Protection Warrior Raid Guide

Welcome to the Protection Warrior raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.0! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!

Protection WarriorRaid

Single-Target

Strong

AoE

Strong

Utility

Strong

Survivability

Strong

Mobility

Excellent

• Mountain Thane buffs your baseline rotation and brings in more rage without adding an extra ability.
• Colossus has higher damage potential than Mountain Thane but comes at the cost of less defensive value and a worse playstyle.
• Overall Mountain Thane is recommended for raid.

Tier Set

• 2-Set: When your ‍Shield Slam cooldown is reset by ‍Strategist, you gain ‍Expert Strategist, increasing the damage of ‍Shield Slam by 5% and reducing all damage taken by 3% for 6 sec.
• 4-Set: ‍Shield Slam critical strikes increase the damage dealt by ‍Thunder Clap and ‍Revenge by 10% for 8 sec.

Defensive Stance vs. Battle Stance

• When swapping stances there are some factors you need to keep in mind:
  • Defensive Stance provides you with a 20% flat damage reduction and an additional 5% magic damage reduction.
  • Battle Stance provides you with a 3% critical chance and a 10% reduction on slow and cc effects.
• Stay in Defensive Stance at all times when taking any damage since the 3% crit chance is just not worth it losing 20% or 25% damage reduction.
  • If you are not tanking anything and don't have any debuffs that do heavy damage to you, swapping to Battle Stance is totally fine and provides a small DPS gain.

Defensive Cooldowns

• Demoralizing Shout
  • Most of the time you should use this on cooldown as it's a DPS increase when talented into Booming Voice. You also have Thunderlord that heavily reduces the cooldown which further incentivizes using it as much as possible.
• Shield Wall
  • This should be your first go-to when you need a big defensive as this spell also gets heavily reduced cooldown from Anger Management & Impenetrable Wall.
• Spell Block
  • Very powerful defensive in any pull or boss where there are a lot of casts on you and should be used as a high priority defensive whenever that's the case. Since Spell Block doesn't do anything outside of spell damage it's usually not used on cooldown but more so when it fits a certain pull.
• Last Stand
  • Usually the last defensive you use because of the very long cooldown and niche effect as it doesn't provide any damage reduction.
• Impending Victory
  • Not necessarily a defensive cooldown but a very nice self-heal tool. Just press it whenever you feel like a small heal would be useful.

Offensive Cooldowns

• Shield Charge
  • Use on cooldown preferably while under the effect of Avatar and Booming Voice.
• Ravager
  • Usually lines up with every 2nd Avatar.
• Avatar
  • Use on cooldown as much as possible, extra important because of cooldown reduction from Anger Management.
• Thunderous Roar
  • Use on cooldown preferably while under the effect of Avatar, Booming Voice and Demolish.
• Champion's Spear
  • Extra important to line up with your other offensive cooldowns because of the critical strike damage increase from Champion's Might.

Spell Reflection

• Spell Reflection is highly complex in the sense that it works differently for every mechanic and is often times the difference between Protection Warrior being very strong or mediocre.
• There is no one way to know at first glance if a spell cast on you is reflectable or not outside of just knowing beforehand through knowledge.
  • To easier acquire this knowledge I highly recommend this Spell Reflection Resource.

• Some important notes about Spell Reflection:
  • A spell does not always have to target you to be reflectable.
  • Spell Reflection provides 20% magic damage taken reduction for 5 seconds.
    • If a spell gets reflected and consumes the buff you still keep the 20% magic damage reduction for the full 5 seconds.

Managing Ignore Pain

• Ignore Pain is your primary Rage spender together with Revenge, one is full damage where the other one is full defensive value.
• Juggling both is your main job when it comes to how you spend your rage.
  • Ignore Pain as the ability is different from all the others it does not occur a GCD when pressed but has its own small internal GCD, making it so you can press it while normally playing your rotation.
  • Where on the other hand Revenge is a normal spender and also a GCD.
• Revenge is a tool to apply your Deep Wounds and do damage in your normal rotation.
• As a rule of thumb, you want to always use Ignore Pain when reaching your Rage cap to not overcap and while taking any damage to just become tankier.

Shield Slam & Violent Outburst

• Since Shield Slam is at the top of your priority list and it also resets its cooldown very frequently it's very important to make sure that it always gets used on cooldown.
• While doing so you need to make sure to never overcap on Rage as spending Rage reduces the cooldown of both offensive & defensive abilities.

• Violent Outburst is a proc that needs to be managed as it is a significant loss if you ever spend it on a Thunder Clap instead of a Shield Slam.
  • On Single Target or below 8 Targets use this proc with Shield Slam.
  • Above 8 Targets use it on Thunder Clap.
• When you're playing Mountain Thane the management of Violent Outburst changes significantly.
  • Thunder Blast on 2+ targets if Avatar is active
  • Thunder Clap on 4+ targets if Avatar is active.
  • On single-target or below 6 targets use this proc with Shield Slam.
  • Above 6 targets use it on Thunder Clap.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

The following tips are mainly applicable to Heroic Bosses. Mythic tips are going to be released after our progression concludes.

← Scroll for more Bosses →

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as a Protection Warrior. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. This makes managing certain mechanics a lot easier.

In general, Leech is really strong for tanks, especially in AoE scenarios it can be by far the best stat you can have.
Avoidance is great but most of the time tanks are not struggling to survive the typical Area of Effect abilities.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the raid boss.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Foul Behemoth's Chelicera
  • Strong trinket for both defensive and offensive value.
• Skarmorak Shard
  • Very strong on use trinket for mastery.
• Swarmlord's Authority
  • Haste statstick, that gives a good all-around absorb on use every 1min.
  • Due to having only haste as a stat, only recommended if the absorb is needed.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Ceaseless Swarmgland
  • Another passive trinket that does damage and provides little damage reduction.
• Void Pactstone
  • Trinket proc does some damage and provides haste, not the best.

Embellishments

• 2x Elemental Focusing Lens.
  • Craft preferred on Rings, Neck, Bracers, and Waist.
  • It's possible to put on any crafted piece.

Remaining Sparks

• Crafted items are 636 item level and regular items are 639 on max item level, therefore, it's a small loss to equip crafted items outside of your 2x Embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• Phials
  • Flask of Tempered Aggression -- max damage.
  • Flask of Tempered Versatility -- less DPS more survivability.
• Food
  • Feast of the Divine Day
  • Feast of the Midnight Masquerade
• Combat Potion
  • Tempered Potion
  • Potion Bomb of Power -- group potion, this is a DPS loss for you.
• Health Potion
  • Algari Healing Potion
• Weapon Stones
  • Ironclaw Whetstone -- usable on Sword, Axe.
  • Ironclaw Weightstone -- usable on Mace.
• Augment Rune
  • Crystallized Augment Rune
• Sockets
  • Quick Ruby
  • Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem colour to enhance your Blasphemite.
    • Deadly Emerald
    • Quick Onyx
    • Deadly Sapphire

Enchantments

For min-maxing a Protection Warrior in Raids, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • Is very valuable because you can dispel yourself or remove dangerous bleed effects.
  • On top of that using Stoneform gives you 10% physical DR which can be used as a small extra 8 second personal when tanking.
  • Use-cases:
    • Disembowel, Ravenous Spawn
    • Poison Bolt and Void Bolt, Skeinspinner Takazj
• Arcane Torrent -- Blood Elf
  • Strong racial to dispel or purge enemies, the value is very limited but sometimes can come in handy.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While you're in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.
• Spatial Rift -- Void Elf
  • Spawn a shadow traveling into your facing direction, and activate again to teleport to the rift.
  • Maximum range of 100 yards.

Recommendation

As tank picking a racial for damage is most of the times such a small gain that its not worth. If you care about min-maxing your DPS go with the highest DPS racial.

That being said the recommended race for raid tanks is for sure Dwarf the one use physical damage reduction and ability to self dispel when needed are insanely strong and should not be undervalued.

Discover recommended macros for Protection Warrior for Raids and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

Taunt Macros

Taunt Macro --- This macro either casts Taunt at your target or your mouseover (very handy to pick up mobs)

#showtooltip Taunt
/cast [@mouseover,exists,harm][@target,exists,harm] Taunt

Boss 1 Taunt --- Casts Taunt on Boss1

/cast [@boss1] Taunt

Boss 2 Taunt --- Casts Taunt on Boss2

/cast [@boss2] Taunt

Mouseover Macros

Charge -- Charge your target unless your mouse is over another enemy, then it targets that enemy and charges it.

/target [@mouseover, harm, nodead]
/cast Charge

Intervene --- This macro makes you Intervene a friendly player your mouse is over.

/cast [@mouseover,help] Intervene

Mouseover Focus --- This macro sets your mouseover as your focus

/focus [@mouseover]

Cursor Macros

Ravager

/cast [@cursor] Ravager

Thunderous Roar and Champion's Spear Macro --- If you have Champion's Spear talented it's used on your cursor. If you have both abilities talented then it only uses Champion's Spear.

/cast [known:376079,@cursor] Champion's Spear; Thunderous Roar

Heroic Leap

/cast [@cursor] Heroic Leap

Recommended Macros

Defensive Stance and Battle Stance --- With this you can swap stances from 1 keybind.

/cast [stance:2] Defensive Stance; stance[:3] Battle Stance

Intervene --- This macro makes you Intervene a friendly player in the direction you are facing. It is less precise than a mouse over macro, but easier to use.

/targetfriendplayer
/cast Intervene
/targetlasttarget

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Protection Warrior, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.

Addons

• Shadowed Unit Frames (SUF) -- Full User Interface replacement
  • Addon to replace your Unitframes and other UI Elements with a more clean look. Takes quite some time to configure but there are plenty of pre-done profiles that you can easily import and check out.
• BigWigs -- Generic Boss Mod
  • BigWigs is a boss encounter add-on. It consists of many individual encounter scripts, or boss modules; mini add-ons that are designed to trigger alert messages, timer bars, sounds, and so forth, for one specific raid encounter.
• Weakauras -- Jack of all trades
  • WeakAuras is a powerful and flexible framework that allows the display of highly customizable graphics on World of Warcraft's user interface to indicate buffs, debuffs, and other relevant information. This addon was created to be a lightweight replacement for Power Auras but has since introduced more functionalities while remaining efficient and easy to use.
• Plater -- Advanced Nameplates
  • Plater is a nameplate addon with an extraordinary amount of settings, out of the box debuff tracking, threat coloring, and support for scripting similar to WeakAuras and wago.io + the WeakAuras-Companion for Mod/Script/Profile updates.
• Details -- In-depth Damage Meter
  • Most powerful, reliable, handsome, damage meter for World of Warcraft.
• MRT -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
  • Helpful addon for raiders, especially for raid leaders and officers.
• Echo Raid Tools -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
  • Echo Raid Tools is a World of Warcraft addon designed by Echo Esports to enhance raiding efficiency. It offers "Echo Approved" WeakAuras for each raid boss accessible through an in-game Dungeon Journal interface, allowing easy import and customization.
• Bartender -- Action Bar Changer
  • Bartender4 is a comprehensive action bar replacement addon for World of Warcraft. It allows full customization of action bars, including scaling, alpha settings, and visibility based on macro conditions.

Weakauras

Rage Bar

Shows your current Rage.

Patch 11.0.2

• Warrior
  • Shield Slam damage increased by 8%.
  • Pain and Gain now heals for 2% of your max health (was 3.5%).
• Protection
  • Melee attack and all ability damage increased by 30%.
  • Revenge damage increased by 25%.
  • Execute damage increased by 50%.
  • Devastator damage increased by 25%.
  • Shield Charge primary target damage increased by 25%.
  • Ravager damage increased by 25%.
  • Defensive Stance reduces damage taken by 16% (was 20%).
  • Fight Through the Flames causes Defensive Stance to reduce magic damage you take by 6% (was 5%).
  • Into the Fray increases Haste up to 8% (was 10%).
  • Punish reduces damage enemies deal to you by 2% (was 3%).
  • Enduring Alacrity increases Stamina and Armor by 8% (was 10%).
  • Indomitable increases your maximum health by 6% (was 10%) and heals you for 1% of your maximum health per 20 Rage spent (was 10 Rage).
  • Defender's Aegis reduces Shield Wall's cooldown by 60 seconds (was 30 seconds).
  • Impenetrable Wall causes Shield Slam to generate an additional 4 Rage (was 3 rage) and reduces the remaining cooldown of Shield Wall's by 6 seconds (was 5 seconds).
  • Disrupting Shout cooldown increased to 90 seconds (was 75 seconds).
  • Impending Victory heals you for 20% of your maximum health (was 30%). 

Patch 11.0.1

• Warrior
  • All talent trees have had many talents move locations or have had their pathing updated.
  • Honed Reflexes has been redesigned – Cooldown of Die By the Sword, Enraged Regeneration, Shield Wall, Pummel, Intervene, Spell Reflection, and Storm Bolt reduced by 5%.
  • Second Wind gains an additional effect – While you are below 35% health, restores 1.0% health every 1 second. The amount restored increases the closer you are to death (max 2%).
  • Berserker Rage is now learned at level 12.
  • Slam damage increased by 130%. Arms Slam damage bonus reduced to 50% (was 75%).
  • Bladestorm damage increased by 70%.
  • Ravager damage decreased by 10%.
  • Sudden Death can now stack 2 times.
  • Thunder Clap Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30) and now applies Rend by default if it is known.
  • Frothing Berserker now refunds 10% Rage for Arms and Fury, and 25% Rage for Protection.
  • Shockwave no longer generates Rage on cast.
  • Champion's Spear generates 10 Rage on cast (was 20).
  • Thunderous Roar no longer generates Rage on cast.
  • Thunderous Roar now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets. The tooltip will reflect this change in a future update.
  • Thunderous Words now causes Thunderous Roar’s Bleed effect to increase damage targets take from all the Warrior’s bleed effects, rather than passively increasing it all the time.
  • Odyn's Fury now deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets. The tooltip will reflect this change in a future update.
  • Uproar now reduces the cooldown of Thunderous Roar by 45 seconds (was 30 seconds).
  • Champion’s Might now causes you to deal 25% increased critical strike damage to targets chained to your Spear.
  • Piercing Challenge now increases all damage dealt by Champion’s Spear (was only initial damage).
  • The visual for Shockwave will now properly match its radius, both with and without the Rumbling Earth talent. Impact visual has also been updated.
  • The visual for Thunderous Roar has been adjusted.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Rallying Cry to increase maximum health by 15% instead of the intended 10%.
  • The following talents have been removed:
    • Titanic Throw
    • Sonic Boom
    • Blood and Thunder

• Protection
  • New Talent: Fight Through the Flames – Defensive Stance additionally reduces magic damage you take by 5%.
  • Battle-Scarred Veteran has been updated – When a damage event reduces your health below 30%, the portion of that damage event that would apply to the last 30% of your health is also reduced by 80%.
  • Dance of Death has been redesigned – When an enemy dies while affected by your Ravager, its duration is extended by 2 seconds. This effect can trigger a maximum of 3 times per use of Ravager.
  • Whirlwind base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
  • Whirlwind damage reduced by 33%.
  • Execute damage increased by 15%.
  • Rend base Rage cost reduced to 20 (was 30).
  • Defensive Stance no longer reduces damage dealt by Protection Warriors.
  • Immovable Object tooltip updated with detailed information. No functional changes.
  • Improved Heroic Throw has been removed.

Q: Why did I die to magic damage during Spell Block?

A: You probably had downtime on your Shield Block which is required for Spell Block to work.

Credits

Written By: Wolfdisco, Meeres

Reviewed By: Sho