Wondering what the main difference between Prot Warrior and Prot Paladin is? I’ve leveled both to about 40 and find myself liking Warrior so much more. Everyone keeps telling me Prot Warrior sucks at max and I won’t find groups, much less raid. Is this true or just sweats being sweaty?
Is the main difference for survivability just Ardent Defender? Or is there more to this that I’m not seeing? I went through the talents and seems like they end up with roughly similar defensive stats…
TLDR… want to play Prot Warrior… will I find groups at max or is there too much of a stigma?
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Prot warrior is the best speed run tank. Pally is best at everything else.
Prot warriors have a higher skill cap and are piloted by the best players.
^ that might be 50% flame bait… but it’s still 100% truth
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Dont listen to streamer worshipping edge lords who regurgitate misinformation
What the nice druid above said is true. Play what you like, if yourr not a moron you will find groups and raids. The doomsayers are always the loudest.
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1 has a raid spot and 1 doesn’t.
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After the contest is relevant, warriors are relevant.
Warriors do have better options against large magical damage. Paladins have Ardent Defender, which is very strong overall.
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I just asked Blizzard if they could add Wood Making as a prot warrior only profession, that way they can make themselves a nice Legendary bench to sit on.
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Just what the Chad spec needs … More wood…
… legendary wood … nah can’t go there.
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I’d just go prot paladin if you want to raid, then you have the option of having an S tier healing spec and a dps spec, and if you ever think you arent performing well enough you have the hidden talent that you can cry on the forums and get extra buffs despite being incredibly overpowered and already overrepresented.
If you go warrior you will be the least desired class in general by a country mile and get regular nerfs despite being one of the worst classes in the game across 2 roles.
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Main a prot paladin but also enjoy prot warrior on the side. You’ll find plenty of dungeons and meh pug raid spots but probably hard to break into a progression raid guild. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with warrior mostly just streamers opinions.
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Probably cause prot warriors are among the best levelers in the game, if not the very best.
Once you get to 80 you’ll see very clearly the advantages Prot Pallies have over you. But you’ll still be very viable, this forum is way out to lunch saying you won’t find spots as a prot warr.
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wood making
Also known as carpentry ig 
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Probably have trouble finding groups doing cutting edge content but being that OP is leveling a tank this far into the xpac I can only assume that might not be a big concern.
Lumberjack spec. I’d play it.
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Got prot warrior, paladin, and bdk in the 380- 395+ ilvl range, tanked up to 12s on pally and bdk, I’d say that warrior and BDK feel the strongest, paladin feels strong in damage but battlefield control feels weak and they are very squishy.
BDK I feel like I can survive anything and the most control over my own survival, warrior I feel very tanky and mobility is amazing plus the group buff is nice. BDK brez is easiest to use, and I’ve got a lot of ways to cheat death/cheese damage on very short cds, and grips help to control enemies very easily with grips and ranged interrupt which can’t be replicated by the other two.
Paladin just feels like it doesn’t bring much to the table except the ability to off heal and cleanse. Defensively they’re very fragile, mobility is all on the GCD and weak, and they have the worst defensives most of which are on the GCD as well. They also have no way to really control enemies other than shield to interrupt.
Despite warrior being the fotm, I gravitate towards bdk
EDIT: OMG didn’t know I was in classic forum. Ignore this.
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Even if you level a warrior to 80 and find yourself unable to get into a guild or pug raids, at least you’ll have the peace of mind of not being a paladin.
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If you can tank successfully without letting a group wipe, you will always find groups.
Even if you re-created a way to do that as a Shaman.
Obviously I’m being pedantic, but my point is that tanks are always in demand no matter the class. Play what you enjoy!
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Prot warr is more fun in arena and Bgs to me because they are really mobile and can do some nasty damage while also being very tanky. Raids I’m pretty sure pally is just better.
Warriors are possibly even the BIS dungeon crawl Tank. Getting groups is not at issue - the main concern is raid representation.
As some have said, a lot of this is player perception, a bunch of “influencers” and content creators with pserver backgrounds went online before WoTLKC saying stuff like “Prot Warriors are trash in WoTLKC” and “It’s Rets time to shine”, and “Feral will be S+ tier the whole way through” and a whole lot of other inaccurate predictions that people ran with … and are still running with.
In some ways the problem is more about players expectations than actual relative power. This whole “influencer tier list” culture didn’t exist back in the day but has become pretty toxic for Classic I feel. The problem is that these commentators have monetary incentive for giving popular information that may be inaccurate and Blizzard in turn have monetary incentive to follow their cue. This creates a culture of doubling down on assumptions - even when they’re wrong.
I think there is some truth to the claim the Prot Warriors are fine and it’s a perception problem. But I also think there is a serious representation problem (for both the role and the class). So, how to fix without overpowering Warrior?
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Prot warrior isn’t bad, but as far as the “block-tank” role, prot pally is more survivable. In an xpac with tankbuster mechanics, and threat is generally a non-issue, prot pally shines for progression. Prot warrior is a lot more fun, though. The mobility, snap threat, and control are all nice. But your defensives are just…worse.
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