Protection Warrior Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Midnight (12.0.1)

The best gear you can find will come from the Weekly Mythic+ chest, now known as the Great Vault, and from Mythic Raiding. In addition to these, you can also place crafting orders once you have the necessary pieces.

While a definitive BiS list is hard to create, there are cases where specific gear can be best in slot. For example, some trinkets have extremely powerful special effects, and you will want to seek them out regardless of the item level. Sometimes, some rings have special effects that outweigh item level increases or the benefit of specific secondary stats.

As a general rule of thumb, any increase in item level is an upgrade. For Protection Warriors, the value of all the secondary stats is close enough together that you should only look at what secondary stats a piece has if you are comparing across the same item level. Not only that, but Stamina and Strength increases are significant as well.

All in all, if you come across gear that is an item-level upgrade (or has a socket and your current piece does not), equip it. If two pieces of equipment are the same item level, equip the best piece according to the stat priority. Finally, be aware of gear where the item level does not matter as much, which is the case for specific trinkets, rings, and gear with special effects, etc.

Simulation tools are used to simulate which piece of gear would provide the most damage output. While this might seem irrelevant as a tank, it is the opposite. A good tank will be tanky while contributing to the best of their abilities to the group's overall damage output.

Simulations as a tank should be mainly used to figure out which piece of gear of similar item level you should equip. Always follow the item level rule of "higher item level = better first" when choosing gear.

2.

BiS Gear for Protection Warrior

Pre-Season BiS

2.1.

Pre-Season BiS for Protection Warrior

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear for Pre-Season of Midnight. BiS lists are created in a vacuum, so for the best result, always sim yourself.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Helm	Fletcher's Faded Faceplate	Windrunner Spire
Neck	Yoke of the Charging Bear	Den of Nalorakk
Shoulder	Cinderfury Shoulderguards	Murder Row
Cloak	Defiant Defender's Drape	Magister's Terrace
Chest	Taproot Ribs	The Blinding Vale
Bracers	Overseer's Vambraces	Murder Row
Gloves	Embergrove Grasps	Windrunner Spire
Belt	Riphook Defender	Windrunner Spire
Legs	Lightscarred Cuisses	Nexus-Point Xenas
Boots	Footwraps of Ill-Fate	Maisara Caverns
Ring #1	Omission of Light	Nexus-Point Xenas
Ring #2	Occlusion of Void	Nexus-Point Xenas
Trinket #1	Vessel of Tortured Souls	Maisara Caverns. It is only good if you can pickup the souls, otherwise do not use it.
Trinket #2	Heart of Wind / Idol of the War Loa	Windrunner Spire / Den of Nalorakk
Weapon	Thorned Reply	The Blinding Vale
Shield	Ward of the Spellbreaker	Magister's Terrace

3.

Other Noteworthy Gear for Protection Warriors

In the following sections, you can find some additional noteworthy gear. To better understand the secondary stat prioritization for gear, look at the guide below, where each of the stats is broken down into bite-sized pieces.

Protection Warrior Stat Priority

Trinkets Shields Weapons

3.1.

Trinkets for Protection Warriors

Trinkets are some of the more unique items in the game due to their various effects. They can either help bolster your defenses or assist in dishing out even more damage. Regardless of which you will choose, below you can find a list of other noteworthy trinkets for us. There is still number tuning on-going, so this list will be volatile depending on the changes to come.

• Vessel of Tortured Souls — to note, you need to actually notice the souls and pick them up. If you cannot do it reliably, this trinket is not worth it.
• Idol of the War Loa
• Heart of Wind
• Resonant Bellowstone
• Seed of the Devouring Wild
• Manaheart's Binding Flame

3.2.

Shields for Protection Warriors

A good shield is the most important piece of gear. Shield upgrades provide a much larger defensive boost than upgrades to other slots.

You can acquire high item-level shields from dungeons, raids, and the Great Vault weekly chest. The following shields are available from current dungeons and raids.

Item	Source
Ward of the Spellbreaker	Seranel Sunlash, in Magister's Terrace
Reflux Reflector	Chief Corewright Kasreth, in Nexus-Point Xenas
Teldrassil's Sacrifice	Ziekket, in The Blinding Vale

Use the highest item level shield you can, regardless of its secondary stats.

3.3.

Weapons for Protection Warriors

Just as shields are important, so are weapons. They increase our damage output, allowing us to provide more to the group's performance. Below, you can find a solid selection of weapons.

Item	Source
Thorned Reply	Ziekket, in The Blinding Vale
Taz'Rah's Cosmic Edge	Taz'Rah, in Voidscar Arena
Malfeasance Mallet	Arcanotron Custos, in Magister's Terrace
Warworn Cleaver	Commander Kroluk, in Windrunner Spire

As with shields, use the highest item level weapon you have, regardless of the secondary stats.

Embellishments are various additional effects on craftable items. These can be either baseline effects on certain items or other effects that can be added by optional reagents when crafting an item.

While there are multiple embellishment options, you can have only two active at any time. There is still tuning on-going, so I recommend not to rush with crafting embellishments. If you do however want to craft them, then for Protection Warriors, we recommend the following:

• Darkmoon Sigil: Hunt on a weapon as your initial craft.
• Arcanoweave Lining on a suitable armor slot.

You can replace the Darkmoon Sigil: Hunt once you gain access to a fully upgraded Mythic track weapon. Instead of it, you can craft another armor slot with Arcanoweave Lining or opt for the Devouring Banding as a solid alternative.

To upgrade your gear, you will use Crests, obtainable from various forms of content in the game. They can be used to upgrade gear depending on which track they drop in.

For more information on the Gear Upgrades system, check out our dedicated page for it below.

Since you need more Crests per upgrade level, it would be advisable to not upgrade your gear with Mythic crests in the first couple of weeks of Midnight. Once you do decide to upgrade, below you can find a list of rough priority on which items to upgrade first. For the best upgrade option for your character, be sure to sim yourself.

1. Weapon / Shield
2. Chest / Legs / Shoulders / Helm
3. Trinkets
4. Feet / Hands / Waist / Wrist
5. Back / Neck / Rings

Whenever you get a new piece of gear, enchant it if possible. The best enchants for us can be found on the page linked below.