PvE Protection Warrior Tank Talents, Builds & Glyphs

wotlk pve protection warrior tank talents, builds & glyphs
ability warrior defensivestance

Protection Warrior Tank

Talents & Builds

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

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The three builds you will see below will be based upon what the community calls the “Standard Build.” In its original form, it is best suited for raids, which is why you will see it titled as “Raid” below. The Utility and the Dungeons build are the variations of the Standard Build. Each of these three brings something different to the table.

Talent Builds

standard raid build

The Standard Build for Protection Warriors comes with great survivability tools, while also empowering the Warrior with great utility and threat-generation tools. The build offers survivability through effects like Deflection, Last Stand, Improved Defensive Stance, and Shield Specialization, while also offering great threat generation from Deep Wounds, Gag Order, and Sword and Board.

However, the Standard Build does not have great utility, due to a lack of points in improved shouts.

utility shout build

This variation of the Standard Build produces similar results, however, it focuses more on utility rather than threat generation. Its increased utility comes from talents like Booming Voice, Improved Demoralizing Shout, Improved Spell Reflection, and Commanding Presence. The rest of the build works entirely the same, with a minor difference in how many points we spend on Deflection.

dungeon build

The last build is an alternative for early dungeon crawling. This build works similarly to the utility build, however, it significantly improves our AoE capabilities by increasing our Cleave damage!

Notable Talents

  • Armored to the Teeth is a neat gimmick talent that allows us to gain attack power based on our armor rating. Taking this talent is absolutely mandatory considering how much free attack power we can gain by simply being armored behemoths.
  • Deflection is a standard bread-and-butter talent that increases our parry rating. This talent is mandatory for any Protection Warrior build!
  • Shield Specialization is one of the main talents that allows a Protection Warrior to generate threat effectively. It allows you to gain rage every time you block an attack. Having a high block chance together with this talent will ensure that you will never be rage-starved.
  • Anticipation is a standard bread-and-butter talent that increases our dodge chance, simply a must-have!
  • Improved Revenge is an amazing talent that improves our overall Revenge damage by 60% while also granting it AoE capabilities. Make sure to not skip this talent, as Revenge is one of our main core abilities.
  • Incite is a talent that improves our critical strike chance with Heroic Strike, Thunderclap, and Cleave. This talent is really good for threat generation, with more damage resulting in more aggro generated.
  • Last Stand is a talent that grants us one of our core defensive abilities, allowing us to surpass any critical condition by temporarily increasing our maximum health pool by 30%. This is a core talent for Protection Warriors, giving them the proper tools to survive challenging raid encounters.
  • Improved Disciplines is a great talent that reduces the cooldown of Shield Wall, Retaliation, and Recklessness by 60 seconds! You will want to take this talent to improve the frequency of your defensive cooldowns! Since Shield Wall has such a high cooldown to begin with, this talent can be considered mandatory!
  • Gag Order is an amazing talent for Protection Warriors in PvE content, not necessarily for the “Silence” part of the talent but rather for the increased Shield Slam damage!
  • Improved Defensive Stance showcases the true combat training of every Protection Warrior — not only shielding them from spell damage by 6%, but also enraging them and granting them increased physical damage whenever they shrug off an attack.
  • Vigilance grants us one of our greatest utility tools, allowing us to transfer 10% of all the threat generated by an ally (preferably our strongest damage dealer) to us, while also reducing 3% of the total damage they receive. This tool is absolutely amazing for threat generation, especially when placed on a squishy glass-cannon mage.
  • Vitality is a core talent that increases our total strength by 6% while also increasing our expertise by 6! This talent is absolutely necessary for min-maxing.
  • Sword and Board is one of our most important talents, allowing us to gain procs of free Shield Slam while also resetting its cooldown whenever we cast Revenge or Devastate.
  • Warbringer is the best tool in our arsenal when it comes to mobility. It allows us to use Charge, Intervene, and Intercept while in combat. Truth be told, there are not many things that can stop a juggernaut like the Protection Warrior on a battlefield when it comes to rushing among enemy lines.
  • Critical Block further emphasizes the importance of our Block Value, granting you a 60% chance to block double the amount, while also increasing the critical strike chance of Shield Slam by 15%. An overall insane talent!
  • Deep Wounds is a very powerful talent for threat generation, allowing you to place a DoT on your targets every time you critically strike. This DoT acts as a bleed over 6 seconds. This talent is extremely useful for single-target fights.
  • Booming Voice is a talent that increases duration of your shout abilities by 50%. An overall amazing talent if you are using the build for improved shouts.
  • Improved Demoralizing Shout increases the potency of Demoralizing Shout by 40%. An overall amazing talent for increased utility.
  • Commanding Presence increases the potency of your Commanding Shout and Battle Shout by 25%. An overall amazing talent, especially if you are in 10-man groups.
  • Improved Cleave increases the bonus damage of Cleave by 120%. An outstanding talent for dungeons and AoE fights!
  • Improved Spell Reflection is a great talent that increases the chance for spells to miss you by 4% while also granting you the ability to spell ward your entire party with Spell Reflection, applying the effect to everyone.

Glyphs

In this section, we will recommend you different sets of major glyphs based on application. The minor glyphs for these will stay the same (see Minor Glyphs).

  • Glyph of Taunt increases the chance of your taunt abilities to land by 8%. All tanking specializations have a similar glyph improving their chance of landing a taunt, and this is generally due to the Spell Hit Chance being hard to cap. An overall amazing glyph.
  • Glyph of Revenge grants you the ability to use Heroic Strike without any cost after casting Revenge. This glyph can be very powerful for single-target fights, as it allows you to consistently spam Heroic Strike without being rage-starved.
  • Glyph of Blocking increases your Block Value by 10% after using Shield Slam. This glyph is exceptionally good when undergeared, allowing you compensate for your Block Value.
  • Glyph of Shield Wall is an incredible glyph that reduces the cooldown of one of your most powerful defensive cooldowns by 2 minutes. However, it reduces the damage reduction of Shield Wall by 20%. Even with the reduced damage reduction, this glyph is entirely worth it!
  • Glyph of Last Stand reduces the cooldown of Last Stand by 1 minute. This glyph is extremely good for raids, as it allows you to have access to one of your “last measures” way more often, reducing any chance of wiping due to harsh boss tactics.
  • Glyph of Cleaving is an amazing glyph for any AoE encounter, allowing you to dish damage way more efficiently by extending the target limitation of Cleave by an additional target.
  • Glyph of Bloodrage removes the health cost of Bloodrage! This is a very good glyph for increased survivability and rage management, as it basically turns Bloodrage into an actual “free rage” button.
  • Glyph of Mocking Blow increases the damage of Mocking Blow by 25%. More damage results in more threat!
  • Glyph of Command is a simple glyph that increases the duration of Commanding Shout by 2 minutes. More uptime means that you won’t have to bother with frequent upkeep. An overall great glyph.
  • Glyph of Thunder Clap increases the radius of Thunderclap by 2 yards. Even if this sounds like a small number, it will help you gather mobs by granting you a bit more range.

 

About the Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.
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Kvicken
Kvicken
2 years ago

Why isn’t the revenge spam build shown here?

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Paloona
Paloona
Reply to  Kvicken
1 year ago

cause the guide is like 10 year old and sustainable for bugged priv probably xd

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Bills
Bills
2 years ago

For Glyphs…

Realistically speaking, bosses don’t hit hard enough for Glyph of Shield Wall or Glyph of Last Stand to be very useful – the only exception might when you off-tank Patchwerk.

For Talents…

  • One of the biggest ones that’s kind of… off is Damage Shield. Given your gear on another page, you reach roughly 800 Block Value, which means that, for two points, Damage Shield will cause roughly 160 damage – and that’s only against melee attacks. At the end of the day, this is a waste of two points.
  • The next one is Armored to the Teeth – this would give you (in your selected gear) roughly 570 additional Attack Power. The main thing is that you can almost reach 570 with Battle Shout or Blessing of Might. The reality is that you’re sacrificing 5% Critical Strike Rating from Cruelty, for something we can already essentially achieve.
  • The other thing is try and see about getting Puncture and Focused Rage – these help us avoid becoming rage-starved.
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NoSolEspanol
NoSolEspanol
1 year ago

https://www.warcrafttavern.com/wotlk/tools/talent-calculator/warrior#?t=C2221155511899aa16666hggiimmmmmoobbbttt6pxwyyyEEEFFIbbB000A1111144000aabbb

I I made a build in the talent calculator that includes leveling.

Many thanks to the author of the guide for the basis. And it will be great if the author makes adjustments to the distribution of talents by level, which I did.

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