinion