Protection Warrior Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Dragonflight 10.0.7

The best gear you can find will come from the Weekly Mythic+ chest, now known as the Great Vault, and from Mythic raiding. Before these are available, the best place to get gear from is doing your Covenant quests and Mythic 0 / Heroic dungeons. While you can only do one of each Mythic 0 dungeon a week, you can do multiple Heroic dungeons.

While a definitive BiS list is hard to create, there are cases where specific gear can be best in slot. For example, some trinkets have special effects that are extremely powerful, and you will want to seek them out regardless of item level. Sometimes, some rings have special effects that outweigh item level increases or the benefit of specific secondary stats.

As a general rule of thumb, any increase in item level is an upgrade. For Protection Warriors, the value of all the secondary stats is close enough together that you should only look at what secondary stats a piece has if you are comparing across the same item level. Not only that, Stamina and Strength increases are significant as well.

All in all, if you come across gear that is an item-level upgrade (or has a socket and your current piece does not), equip it. If two pieces of equipment are the same item level, equip the best piece according to the stat priority. Finally, be aware of gear where the item level does not matter as much, which is the case for specific trinkets, rings, and gear with special effects, etc.

Simulation tools are used to simulate which piece of gear would provide the most damage output. While this might seem irrelevant as a tank, it is the opposite. A good tank will be tanky while contributing to the best of their abilities to the group's overall damage output.

Simulations as a tank should be mainly used to figure out which piece of gear of similar item level you should equip. Always follow the item level rule of higher item level = better first when choosing gear.

Embellishments are various additional effects on craftable items. These can be either baseline effects on certain items like Shield of the Hearth or other effects which can be added by optional reagents when crafting an item. These crafted items also require a Spark of Ingenuity.

While there are multiple embellishment options, you can have only two active at any time. For Protection Warriors, we recommend the following:

• Elemental Lariat — this is currently the strongest embellishment available.
• For the second embellishment, you have some options. Unstable Frostfire Belt and Infurious Helm of Vengeance are both fine choices. Unstable Frostfire Belt comes with the added benefit of dealing fire damage which can then proc either of the Vault of the Incarnates rings, Seal of Diurna's Chosen and Seal of Filial Duty.

Other solid, non embellishment crafts for Spark of Ingenuity for Protection Warriors would be as follows:

• Primal Molten Defender — Haste/Vers or Haste/Crit as your secondary stats.
• Obsidian Seared Slicer or any of the other one-handed weapons, also with either Haste/Crit or Haste/Vers.

Within the new Vault of the Incarnates raid, 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 are:

• Protection Warrior 2pc — Revenge grants Vanguard's Determination, which increases your damage dealt and damage taken by 4% for 5 seconds.
• Protection Warrior 4pc — when Vanguard's Determination is active, gain Ignore Pain for a percentage of the damage dealt.

Both tier bonuses are straightforward and benefit us in Raids and Mythic+. You want to get the entire 4 pieces as soon as possible to gain the perks it provides. There are a total of 5 tier pieces that are dropped from Vault of the Incarnates, but the 4 we recommend to get the bonuses from are as follows:

• Casque of the Walking Mountain — Head, unless you went with ( Infurious Helm of Vengeance
• Peaks of the Walking Mountain — Shoulders
• Gauntlets of the Walking Mountain — Gloves
• Poleyns of the Walking Mountain — Legs

While the above 4 are the preferable slots, you should aim to obtain the 4 pieces regardless of the slots.

Onyx Annulet is a new ring, introduced in Patch 10.0.7. This ring is special, since it has no secondary stats, but instead has 3 sockets, which are fillable with Primordial Stone Gems.

You can obtain this ring by doing a short quest line in the Zskera Vaults. The Primordial Stone Gems can be found throughout the The Forbidden Reach, by completing various activities there.

For more information regarding the Onyx Annulet, the Primordial Gemstones, and how to obtain them, check out our dedicated guide for it below.

Unfortunately, due to the ring not having any secondary stats in combination with the Primordial Stone Gems being fairly lackluster, we do not recommend using the ring, if you already have a ring that is above 415 item level.

If you do decided to equip the ring, then you can find the best Primordial Stone Gems below:

• Freezing Ice Stone
• Flame Licked Stone
• Desirous Blood Stone
• Obscure Pastel Stone
• Raging Magma Stone

In the following section, you can find some noteworthy gear you should aim to obtain. The gear pieces mentioned below will be here either because of some great effects (mostly trinkets), or because they provide us with the secondary stats we aim for.

To better understand the secondary stat prioritization for gear, look at the guide below, where each of the stats is broken down into bite-sized pieces.

Trinkets provide various effects that enhance our damage output or survivability. These are also some of the most noticeable gear upgrades due to how strong some may be. Below you can find the most noteworthy trinkets you can obtain.

• Windscar Whetstone — Court of Stars, Advisor Melandrus
• Horn of Valor — Halls of Valor, Hymdall
• Blazebinder's Hoof — Ruby Life Pools, Kokia Blazehoof
• Whispering Incarnate Icon — Vault of the Incarnates, The Primal Council
• Manic Grieftorch — Vault of the Incarnates, Broodkeeper Diurna
• Decoration of Flame — Vault of the Incarnates, Eranog
• All-Totem of the Master — Vault of the Incarnates, Kurog Grimtotem

A good shield is the most important piece of gear. Shield upgrades provide a much larger defensive boost than upgrades to other slots.

You can acquire high item-level shields from dungeons, raids, and the Great Vault weekly chest. The following shields are the available shields from current dungeons and raids.

• Broodsworn Legionnaire's Pavise, looted from Broodkeeper Diurna in Vault of the Incarnates.
• Flame Marshal's Bulwark, looted from Eranog in Vault of the Incarnates.
• Drake Rider's Stecktarge, looted from Kyrakka and Erkhart Stormvein in Ruby Life Pools.
• Crystalized Bulwark, looted from Umbrelskul in The Azure Vault.

Use the highest item level shield you can, regardless of its secondary stats.

Just as shields are important, so are weapons. They increase our damage output, allowing us to provide more to the group's performance. Below you can find a solid selection of weapons.

• Strike Twice, looted from The Raging Tempest in The Nokhud Offensive
• Dubious Handaxe, looted from Sha of Doubt in Temple of the Jade Serpent
• Spellbane Cutlass, looted from Vexamus in Algeth'ar Academy
• Maul of the Earthshaper, looted from The Primal Council in Vault of the Incarnates
• Caustic Coldsteel Slicer, looted from Sennarth, The Cold Breath in Vault of the Incarnates

As with shields, use the highest item level weapon you have, regardless of the secondary stats.

Much like trinkets, rings and necks also sometimes bend the item level rule as they do not have any, or very low, primary stat on them. Below, you can find some better items that fit best with our secondary stat priority.

The first list is of the rings, which all provide us Haste, Crit, or Vers.

• Unstable Arcane Loop — The Azure Vault, Leymor
• Jeweled Signet of Melandrus — Court of Stars, Advisor Melandrus
• Signet of Dancing Jade — Temple of the Jade Serpent, Liu Flameheart
• Thunderous Downburst Ring — The Nokhud Offensive, The Raging Tempest

Second list is of the necks, which follow the same stat priority as rings.

• Eye of the Vengeful Hurricane — Vault of the Incarnates, Dathea, Ascended
• Pendant of the Stormforger — Halls of Valor, Odyn
• Chain of Scorched Bones — Court of Stars, Talixae Flamewreath

Third list is of noteworthy cloaks.

• Decorated Commander's Cindercloak — Vault of the Incarnates, Eranog
• Goldscar Pelt — Halls of Valor, Fenryr
• Cape of Entanglement — Temple of the Jade Serpent, Liu Flameheart

With Valor, we now can upgrade Mythic dungeon gear with Valor Points. This is a great way for people who do not raid to keep up with the item levels.

Regarding upgrading priority, the first thing to be upgraded should be trinkets. You can get higher item-level loot for other slots fairly easily from Raids or PvP, so upgrading trinkets is the way to go. Any trinkets mentioned in the dungeon trinket list above is a strong upgrade candidate. Besides trinkets, you should prioritize upgrades of shields, weapons, and high-stat budget items. Luckily there will be no Valor cap, so you can upgrade all your items in no time!

Whenever you get a new piece of gear, enchant it if possible. The best enchants for us can be found on the page linked below.