Protection Warrior Tank Spell Summary — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

This page goes over Protection Warrior's various baseline abilities and passives, explaining what each does and how they function in detail. It is recommended that you read through this page in order to have a basis for the various topics that are discussed throughout the rest of this guide.

If you first start leveling a Protection Warrior, you will not have access to all of the abilities stated below. To get a better understanding of when you will get all the abilities mentioned on this page, you can go over our Leveling guide.

Shield Slam deals Physical damage to a single target, on a 9-second cooldown (reduced by Haste). It generates 15 Rage, and its cooldown has a 30% chance of being reset by Thunder Clap, Revenge, and Devastate.

Thunder Clap deals damage to all enemies in an 8-yard radius, on a 6-second cooldown (reduced by Haste). It generates 5 Rage, and reduces enemy movement speed by 20% for 10 seconds.

Revenge deals Physical damage to all enemies in a cone in front of you, on a 3-second cooldown (reduced by Haste). It costs 30 Rage to cast, but becomes free to cast when you successfully parry or dodge an attack.

Devastate deals Physical damage to a single target. It has no cooldown and generates no Rage.

Deep Wounds makes your Devastate and Revenge apply a debuff that causes Bleed damage over 15 seconds.

Vanguard increases your Stamina by 45% and increases your Armor by 60% of your Strength.

Most of our rotational abilities interact with each other in some way. Knowing these interactions is very important, as they will provide you with a better understanding of the class. To fully comprehend how all of these spells work together and when to actually use the correct one, you can go over to our Rotation page linked below.

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.

Shield Block has the following properties.

• Causes you to block all melee attacks made against you for 6-seconds. These blocks can be critical blocks.
• The damage reduction provided by these blocks is determined by your Block stat. See here.
• It increases Shield Slam damage by 30% while active.
• It costs 30 Rage.
• It has 2 charges with a 16-second recharge time (reduced by Haste).

Ignore Pain has the following properties.

• It provides an absorb shield when cast. The size of this absorb shield is determined by the same formula that ability damage is determined by.
  • (weapondDPS * 6 + strength) * apCoef * masteryMultiplier * vers * other
  • The Attack Power coefficient is 3.5 for Ignore Pain.
• It removes 50% of any particular damage event. That is, for any damage taken, 50% of that damage is dealt to the absorb, and the other 50% is dealt to you.
• It has a maximum absorb size of 1.3 times the on-cast absorb amount.
  • This means the absorb does stack, just not very much.
  • The cap size is determined on cast.
  • For example, say normally the absorb you get is 10,000. Your cap would be 13,000 when you cast Ignore Pain. You take some damage and your absorb drops to 4,000. When you cast that same Ignore Pain again, your total absorb is now 13,000, and you waste 1,000 of it because your cap is 13,000.
  • Using that same example again, say you drop to 4,000 absorb, but before you cast Ignore Pain again, you gain an Attack Power buff. This is where the "on cast" part comes into play. Say with that Attack Power buff, the size of your Ignore Pain would be 14,000. That means your cap is now (14000 * 1.3) 18,200. So, if you cast Ignore Pain, you will end up with (4000 + 14000) 18,000 absorb. As you can see, you did not waste any absorb because your on-cast cap was large enough.
  • Furthermore, it is possible to lose absorb by casting Ignore Pain. Continuing with that example, say you cast yet another Ignore Pain, but by this time that Attack Power buff has expired. Your cap is back to being 13,000 for that cast. So even if you do not lose any absorb to damage, casting that Ignore Pain will reduce your absorb size to 13,000.
• It has a duration of 12-seconds.
• It costs 40 Rage.

Last Stand increases your maximum health by 30% for 15-seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown. It heals you for that same amount. This heal can critically hit.

Shield Wall reduces all damage taken by 40%, on a 4-minute cooldown.

Demoralizing Shout applies a debuff to all enemies within 10 yards, reducing the damage they deal to you by 20% for 8-seconds. This is on a 45-second cooldown. This does not apply a buff to you. Any enemies that were out of range for the initial cast do not deal reduced damage.

Spell Reflection grants a buff that reduces magic damage taken by 20% and will reflect a single spell cast at you. The buff lasts 5-seconds or until a spell is reflected. It is on a 25-second cooldown. A spell that is reflected returns to the caster and deals damage to the caster as if you had cast it.

Avatar increases your damage dealt by 20% for 20-seconds, on a 1.5-minute cooldown. It generates 20 Rage, and removes all roots and snares currently on you. This ability is on the global cooldown.

Taunt forces a target to attack you for 3-seconds, on an 8-second cooldown. It increases your threat generation significantly for its duration. It has a maximum range of 30 yards.

Heroic Throw deals Physical damage to a single target, and generates an increased amount of threat. It has no cooldown or cost. It has a minimum range of 8 yards and a maximum range of 30 yards.

Intercept makes you sprint towards an enemy or ally. It generates 15 Rage, and has 2 charges with a 15-second recharge time.

• When targeting an enemy, it deals Physical damage and roots the target for 1 second. It has a minimum range of 8 yards and a maximum range of 25 yards.
• When targeting an ally, it causes the next melee or ranged attack on that ally to instead hit the Warrior, as long as the ally is within 10 yards. It has no minimum range and a maximum range of 25 yards.

Heroic Leap makes you leap through the air towards a target location. When you land, you deal Physical damage to all enemies in an 8-yard radius. It is on a 45-second cooldown, has a minimum range of 8 yards and a maximum range of 40 yards. It also resets the remaining cooldown on Taunt.

More details about which abilities can be macrod to make casting them more effecient can be found on the following page:

Shockwave stuns all enemies in front of you within 10 yards for 2 seconds and deals damage. It has a 40-second cooldown.

Intimidating Shout causes a target enemy to cower in fear (the enemy does not move), and 5 additional enemies to flee. Both effects last 8 seconds. Targets are technically disoriented, and there is a damage threshold at which that disorient breaks. It is on a 1.5-minute cooldown and has a maximum range of 8 yards.

Rallying Cry grants 15% temporary and maximum health to all party or raid members for 10 seconds, on a 3-minute cooldown. It has a maximum range of 40 yards.

Battle Shout is a pre-combat group buff on a 15-second cooldown. It increases the Attack Power of all party or raid members by 10% for 1 hour. It has a maximum range of 100 yards.

Berserker Rage both removes and grants immunity to Fear, Sap, and Incapacitate effects for 6 seconds, on a 1-minute cooldown.

Victory Rush deals damage and heals you for 20% of your maximum health. It is only usable within 20 seconds after getting a killing blow on an enemy that would normally provide experience or honor, and as such has no cooldown or cost.

Pummel interrupts spell casts or channels and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 seconds. It is on a 15-second cooldown.