TBC Classic Protection Warrior Guide

Warriors are melee fighters, heavily trained in the art of combat. They rely on their strength and incredible toughness to guide them through the thick of battle. Warriors are less flexible than other classes, but are tougher and capable of dealing devastating damage to their enemies much more quickly.

Focusing on the Warrior's defensive nature and wielding a shield, the Protection tree is undoubtedly the strongest spec for tanking Warriors. Warriors are still the only tank with game-changing cooldowns like Last Stand and Shield Wall, making them still strongly desirable as the main tank of any raid.

Strengths

• Lowest damage taken out of all tanks
• Great survivability cooldowns
• Brings great debuffs
• Becomes crush-immune almost instantly through Shield Block

Weaknesses

• Struggles with tanking multiple mobs at once
• Can struggle with Rage when out-gearing content
• Very reliant on using large amounts of different consumables

Warrior tanks remain a solid choice throughout all of the Burning Crusade, although they do not scale as well as other tank options. Several bosses have unique mechanics that are designed around having a Warrior main-tank, and require the Warrior's specific abilities to complete the fight. A well-played Warrior tank will outshine any "meta" tank played sub-optimally. That being said, many raids will likely not opt into bringing one, and you may find raid spots quite limited.

Rage is a Warrior's main resource, which is gained by damage dealt and damage taken, causing Warriors to overflow on resources when using high end gear. When tanking, a large portion of your Rage generated will be from incoming damage, especially if you are skipping a shield in favor of dual-wielding for higher threat. The more Rage you have available, the more abilities you can use to keep your enemies focused on attacking you, rather than your squishy allies.

Engineering remains one of the best professions available to Protection Warriors, offering multiple different explosives and utility items to help with tanking. The multiple type of bombs can be used frequently to help greatly with tanking multiple mobs at the same time. The trinkets offered last a long time, as well as the goggles available in Phase 2. Engineering is a Protection Warrior's best friend.

Blacksmithing is your preferred second profession if you are frequently playing as a DPS. This allows you access to several weapons, giving you a large boost to your off-spec gear set.

Enchanting will be your best secondary profession for pure tanking, giving +8 all stats. While this gain is fairly minor, there is not any other profession offering higher stats.

Leatherworking can be a good option if there are no other players with drums in your group during raids.

If you would like to learn more about how your profession of choice can be used to supplement your goldmaking, along with a variety of other means to bolster your income, see our full goldmaking guide linked below: