Protection Warrior Patch 9.2 Changes Analysis and Tier Set Thoughts

This page will go over the changes in Patches 9.2, specifically how the changes impact the playstyle, Legendaries, Covenants and other topics. If you are simply interested in what the current changes are for Protection Warrior in 9.2, you can instead read our full list of changes to the entire Warrior class on our dedicated pages below. For an additional list of content in Patch 9.2, you can also check out our Patch Overview page.

Currently there are no base spec changes for Protection Warriors in Patch 9.2. However, with the addition of Tier sets and double Legendaries there will be likely a change to how you play the class.

There have been no changes to the Talents for Protection Warriors. While no changes have been made to the Talents themselves, we will be able to choose between various options more freely due to being allowed to equip 2 Legendaries at once.

Within the new Sepulcher of the First Ones raid that will be coming in Patch 9.2, every class will once again earn pieces of a gear set that is uniquely class-themed with its own two- and four-piece bonuses for every specialization. For Protection Warrior, these set bonuses currently are:

• Protection Warrior 2-Piece — Consuming 30 rage grants a stack of Seeing Red, which transforms into Outburst at 8 stacks, causing your next Shield Slam or Thunder Clap to be 200% more effective and grant Ignore Pain.
• Protection Warrior 4-Piece — Avatar increases your damage dealt by an additional 10% and decreases damage taken by 10%. Avatar instantly grants Outburst.

The Protection Warrior 2-Piece bonus stack management is going to be fairly important in how well you will be performing as a Protection Warrior. You need to pay close attention to your Seeing Red stacks as to not use the wrong ability once it reaches 8 stacks and transforms to Outburst. When paired together with the Protection Warrior 4-Piece and Anger Management you can expect to use an empowered Shield Slam or Thunder Clap every ~20 seconds. Talking about the abilities, it is almost always better to use the buff on Shield Slam unless you are dealing with heavy AoE situations. The 200% bonus applies for both the Rage generated and the damage dealt by the abilities, also the slow applied by Thunder Clap. This means that instead of 15 Rage, Shield Slam generates 45 Rage. 45 Rage is almost half of our Rage bar, so overcapping Rage is going to become a real issue if not paying attention. Another, although smaller, benefit we gain is the free Ignore Pain every time we consume the Outburst stack. Considering the frequency we will be benefiting from this buff we can also expect an increase to our survivability in the form of free Ignore Pains.

While the 2-piece bonus requires some additional thought and attention to use properly, the Protection Warrior 4-Piece bonus is fairly straightforward and mostly passive. Both the increased damage dealt and decreased damage taken while Avatar is active are solid benefits. This bonus further encourages us to pick the already-potent Anger Management Talent on the last row to provide us even more Avatar uptime. Every time you use Avatar you also will empower your next Shield Slam or Thunder Clap which in turn leads to more damage, more Rage, and feeds nicely into Anger Management.

All things considered, these bonuses will make the class play even smoother than before thanks to the extra Rage generation. It also pushes us into using Anger Management due to the increased Avatar uptime which in return leads to more Outburst stacks creating a nice little circle. You should definitely try to get the set bonus as fast as possible when it becomes available, either from Sepulcher of the First Ones raid or from other sources!

Generally speaking Kyrian and Night Fae will still be the best generic choices for Protection Warriors. There is however one Covenant which is becoming a lot better with Patch 9.2 — Necrolord. While there have not been any changes to Necrolord, the ability to use 2 Legendaries and the increased Rage generation from our new Tier set make it a very solid choice. Glory, the Necrolord Legendary, is already pretty strong, but with the chance to also equip Reprisal and our new Tier set, both of which increase our Rage generation, the uptime of this bonus skyrockets!

While the other 3 Covenants are all solid options for us now, Venthyr unfortunately lacks behind due to the lackluster Covenant Legendary, Sinful Surge.

Recall that in Patch 9.1, every class received a Legendary Power that was unique to each Covenant. For Warriors, these Powers were:

• Kyrian — Elysian Might — Increases the duration of Spear of Bastion and also increases your Critical Strike damage while remaining within its area.
• Necrolord — Glory — Causes Conqueror's Banner to affect 1 additional ally and increases the buff's duration on you depending on the Rage spent.
• Night Fae — Nature's Fury — Increases the duration and damage dealt of Ancient Aftershock.
• Venthyr — Sinful Surge — Condemn extends the duration of Avatar by 2.5 seconds.

With Patch 9.2 comes the ability to use 2 Legendary Powers — one Covenant-specific and one generic one. The Covenant-specific Legendaries were already in a solid place but they were mostly not used due to how strong our other options like Reprisal and Seismic Reverberation are. With this change we can use a combination of Legendaries making for a lot of fun interactions!

Glory is all about generating as much Rage as possible in order to increase the uptime of Conqueror's Banner. While you could already maintain this buff for a significant duration this will become even better when paired together with a Rage generating Legendary like The Wall or Reprisal. The extra Rage provided by either of these Legendaries will make Necrolord a strong contender for one of the best Covenants due to the sheer value and potential uptime of Conqueror's Banner.

Nature's Fury increases your damage output by a solid amount, the downside is that it comes with no defensive benefit making it a lackluster choice when compared to something like Reprisal. All of this is in the past now! You can equip Nature's Fury and Reprisal and gain the best of both worlds! When talking about Mythic+ you can also pair it with Seismic Reverberation for extremely high AoE damage!

Elysian Might is going to pair well with both Reprisal and Seismic Reverberation. When paired with Reprisal it makes for a solid all-around combination providing a good combination of offensive and defensive powers. Pairing it with Seismic Reverberation mostly makes sense in Mythic+ dungeons or Sepulcher of the First Ones fights that have the constant presence of 3+ enemies. This will be your damage-heavy option if survivability is not a issue.

Sinful Surge is a fairly lackluster power as you only benefit from it while the enemy is at certain health thresholds. Venthyr is also the only Covenant with an ability that does not directly generate Rage but rather spends it. If you do however enjoy playing Venthyr you could pair Sinful Surge together with Reprisal for the increased Rage and defensive gains which feeds into the Condemn usage.