Protection Warrior Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.0.7
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Protection Warrior in World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.0.7. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Protection Warrior talents.
This page will go over all the talents, explaining each and every one of them in detail. Regardless of whether the talents are passive or active, they can change how we play the class entirely. To get to know if any of the talents influences Protection Warrior's rotation, you can look into our Rotation guide!
There are also some talents that are good in certain environments, while lacking in others. For more information regarding talents that are good in Mythic+ or Raiding respectively you can take a look at the guides below.
Talent Choices for Protection Warriors
It is crucial to mention that our talent trees are very well put together and we have various choices to be made depending on the content and personal preference!
Before digging into the details it is important to mention that you no longer need any special item in order to swap around your Talents! This is a great quality of life change.
Example builds
Under this section you can find 2 different example builds. One of them is optimised for Raiding, while the other one for Mythic.
Talent build for Raiding
The above build is a great example of a balanced build used for Raiding. You can import it with the string below.
- Raid talent build: BkEAoonA2h02U1PVo4204nicFIEBAAAASSikkg0SKJJp1QEIUEElkEgISSQDJJAHgDECAAAAAAAEBAoUaAgA
Talent build for Mythic+
The below build is a solid example of a overall good Mythic+ build. It should
provide you with more than enough Shield Block, interrupt tools and
damage output.
You can import it with the string below.
- Mythic+ talent build: BkEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIEBAAAASSSkkg0SKJJpUQEIUkIRJJBgQSQDJJIARCAAAAAAAEBAoUaAgA
Class Talents for Protection Warriors
Class Talents are available for all Warriors, regardless of their specialization. These consist of various abilities and passives which define how the Warrior class plays.
In the following sections you can find the most influential talents that you can pick up. For a full list of Talents and what they do, take a look at our Spell Summary page linked below.
Rows 1-4 Class Talents for Protection Warriors
While there are a lot of options to choose from, you can find the main and most important choices outlined in the list below. The importance of these nodes is just not due to what they do, but also which other talent nodes they open up.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Strong self heal on a fairly short cooldown. This is a must have pick in any scenario as it helps us recover from spike damage. |
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As our whole kit revolves around generating as much Rage as possible, the extra gains from this talent go a long way. |
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Will either reflect the magic damage cast that is targeted at you back to the caster, or act as a magic damage reduction ability. This has so much potential in almost any encounter that it would be criminal not to take it. |
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Provides a flat 5% Leech. Might seem underwhelming but it does add up over the course of the encounter. |
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One of our few movement abilities, letting you leap through the air. Should be taken in every scenario as it can help you get out of sticky situations or reposition the boss quickly. |
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One of our core rotational abilities, which also provides us with Rage. There are so many talents that work together with this ability that this should be picked 100% of the time. |
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A very slight auto-attack speed buff. Free damage increase, which also leads to other solid talents. |
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Just a plain movement speed buff, still worth it as it also opens up various other beneficial nodes. |
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One of our more impactful utility cooldowns. This is almost always good, as it can help save an ally from dying. |
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Chance to get a 50% refund on the Rage
spent on ![]() |
The talents in the list below are situational and should be taken only if you are doing content where they provide some value.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Fears all enemies around you. A very solid additional interrupt. Especially useful in Mythic+. |
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Intervenes to an ally, causing attacks to be re-directed to you instead. This is a very strong tool in the right situation, it can save your co-tank during a Raid encounter for example. |
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Situationally very strong when the encounter requires a Fear immunity. |
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Much like ![]() |
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Useful if the extra 5% maximum
health it provides over the base ![]() |
Rows 5-7 Class Talents for Protection Warrior
You can find a lot of utility and damage choices for various situations in this section. The most useful and important of them are listed below.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Increases the damage of one of our core
abilities in ![]() |
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Increases our maximum Rage capacity.
Can be useful to avoid over-capping Rage during cooldowns and also provides
value during ![]() |
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Passive armor increase, definitely worth the point as armor significantly reduces our damage taken. |
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Increases the damage of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Reduces the cooldown of ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The talents in the following list are up for grabs as optional and filler nodes depending on the content you are doing.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Small passive heal when ever you take damage. It is another tiny addition to further increase our sustainability. |
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Makes ![]() |
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increases the damage and Rage cost of
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Single-target stun on a short cooldown. Must have in Mythic+, situational in Raids. |
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Provides us with 1 more charge of
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A very lackluster passive damage increase. If damage is all you are looking for, then this will serve some value, otherwise it can be ignored. |
Rows 8-10 Class Talents for Protection Warrior
The last rows allow us to define our gameplay even further and provides a good mix of active abilities and passive buffs. As previously, the most noteworthy are in the first list.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Increases our Strength by a % of our Armor. This is a solid increase as we are by default a very high armor tank. |
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Provides us with a small amount of Haste and some auto-attack speed. Both of these effects are a fine passive increase. |
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Provides us with 5% Leech and also increases our damage by 5%. This is a lot of value for just one point, a must have. |
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Increases our damage dealt by 20% and
removes all snares and roots when cast. One of our strongest offensive
cooldowns. The 1.5 minute cooldown might seem daunting at first but it gets
greatly reduced by ![]() |
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Causes ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Deals damage and puts a bleed on the enemies hit. The ability by itself is already fine, but it has great nodes underneath, which make it even more appealing. Useful in every scenario. |
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Increases the duration of
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There really are no horrible talents in this area, just a lot of situational ones. Pick from the following depending on the content you are doing and your current needs.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Increases our Stamina while also
reducing our time being crowd controlled. This point should be taken only
in scenario where you would like to go down to ![]() |
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AoE stun on a fairly short cooldown. Must have in Mythic+, where it can be used to interrupt casts or provide some breathing room. Usually not as useful in raids. |
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Casting ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Reduces the cooldown of ![]() |
Specialization Talents for Protection Warriors
These talents include abilities and passives only available for Protection Warriors. You can find a lot of our main defensive and offensive abilities under this tree.
As with the Class Talents, you will only find the best choices down below. For a full list, take a look at the Spell Summary page.
Rows 1-4 Spec Talents for Protection Warrior
While there are not a lot of choices on the first 4 rows, we do find some really good options here together with some spec defining abilities.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Apartial absorb, mainly used as a way to dump excessive Rage due to it being off the global cooldown. Can also be stacked in order to reduce a big incoming damage spike. |
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Deals damage in an arc infront of you. One of your main rotational damage dealing tools. |
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Reduces the damage enemies hit deal to you
by 25%. The effects of this talent are further enhanced by pairing it with
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Replaces ![]() |
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Increases your maximum health by 30% and also heals you for the same amount. While the cooldown is a lengthy 3 minutes, it is still worth the point spent in it. |
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Causes ![]() |
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Casting ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Rows 5-8 Spec Talents for Protection Warrior
These rows include some of our most powerful defensive abilities and open up various synergies with other talents! A lot of great options, if only we had more points..
Ability | Description / Effect |
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An AoE taunt. Great addition to our toolkit, especially in Mythic+. It also leads to other great talent nodes, making it a mandatory pick. |
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An additional bleed. Deals significant amounts of
damage and is further enhanced by other bleed talents like
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Damage dealt adds to your active
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Reduces your damage taken by 40% for 8 seconds.
One of your strongest defensive tools which synergises well with other talents
like ![]() ![]() |
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Gain Haste for each enemy or ally nearby,
up to 10%. Haste is one of our best secondary stats, so this is another great
option. Should be taken instead of ![]() ![]() |
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Reduces the cooldown of ![]() ![]() |
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Stacking buff which increases your
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There are some amazing talents that are still left out of the list above,
Thunderlord,
Sudden Death,
Tough as Nails and
even
Show of Force are all great choices. Read through the info below to
see when to pick which!
Ability | Description / Effect |
---|---|
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your bleed effects have a chance to grant you
extra Rage. Considering we have 3 bleeds, ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Increases the radius of ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Provides a chance for your attacks to cause
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Blocking attacks deals damage to the attackers. As our whole mitigation is centered around blocking, it only makes sense to pick this up when aiming for additional free damage. |
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Allows you to block spells. This can be really powerful in the right
situation when magic damage is a issue. The damage reduction it provides for
the 20 seconds it lasts is significant and you can rotate this together with
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Further increases your ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Enhances either ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Rows 8-10 Spec Talents for Protection Warrior
The last part of the tree is more or less cut in stone for us since there are clear winners and losers.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Flat buff to our Strength, Armor and Critical Strike chance. All of these are great stats for us. |
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Increases your Block chance and Block value. As our main mitigation kit revolves around Blocking attacks this is a mandatory pick. |
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Charges at your target, dealing damage to all the targets within 10 yards, stunning the primary target and also generating 20 Rage. Great initiation tool and the nodes it leads to enhance this even further. Must have in any situation. |
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throws a weapon, dealing damage in a area overtime, while also granting 10 Rage each time it deals damage. While the cooldown might seem long, the damage it deals paired with the Rage, is worth it. |
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Increases your maximum health by 10% and heals you for 1% of your maximum health per every 10 Rage spent. Amazing option in every situation, adding up to a lot of healing done throughout the encounter. |
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Consuming 30 Rage grants a stack of ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Of the remaining talents, the two most noteworthy would be Battering Ram
and
Battle-Scarred Veteran. Both of which are great additions.
Ability | Description / Effect |
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Increases the Critical Strike damage and
Critical Strike chance of ![]() |
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When your health drops below 30%, you take 80% less damage for 8 seconds, and healing you receive is increased by 100%. If you need a safety net, this is definitely worthy of a point. This would be great when still progressing on Raid bosses or when doing Mythic+ high enough where survivability becomes a concern. |
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Increases our Stamina, Armor and Haste by a percentage. While all of these stats are great, this node just slightly lacks behind other options available. |
PvP Talents (War Mode)
Opting into War Mode makes you eligible for open-world PvP, but also grants you the following benefits:
- World Quests at maximum level have 10% increased rewards.
- You gain 10% increased experience while leveling.
- Grants you the use of PvP talents in the open-world.
With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended that you enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself eligible for open-world PvP, and the possibility to be "ganked" while leveling or doing World Quests exists.
PvP Talents for Protection Warriors
Below are the recommended PvP talents for leveling and PvE content. You are able to choose 1 general PvP talent and 3 spec specific talents.
Protection Warrior PvP Talents
Morale Killer reduces the cooldown of
Demoralizing Shout by 15 seconds, bringing its cooldown to 30 seconds, and causes enemies to deal reduces damage to all targets, not just you. This allows for extremely high uptime on Demoralizing Shout.
Dragon Charge causes you to charge a long distance at high speed in the targeted direction. It does not require a target. It deals damage and knocks back any enemies that are hit by the charge. The movement that this talent provides is extremely useful for questing, or getting out of dangerous situations. It is almost like having another
Heroic Leap in terms of movement.
Bodyguard is a great tool to help you reduce the Physical damage dealt to your allies.
Disarm is another extremely strong option you can take. This allows you to significantly reduce the damage output of classes that rely on weapon damage.
These are simply recommendations. You may find other PvP talents more useful depending on your playstyle. For a more in-depth guide about Warrior Warrior take a look at our dedicated PvP guide.
While PvPing as Protection Warrior can certainly be fun you might also want to try out PvPing as either Fury or Arms Warrior. Both of these specs will deal a lot more damage while being squishier.
Changelog
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 15 Mar. 2023: Updated the Mythic+ talent build to default Battering Ram over Thunderlord.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 23 Dec. 2022: Added notes about Spell Block.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Replaced Overwhelming Rage with Sidearm for the Raiding build.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Warrior Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Mwahi, a Protection Warrior theorycrafter and moderator of the Skyhold Warrior Discord.
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