Protection Warrior Tank Easy Mode — The War Within (11.1.7)

This build is a decent combination of offensive and defensive talents, making it a good all-around raid build.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the best build directly into your game!

To understand the ability priority listed below, you first need to understand what all the abilities do. For in-depth information regarding all the abilities mentioned here, as well as many more, you can look into the Spells Summary guide linked below.

The basic rotation as a Protection Warrior is based on the following priority. As said, this is a priority. It is not the exact sequence in which abilities should be cast, but rather, each time you are able to cast an ability, you should start at the top of the list and cast the first available ability.

Our most gameplay-changing talent combination is Avatar and Unstoppable Force, there is a separate section in our rotation page for this combo altogether!

Hero Talents
Colossus	Mountain Thane

Ignore Pain will take priority over any other ability if your next cast would put you past your maximum Rage. Otherwise use Ignore Pain to dump any excessive Rage, as it is off the global cooldown. In addition, ensure that you always have Shield Block up when actively tanking.

1. Cast Avatar on cooldown.
2. Cast Demoralizing Shout on cooldown.
3. Cast Champion's Spear, if talented.
4. Cast Demolish on cooldown.
5. Cast Thunderous Roar, if talented.
6. Cast Shield Charge on cooldown.
7. Cast Thunder Blast whenever it procs.
8. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown.
9. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown.
10. Cast Execute if you do not need Rage for survivability.
11. Cast Revenge, if you do not need Rage for survivability.

Against multiple targets, using the above priority will still generate the most Rage, thus allowing for the most active mitigation usage and best survivability.

As an additional priority, make sure you are buffing yourself and your group with Battle Shout before entering combat.

While the above briefly explains how and when to use each ability, there are a lot more specific things and interactions going on between various spells. Understanding all of these is crucial as a Protection Warrior. All of the interactions are explained in the Rotation guide below.

The Combat Assistant is a feature introduced in Patch 11.1.7 which, simply put, helps you with your basic offensive rotation. To learn more about this new feature, we recommend taking a look at our Combat Assistant guide.

It is usable on an acceptable level, as long as you weave in your offensive and defensive cooldowns. It follows our basic DPS rotational priorities quite well, but if you want to get the most out of the class, we recommend against using it. The assistant only casts your basic offensive abilities, and you will still need to use your offensive cooldowns and defensive abilities like Shield Block, Ignore Pain and others by yourself in order to survive.

For slightly more in-depth information about the Combat Assistant for Protection Warrior, take a look at the Rotation page.

As a tank, your main goal is to get threat of the enemies and stay alive. To help you achieve this, we have various tools that will help you mitigate damage or recover from it. Using these abilities correctly is crucial, as failing to do so will result in death.

Your rotation is only there to generate Rage for you, which you should then invest into your active mitigation abilities, Shield Block, and Ignore Pain.

Shield Block is your primary active mitigation ability. It should be used anytime you are actively tanking an enemy and should be kept up as much as possible. Using this takes priority over using Ignore Pain. While you are not tanking, you should generally spend a charge if you are about to be at 2 charges (which is the max). Even when not tanking, Shield Block increases Shield Slam's damage by 30%.

Ignore Pain should be used in addition to Shield Block. While Shield Block is limited by its cooldown, Ignore Pain is simply limited by the amount of Rage you have available. As such, once you have Shield Block up and on cooldown, spend your remaining Rage on Ignore Pain, making sure you save enough Rage to use Shield Block once it comes off cooldown. If you know a large amount of damage is incoming, it is worth pooling your Rage in order to cast Ignore Pain right before the damage goes out, increasing the likelihood that you survive.

As a Protection Warrior, you have a number of defensive cooldowns that you can pick up via talents.

• Last Stand can and should be used in two different ways, depending on the situation. With Bolster, Last Stand gives you Shield Block for its duration. As such, if you do not have Shield Block available but are actively tanking and need to block for survivability purposes, then Last Stand should be used in this situation. If there are many high-damage mechanics or if you are able to have Shield Block up for the majority of your active tanking time, then Last Stand should instead be used if your health drops to a dangerously low level or in preparation for receiving a large amount of damage.
• Shield Wall should be used before you receive a large amount of damage. It decreases all the damage you take by 40% for its duration. Since it lasts for a reasonably long time, you should try to use it for longer periods of high damage intake.
• Demoralizing Shout together with Booming Voice should be used as many times as possible during the encounter for Rage generation purposes as stated in the ability priority. However, it is absolutely worth not using it in that way and saving it instead if you need another cooldown for a period of high damage.
• Spell Reflection reflects the next spell cast against you back to the attacker and reduces magic damage taken by 25% for 5 seconds (or until a spell is reflected). Most magic damage boss abilities cannot be reflected. As such, the primary use of Spell Reflection is for mitigating magical damage rather than reflecting spells. It is important to know beforehand where that magic damage is and use Spell Reflection accordingly.
• Spell Block is a talent which allows your Shield Block to also block spells. This is an extremely strong ability, which allows you to easily mitigate extended periods of magic damage. The only downside here is that not all magic abilities are blockable. To put it broadly, most direct magic damage casts targeted at you are blockable, while AoE magic damage and damage-over-time types are not always blockable. Spell Block only works if you have Shield Block up.

You might not have all of them, depending on which talents you choose to run.

• Cast Avatar on cooldown. With Unstoppable Force, Thunder Clap is available every other global cooldown. Just be aware of this and make sure to continue to follow the ability priority. You may have streaks where you constantly rotate between Shield Slam and Thunder Clap due to Thunder Clap resetting Shield Slam. In such cases, you should pay more attention to your Rage bar to avoid going over the maximum and using Ignore Pain or Revenge to spend some of that Rage.
• Thunderous Roar, Champion's Spear, Shield Charge, Ravager are all various offensive cooldowns that we can opt into via talents. Generally, they are straightforward and do not need any specific pre-planning or positioning. Try to cast them on cooldown and during the Demoralizing Shout and Avatar windows to maximize their damage potential.