Protection Warrior Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

If you have not already, please read the spells summary page. Knowing how each spell/ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this page.

1. Single-Target Rotation for Protection Warriors

The single-target 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 for each time you are able to cast an ability, you should start at the top of the list and cast the first available ability for which you meet the criteria. This applies to all "rotations" hereafter.

This does not take into account usage of your active mitigation abilities (we cover this important topic in a subsequent section). Active mitigation usage is generally much more nuanced, and it would not be optimal to list them within an ability priority.

The following priorities also assume you are running the recommended build from the talents page. Information on how to play properly with other talents is provided further down this page.

The overall goal is to generate as much Rage as possible by casting Rage-generating abilities, so that Rage can then be spent on active mitigation.

1. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown.
   • It can be reset anytime you cast Devastate, Thunder Clap, or Revenge, so watch out for these procs.
2. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown.
3. Cast Revenge only if it is free.
4. Cast Devastate.

Demoralizing Shout should also be cast on cooldown (when using Booming Voice) and is technically first in the ability priority. Out of all your Rage-generating abilities, it generates the most Rage.

Avatar should be cast on cooldown as well. It is worth delaying Demoralizing Shout by a few seconds if Avatar is about to come off cooldown. Do not delay Avatar for Demoralizing Shout.

Additionally, and this applies to both Demoralizing Shout and Avatar, if you are trying to maximize damage, you can delay those cooldowns by a few seconds if Shield Slam is close to being available. Particularly if you are able to cast Shield Block before that Shield Slam for increased damage. Never delay your offensive cooldowns by more than 3-4 seconds.

Note that since Revenge costs Rage (unless it has a proc from you having dodged or parried an attack), it is not worth using Rage to cast it, since Devastate also has a chance to reset Shield Slam and is free. The only thing Revenge provides over Devastate is a bit of extra damage.

If you are in a situation where you do not need to put any Rage towards Ignore Pain for survivability purposes, you can of course spend Rage on Revenge instead to slightly increase your damage.

In addition to the above, you should use Intercept to generate extra Rage throughout the fight. Technically speaking it should be prioritzied below Shield Slam and above everything else, but you have to be careful using it. If you are actively tanking, use this only if you can avoid turning the boss around, moving it from its position, or causing yourself or the raid to take extra damage. If you are not actively tanking, you can use Intercept on the current tank to help reduce some of the damage they are taking. Intercept can cause things like stacking debuffs to go on you instead of the current tank, potentially causing issues, so use it on melee DPS if you are not sure if it safe to use on the current tank. If you will need to use Intercept for movement, make sure to save at least one charge for that time.

2. Multi-Target Rotation for Protection Warriors

Against multiple targets, when playing defensively, the ability priority is exactly the same as the single-target priority. It maximizes Rage generation and therefore survivability.

In dungeons in particular where there are often new enemies to gain aggro on, it is worth casting Thunder Clap (or Revenge if Thunder Clap is not available, even if it costs Rage) over Shield Slam in order to pick up those enemies. Saving your allies is far more important than a bit of Rage.

If, and only if, survivability is not an issue whatsoever and you want to do as much damage as possible, the following priority should be followed in multi-target situations:

1. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown.
2. Cast Revenge on cooldown.
3. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown.
4. Cast Devastate.

Remember that you are still casting abilities like Demoralizing Shout, Avatar, and Intercept in multi-target according to the above guidelines.

3. Opener for Protection Warriors

Generally, you will want to Taunt as you cast Intercept.

1. Cast Intercept.
2. Cast Avatar.
3. Cast Demoralizing Shout only if Booming Voice is selected.
4. Cast Shield Block.
5. Cast Shield Slam.
6. Proceed with the appropraite ability priority.

Opening with Thunder Clap instead of Shield Slam can be useful when there are multiple targets to pick-up. Or, if gaining threat is particularly important, for example when pulling a dangerous pack in a dungeon, cast Thunder Clap after you Intercept or between Avatar and Demoralizing Shout.

After executing the opener, you will almost always follow up that Shield Slam with a Thunder Clap, leaving you at (15 + 20 + 40 - 30 + 15 + 5) 65 Rage (plus a bit more, since you have meleed and been meleed at this point). Since you are in Avatar here, make sure you are react to the amount of Rage you have accordingly and do not cap Rage.

4. Active Mitigation Usage for Protection Warriors

Your rotation is there to generate Rage for you, which you should then invest into your active mitigation abilities. As a Protection Warrior, you have two abilities that are essential to staying alive: Shield Block and Ignore Pain.

4.1. Shield Block

Shield Block is your primary active mitigation ability. In the vast majority of situations, most of the damage you will take is blockable. As such, keeping Shield Block up as much as possible is key to smoothing out damage and helping you survive. Shield Block scales with the damage you are taking since it is a percent reduction to damage rather than a flat amount like Ignore Pain is.

It is important to understand the difference between overall Shield Block uptime and effective uptime. You want to have as much effective Shield Block uptime as possible. All that means is having Shield Block up when you are tanking something that actually melees you.

Essentially, anytime you are tanking something, you should be keeping Shield Block up as much as possible. It should still, however, be used intelligently, much like you would use major cooldowns. Timing is important, so there are a few things to look out for in this regard:

• Shield Block works against all melee attacks (as in, auto-attacks/white hits), but there are also many boss abilities/mechanics that are blockable as well. Sometimes, things that you would expect to be blockable are not, and things that you would not expect to be blockable are. You simply have to have knowledge of what these blockable mechanics are. The point here is that if you do know a higher damage ability is blockable, you are much better off delaying Shield Block so that the last bit of its duration blocks that ability.
• For further benefit, you can time Shield Block with the enemy's melee swings. Most enemies have a swing timer between 1.5 and 2 seconds. If you cast Shield Block right after a melee, you essentially just lost 2 seconds of effective uptime. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell when an enemy is actually melee attacking you, so this point is not super important, but can be beneficial if done properly.
• Also be aware of the enemy's spell casts/channels. If the boss is about to spend 5 seconds casting a spell, you should delay Shield Block accordingly.
• Similar to the first point, but if you know an enemy is about to deal increased damage, you should delay Shield Block for those periods as well. For example, in Mythic+, enemies deal significantly more damage once they hit 30% health if the Raging affix is active. While this is not a specific ability, its a mechanic you should be aware of and adjust Shield Block usage around.

If you are not currently tanking, and there is a good amount of time before you do tank again, use Shield Block to increase Shield Slam's damage. Just be sure to time it in such a way that as you are about to tank again, you have close to 2 charges of Shield Block, so you can maximize effective uptime.

As said above, Shield Block is your primary active mitigation ability. It takes priority over Ignore Pain assuming you are taking blockable damage (which is almost always).

4.1.1. Last Stand

When using Bolster, Last Stand should be used like Shield Block assuming you do not need Last Stand for a specific mechanic. You should do your best to not overlap Last Stand and Shield Block, as it does not add to Shield Block's duration. Having them both up at the same time provides no additional benefit. Since Last Stand lasts 15 seconds, it gives you the time to gain very close to, or a full Shield Block charge (depending on your Haste). So if used when you have a charge of Shield Block available, you risk wasting a bit of Shield Block cooldown time. Essentially, once you have used both charges of Shield Block and the actual Shield Block buff has expired, further increase your effective block uptime by using Last Stand.

4.2. Ignore Pain

Ignore Pain reduces damage by a flat amount, and with its current tuning, is much weaker than Shield Block. As such, it should be used in addition to Shield Block, not in place of it.

Shield Block is limited by its cooldown, where Ignore Pain is simply limited by the amount of Rage you have available. So, 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. More or less, Ignore Pain should be used to further smooth out your damage intake.

Just like Shield Block though, it can and should be used intelligently if doing so provides a benefit.

• It is very important to track your current absorb amount so you are not spending Rage on Ignore Pain if you are at, or close to, the cap. Since Ignore Pain's cap is 1.3 times Ignore Pain on cast, you generally should not cast Ignore Pain again until your absorb is close to depleting. This WeakAura tracks your current absorb and cap.
• If you are not tanking, and are taking very little or no damage, do not use your Rage on Ignore Pain. Depending on how long you are not tanking for, it will simply expire, wasting that Rage. Instead, try to cast an Ignore Pain right before you start tanking again. If you are taking damage while not tanking, cast Ignore Pain as needed to help out your healers.
• While generally speaking you will want to use Ignore Pain to smooth out your damage intake, it can also be very important to pool your Rage and cast Ignore Pain right before a large spike of damage, increasing the chance that you survive that spike.

Additionally, if you are ever in the extremely rare situation where there is very, very little blockable damage, or none at all, you will of course want to prioritize Ignore Pain over Shield Block.

5. Rotation during Avatar

This section only applies if you are using Unstoppable Force.

With Unstoppable Force, when you cast Avatar, your ability priority stays the same, but you have to approach it in a different way.

During Avatar, Thunder Clap is available every other global cooldown. This means that you will be rotating between Thunder Clap and another ability based on the ability priority. For example, if you get lucky and many of your Thunder Clap casts reset Shield Slam, you will find yourself alternating between Thunder Clap and Shield Slam.

As another example, you might have a cast sequence that looks like this: Shield Slam, Thunder Clap, Shield Slam, Thunder Clap, Revenge (free), Thunder Clap, Ignore Pain...

Again, your ability priority does not change. Shield Slam is still above Thunder Clap. Just be aware that during Avatar, Thunder Clap has a significantly reduced cooldown and adjust accordingly.

Also, it is very easy to Rage cap during Avatar, so be ready to dump Rage into Ignore Pain / Revenge.

If going purely for damage, Thunder Clap takes priority over Shield Slam. This is true for single-target as well, with the exception being that if and only if Shield Block is up, Shield Slam deals more damage on single-target.

6. Cooldown Usage for Protection Warriors

As a Protection Warrior, you have a number of defensive cooldowns. Using your defensive cooldowns properly is extremely important. You want to plan out your cooldowns before going into an encounter and maximize their usage as much as possible. Outlined below are your various defensive cooldowns and how they should be used. For more info on cooldown usage in general, see the mistakes page.

6.1. Last Stand

Last Stand can and should be used in two different ways depending on the situation. With Bolster, Last Stand should be used to extend effective block uptime as outlined above in the Shield Block section. 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 as an emergency cooldown - if your health drops to a dangerously low level unexpectedly - or as a pre-emptive cooldown to prepare for a large damage spike.

If you are not running Bolster, then simply use it as an emergency or preemptive cooldown.

6.2. Shield Wall

Shield Wall should be used to prepare for a large damage spike, or during periods of high damage. It is not recommended to use it if your health suddenly drops low, as it does nothing to get your health back up, but in situations where you have nothing else, you want to use it if it increases your chance to survive.

6.3. Demoralizing Shout

With Booming Voice, Demoralizing Shout should be used on cooldown and for damage purposes. Its cooldown is fairly short, particularly with Anger Management, so you will have fairly high uptime on the damage reduction. More often than not you will have it up at a good time, helping you smooth out damage.

Now, there are definitely situations where you will want to delay the usage of Demoralizing Shout if you know there is heavy damage upcoming and you do not have anything else available.

Without Booming Voice, simply use it as you would a normal defensive cooldown.

6.4. Spell Reflection

Spell Reflection can be used in two different ways. Either as a way to reflect a specific spell cast at you, or as a magic damage reduction cooldown. The vast majority of spells cast by bosses are not reflectable, but the damage reduction portion still works of course. Rarely, some boss abilities are reflectable, and in these cases reflecting them can be extremely powerful, both in terms of damage reduction and dealing damage to the boss.

Most of the time, you will be using it as a magic damage reduction tool. However, in dungeons and similar content, reflecting particularly powerful spells is a great use of Spell Reflection. Remember that when you reflect a spell, you lose the Spell Reflection buff, meaning you lose the damage reduction as well. Be mindful of this if you are in a situation where you need the magic damage reduction but there are also reflectable spells being cast at you.

7. Mastering Your Protection Warrior

In this section, we will dive a bit deeper into the core mechanics and various abilities of Protection Warriors. Understanding these topics is an important step to truly mastering the specializaztion.

7.1. Rage Generation

Warrior's primary resource is Rage. It is important that you understand how Rage is generated, so you can effectively manage and use it.

Rage has a maximum capacity of 100, and is empty by default. Rage decays at a rate of 1 per second when out of combat. In combat, Rage does not decay.

You generate Rage in two main ways. Passively, and through abilities.

7.1.1. Passive Rage Generation

There are two sources of passive Rage generation.

1. 2 Rage is gained every time you auto-attack. Note that this scales with attack speed. Equipping daggers, for example, is not for better Rage generation.
   • More specifically, you generate 1.75 * weaponSpeed * 0.44 Rage per auto-attack. 1-handed weapons are 2.6 speed, which equates to 2 Rage per auto-attack.
2. 3 Rage is gained every time you are hit by an enemy auto-attack.
   • There is a cooldown on this. It seems to be around 1 second, but the exact cooldown is unknown at the moment.

Rage is not gained from avoidance events (that is, if the enemy parries/dodges or if you parry/dodge).

Because Rage is gained when you are hit by an auto-attack, Rage generation tends to be much higher in dungeons or encounters with multiple enemies.

7.1.2. Rage from Abilities

In order of most Rage to least:

• Demoralizing Shout generates 40 Rage (only with Booming Voice).
• Avatar generates 20 Rage.
• Shield Slam generates 15 Rage.
• Intercept generates 15 Rage.
• Thunder Clap generates 5 Rage.

7.1.3. Rage Management

It is important to understand that you do not have to spend Rage as soon as you get it. Pooling your Rage in order to maximize Rage generation, survivability, or damage is an important aspect of playing Protection Warrior. For example, if you are in a fight and trying to maximize damage, and are casting Revenge to do so, and you reach a part of the fight where additional enemies join, then you will want to save your Rage/Revenge cast and cast it on those additional enemies. As another example, during Avatar, you may get a long streak of Shield Slam resets. Capitalizing on those resets immediately, rather than delaying them by a global cooldown by casting Ignore Pain/Revenge, will result in more Rage and more casts of Rage-spending abilities. You do not lose casts of Ignore Pain/Revenge by waiting, since they are limited by the total amount of Rage you have available.

You can lose casts however if you cap out on Rage. Meaning you hit the max of 100 Rage and any further Rage generation is lost.

On single-target, you will generate a decent amount of Rage, but you will rarely ever get close to capping out on Rage unless playing incorrectly.

On multi-target however, specifically when you have multiple enemies auto-attacking you, is where proper Rage management is necessary to avoid capping.

You should follow your ability priority as usual unless you hit a point where following it would result in wasting Rage. In those situations, Revenge and Ignore Pain become your highest priority abilities. If you are about to cap out on Rage, and have very little or no Ignore Pain absorb left, then make sure to cast Ignore Pain to stop yourself from capping. If going for damage or you already have Ignore Pain up, use Revenge. Generally, you should still prioritize Thunder Clap above Revenge as wasting 5 Rage is minimal and the extra damage gained from doing so is worth it. As an example, say you are at 96 Rage. Casting Shield Slam at that point would provide you with 4 Rage, not 15. On average, you will gain more overall Rage by delaying Rage-generating abilities by a global cooldown to avoid capping.

Additionally, as you repeat content and gain more experience with different encounters/situations, you should switch to a DPS ability priority (that is, prioritize higher damage abilites over Shield Slam) if you know that normally in that situation you will have to "dump" Rage as outlined above. That way, you deal more damage and generate slightly less Rage, reducing your risk of capping and increasing your overall throughput.

7.2. Block Rating

You may notice that there is a "Block" stat on shields. The character sheet has Block rating, and all of that rating comes from the Block on shields (besides potential bonuses from Azerite traits and such). So if a shield has 2000 Block, the character sheet will show 2000 Block. Currently, the amount of Block on your shield is always 2.5 times the amount of Armor on your shield.

The damage reduction from blocking is calculated based on your total Block. It is calculated in the same way damage reduction for Armor is: blockRating / (blockRating + k). Currently, the k value for Armor / Block is 6300 (times a content-specific multiplier) for level 120-123 enemies. Block damage reduction is entirely separate from Armor and having more Armor does not affect it. For example, if the player has a shield with 4000 Block on it, damage reduction from blocking is ˜38.83%.

Critical blocks are simply double the damage reduction. From the example above, a critical block for that player would be a 77.66% damage reduction. It is worth noting that just like Armor, there is a cap of 85% on damage reduction from Block. If a shield were to provide 50% damage reduction on normal blocks, critical blocks with that shield would only be 85%.

This system incentivizes Shield upgrades heavily. Getting a good shield is a significant increase to survivability, way more than a similar upgrade to another piece of gear would be.

7.3. Abilities

7.3.1. Taunting

Taunt is your single-target taunt ability. Casting Taunt significantly increases your threat generation for its duration. If you are having trouble building threat, deal as much damage as possible in this window.

A potentially important mechanic with taunting that not many people know about is the fact that there are diminishing returns on the duration of taunts. If an enemy is taunted enough within a certain timeframe, they become immune to taunts.

There is a 20-second reset window on the diminishing returns on taunting. That is, if 20 seconds go by without a taunt being cast on a particular enemy, the diminishing returns resets.

For each taunt after the first, the duration of the taunt is two-thirds of the previous duration. The enemy is immune to a sixth taunt.

The first taunt lasts 3 seconds, the second 2 seconds, the third 1.4 seconds, the fourth 0.9 seconds, and the fifth 0.6 seconds.

Being aware of this mechanic and knowing when you may be affected by it is important when planning how to approach a particular encounter.

7.3.2. Heroic Throw

Heroic Throw deals little damage, but generates a decent amount of threat. It has no cost and no cooldown. Use it to gain aggro on distant enemies. Also, if you are ever out of range of an enemy and cannot get back into melee range for whatever reason, you can spam Heroic Throw for a tiny bit of extra damage.

7.3.3. Intercept

Outside of the uses for Intercept outlined in the rotation section, there a few important ways Intercept can be helpful. Knockback mechanics can be almost entirely negated by Intercept if reacted to quickly. Using it to move quickly to another area by casting it on an ally or enemy, perhaps to get out of environmental damage, can be extremely useful. Lastly, taking advantage of the 1-second root on enemies that you Intercept can be beneficial in certain situations.

If Safeguard is chosen as a talent, Intercept turns into a fairly powerful external cooldown. Planning usage of this correct can be very helpful to your raid in the right situations.

7.3.4. Heroic Leap

Heroic Leap can be used to jump over ground effects or other various mechanics that you would normally have to run around. It is not 100% consistent in that sometimes when you jump over something you might still take the damage, but more often than not you can use Heroic Leap to your advantage in this way. More simply, Heroic Leap is great for getting into position or out of dangerous mechanics.

Heroic Leap also resets the remaining cooldown on Taunt. This means that you can easily Leap towards a new add that spawned and immediately use Taunt to grab aggro even if you had used Taunt a second ago.

7.3.5. Shockwave

Proper use of Shockwave can be extremely important, both from a crowd control perspective and a survivability perspective. It can be used to stun enemies that are casting to interrupt those or to keep enemies in place, but, arguably more importantly, it can be used to completely stop damage for its duration. Say Shield Block runs out and you have no major defensive cooldowns left to use. Using Shockwave on enemies (assuming they are not immune) completely stops their damage. Timing its usage around your active mitigation can prevent deaths.

7.3.6. Intimidating Shout

Intimidating Shout should be used in the same way Shockwave is used; for crowd control purposes or survivability purposes. You do have to be more careful with this ability though. The enemies that flee can run into another pack of enemies and pull them, possibly resulting in a wipe.

7.3.7. Rallying Cry

Timing Rallying Cry well can be the difference between a kill and a wipe. It is a fairly significant survivability increase for your group, so plan its usage well.

7.3.8. Battle Shout

While not actually used in combat (unless to give the buff to a recently resurrected ally), make sure you cast Battle Shout on your group or yourself before entering combat.

7.3.9. Berserker Rage

Berserker Rage is a fantastic ability in the right situations. There are a fair share of enemy abilities that fear, and being able to completely stop those is a huge advantage. Identify where Berserker Rage can be used, and take advantage of those situations.

7.3.10. Victory Rush

While generally useless on boss fights, it can save your life you get it to proc. For pure survivability, it is your highest priority ability (assuming you are low on health). In dungeons, in particular, make sure you are maximizing usage of Victory Rush.

7.3.11. Pummel

Many players simply do not use their kick unless specifically instructed to. Interrupting enemies can stop potentially deadly mechanics from going out. Identify those dangerous mechanics and use your kick!

7.4. Rotations with Other Talents

7.4.1. Punish

The ability priority when Punish is talented does not change. Rather, just be aware that on multi-target, mainly 2-3 targets, you want to keep the Punish debuff up on as many targets as possible. All that means is switching targets when necessary to apply the debuff.

7.4.2. Best Served Cold

With Best Served Cold, and only with ability priorities that maximize damage, Revenge has a higher priority than Thunder Clap as long as there are two or more targets. Otherwise, the ability priority remains the same.

7.4.3. Dragon Roar

In the normal survivability oriented ability priority, Dragon Roar takes priority over Thunder Clap, but not Shield Slam. For maximizing damage, it is first in priority.

7.4.4. Vengeance

Firstly, make sure you have read the explanation for Vengeance on the talents page.

The ability priority does not change with Vengeance. Rather, for survivability purposes, just be sure to follow up any Revenge casts with an Ignore Pain. As stated in the talents page, do not "force" the use of Revenge. Usage of Ignore Pain remains the same. Also be mindful of Rage management and adjust to that accordingly.

Essentially, never cast Revenge or Ignore Pain twice in a row unless casting Ignore Pain is necessary for survival. For example, say you have a free Revenge (and Shield Slam/ Thunder Clap are on cooldown) but your Vengeance buff is currently reducing the cost of Ignore Pain. Even though Revenge is technically of a higher priority than Ignore Pain, cast Ignore Pain first in that situation, and then cast that free Revenge. In other words, when you have the buff the reduces the cost of Ignore Pain, Ignore Pain "replaces" Revenge in the ability priority.

When maximizing damage, do not rotate between Revenge and Ignore Pain. Spend your Rage on Revenge as you normally would.

7.4.5. Devastator

With Devastator, simply omit Devastate from any ability priority.

7.4.6. Heavy Repercussions

The only adjustment you have to make with Heavy Repercussions is to delay Shield Block (assuming you will not cap out on Shield Block charges) for Shield Slam, to maximize the amount of Shield Slam casts inside Shield Block.

8. Changelog