WotLK PVE Protection Warrior Tank Guide (Quick)

Welcome to our PVE Protection Warrior Tank guide for WoW WotLK. This guide will show you what you need to know to play the Warrior class as Protection Tank. If you follow this build you should have healers begging you to tank for them.

Talents

This first build is optimized for 5-man dungeons. It improves your shouts and reduces the cooldown of your defensive abilities.

This second build is for raids. This build improves your threat generation but you lose the shout improvements. Your defensive cooldowns are shorter and so is your shield slam. Shield slam is a very high threat generating ability, so you should use it often.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

• Shockwave
• Blocking
• Revenge
• Shield Wall is another option.

Minor Glyphs

• Thunder Clap

Gems

Gems can change based on your build, equipment and caps. You may need to adjust your gems to account for your gear.

• Meta: Austere Earthsiege Diamond or Eternal Earthsiege Diamond
• Red: Defender’s Dreadstone
• Blue: Defender’s Dreadstone or Enduring Eye of Zul
• Yellow: Enduring Eye of Zul

Enchants

You may need to adjust your enchants based on your gear but these are the standard enchants.

• Head: Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector
• Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle or Greater Inscription of the Gladiator
• Back: Mighty Armor or Titanweave
• Chest: Super Health or Greater Defense
• Bracers: Major Stamina
• Gloves: Heavy Borean Armor Kit or Armsman
• Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
• Legs: Frosthide Leg Armor
• Boots: Greater Fortitude or Tuskarr’s Vitality
• Weapon: Blade Ward or Mongoose
• Shield: Major Stamina, Titanium Plating or Defense

Stat Priority

Survivability

1. Defense (540 for raids, best avoidance stat)
2. Effective Health (more is better)
3. Dodge (second best avoidance stat)
4. Parry (not worth getting vs dodge.)
5. Block (not a pure avoidance stat)

Threat Generation

• Weapon Speed (2.6, Slow means 5% more threat due to Devestate)
• Expertise (26)
• Hit (8% cap)

Rotation

Don’t forget to face the boss away from the raid. The raid needs to attack the boss from the back and not be hit by their frontal attacks. Dragons are the exception as they need to be hit from the side due to tail swipe.

• Heroic Throw followed by Charge are used to begin the fight.
• Once in melee range use Shield Block and start using Shield Slam since it builds a lot of threat.
• Revenge should be used when possible.

Always use these:

• Demoralizing Shout
• Devastate
• Thunder Clap

(Sometimes other warriors will apply them for you.)

In a perfect world you will be able to replace every white attack with a Heroic Strike.

Shockwave can be used in emergency situations, if a lot of monsters aggro or aggro is lost.