PVE Protection Warrior Tank Guide (WotLK 3.3.5a)  

Welcome to the Protection Warrior Tank guide for World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King 3.3.5a. In this guide, you will learn about playing a Protection Warrior in a raid. The guide includes Talents, Glyphs, Gems, Enchantments, Add-ons, Gameplay & Skill rotation tips.

Talent Tree

These are the core talents for a Protection Warrior. Keep in mind, there are 12 points left for you to decide where to put them, depending on your needs.

This build is optimal for doing a 5-man dungeon. Maximizing the efficiency of your shouts and reducing some cooldowns on your defensive abilities.

The last build is for a full raid. This build improves your personal damage and therefore threat-generation. Lack of improved shouts is planned to be compensated with another Warrior, who spent points in those talents. This build has lower cooldowns on your defensive abilities, as well as improved shield slam. Shield slam is a high treat-generating skill, so use it.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs

Warrior has a lot of useful Glyphs to choose from. We’ll start with the raid-survivability ones, which are useful in higher difficulty content.

• Glyph of Taunt
• Glyph of Last Stand
• Glyph of Shield Wall

If you’re starting with dungeons, then there’s likely no need for the cooldown reductions from Glyph of Last Stand and Shield Wall. Combine the Glyph of Taunt with the following:

• Glyph of Blocking – you will use Shield Slam a lot and this effect will benefit you in every fight.
• Glyph of Cleaving and Glyph of Shockwave are both excellent for AoE clearing
• Glyph of Vigilance – If you’re having problems with keeping the aggro from your well-geared DPS.
• Glyph of Revenge – if you continuously don’t have enough rage

Gems

Gems are situational and depend on the build and equipment. They are used to reach the required stat caps.

• Meta: Austere Earthsiege Diamond
• Red: Regal Dreadstone, Guardian's Dreadstone
• Yellow: Enduring Eye of Zul, Vivid Eye of Zul
• Blue: Solid Majestic Zircon

Enchants

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

Gameplay & Rotations

Don't forget to turn the boss around, your raid has to hit him from the back. Exceptions - Dragons. They are hit from the side because they can hit with the tail.

Engaging a fight you can start with Heroic Throw followed by Charge

Once you are in melee use Shield Block and start using Shield Slam as it gives you lots of agro. Don't forget to use Revenge.

Always apply these:

• Demoralizing Shout
• Devastate
• Thunder Clap

Note, that sometimes other Warriors will do it for you.

In a perfect situation, every white attack should be replaced with a Heroic Strike

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

Stat Priority

Defense -> Stamina & Armor -> Expertise & Hit rating -> Dodge -> Parry & Block

Defense rating soft cap is 540, which makes you uncrittable. After that, the stat only continues to increase Parry, Dodge & Block which is also useful, but is not as crucial as the initial cap.

Stamina and Armor are listed together because these two stats form the Effective Health (or EHP), which equals to the amount of damage you can take before dying. It is necessary to have a balance of both stats to maximize your EHP. Increased EHP gives more time for your healers to react to incoming damage.

Example: 30K Health pool, and a 50% damage reduction from Armor equals 60k EHP. Which means that you will be able to take 60K of physical damage before dying, even though your total Health is 30k.

Calculations

EHP = max HP / (1 - Damage Reduction %)

If your HP is 30k and Damage Reduction is 50% :

EHP = 30,000 / (1 - 0.5)

Note: Tooltip % for Armor reduction is calculated against a lvl 80. Against a lvl 83 boss, use the following formula:

Damage Reduction % = Armor / (Armor + 16 635)

Expertise soft cap is 26 points, 6 of which come from the Vitality talent. Additionally, Human, Dwarf & Orc passives provide 3-5 Expertise.

We require 8% of Hit (or 263 rating) to always hit with our abilities. However, to always land a Taunt in a raid, we will require 17% Spell Hit because Taunt is a spell. Combining 9% of Spell Hit (or 237 rating) and a Glyph of Taunt will provide you the needed result. Target debuffs like Misery and Improved Faerie Fire will reduce the requirement by another 3%. Consider Taunt a priority. After that, you can work up to 8% of Melee Hit.

(Reminder that melee and spell hit is counted differently: 1% Melee Hit = 32.79 hit rating, and 1% Spell Hit = 26.23 hit rating)

Dodge, Parry, and Block are at the end of the list because the Defense stat covers them. Dodge and Parry are full avoidance stats, with Dodge being the more effective one most of the time. Block only partially reduces incoming damage from an attack.