World of Warcraft: Forever Protection Warrior 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 30. 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 30 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.

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 Revenge grants a massive 60% damage increase to Revenge, our hardest hitting and lowest Rage costing ability; this is a huge power spike while leveling.

Here we will put only two points into Improved Thunder Clap, then we max out Master of Defense, generating 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. Put the third point into Improved Thunder Clap now, reducing Thunder Claps total cost by 6, allowing you to use it on cooldown when fighting multiple enemies.

Improved Revenge grants a massive 60% damage increase to Revenge, our hardest hitting and lowest Rage costing ability; this is a huge power spike while leveling. Next 3 points we get Defiance, increasing our threat generated by 15%. This is only needed if you are running dungeons, but you should be running those as often as you can if playing as Protection.

Improved Bloodrage increases the amount of Rage generated by Bloodrage; this is not a large amount of Rage over time, but anything helps out during these lower levels where your crit chance is low.

Vanguard allows you to charge in Defensive Stance, allowing you to quickly get into combat again and keep any Rage you had from the previous engagement. You still can not Charge in combat with Vanguard, but you will no longer need to swap over to Battle Stance and lose all of your Rage. This is a very strong leveling/dungeon option for only one talent point.

Next we'll grab 3 points into Improved Rend, greatly boosting our Rend damage. We finish off with 2 points into Cruelty, increasing your melee crit chance by 5%, providing a direct increase to your overall damage and Rage generated. I do not believe that Level 30 content is scary enough to justify needing Last Stand, but you may pick it instead if you feel better with it.

For those players who have invested into the legacy points system, it is possible to have a total of 5 extra talent points during this Level 30 cap on the beta if you take 5 points in Talented. Finish the last 3 points into Cruelty and grab Last Stand finally. Your last talent point can go anywhere you want, with Lingering Rage or Deflection being your best choices.

Alternatively if you wish to dive deeper into the Protection tree at max level to spam dungeons, drop all points from Improved Rend and Cruelty. Grab 3 points in Defiance, 1 point in Concussion Blow, and 3 points in Focused Rage. This give you a large boost in both threat and Rage generated throughout a fight, and are some of Prot Warriors best talents in the tree. Your last 2 points should go into Improved Shield Wall to greatly reduce Shield Walls cooldown by 11-minutes.

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. 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: Orc — Blood Fury increases your Attack Power by 10% for 15 seconds, giving you a nice boost to threat on the pull. Axe Specialization increases your Critical Strike Chance by 1% while using an axe, making axes especially valuable when available. Hardiness reduces the duration of stuns by 20%, while Shatter Curse removes and grants temporary immunity to Curses and Banes. It also reduces Magical damage taken for the duration. These racials combined give Orc a slight edge ahead of other races, giving you a nice mixture of offensive and defensive powers, while also being useful in other actives such as PvP or off-spec DPSing.

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. Once you have Vanguard, you can simply stay in Defensive Stance.

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.

Berserker Stance becomes available from Level 30 after completing the Warrior class quest. This stance increases your Critical Strike Chance by 3%, but also causes you to take 10% more damage. It allows you to use abilities such as Whirlwind and Pummel once you learn them. You will only use this stance for Intercept.

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.

Taunt becomes available at Level 10 and requires Defensive Stance. It forces an enemy to attack you briefly, making it useful when an enemy turns toward your healer or a DPS attacks too early. Follow it up with threat generating attacks to keep aggro on the enemy after the Taunt debuff expires; using it on an enemy that is already attacking you has no effect.

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.

Victory Rush becomes available at Level 20 and can be used for 20-seconds after you kill an enemy that's worth experience. It has no Rage cost, deals some damage, and restores up to 10% of your max health, making it especially useful when fighting enemies back-to-back. Use it before the Victorious buff expires after 20-seconds; Victory Rush also has a 30-second cooldown, preventing you from using it every single kill.

Intimidating Shout becomes available at Level 22 and causes your target to cower in fear while nearby enemies flee for a short time. Use it to create space when a pull goes badly, interrupt a dangerous cast, or give yourself time to escape. Be careful near other enemies, as fleeing targets can run into another group.

Challenging Shout becomes available at Level 26 and briefly forces all nearby enemies to attack you. It can save a party member when you lose aggro on several enemies at once, but the effect only lasts six seconds; unlike Taunt, Challenging Shout does not grant you threat, so you must establish aggro on the enemies after six seconds.

Shield Wall becomes available at Level 28 and reduces the damage you take by 60% for 12 seconds. With a 15-minute cooldown, you will want to save this for when you over-pull, or are fighting a dangerous boss.

Intercept becomes available at Level 30 and lets you charge an enemy during combat, dealing a small amount of damage and stunning it for 3-seconds. This is great for closing the gap on an enemy while in combat, catching a fleeing target or a player who is running away. Unlike Charge, Intercept costs Rage rather than generating it. Can only be used in Berserker Stance.

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. Use Bloodrage whenever available, ideally between pulls to help keep your Rage up.
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.
3. 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.
4. Apply Rend early;
   • Apply it early on in combat if that enemy that will survive for most of the bleeds duration. Don't reapply Rend when the target is close to death or you will waste most of the bleed and lose the Rage.
5. Keep Shield Block up.
   • Shield Block increases your chance to block by 75%, nearly guaranteeing that you will block and get 5 Rage back thanks to Shield Specialization. Blocking twice like this fully refunds the Rage cost of Shield Block while reducing your damage taken and triggering Revenge twice; use Shield Block on cooldown.
6. 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.
7. Use Victory Rush if available.
   • At Level 30 you can train Victory Rush, which becomes usable after killing an enemy around your level. Victory Rush costs no Rage, deals some 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, as shown by the buff it grants, Victorious.
8. 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. Avoid wasting Rage on additional Sunder Armor applications once the target is below 50% health, as this is generally the point where additional stacks are no longer worth it; stack to five on bosses.

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.

Shield Block should be used on cooldown to reduce your damage taken and trigger Revenge procs. With Shield Specialization Shield Block gives a full 10 Rage back when both block charges are consumed, making Shield Block free. Use Revenge on cooldown as it is your hardest hitting ability and costs only 5 Rage.

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. Thunder Clap should be used on cooldown for damage and threat, as Improved Thunder Clap makes it much easier to spam.

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.

Protection generates a large amount of its threat when fighting multiple enemies at once by swapping targets every few seconds, using 1-2 abilities on them, and then swapping targets again; this is to spread your threat out evenly against multiple targets and prevent AoE damage from pulling aggro from some of the mobs in the pack.

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 and cost reduction 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 reworked loot and item stats entirely, so a Classic-style equipment list cannot be used to make a best-in-slot gear list for the beta. Specific level-30 item recommendations will be added once most of the items and their drop sources have been discovered in the beta. We expect most of the best gear in the beta will come from dungeons and crafted profession such as Blacksmithing.

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:

1. Weapon Damage
   • Weapon Damage increases the damage of your auto-attacks and most of your abilities, helping you kill enemies faster and generate more threat while tanking.
2. Hit Chance
   • 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.
3. Strength
   • 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 one of the best threat stats available.
4. Agility
   • Agility increases your Dodge Chance, Crit Chance, and provides a small amount of Armor. This makes Agility a useful mix of defensive and offensive value for Protection Warriors.
5. Armor
   • Armor reduces the amount of Physical damage you take from enemy attacks, making it one of your strongest defensive stats while tanking.
6. Stamina
   • Stamina increases your maximum Health, giving you a larger buffer against incoming damage. Useful while tanking multiple enemies, fighting harder mobs, or recovering from an unexpected pull.
7. Crit Chance
   • Crit Chance increases your chance to critically strike with melee attacks and abilities. Critical strikes deal double damage and increase your threat while tanking; Crit is above Agility if focusing purely on threat.

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.

• Potions
  • Greater Healing Potion — Restores 520 health instantly.
  • Great Rage Potion — Instantly grants 30 to 60 Rage.
  • Rage Potion — A cheaper alternative that grants 20 to 40 Rage.
  • Frenzy Potion — Briefly increases your Attack Power.
  • Free Action Potion — Prevents stuns and movement-impairing effects for 30 seconds; it does not remove effects already on you.
  • Swiftness Potion — Increases run speed by 50% for 15 seconds.

• Elixirs
  • Elixir of Ogre Strength — Increases Strength by 8 for one hour.
  • Elixir of Agility — Increases Agility by 15 for one hour.
  • Elixir of Minor Force — Increases physical damage by 1 for 30 minutes.
  • Elixir of Lesser Fortitude — Increases maximum health by 120 for one hour.
  • Elixir of Defense — Increases Armor by 250 for one hour.
  • Troll's Blood Elixir — Regenerates 12 health every five seconds for one hour.

• Weapon Stones
  • Solid Sharpening Stone — Adds 6 damage to a sharp weapon for 30 minutes.
  • Solid Weightstone — Adds 6 damage to a blunt weapon for 30 minutes.

• Scrolls
  • Scroll of Strength II — Increases Strength by 9 for 30 minutes.
  • Scroll of Agility II — Increases Agility by 9 for 30 minutes.
  • Scroll of Protection III — Increases Armor by 180 for 30 minutes.

• Food Buffs
  • Bear Brisket — Grants 10 Strength and 5% more experience from kills for 15 minutes.
  • Plain Ol' Paletusk — Grants 10 Strength and 5% more experience from kills for 15 minutes.

• Bandages
  • Heavy Mageweave Bandage — Heals 1,104 damage over eight seconds; requires 175 First Aid to use.
  • Mageweave Bandage — Heals 800 damage over eight seconds; requires 150 First Aid to use.

WoW Forever has a new Camping system, allowing players to create a Campfire and give all nearby players specific buffs. These buffs are meant to be a way for raids to buff themselves with specific buffs that they would otherwise be missing, but also allows you to get them while questing, albeit in a weaker form. These buffs do not stack with their counter parts, so a stats buff from Fish Bowl will not stack with Blessing of Kings for example, and the version you get at lower levels will generally be weaker than the player given buff you would get in a raid. Below you will see all of the buffs available for Warriors that you can look out for while in the open world:

• Fish Bowl — From Fishing, increases all stats; exclusive with Blessing of Kings.
• Camp Chair — From Skinning, increases Critical Strike chance; exclusive with the bonus provided by Moonkin Aura.
• Sharpening Wheel — From Blacksmithing, increases Strength; exclusive with Strength of Earth Totem.
• Lodestone — From Mining, increases melee Attack Power, exclusive with Blessing of Might.
• Enchanted Lute — From Enchanting, increases Armor, all stats, and resistances, exclusive with Mark of the Wild.
• First Aid Kit — From First Aid, increases Stamina. Exclusive with Power Word: Fortitude.

Worth mentioning while you are leveling is Camp Tent from Leatherworking, which grants a small bit of rested exp, giving you a slight boost in experience gains for a short while.

More WoW Forever Warrior Guides

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