Protection Warrior Tank Gear and Best in Slot — The War Within (11.2)

The best gear you can find will come from the Weekly Mythic+ chest, now known as the Great Vault, and from Mythic Raiding. In addition to these, you can also place crafting orders once you have the necessary pieces.

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 extremely powerful special effects, and you will want to seek them out regardless of the 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, but 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.

3.

BiS Gear for Protection Warrior

Overall BiS List Mythic+ Gear BiS List Raid Gear BiS List

4.

Overall BiS List for Protection Warrior

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear for Season 3 of The War Within. BiS lists are created in a vacuum, so for the best result, always sim yourself.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Helm	Living Weapon's Faceshield	Forgeweaver Araz/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Neck	Duskblaze's Desperation	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Shoulder	Living Weapon's Ramparts	The Soul Hunters/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Cloak	Reshii Wraps with Haste	Ghosts of K'aresh questline
Chest	Breastplate of Otherworldly Influence	High Adjucator Aleez, in Halls of Atonement
Bracers	Everforged Vambraces	Crafted — Blacksmithing
Gloves	Living Weapon's Crushers	Soulbinder Naazindhri/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Belt	Everforged Greatbelt	Crafted — Blacksmithing
Legs	Living Weapon's Legguards	Loom’ithar/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Boots	Interloper's Plated Sabatons	Nexus King Salhadaar in Manaforge Omega
Ring #1	Band of the Shattered Soul	Dimensius The All Devouring in Manaforge Omega
Ring #2	Logic Gate: Omega	Forgeweaver Araz in Manaforge Omega
Trinket #1	Tome of Light's Devotion	Baron Braunpyke, in Priory of the Sacred Flame
Trinket #2	Brand of Ceaseless Ire	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Weapon	Oath-Breaker's Recompense	Nexus King Salhadaar in Manaforge Omega
Shield	Ward of the Weaving-Beast	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega

4.

Mythic+ BiS List for Protection Warrior

The below list consists of gear, which is only found in Mythic+ dungeons. This does not mean that these items are the best for Mythic+, but that they just drop from dungeons instead of anywhere else. BiS lists are created in a vacuum, so for the best result, always sim yourself.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Helm	Living Weapon's Faceshield	Any Helm,Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Neck	Ornately Engraved Amplifier	Myza's Oasis in Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
Shoulder	Living Weapon's Ramparts	Any shoulders,Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Cloak	Reshii Wraps with Haste	Ghosts of K'aresh questline
Chest	Breastplate of Otherworldly Influence	High Adjudicator Aleez, in Halls of Atonement
Bracers	Vambraces of Verification	Zo'phex the Sentinel, in Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
Gloves	Living Weapon's Crushers	Any gloves,Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Belt	Venture Contractor's Floodlight	Demolition Duo, in Operation: Floodgate
Legs	Living Weapon's Legguards	Any legs, Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Boots	Implacable Weatherproof Treads	Mailroom Mayhem, in Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
Ring #1	Whispers of K'aresh	Soul-Scribe, in Eco-Dome Al'dani
Ring #2	Ring of the Panoply	The Grand Menegerie, in Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder
Trinket #1	Tome of Light's Devotion	Baron Braunpyke, in Priory of the Sacred Flame
Trinket #2	Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker	Keeza Quickfuse, in Operation: Floodgate
Weapon	Shipwrecker's Bludgeon	Rasha'nan in The Dawnbreaker
Shield	Sanctified Priory Wall	Captain Dailcry in Priory of the Sacred Flame

4.

Raid BiS List for Protection Warrior

The below list consists of gear that is only found in the Manaforge Omega Raid. This does not mean that these items are the best for Raiding, but that they just drop from there instead of anywhere else. BiS lists are created in a vacuum, so for the best result, always sim yourself.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Helm	Living Weapon's Faceshield	Forgeweaver Araz in Manaforge Omega
Neck	Duskblaze's Desperation	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Shoulder	Living Weapon's Ramparts	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Cloak	Reshii Wraps with Haste	Ghosts of K'aresh questline
Chest	Living Weapon's Bulwark	Fractillus in Manaforge Omega
Bracers	Yoke of Enveloping Hatred	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Gloves	Living Weapon's Crushers	Soulbinder Naazindhri in Manaforge Omega
Belt	Fresh Ethereal Fetters	Soulbinder Naazindhri in Manaforge Omega
Legs	Living Weapon's Legguards	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega
Boots	Interloper's Plated Sabatons / Darkrider Sabatons	Nexus King Salhadaar / The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Ring #1	Band of the Shattered Soul	Dimensius The All Devouring in Manaforge Omega
Ring #2	Logic Gate: Omega	Forgeweaver Araz in Manaforge Omega
Trinket #1	Astral Antenna	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega
Trinket #2	Brand of Ceaseless Ire	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Weapon	Oath-Breaker's Recompense	Nexus King Salhadaar in Manaforge Omega
Shield	Ward of the Weaving-Beast	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega

The War Within Season 3 brings a new Cloak, Reshii Wraps. It provides a role specific additional effect, for Tanks, the effect is Ethereal Protection. It will trigger a shield that reduces damage taken by 20% up to a cap, and a 500% bigger threshold if you are below 40% health. It is a nice passive effect, but nothing game-changing.

In addition to the passive effect, you can also socket the cloak with specific fibres. These will provide you secondary stats. The best Fibers for Protection Warrior are linked below.

• For Raid/Single-Target: Pure Chronomantic Fiber
• For Mythic+: Pure Chronomantic Fiber
• For World Content/Delves: Pure Chronomantic Fiber

You can learn more about the Cloak and how to obtain it from the dedicated Reshii Wraps guide.

5.

Other noteworthy Gear for Protection Warriors

In the following sections, you can find some additional noteworthy gear.

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.

Protection Warrior Stat Priority

Trinkets Shields Weapons

6.

Trinkets for Protection Warriors

Trinkets are some of the more unique items in the game due to their various effects. They can either help bolster your defenses or assist in dishing out even more damage. Regardless of which you will choose, below you can find a list of other noteworthy trinkets for us.

Item	Source	Note
Tome of Light's Devotion	Baron Braunpyke, in Priory of the Sacred Flame	This trinket has 2 parts, one is the "defensive" mode, which grants you armor and a magic absorb, the second is a "offensive" mode, which grants you a lot of Critical Strike and a damage proc. The trinket switches between the two modes depending on how many stacks you have currently. You gain stacks by being attacked. You can also use the on-use effect of the trinket to switch to the other mode. This trinket is one of the strongest single target trinkets, as long as you stay in the "offensive" mode.
Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker	Keeza Quickfuse, in Operation: Floodgate	Provides a significant guaranteed Critical Strike buff on a 1-minute cooldown, which can be further extended with critical hits. As we are already stacking Critical Strike, this trinkets value is great.
Brand of Ceaseless Ire	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega	This trinket has a defensive and a offensive part. It starts off weak, but the longer you are in combat the stronger this trinket gets, thanks to the stacks it builds up. Once you leave combat the stacks start dropping off, so watch out for it.
Astral Antenna	Loom’ithar, in Manaforge Omega	A passive chance to increase your Critical Strike, which may overlap. Crit is already one of our best stats, so getting even more of it is a no-brainer.
Signet of the Priory	Captain Dailcry in Priory of the Sacred Flame	This trinket can be a decent option if you have multiple other party members who have it equipped. The on-use provides you with a lot of your highest secondary stat while also granting other people who use the trinket the same stat.
Ara-Kara Sacbrood	Avanoxx in Ara-Kara, City of Echoes	A decent trinket which is providing us Haste, a high up-time Strength buff and a bit of damage.
Eradicating Arcanocore	Plexus Sentinel in Manaforge Omega	Passive damage proc, which deals a lot of damage. The trinket itself also has Strength on it, making it even better.
Cursed Stone Idol	Echelon in Halls of Atonement	Main stat and a lot of crit on demand. With a 1.5 minute cooldown it lines up more or less with our other offensive cooldowns making it an excellent trinket, especially in AoE.
Araz's Ritual Forge	Forgeweaver Araz in Manaforge Omega	Can be paired up with other offensive cooldowns to use every 2 minutes for a big burst of damage.
Ringing Ritual Mud	Swampface in Operation: Floodgate	Provides a decently strong absorb on a 2 minute cooldown. The cooldown can also be reduced, but this is not always a guarantee.
Loom'ithar's Living Silk	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega	While it does not have main stat, it does have Haste, which is great. The on-use effect of the trinket is also decent, as it allows you to shield yourself and 4 nearby allies.

6.

Shields for Protection Warriors

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 available from current dungeons and raids.

Item	Source
Ward of the Weaving-Beast	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega
Event Horizon	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Sanctified Priory Wall	Captain Dailcry, in Priory of the Sacred Flame

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

6.

Weapons for Protection Warriors

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.

Item	Source
Factory-Issue Plexhammer	Plexus Sentinel in Manaforge Omega
Oath-Breaker's Recompense	Nexus King Salhadaar in Manaforge Omega
Shipwrecker's Bludgeon	Rasha'nan in The Dawnbreaker
Mandibular Bonewhacker	Azhiccar, in Eco-Dome Al'dani
Blade of Grievous Harm	Zo'phex the Sentinel, in Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder

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

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 that can be added by optional reagents when crafting an item.

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

• 2x Dawnthread Lining / Duskthread Lining — they provide either Critical Strike or Versatility as long as you are above the health threshold. They lose to Elemental Focusing Lens in pure single-target scenarios but make up for it as soon as a second target is introduced. Only equip them if you can keep yourself above the health threshold regularly. Which of them to pick depends on your current stats; we advise you to sim yourself.

If you are unsure if you can keep yourself above the health threshold for Dawnthread Lining / Duskthread Lining, or would like a more forgiving embellishment, then you can always use:

• 2x Elemental Focusing Lens — provides a passive damage source that procs off just using your abilities.

The Mythic Raids and the Great Vault generally drop higher item-level pieces, once fully upgraded, compared to crafted ones. As such, we suggest crafting your embellishments on the lower-stat budget pieces, as shown below.

• Everforged Greatbelt
• Everforged Vambraces
• Consecrated Cloak
• Everforged Sabatons

Tier Sets are pieces of gear which are uniquely class-themed with its own two- and four-piece bonuses for every specialization and Hero Talent. For Protection Warrior, these set bonuses are:

• Colossus:
  • Warrior Colossus 11.2 Class Set 2pc — Demolish damage increased by 20% and critical strike damage is increased by up to 20% on targets affected by Demolish for 10 seconds.
  • Warrior Colossus 11.2 Class Set 4pc — Demolish increases the critical strike chance of your next Shield Slam by 100%. Shield Slam critical strikes increase the damage of Rend and Deep Wounds by 80%.

A strong passive tier set, which requires no real additional effort from the player. Just be sure to hit as many targets with Demolish as you possibly can, to gain the maximum out of the set.

• Mountain Thane:
  • Warrior Mountain Thane 11.2 Class Set 2pc — Thunder Blast has a 35% chance to call down 5 Ionizing Strikes on affected targets, dealing Nature damage.
  • Warrior Mountain Thane 11.2 Class Set 4pc — Ionizing Strikes deal 100% more damage and when Ionizing Strike triggers, you gain a charge of Thunder Blast, which will deal 100% additional damage.

While the tier set does not add any gameplay changes, the effects on it will be noticeable. The damage it provides via the Ionizing Strikes, and the free Thunder Blast is great.

To upgrade your gear, you will use Crests, like Gilded Ethereal Crest, obtainable from various forms of content in the game. They can be used to upgrade gear depending on which track they drop in.

For more information on the Gear Upgrades system, check out our dedicated page for it below.

Below you can find a list of rough priority on which items to upgrade first. For the best upgrade option for your character, be sure to sim yourself.

• Weapon / Shield
• Chest / Legs / Shoulders / Helm
• Trinkets
• Feet / Hands / Waist / Wrist
• Back / Neck / Rings

The cost to upgrade scales differs per slot but now also increases quickly as item levels go up.

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.

Patch 11.1.7 brings a new Waist item, Durable Information Securing Container This can be enhanced with various unique effects, and can be upgraded all the way up to item level 701. You can obtain this by finishing a quest, involving doing Delves, which you can learn more about in our dedicated guide below!

As the belt does not go higher than 701 item level, be sure to sim yourself when to swap this out for a generic waist, this should usually happen around Heroic item level.Below you can find the best effects to equip, based on the content type:

• For Raid/Single-Target: Spark Burst
• For Mythic+: Spark Burst
• For World Content/Delves: Spark Burst