Protection Warrior Tank Stat Priority (BfA 8.0.1)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 8.0 Changes for Protection Warriors
    • 2.1. Mechanical Changes
    • 2.2. Ability Changes
      • 2.2.1. Removed Abilities
      • 2.2.2. New Abilities
  • 3. Contents
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. Foreword
  • 2. The Basics of Protection Warriors
  • 3. Talent Choice for Protection Warriors
    • 3.1. Recommended Build for All Content
    • 3.2. Passive Build for Brand New Players/Tanks
  • 4. Stat Priority for Protection Warriors
  • 5. Basic Ability Priority for Protection Warriors
  • 6. Active Mitigation Abilities for Protection Warriors
  • 7. Cooldown Usage for Protection Warriors
    • 7.1. Offensive Cooldowns
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Core Rotational Abilities for Protection Warriors
  • 3. Baseline Passives for Protection Warriors
  • 4. Active Mitigation Abilites for Protection Warriors
  • 5. Cooldowns for Protection Warriors
    • 5.1. Defensive Cooldowns
    • 5.2. Offensive Cooldowns
  • 6. Threat Abilities for Protection Warriors
  • 7. Movement Abilities for Protection Warriors
  • 8. Crowd Control Abilites for Protection Warriors
  • 9. Group Buffs from Protection Warriors
  • 10. Utility Abilities for Protection Warriors
• +Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Protection Warriors
  • 3. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Protection Warriors
  • 4. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Protection Warriors
  • 5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Protection Warriors
  • 6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Protection Warriors
  • 7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Protection Warriors
  • 8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Protection Warriors
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Changes in 8.0
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single-Target Rotation for Protection Warriors
  • 2. Multi-Target Rotation for Protection Warriors
  • 3. Opener for Protection Warriors
  • 4. Active Mitigation Usage for Protection Warriors
    • 4.1. Shield Block
      • 4.1.1. Last Stand
    • 4.2. Ignore Pain
  • 5. Rotation during Avatar
  • 6. Cooldown Usage for Protection Warriors
    • 6.1. Last Stand
    • 6.2. Shield Wall
    • 6.3. Demoralizing Shout
    • 6.4. Spell Reflection
  • 7. Mastering Your Protection Warrior
    • 7.1. Rage Generation
      • 7.1.1. Passive Rage Generation
      • 7.1.2. Rage from Abilities
      • 7.1.3. Rage Management
    • 7.2. Block Rating
    • 7.3. Abilities
      • 7.3.1. Taunting
      • 7.3.2. Heroic Throw
      • 7.3.3. Intercept
      • 7.3.4. Heroic Leap
      • 7.3.5. Shockwave
      • 7.3.6. Intimidating Shout
      • 7.3.7. Rallying Cry
      • 7.3.8. Battle Shout
      • 7.3.9. Berserker Rage
      • 7.3.10. Victory Rush
      • 7.3.11. Pummel
    • 7.4. Rotations with Other Talents
      • 7.4.1. Punish
      • 7.4.2. Best Served Cold
      • 7.4.3. Dragon Roar
      • 7.4.4. Vengeance
      • 7.4.5. Devastator
      • 7.4.6. Heavy Repercussions
• +Common and Worst Mistakes
  • 1. Cooldowns
    • 1.1. Using Defensive Cooldowns Reactively
    • 1.2. Not Using Cooldowns Enough
    • 1.3. Not Using External Cooldowns
    • 1.4. Stacking Cooldowns Unnecessarily
  • 2. Thinking Damage Does Not Matter
  • 3. Not Timing Active Mitigation Correctly
    • 3.1. Ignore Pain
  • 4. Capping Ignore Pain
  • 5. Capping Rage
• ×Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding of Protection Warrior Stats
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems for Protection Warriors
  • 2. Enchants for Protection Warriors
  • 3. Consumables for Protection Warriors
    • 3.1. Flasks
    • 3.2. Potions
      • 3.2.1. Health Potions
    • 3.3. Food
    • 3.4. Augment Runes
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Warriors
      • 1.1.1. Mouseouver Interrupt Macro
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Protection Warriors
      • 1.2.1. Mouseover Heroic Throw Macro
      • 1.2.2. Mouseover Taunt Macro
      • 1.2.3. Intercept Macros
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Warriors
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. WeakAuras
      • 2.1.5. Details! Damage Meter
      • 2.1.6. KuiNameplates
      • 2.1.7. Angry Keystones
      • 2.1.8. Exorsus Raid Tools
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Protection Warriors
      • 2.2.1. Basic Threat Bar
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Gearing Strategy for Protection Warriors
  • 2. Trinkets for Protection Warriors
  • 3. Tier 21 Set Bonuses for Protection Warriors
  • 4. Legendary Items for Protection Warriors
    • 4.1. Tier 1 Legendaries
    • 4.2. Tier 2 Legendaries
    • 4.3. Tier 3 Legendaries
  • 5. Protection Warrior Loot Competition

General Information

On this page, we explain what the best statistics are for Protection Warriors in World of Warcraft BfA 8.0.1, how the class benefits from each of them.

The statistics priority is important as it influences itemisation choices (gear, enchants, and gems).

The other pages of our Protection Warrior guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author

This guide has been written by Marok, a Protection Warrior theorycrafter, owner of the Skyhold Warrior Discord, and owner of skyhold.gg, a Warrior community website. He raids in Potent on Mal'Ganis-US. You can follow him on Twitter.

1. Basics

The stat priority for Protection Warriors is:

1. Haste
2. Versatility >= Mastery
3. Critical Strike
4. Strength

Note that Versatility is ever so slightly better than Mastery in most situations, but their defensive value is so similar that it is not necessary or useful to strictly value one over the other.

In the same vein, for Protection Warriors, the value of each secondary stat is very close together. Not only that, but Strength, despite being slightly worse than the secondary stats, still provides a decent amount of survivability. Generally speaking, the stat priority should only be followed when comparing gear of the same item level. A piece of gear with a higher item level than what you currently have should be equipped regardless of its secondary stats.

2. Getting a Better Understanding of Protection Warrior Stats

Haste does a few things. It reduces the global cooldown, increases your attack speed, and reduces the cooldown on Shield Slam, Thunder Clap, and Revenge, resulting in increased Rage generation and damage. But most importantly, it reduces the cooldown on Shield Block. This gives you much more control over your active mitigation and helps smooth out your damage intake.

Versatility increases all your damage and healing done (including Ignore Pain), and decreases all damage taken. Versatility does not require luck or rely on playing a certain way. It reduces all damage, making it a solid stat for survivability.

Mastery ( Mastery: Critical Block) increases your chance to block, your chance to critically block, and your Attack Power. Not only does it increase your overall damage reduction, the increased attack power also increases the size of your Ignore Pain.

Critical Strike provides additional avoidance due to increased parry chance (thanks to Riposte). While it is a good stat for overall damage reduction, it is also unreliable.

Strength increases your Attack Power, which increases the size of your Ignore Pain. However, its main value comes from the Armor increase you get via Vanguard.

Most encounters have abilities that cannot be mitigated or avoided. Also, you need to have a decent amount of health, in order to give yourself the chance to be healed before a subsequent attack kills you. As such, you need a minimum amount of Stamina. This amount will, in most cases, simply come from the Stamina found innately on your gear. Therefore, item level is the determining factor in keeping your health pool growing.