I’ve made a Prot Warrior in the hopes of learning to tank. I’ve been playing since MoP but never touched tanking at all.
I listened to a few videos, but they all seem to act like we’re supposed to be “in the know” of many things already.
Any addons to make the learning curve easier? Any tips?
Which CD to prioritize for which kind of situation?
Just wanna be at a decent starting point to not get verbally destroyed by PUGs when I finally jump in lmao
Your first and best step is to join the Warrior Class discord server, Skyhold.
There is a huge number of resources available to ply, and there are warriors who literally write the guides and theorycraft our class in the server that can answer questions - along with many others as well.
The best thing you can do, however, is never stop pushing damage. We have opportunities to turtle up, but it’s not our best interest to just sit on our hands holding resources or GCDs.
iLVL > Haste > Crit/Vers > Mastery
Shield Slam > Sudden Death > Thunder Clap > Revenge (Execute at 20%)
DEFENSIVE COOLDOWNS
Use your defensives preemptively and proactively, not reactively. We thrive on fight knowledge, so make sure you know what mechanics will body you hardest and have a plan for when you’re pressing what. For example, using Shield Wall on the first tank buster, Last Stand and Defensive Stance for the second tank buster, Rally and Defensive Stance the third if Wall isn’t back up by then.
Tangentially, do not be shy about slapping Impending Victory. It’s 20% free health on a pretty short CD that resets on kills. That is WILD. Do not fall into the trap of saving it, keep yourself healthy often and crush your enemies.
OFFENSIVE COOLDOWNS
You’re never going to hold offensive CDs. Smoke if you got 'em, do not be shy about pressing Ravager, Thunderous Roar, Demoralizing Shout, Shield Charge, or Avatar. The worst thing you can do is just sit on these in keys or raid. USE THEM. Once you get comfortable with that, then you can get more granular with them.
SPENDING RAGE
NEVER, EVER OVERCAP RAGE. Overcapped rage is WASTED rage. Rage is our lifeblood, it powers the entire spec front to back. The more we spend, the better off we are. We have MANY passives that benefit from spending rage: Indomitable heals us when we spend it, Anger Management reduces the cooldowns on Shield Wall + Avatar, it triggers our tier set, and gives us Outburst - more on Outburst later.
If you ever find yourself getting at or above 60 rage, press Ignore Pain. Think of Ignore Pain as two things:
Unless you’re doing keys in the mid-20’s or above, the latter of these two things will never apply to you. Focus on making sure you don’t waste any rage, then you can get fancy. You will have enough survivability without trying to desperately spam this - DO NOT THINK ABOUT IT’S UPTIME.
SHIELD BLOCK
You know what you should be thinking about the uptime on? Shield Block. Well, not exactly. Shield Block is how we mitigate all the damage we take, and we take a lot of it. Making sure you aren’t fighting without Shield Block up, and making sure you aren’t taking hits from the back are surprisingly common mistakes.
It has some added benefits to incentivize you to maintain it at all times: DAMAGE BAYBEEEEE. You get an additional 30% damage to Shield Slam while it’s up, and let me tell you: you want it. It’s so good. We have lots of talents to help ease you into it, too - Shield Champion and Heavy Repercussions are great starting picks to get comfortable with block management.
OUTBURST
What the hell is Outburst? It’s a near-capstone talent that is a reflection almost beat for beat of our Sepulcher of the First One’s tier set - and that ditty was a bop. After you spend enough rage you get to have either your next Thunder Clap or Shield Slam hit like an absolute truck and increase the amount of rage they generate. We’re almost always sending it on Shield Slam because the Shield Block +30% just kinda floods hit with more damage. More, we’re Shield Slamming A LOT because it’s our most common rage generator, so this stuff will give you about half your rage bar. More rage is good rage, remember that.
However, it’s not an utter heresy to press it on Thunder Clap. In large packs, or when using Avatar with 2+ targets, you can press it on Thunder Clap as it does more damage than Shield Slam at that target count. Just be aware you are losing rage.
SPELL REFLECTION
Why does this spell have its own section? It’s free damage, and a lot of it. Not only that, you’re throwing if you don’t use it as such. How? It’s a free stop. Think of Spell Reflection as a spell the party doesn’t have to kick - and it has the added benefit of dealing damage back to the attacker (or, at worst, deflecting the attack). You’re “kicking” the effect with it.
What else does it do? It’s a free 20% magical damage reduction on a comically short cooldown. It’s just tons of free survival baked into the spec against magical damage. Even if you reflect a spell, the 20% damage reduction to magic stays on. Use it eagerly and often. Make sure you do your homework on what mechanics can let you do damage - although this is more specific to M+, typically.
DEFENSIVE STANCE
Do yourself a favor and forget it exists. You will hurt and crutch yourself using it like training wheels, so let’s build good habits earlier than later. Use this effect like a defensive cooldown… on-demand.
Imagine if you were a DPS and you could just turn on 20% DR with no time limit or resource for however long they needed, then turn it back off when the danger is over because it hobbles their damage. That’d be insane.
That’s mostly what it is for us, we want to use it intelligently and purposefully, so use it when you’re making big pulls or as part of your defensive rotation, or if you need to assist in stabilizing your health.
The best advice for someone wanted to get into tanking, who isn’t specifically interested in Prot Warrior, is to roll a different tank.
All of the tanks are viable to an extent. And in low content you may not have any issues, but warrior not in a great spot from an “invite-ability” sense. There is 0 reasons to bring a warrior over any other tank if the io and ilvl are the same. And, personally, I don’t find them that fun to play compared to other tanks.
Everything Hralm said above is good knowledge if you stick with it. But if you want a fun, engaging, PUG respected tanking experience, almost any of the other classes are a better choice.
this was an insanely helpful read.
I haven’t had that issue, personally, and I’ve only ever solo PUG’d my way into 3k last season.
While I will say that Warrior is certainly lacking in most forms of group utility, that will never become an actual roadblock until you start hitting mid-20s and up.
You can even CE quite comfortably as one, since most raids have enough utility to be able to cover their bases through 19 other raiders.
Anyone that isn’t pushing the upper crust of io that is thinking about comp that hard is deluding themselves thinking anything about classes is their limiting factor.
Imo the best way to learn is just read your abilities and run normal dungeons and practice. Super low risk environment that way. I’m not sure if the proving grounds are still a thing but that’s a good place to practice
Any tank is desirable, groups will always need someone so it isn’t all bad. I would never tell someone to avoid a class solely because of the community perception, because most people have friends/guildies to group with.
But if OP is trying to get into tanking as a main role, and is not specifically drawn to the lore of warriors, or playing Fury/Arms as an offspec, then Warrior is probably the worst tank to pick from a “well rounded” perspective. We are damage sponges, and little else.
That’s the role, to be fair; take damage. And we do that just fine.
Warriors are average to below average in all of their specs. Just wish Blizz could just take a stab at making it more fun, or useful, with some utility.
People like you are the reason the state of the game is what it is. Do not listen to this individual whatsoever. Prot warr is and always will be the most fun tank for anyone that actually knows what is fun is.
Thanks for this champ. Read the whole thing. ‘Boomer’ returning vet.
A lot of this is still relevant information, and is foundationally salient. However, there are a few major in-depth changes to the game that occur at level 80 with the introduction of the hero talent system that’ll shake up our rotations a little bit, as well as giving us another feedback loop for rage and ability procs.
There is a guide on WoWHead by Nomeratur, the spearhead of Protection Warrior theorycrafting, that can give you a more in-depth analysis of how we’re going to play and what to aim for in the endgame.