MoP Protection Warrior Guide – Gearing Up and Best in Slot
MoP Warrior Guide
This page is a gearing up guide for Protection Warriors. It is updated for World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. It first presents the best in slot items before listing, slot by slot, all the items, with a level higher than 346, that you can acquire in the game.
We also explain how you will be competing for loot with other classes.
The other pages of our Protection Warrior guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.
1. Best in Slot Advice
With the advent of Thunderforged and Warforged weapons, BiS lists are muchless valuable a resource than before, because we would be advising a list of itemsthat not even the best players would have a chance to complete. Instead, we nowgive you advice for choosing your trinkets, your set bonuses, and whatever elseis important for your class.
As a Protection Warrior, most performance enhancing upgrades “per slot” will be your Shield and Trinkets.The shield itself offers the biggest source of armor on your gear and will present a pretty significantupgrade even if its stats are not the ones you prioratise.
- For your shield, choose Shield of Mockery if you are gearing for Avoidance or Bulwark of the Fallen General if you are gearing for Critical Strike. Even if the statson your shield do not suit your gearing strategy, upgrading the shield based on item levelwill always be a good choice.
- For your trinkets, we offer you the following advice.
- Vial of Living Corruption is the best trinket you can currently have.It increases the cooldown recovery rate from 16% (Raid Finder version) up to 25% (HeroicWarforged 2/2 upgraded version) on your 6 major abilities. In your case, it willallow you to use Demoralizing Shout, Heroic Leap, Last Stand, Mocking Banner, Recklessness and Shield Wall more often.
- Curse of Hubris is your general second choice. It will give you additional critical strike on use, which will increase your damage and your rage regeneration for the duration of the effect.
- As an alternative, Rook’s Unlucky Talisman is a great choice in situations where you will encounter various sources of AoE damage.
- Trinkets are your biggest source of stamina, but should you consider having enough health and wish to focus more towards damage output, Thok’s Tail Tip will give you a percentage-based increase to Critical Strike, damage and Mastery. Keep in mind, though, that equipping this trinket for its Mastery bonus alone is not worth it (compared to what the other trinkets offer).
- Apart from certain trinkets, your Main-Hand weapon, will be the biggestincrease to your DPS. You should make your choice based on the weapons that dropfor you and their item level. Most strength-based one-handed weapons will do the job.
- Your options when gearing for Avoidance are Haromm’s Frozen Crescent (great for Orcs) and Encapsulated Essence of Immerseus (great for Humans and other races).
- Your options when gearing for Critical Strike are Malkorok’s Skullcleaver(great for Orc) and Kil’ruk’s Furious Blade (great for Humans).
- Your Tier 15 set bonuses were not very good, so you should drop them as soonas you get gear with better item level.
- The Tier 16 2-piece bonusis decent in theory, although you will notice that the effective healing received from it is not significant.
- The Tier 16 4-piece bonuswill give you extra rage once Demoralizing Shout expires, however its potential is unfortunately random —n certain situations it will overcap your rage, while in others it will leave you dry.
- Should you focus in gearing towards Best in Slot, you will eventually drop your set bonuses so thatyou can equip Warforged alternatives in respective slots.
- If you are gearing for Critical Strike, then the best off-set piece is the Legs item.
- If you are gearing for Avoidance, then you can choose your off-set piece from amongst:Chest, Hands, or Shoulders.
2. Gearing Up
When gearing up, we advise you to always prioritise pieces of Tier sets over non-set pieces of higher item level.
In each table, the items are ranked by item level and then alphabetically.
2.1. Head
2.2. Amulet
2.3. Shoulders
2.4. Cloak
2.5. Chest
2.6. Wrists
2.7. Hands
2.8. Waist
2.9. Legs
2.10. Feet
2.11. Ring
2.12. Trinket
2.13. Main-Hand Weapon
2.14. Shield
3. Loot Competition
Regarding the loot you will get from raid or dungeon bosses, you willcompete with other classes in the following cases:
Item Type | Competing Classes |
---|---|
Tier Tokens | Hunters, Monks, Shamans, and Arms/Fury Warriors |
Plate ArmorAmuletsCloaksRings | Always: Blood Death Knights and Protection PaladinsItems with Mastery Rating*: Frost/Unholy Death Knights, Retribution Paladins, and Arms/Fury Warriors |
Trinkets | Blood Death Knights, Guardian Druids, Brewmaster Monks, and Protection Paladins |
One-Handed Weapons | Always: Protection PaladinsItems with Mastery Rating*: Frost Death Knights and Fury Warriors |
Shields | Protection Paladins |
* Keep in mind that, pieces of gear without tanking statistics may be thebest choice for tanks. This is the case of many Strength items with MasteryRating.
4. Changelog
- 16 Oct. 2013: Added BiS advice.
- 15 Jul. 2013: Added item level 600 cloaks.
- 17 Apr. 2013: Added 5.2 BiS list.
- 03 Apr. 2013: Added items from last bosses in Throne of Thunder (including Ra-den).
This page is a gearing up guide for Protection Warriors. It is updatedfor World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. It first presents the best in slot itemsbefore listing, slot by slot, all the items, with a level higher than 346,that you can acquire in the game. We also explain how you will be competingfor loot with other classes.
The other pages of our Protection Warrior guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.
1. Best in Slot Advice
With the advent of Thunderforged and Warforged weapons, BiS lists are muchless valuable a resource than before, because we would be advising a list of itemsthat not even the best players would have a chance to complete. Instead, we nowgive you advice for choosing your trinkets, your set bonuses, and whatever elseis important for your class.
As a Protection Warrior, most performance enhancing upgrades “per slot” will be your Shield and Trinkets.The shield itself offers the biggest source of armor on your gear and will present a pretty significantupgrade even if its stats are not the ones you prioratise.
- For your shield, choose Shield of Mockery if you are gearing for Avoidance or Bulwark of the Fallen General if you are gearing for Critical Strike. Even if the statson your shield do not suit your gearing strategy, upgrading the shield based on item levelwill always be a good choice.
- For your trinkets, we offer you the following advice.
- Vial of Living Corruption is the best trinket you can currently have.It increases the cooldown recovery rate from 16% (Raid Finder version) up to 25% (HeroicWarforged 2/2 upgraded version) on your 6 major abilities. In your case, it willallow you to use Demoralizing Shout, Heroic Leap, Last Stand, Mocking Banner, Recklessness and Shield Wall more often.
- Curse of Hubris is your general second choice. It will give you additional critical strike on use, which will increase your damage and your rage regeneration for the duration of the effect.
- As an alternative, Rook’s Unlucky Talisman is a great choice in situations where you will encounter various sources of AoE damage.
- Trinkets are your biggest source of stamina, but should you consider having enough health and wish to focus more towards damage output, Thok’s Tail Tip will give you a percentage-based increase to Critical Strike, damage and Mastery. Keep in mind, though, that equipping this trinket for its Mastery bonus alone is not worth it (compared to what the other trinkets offer).
- Apart from certain trinkets, your Main-Hand weapon, will be the biggestincrease to your DPS. You should make your choice based on the weapons that dropfor you and their item level. Most strength-based one-handed weapons will do the job.
- Your options when gearing for Avoidance are Haromm’s Frozen Crescent (great for Orcs) and Encapsulated Essence of Immerseus (great for Humans and other races).
- Your options when gearing for Critical Strike are Malkorok’s Skullcleaver(great for Orc) and Kil’ruk’s Furious Blade (great for Humans).
- Your Tier 15 set bonuses were not very good, so you should drop them as soonas you get gear with better item level.
- The Tier 16 2-piece bonusis decent in theory, although you will notice that the effective healing received from it is not significant.
- The Tier 16 4-piece bonuswill give you extra rage once Demoralizing Shout expires, however its potential is unfortunately random —n certain situations it will overcap your rage, while in others it will leave you dry.
- Should you focus in gearing towards Best in Slot, you will eventually drop your set bonuses so thatyou can equip Warforged alternatives in respective slots.
- If you are gearing for Critical Strike, then the best off-set piece is the Legs item.
- If you are gearing for Avoidance, then you can choose your off-set piece from amongst:Chest, Hands, or Shoulders.
2. Gearing Up
When gearing up, we advise you to always prioritise pieces of Tier sets over non-set pieces of higher item level.
In each table, the items are ranked by item level and then alphabetically.
2.1. Head
2.2. Amulet
2.3. Shoulders
2.4. Cloak
2.5. Chest
2.6. Wrists
2.7. Hands
2.8. Waist
2.9. Legs
2.10. Feet
2.11. Ring
2.12. Trinket
2.13. Main-Hand Weapon
2.14. Shield
3. Loot Competition
Regarding the loot you will get from raid or dungeon bosses, you willcompete with other classes in the following cases:
Item Type | Competing Classes |
---|---|
Tier Tokens | Hunters, Monks, Shamans, and Arms/Fury Warriors |
|
|
Trinkets | Blood Death Knights, Guardian Druids, Brewmaster Monks, and Protection Paladins |
One-Handed Weapons |
|
Shields | Protection Paladins |
* Keep in mind that, pieces of gear without tanking statistics may be thebest choice for tanks. This is the case of many Strength items with MasteryRating.
4. Changelog
- 16 Oct. 2013: Added BiS advice.
- 15 Jul. 2013: Added item level 600 cloaks.
- 17 Apr. 2013: Added 5.2 BiS list.
- 03 Apr. 2013: Added items from last bosses in Throne of Thunder (including Ra-den).