Forever Protection Warrior Tank Guide

Protection Warrior focuses on standing at the front of the fight, using a shield to reduce incoming damage while building threat and controlling multiple enemies. It is a great fit for players who enjoy tanking, managing dangerous pulls, and turning defensive mechanics into more Rage and abilities. Talents such as Shield Specialization and Master of Defense further support this playstyle by rewarding Blocks, Dodges, and Parries with additional Rage, making Protection feel more active as you gain access to more of your toolkit.

This guide covers leveling and PvE content through level 20. The talent build and combat recommendations are based on the WoW Forever trainer and talent information currently available, and will be updated as beta testing reveals anything that was missed during the demo or changed in later builds.

The ratings below reflect the current Level 20 toolkit and are not intended to represent the specialization's end-game potential. We are also assuming you are spending most of your time in dungeons after reaching max level.

These basic habits will help throughout most of the leveling process, from choosing useful professions and racials to keeping your abilities trained and fighting enemies close to your level. Following them will make leveling more consistent and help cut down on unnecessary downtime as you progress.

Warriors should usually fight enemies around their own level or slightly below it. Before pulling, check your Health, nearby enemies, and how much room you have to fight safely. Recover between pulls when needed, and consider grouping up for elites or crowded quest areas. If necessary, use a ranged weapon to pull an enemy back to you instead of moving directly into a dangerous area.

Weapon upgrades should remain one of your highest priorities while leveling. Compare the damage per second and damage range of a new weapon with your current one, and make sure you keep the appropriate weapon skill trained. When swapping to a different weapon type, practice against lower-level enemies until the new weapon skill catches up, as even a strong upgrade will perform poorly if your skill with it is too low.

Return to your trainer regularly to learn useful abilities and higher spell ranks, and remember to place any newly trained abilities on your action bars. Keep enough money available for training instead of spending everything on a small gear upgrade that you may replace shortly afterward.

Mining and Blacksmithing are a strong combination while leveling, as Mining directly provides the materials Blacksmithing needs to craft your own weapons and armor. Not every crafted item will improve your gear, so compare recipes against what you are currently using before spending your limited materials. Use Blacksmithing to fill important gaps in your equipment rather than slowing down your leveling route to craft every recipe you unlock.

Engineering is also a strong profession choice, especially for Gnomes thanks to their racial Engineering Specialization. Once Blacksmithing has provided the gear you need, you can replace it with Engineering, or eventually drop Mining if you want to use Blacksmithing and Engineering together as your endgame professions. Avoid dropping Mining too early, as you should first gather the materials needed to fully level both professions and craft the gear you want before giving up your main source of ore.

Cooking is another useful profession to level alongside your character, letting you make your own food instead of relying entirely on vendors and saving you a large amount of money over time. Any food that provides a food buff now also increases experience gained by 5%, giving Cooking even more value while leveling. Fishing works especially well alongside Cooking by providing a steady supply of ingredients and making it much easier to keep your Cooking skill leveled as you progress.

Alliance: Night Elf — Elune's Light increases your Critical Strike Chance by 10% for 15 seconds, giving you a strong offensive cooldown that helps generate additional threat. Shadowmeld allows you to enter Stealth while standing still, giving Night Elves additional utility outside of combat; Shadowmeld resets aggro if used when alone. Quickness increases your Dodge Chance by 1% and Movement Speed by 2%, both of which are great for tanking. Wisp Spirit increases your Movement Speed while dead by 75%, making corpse runs much faster if you do die.

Horde: Tauren — War Stomp stuns nearby enemies for 2 seconds, giving you an additional way to control multiple enemies while tanking and briefly stop incoming damage. Endurance increases your total Health by 5% and Hit Chance by 1%, providing both additional survivability and more reliable attacks. Plainsrunning increases your Movement Speed the longer you continue running, making Tauren especially useful for getting around the world during the beta, where the level cap prevents access to mounts.

Shield Specialization is our first 5 points, increasing your chance to Block while also allowing your blocks to generate additional Rage. We mainly take this for the extra Rage generation, which will be what we mostly build around.

Improved Thunder Clap reduces the Rage cost of Thunder Clap, allowing you to use it more efficiently when tanking multiple enemies. Thunder Clap can now also be used in Defensive Stance, making the reduced Rage cost especially useful for establishing threat on multiple enemies. Great for tanking dungeons.

Improved Bloodrage increases the amount of Rage generated by Bloodrage. Rage can be difficult to generate at lower levels, especially at the start of a pull, making the additional Rage useful for quickly using your important threat and defensive abilities after entering combat.

Our final point goes into Master of Defense, giving you a 50% chance to generate 5 Rage whenever you Dodge or Parry while a shield is equipped. Combined with Shield Specialization generating Rage from blocks, you will be generating a constant flow of Rage, allowing you to use abilities constantly.

While the beta does not give you access to your entire talent tree or spell book, you can still learn much about playing a Warrior during the first few levels of gameplay.

Rage is the resource Warriors spend on most of their abilities. You generate it from auto-attacks, taking damage, and abilities such as Charge and Bloodrage. Rage slowly decays while you are out of combat, so learning when to save it and when to spend it on important abilities is a major part of playing a Warrior. Rage generation is limited at lower levels, making efficient use of it especially important.

At level 4 you can train Charge, allowing you to quickly reach an enemy while generating a small amount of Rage. It can only be used outside of combat, making it a great way to start a fight with some Rage already available. At level 10 you can also get Bloodrage, sacrificing Health to generate 10 Rage immediately and another 10 Rage over 10 seconds. Use Bloodrage whenever possible to help maintain your Rage, especially between pulls where it can prevent too much Rage from decaying.

Heroic Strike spends Rage to increase the damage of your next auto-attack. This changes that swing from an auto-attack, or white hit, into a special attack, or yellow hit. Special attacks do not generate Rage, making Heroic Strike inefficient during most of the leveling process. It is primarily an endgame ability used when you have more Rage than you can spend on your other abilities.

Stances are unique to Warriors and determine which abilities you can use, as some abilities require a specific stance. Each stance also provides its own buff, and only one can be active at a time. You can swap stances at any point, including during combat, but doing so causes you to lose all of your Rage. At level 14 you can learn Tactical Mastery, allowing you to retain up to 10 Rage when changing stances.

At this level you only have access to two stances, with Battle Stance available by default and Defensive Stance becoming available after completing the Warrior class quest at level 10.

Battle Stance — This is your primary stance for questing and dealing damage while playing solo. It allows you to use Charge to begin a fight and Overpower after an enemy dodges one of your attacks. You will only be using this stance to Charge into combat, or while playing alone.

Defensive Stance — Reduces the damage you take and deal by 10%. Also increases your threat generated by 30%, helping keep enemies focused on you while tanking. Gives you access to abilities such as Shield Block and Disarm, providing several defensive options when fighting stronger enemies. This is our main stance that you will be in the majority of the time while playing with a group.

Shield Bash is your only available interrupt at this level and requires a shield to be equipped. Luckily you should already be wearing a shield, allowing you to quickly use Shield Bash when fighting enemies with dangerous casts, which will greatly reduce the damage they deal.

Hamstring slows your target, helping prevent fleeing enemies from reaching nearby groups or giving you space to retreat from a dangerous fight. Remember that Hamstring can only be used in Battle Stance, so you may need to swap before using it. Pay attention to your surroundings when trying to escape, as moving carelessly can easily pull additional enemies.

Mocking Blow forces an enemy to attack you for a short time. This can help pull an enemy away from a vulnerable party member, but be prepared to take the incoming attacks yourself after using it.

Retaliation becomes available at Level 20, causing you to counterattack enemies that hit you from the front. This is especially useful when fighting multiple melee enemies or recovering from a difficult pull. Keep enemies in front of you to get the full benefit, as attacks from enemies behind you can not be countered.

Below is our recommended rotation for Protection Warriors during the WoW Forever Beta, with additional information for each ability explaining when and how it should be used.

Try not to spend Rage on an ability when an enemy is about to die. When the target is low on Health, finish it with an auto-attack instead so you can carry your remaining Rage into the next pull.

1. Prepare for the pull — Keep Battle Shout active at all times. If it is not already active when combat begins, use it as soon as you have enough Rage.
2. Use Charge if possible — remember that Charge can only be used outside of combat, has a limited range, can not be used if you are too close to the target, and can only be used in Battle Stance. After using this to get into combat quickly, swap back to Defensive Stance. Use Bloodrage if available after entering combat.
3. Debuff the target with Demoralizing Shout — Once you are close to your target, use Demoralizing Shout against non-casting enemies to reduce the damage they deal. While the reduction may seem small, the Health saved over multiple pulls reduces how often you need to stop and eat or heal, giving you more time to continue fighting.
4. Use Victory Rush if available — At level 20 you can train Victory Rush, which becomes usable after killing an enemy around your level. Victory Rush costs no Rage, deals solid damage, and restores 10% of your maximum Health. Use it early when available, as you only have a 20-second window before the proc expires; can only be used in Battle Stance.
5. Revenge with procs — Revenge can only be used after you successfully Block, Dodge, or Parry an attack. It has a very low Rage cost and generates a large amount of threat, making it one of your best abilities to use whenever it becomes available.
6. Sunder Armor once or twice early on — After completing the Warrior quest at level 10 you will unlock Sunder Armor, a stacking debuff that reduces the target's Armor with each application. For Protection Warriors, the threat generated by each application also makes it a useful way to keep enemies focused on you early in a fight. Try to spread your Sunder Armors out evenly on your targets to generate threat evenly among them all.

At lower levels, Warriors have limited ways to deal damage to multiple enemies at once, so you should avoid pulling more than one enemy whenever possible. If you accidentally pull more than one enemy and can not escape, focus on killing one target as quickly as possible. Removing an enemy from the fight will usually save you more Health than spreading your damage evenly between both targets.

Cleave allows you to damage more than one enemy by causing your next auto-attack to also hit a second nearby target. Cleave replaces that auto-attack with a special attack, meaning the swing will not generate Rage. This can make the ability difficult to use at lower levels due to its Rage cost, and it is common to only have enough Rage to use it once or twice during a fight.

Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout can reduce the damage you take while fighting multiple melee enemies. Both abilities cost Rage, so only use them when the extra protection is needed instead of automatically using them in every fight.

Hopefully you are tanking with our recommended spec, allowing you to use many more Thunder Claps and Cleaves than you would otherwise, thanks to the several Rage generating talents we took.

This section covers the what is currently know on best-in-slot gear, stats, and consumables for Protection Warriors during the WoW Forever beta test.

WoW Forever has completely changed dungeon loot and item stats, so traditional Classic gear lists can not be used to determine best-in-slot items for the beta. Specific level-20 recommendations will be added as more items and their drop sources are discovered. We expect many of the strongest options available during the beta to come from dungeons and crafted professions such as Blacksmithing.

WoW Forever also uses a different stat distribution system than many other RPGs, meaning an Uncommon item can sometimes be better than a much rarer piece of gear. Compare every potential upgrade directly against what you are currently using instead of judging an item only by its rarity or level requirement.

Stats are bonuses found on weapons and armor that improve different parts of your character. Some increase your damage, while others improve your survivability. You do not need perfectly optimized gear while leveling; instead, focus on consistently replacing weaker items with upgrades that improve your most important stats, listed below from best to worst:

Weapon Damage is your most important stat while leveling. A stronger weapon increases the damage of your auto-attacks and most of your abilities, helping you kill enemies faster and generate more threat while tanking. Weapon upgrades will usually provide more value than small increases to the stats on your armor, even if the weapon's secondary stats are not ideal.

Hit Chance reduces the chance that your melee attacks will miss. Missing an attack means dealing no damage, generating no Rage from that swing, and producing no threat, making Hit Chance especially valuable for Protection Warriors. Hit is uncommon on lower-level gear, so useful items with Hit Chance will often remain equipped for a long time.

Armor reduces the amount of Physical damage you take from enemy attacks, making it one of your strongest defensive stats while tanking. Higher Armor allows you to survive longer against melee enemies and reduces the amount of Health you lose during each pull, making Armor especially valuable when running dungeons or fighting stronger enemies.

Stamina increases your maximum Health, giving you a larger buffer against incoming damage. This is especially useful while tanking multiple enemies, fighting harder mobs, or recovering from an unexpected pull. Stamina does not directly reduce the damage you take, but the additional Health makes surviving dangerous situations much easier.

Agility increases your Dodge Chance, Critical Strike Chance, and provides a small amount of Armor. Dodge gives you another way to completely avoid incoming melee attacks, while the additional Crit Chance provides some extra damage and threat. This gives Agility a useful mix of defensive and offensive value for Protection Warriors.

Crit Chance increases your chance to critically strike with melee attacks and abilities. Critical strikes deal double damage, generating more Rage and increasing your threat while tanking. Like Hit Chance, flat Crit Chance is uncommon on lower-level gear, making it a useful offensive stat whenever it is available.

Strength increases your Attack Power, improving the damage of your auto-attacks and most of your abilities. More damage also means more threat, making Strength useful while tanking, but it provides less defensive value than Armor, Stamina, or Agility and should generally be prioritized after them while leveling.

Spirit increases the rate at which you regenerate Health while out of combat, helping reduce some of the time spent eating between fights. It can be convenient while leveling, but is not important enough to prioritize over your main offensive or defensive stats.

Intellect increases your Mana, which provides no useful benefit to a Warrior. Only consider gear with Intellect if the item is still a significant upgrade in a more important area, such as Weapon Damage.

Specific potion and elixir recommendations are not yet known and will be updated as more information becomes available during the beta. Look for a healing potion appropriate for your level, as these are among the most common consumables available early on and are extremely useful while leveling or running dungeons. Keep your Health Potions on an easy-to-reach action bar button so they are ready when you need them in an emergency.

Keep at least one or two stacks of food with you to restore Health between pulls, as this will be your main source of recovery when playing a Warrior on your own. You can also learn First Aid and craft bandages, which restore a portion of your Health over a short channel. First Aid is highly recommended, as bandages let you recover much faster than food.

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