Protection Warrior: Midnight Expansion Preview

There are a lot of noticeable changes on the Class tree. The main thing being that there is a bigger focus on utility rather than just plain damage focused nodes. There has also been a re-shuffle of the node locations inside the tree. Below you can find some of the more important changes.

• New talents being added:
  • Resonant Voice
  • Blood and Thunder
  • Deft Strikes
  • Retaliation
  • Battlefield Commander
• Talents being removed or moved to Spec tree:
  • Avatar moved to Protection tree
  • Berserker's Torment
  • Immovable Object
  • Piercing Challenge
  • Seismic Reverberation
  • Thunderous Roar
  • Thunderous Words
  • Unstoppable Force
  • Uproar
• Modified talents:
  • Anger Management now only reduces cooldown of Avatar and per every 20 Rage instead of 10
  • Last Stand is now a passive which procs automatically based on health
  • Honed Reflexes reduces cooldowns by 10%
  • Piercing Howl also increases your allies movement speed
  • Barbaric Training no longer increases Thunder Clap damage
  • Champion's Spear now pulls enemies towards it, much like the Death Knight's Death Grip
  • Intimidating Shout no longer has a target cap
  • Thunder Clap damage increased by 100%
  • Crushing Force is now a 1-point talent

One of the more crucial changes here is the Anger Management one. It has been severely nerfed, now requiring 20 Rage instead of 10 Rage per one second CDR. In addition to that, it no longer works on Shield Wall. This means that we will have less access to our best defensive spell and also take a big hit to the Avatar up-time, pretty much doubling the cooldown of it compared to before. If things stay like this, Anger Management might fall out of favour, and might not be played at all.

The second bigger change is the removal of Unstoppable Force. This has been a Protection staple for a while now, increasing our APM and the ease of gathering packs of mobs during Avatar. It played an especially big role for Mountain Thane and synergized well with Thunderlord. Removing this has made the familiar rotation a lot more foreign, so lets hope it finds its way back with the new Hero Talents!

Thunder Clap gained a massive 100% damage increase. This is enforcing the idea of making Thunder Clap an even more influential ability than it already is. It was already our second most important rotational ability to press on cooldown, so this change just makes it even more crucial to not miss any casts.

Last Stand being moved here and made a passive just gives more survivability to the Arms and Fury warriors. It is still a fairly bad defensive ability, seeing as it has hefty a 4-minute cooldown.

Piercing Howl grants movement speed! This makes the talent actually worth picking up as re-positioning quickly is something that often plays a big role in Raid encounters.

Protection talent tree got a recent overhaul in Patch 11.2, so the Midnight changes are not that big. That said, there are still some new additions, like Apex talents, and some modified nodes worth mentioning.

Apex talents

These are a new set of talents within your Spec tree, which focus on enhancing one of your core abilities. For us, this ability is Shield Slam.

• New talents being added:
  • Apex talents - Phalanx, Phalanx, Phalanx
  • Sweeping Revenge
  • I Can Do This All Day
  • Avatar, moved from Class tree
• Talents being moved to the Class tree:
  • Anger Management
  • Last Stand
  • Rend
  • Red Right Hand has been removed
• Modified talents:
  • Deep Wounds is now a talent. It is only applied by Execute
  • Revenge now only hits 3 targets by default
  • Violent Outburst only buffs your next Shield Slam, not Thunder Clap
  • Bloodsurge now works off of Rend instead of Deep Wounds
  • Fueled by Violence now heals off both, Deep Wounds and Rend

Outside of the changes to Anger Management, which were covered under the Class Tree Changes, there are not many significant topics to go over.

Revenge now hitting 3 targets by default is noticeable, but we can still talent into Sweeping Revenge to make it AoE again. Violent Outburst now not working on Thunder Clap will also take some time to get used to, but it will make the usage of this talent a lot more accessible for majority of players.

Deep Wounds being made a talent and being applied only by Execute is also a bit of a weird change. Previously it was also applied by Revenge, making it a easy additional source of damage in AoE. Now it has transformed into a single-target bleed, which is only taking full effect once the enemy is in Execute phase.

Midnight introduces Apex Talents. These are located in each classes Specialization tree. For Protection Warrior, these talents work to enhance our Shield Slam ability.

• Phalanx is a throwback to Dragonflight Tier 2 set. It causes your Shield Slam critical hits to create a shockwave of damage while reducing the damage enemies deal to you.
• Phalanx increases the damage dealt by Thunder Clap and the Phalanx shockwave.
• Phalanx enhances Shield Slam to deal even more damage while Shield Block is active and increases its critical strike chance by 20%.

These are decent passive bonuses which work just off of our basic rotation, no gameplay adjustments required. With Phalanx increasing the critical strike chance of Shield Slam, it seems to synergize well with Colossus due to Precise Might and other bonuses the tree provides to Shield Slam.

In addition to Protection Warrior's talent changes, Midnight also brings some modifications to the Mountain Thane and Colossus Hero trees. Both trees will gain new talents, but unfortunately these are not yet implemented.

Mountain Thane only change so far is that Thunder Blast has its damage increased by 100%. This is a big damage boost, and it follows the design goal that Thunder Clap should be the primary damaging ability in AoE.

Colossus has 2 changes. One, Demolish now makes you immune to movement forces during the channel. Two, One Against Many no longer works on Whirlwind. Both of these changes are really minor and change nothing in how the tree performs or plays.

Mountain Thane or Colossus

Considering the removal of Unstoppable Force and Seismic Reverberation, in addition to our new Apex talents, especially the Phalanx, it seems that we are leaning towards playing Colossus. The synergy between the Shield Slam crits from the Apex talent and the Precise Might from Colossus tree appears to be really strong.