Protection Warrior Tank Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

Protection Warriors, while not the best in Mythic+ due to their lack of utility, have extremely high damage output and very respectable survivability. At the moment, when played properly, Protection Warriors have close to, if not the highest DPS out of all the tank specialization on AoE and very competitive ST damage.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our dedicated Mythic+ page below.

There are a lot of Races in the game and choosing between them can be a daunting task. In general, you should play whichever Race you like. All of them have abilities that will find uses in Mythic+ dungeons and other scenarios. I will be pointing out some of the more outstanding ones for Mythic+ below in no particular order.

• Human — Every Man for Himself is a active ability that lets you remove stuns every 3 minutes. While there are not a lot of stuns in Mythic+ dungeons that are not avoidable, it is still good to have in case of emergencies.
• Dwarf — Stoneform lets you remove various harmful effects from yourself and reduces your physical damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds every 2 minutes. This is extremely powerful in the right situation. For example you can use this to remove Severing Blade Bleed from Kings Rest Spectral Berserkers or any of the other poison/disease/magic/curse debuffs you can find in dungeons. Dark iron Dwarves' Fireblood does roughly the same, with the only difference being that it provides you with 600 Strength on use and extra 200 Strength for each harmful effect you remove for 8 seconds.
• Night Elf — Shadowmeld lets you turn invisible for as long as you stand still with a 2-minute cooldown. You can use this in dungeons to get out of combat with enemies. This truly becomes powerful if everyone in your group is a Night Elf or has stealth and you can all use this to skip different packs.
• Zandalari Troll — Embrace of the Loa lets you choose between different Loas that provide separate benefits. Embrace of Pa'ku is the best all-around choice providing you with a chance to increase your critical strike.
• Blood Elf — Arcane Torrent removes 1 beneficial effect from all enemies near you and grants you a bit of Rage. Pretty much every dungeon has some sort of ability that can be purged meaning that this will always be very useful.
• Tauren — War Stomp lets you stun up to 5 enemies near you for 2 seconds every 1.5 minutes. While Warriors already have Shockwave, having a second AoE stun can be a lifesaver in dungeons if you need to create some distance between you and the enemies. This can also be used to interrupt casts if no other interrupts are available. Let's also mention Highmountain Tauren's Bull Rush, which can be used in the same way.
• Pandaren — Epicurean is a straight forward racial that increase your stats gained from food buffs by 100%. While this does sound "boring" compared to other racials mentioned here it is actually pretty powerful providing you with a lot of extra stats as long as you keep your food buff up.
• Vulpera — Nose For Trouble reduces the first incoming damage from all the enemies by 5% of your maximum HP. This is a really good defensive effect that will reduce your overall damage intake in the dungeon by quite a lot. We are most vulnerable while charging into a new pack because we might not have enough Rage for Shield Block, so this will help you survive as you charge in.

The single-target and multi-target rotations do not change in Mythic+ content. The main goal for you is to generate as much Rage as possible so you can use that rage for either offensive abilities like Revenge or defensive ones like Shield Block.

The single target rotation is based on a priority system:

1. Cast Avatar on cooldown.
2. Cast Demoralizing Shout on cooldown (only with Booming Voice).
3. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown.
   • It can be reset anytime you cast Devastate, Thunder Clap, or Revenge, so watch out for these procs.
4. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown.
5. Cast Revenge only if it is free.
6. Cast Devastate.

The AoE rotation for maximising damage is as follows:

1. Cast Avatar on cooldown.
2. Cast Demoralizing Shout on cooldown (only with Booming Voice).
3. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown.
4. Cast Revenge only if it is free.
5. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown.
   • It can be reset anytime you cast Devastate, Thunder Clap, or Revenge, so watch out for these procs.
6. Cast Devastate.

Note that Revenge only takes priority over Shield Slam when you are looking to maximise your DPS and do not have to worry about survivability. Otherwise Shield Slam takes priority over Revenge.

The above is just a very brief explanation about the Rotation of Protection Warriors. There are situations, especially in Mythic+, where you just have to adapt and might be forced to use some other spell. To get a full overview of Protection Warrior, and when to use their various abilities take a look at our main Rotation page.

• Heroic Throw is important for gaining aggro on distant enemies, particularly because there are many enemies that cast at the group and do not immediately move towards you.
• Your movement abilities, Intercept and Heroic Leap are extremely important tools in Mythic+. Using them to position yourself, get out of dangerous mechanics, or to move to enemies that need to be picked up are essential parts to playing effectively.
• Intimidating Shout is primarily used as an interrupt, because the disorient it provides it easily broken by damage. You can also use it as crowd control by using on a group of enemies, and pulling a specific enemy out of that group to focus it down.
• There are many, many interruptible abilities in dungeons. Identifying the dangerous interruptible abilities and using Pummel to interrupt them is key.
• Shockwave is your AoE stun. Use it to delay or cancel dangerous abilites, or use it as a survivability tool to stun enemies when your defensives are down.
• While Spell Reflection is primarily used for the magic damage reduction, in Mythic+ in particular there are many spells that can be reflected back to the caster. There are some spells that hit very hard, and if you are able to reflect those, you can deal a lot of damage to the enemy. Additionally, sometimes you are able to apply debuffs to the enemy that normally would have been applied to you had you been hit by the spell.
• Berserker Rage is often an overlooked ability when it comes to Mythic+. Truth is that this has its uses in certain dungeons like Atal'Dazar where you can Immune the Terrifying Visage from Rezan letting you continue damaging the boss while others are forced to hide.

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all affixes and keystone levels. For more information on particular talents and when to use them, refer to the Builds and Talents page.

Level	Choices
15	✓ Into the Fray	✗ Punish	✗ Impending Victory
30	✓ Crackling Thunder	? Bounding Stride	? Safeguard
45	✗ Best Served Cold	✓ Unstoppable Force	✗ Dragon Roar
60	✗ Indomitable	✗ Never Surrender	✓ Bolster
75	? Menace	✓ Rumbling Earth	? Storm Bolt
90	✓ Booming Voice	✗ Vengeance	✗ Devastator
100	✓ Anger Management	✗ Heavy Repercussions	✗ Ravager

In higher level Mythic+, it becomes extremely important to kite enemies when needed. That is, running away from enemies in order to stop taking damage. Doing so gives your healer a chance to catch up, allows your defensive to come off cooldown, etc. There is no hard rule as to when you should kite; it is something you will get a feel for as you do more Mythic+. Just know that doing so is a necessary strategy in many cases. One of the ways to kite as Warrior would be to cast Shockwave to stun all the enemies and then use either Heroic Leap or Intercept to move away from them quickly.

Remember not to turn your back to enemies if you do decide to kite, since you can not mitigate attacks; doing so is a sure-fire way to get killed.

Awakened is the seasonal affix for Season 4 of Battle for Azeroth. This will put 4 obelisks in the dungeon that can be interacted with by players and can also be seen on the map. If you click on a obelisk it will teleport you to a different phase where you will meet a miniboss type of enemy and various adds accompanying them. Once you have killed the miniboss they will spawn a portal at their corpse letting you teleport back to the normal realm. All of the remaining minibosses that you do not kill over the course of the dungeon will teleport to you once you start combat with the final boss. This means that you should aim to kill all of them, or at least 2-3, before engaging the final boss. Important part of this other phase is that all of the regular enemies in the dungeon will not see you there, letting you skip various groups as you see fit.

As stated there are 4 obelisks and this means that there are also 4 different minibosses with distinct abilities defending them.

• Cursed Spire of Ny'alotha — is guarded by Voidweaver Mal'thir, it has 2 abilities that will be cast on random players. One will reduce movement speed ( Crippling Pestilence) and the other casting speed ( Lingering Doubt) by 70%. The adds accompanying this boss will explode in a circle damaging anyone in range and putting a DoT on them.
• Defiled Spire of Ny'alotha — is guarded by Blood of the Corruptor. This enemy will spawn harmful puddles on the ground beneath itself and the players. You should just kite it around so you do not stand in the puddles. The adds will cast Mind Flay on targets slowing them and also damaging them.
• Entropic Spire of Ny'alotha is guarded by Samh'rek, Beckoner of Chaos. It will periodically put Cascading Terror debuff on 3 targets making the target and anyone within 5 yards run in fear for 3 seconds. The adds inside this spire are particularly nasty because they will put a bleed on their main target meaning that they should be killed as soon as possible.
• Brutal Spire of Ny'alotha is guarded by Urg'roth, Breaker of Heroes. The name is really fitting as he will cast Spirit Breaker roughly every 15 seconds on his target. This hits very hard and you can not dodge, parry or block this. It will also put a debuff on you increasing your physical damage taken by 100% for 8 seconds meaning that if the Spirit Breaker will not kill you instantly then the increased damage taken will. Luckily this cast can and should be LoSed or out ranged. You can use Heroic Leap when he starts casting Spirit Breaker to out-range it and then just keep on running. If he reaches you, he will try to cast it again. He also casts Dark Fury, which will put a circle on the ground that you must avoid, otherwise you will take a burst of damage. The adds that are together with him are just stationary pustules that have a slowing area around them. Kill the adds to clear the area.

In general, these minibosses should not be too harmful for Protection Warriors. We have various ways of dealing with most of them, for example you can use Berserker Rage to break the fear from Samh'rek. The only really dangerous add is the Urg'roth who casts Spirit Breaker. As stated above it can not be blocked meaning that our main mitigation tool is useless. Luckily the damage of this can still be reduced by things like Shield Wall and Demoralizing Shout. You should still aim to LoS the Spirit Breaker casts to avoid the damage completely.