Unique POV From a Protection Warrior

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
1

Hey all,

I’ve been playing Protection Warrior since phase 1. I also have been jumping around various high end and semi-hc guilds ever since MC so I’ve been able to experience Prot Warr with many different combinations of tanks, healers, and DPS. I feel as though this experience makes my feedback at least worth reading.

As we all know, Protection Warrior has been struggling with adding any value to a raid. We don’t bring raid wide buffs, our threat and damage are extremely lack luster, and our survivability is not good enough to make up for any of our other downfalls. Even if you have a skilled tank, they still cannot provide for your raid like other tanks can. To bring a Protection Warrior to your raid at this point is just a let down to your raid.

Now let me say that I love the Protection Warrior playstyle. It’s high apm, cooldown management, buff management, debuff management, “skill shots” with shockwave, and a large toolkit so there is a TON of room for skill expression. Especially with the Regicide and 6 Set bonus this phase (which is so insanely fun but so hard to play perfectly).

The problem is that, even when you’re playing at the highest level you are doing less than competitive DPS and TPS. Threat is even more of an issue this phase because we are barely outpacing Ashbringer Warriors even with a perfect opener!

I’ll be upfront that I’m not a game designer and I have not raided in WoW for that long (SoD is my first) so I don’t know the best ways to fix these issues. BUT I do have highly competitive parses and I’ve been in many different raid compositions so I think that these issues are real.

So the the meat and potatoes:

Best pwarr opener so far is: Shoot with Enrage active (1 Global), Charge in, Taunt, and Recklessness at the same time (2 Globals), Shield Slam (3 Globals), Rend (4 Globals), Shockwave (5 Globals) and after all of that you will BARELY be ahead of a well skilled Ashbringer Warrior.

5 Globals to get our rotation started, and the first few seconds is highly dependent on taunt still being active until Shockwave goes off or else you absolutely will lose threat (1st Shield Slam is not enough).

Compared to other tanks whose repeatable abilities (Searing Pain, Hammed/Shield of the Righteous) can hit multiple targets AND do more DPS/TPS than our main ability Shield Slam, it’s truly depressing.

These issues are just worse when trying to tank trash, it’s hardly worth trying to hold threat in raid from DPS.

I know you guys have made changes to help Protection Warrior and I can acknowledge the effort put into making the class fun, but the spec continues to struggle as it has been for a very, very, long time.

Thanks,
Abraxxås

1 Like
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I brought these issues up in the past and was told that I had no idea what I was talking about about and that Prot war is one of the best tanks in the game. Discord is the place to go not this cess pool. If they made a way for Prot to bring imp shout it would be a huge game changer but that req you to go into fury which is kinda a no go.

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Yeah it’s definitely not true. Don’t get me wrong we have a large tool kit but none of them do enough to warrant bringing a warrior to your raid.

Can’t main tank because other tanks have to AFK to let us have threat, can’t off tank well because we can’t rip adds off of DPS without taunt (rage is also an issue here)

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Yeah at the high end Prot war is probably the worst tank atm. It’s very sad and they definitely need a buff maybe even an overhaul to make them feel more competitive.

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Warriors have been global locked since p4 and yet every other class can use the trinket that reduces GCD. Crazy!

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I completely agree.
Even with the latest buffs we’re still behind of every single tank, in threat and mitigation.
It’s not surprising that so many tanks are leaving warriors to tank with other classes.

Rage can still be an issue.
Our runes are extremely boring and underpowered and list goes on and on.

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Not to mention our offensive cd (we need to keep up in threat) makes us take 20% more dmg. The 4pc even buffs it by making it last 12seconds longer

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I’m going to bump this because it’s unnaceptable the way they’re leaving warriors behind.
Everyone is leaving prot warrior to go tank on other classes.
We’re the only spec that can’t hold threat vs Ashbringer.
We’re at the bottom of the Tank DPS chart and mitigation and our runes are completely useless.

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Prot Warrior is fine.

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Sure it’s fine, doesn’t mean they’re good and lacking far behind other tanks.
I’d take your word into consideration but you’re a green parser.

If you raided with actually good players you’d know that prot warriors can’t keep threat vs Ashbringer.

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I do 20 man. If threat is an issue whomever is using Ashbringer just use Eye of Diminution.

But I guess you wouldn’t know that considering you just scroll on the forums and don’t play SoD.

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Why not just run not a Prot war and then have ur ashbringer user wear a better trinket?

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Threat has always been a staple part of Classic WoW. This is why most ppl don’t want to over aggro. But lets just say the Ashbringer does not have the trinket and will not wait for Tank to get threat. What can a warrior from SoD do?

instead of taking the sanguinist shoulder enchant? Take a threat building shoulder rune? But what if protection warrior does not want to change shoulder rune.

Then complain on forums. I acknowledge that Abraxxås has good parses and t’s on 20 man. But he still has sanguinist on. Why not try and put on his threat set.

Until threat is eliminated off the table like it is in retail. This still remains a part of the game. If your DPS does a lot of damage.

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Because you have a higher threat with Sang than any other enchant.
Also because other tank specs can easily create a threat lead, much easier than prot warrior.
And because warrior has a ton of skills to use and still can’t do nearly as much as other tanks. If you have to play great to perform as a warrior tank, then you should be rewarded for such.
Meanwhile you got other tanks creating threat leads with just spamming the same ability on a 2 button rotation.

15

Roll a different class or get buffs to threat like every other tank has had.

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What tank is bringing raid wide buffs besides druid OTs?

Damage sure, but prot warrior threat is stilll strong.

This seems a bit on the subjective side. And i dont think comparing warrior to 100% avoidance tanks is fair here because thats bad all around.

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No tank brings “raid wide buffs directly” however if u run a paly or shammy tank you don’t need one in that group and can opt for a higher DPS option comp wise in the tank group. Same for bear they bring pack to the group meaning u only need 1 feral in ur raid. Rogues bring raid wide buffs through debuffs. Since the rogue tanks run full utility build ATM. Lock tanks normally take infernal armor but can take MoC although most raid runs multiple locks they also bring pact. Warrior brings literally nothing. Making u need a cat and paly/shammy in the group with him and a rogue putting up iea/occult in order for him to function. No other tank is that much of a burden when u break it down. Also every melee group needs a warrior for imp shout and prot doesn’t even bring that. It’s so sad. They desperately need to be able to bring imp shout and have higher snap threat. Honestly they should just make fury tank the way to go over deep prot

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Like who? Rets are second highest melee dps.

Thats bot unique to tank druids, and youll want two ferals regardless. Youre very likely to have two melee groups. And lock/shaman tanks can have caster group build around instead.

You actually don’t need much to accomplish this, rogue dps are just as good with their poison vs tank rogues right now.

As long as we are going to count what non tanks in other classes bring, its only fair we count warriors that bring two shouts. Commanding and Rallying Cry, the later being a strong raid wide defensive cooldown.

I think this is being extremely hyperbolic. If warriors were this much of a burden they wouldnt be the most populated tank in SE overall.

Idk our warrior has great snap threat on bosses. He just knows how to use his cooldowns.

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You don’t want 2 feral cats they aren’t that good you would rather a bear. Ret is really strong but horde wise enh is poopy. You NEVER not put tanks in the same group that is GRIEF. Warriors are GCD locked. You NEVER press shout during a pull nor do u rage pre pull to shout ever.

This isn’t for casuals. In a casual setting tanks are fine rn. This is about high end 20man parses guilds where cutting 3-5 seconds off a boss matters. In these settings warrior is the worst tank of the bunch. Also your point about rets being one of the best DPS vs enh being one of the worst shows how bad the faction imbalance is. Forcing high end horde guilds to run a shammy tank to avoid playing double enh.

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Also to harp on this your tank isn’t better than abrax. Not even in the same world as him. You aren’t in a competitive 20m parse guild like him your not even close. His complaints are valid at his level of play for his guild. You are a super casual where tank comp meta is fine ATM. Don’t insinuate that ur tank just plays better than OP.