Protection Warrior Guide for The War Within - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Protection Warrior.Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about theProtection Warrior spec in the forthcoming The War Within expansion,including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the stateof the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regularchanges expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to bea launch guide for Protection Warrior, but instead serves as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, andwhat you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Protection Warrior has received no significant changes to thebaseline class itself. On the core level, it still plays and feels like thefamiliar class that we have all learned to like.

There has been some re-shuffling of talent positions and some number tuningon the class side of the talent tree. Below you can find some of the morenoticeable changes for Protection Warrior.

• Blood and Thunder has been removed. If you have Rend talented, Thunder Clap will now apply Rend to 5 enemies by default;
• Uproar now reduces Thunderous Roar cooldown by 45 seconds,instead of 30 seconds;
• Champion's Might's effect now lasts until Champion's Spearis active, without the limitation of having to be inside the spears effect;
• Defensive Stance no longer reduces your damage dealt;
• Titanic Throw, Furious Blows have been removed;
• Shockwave and Thunderous Roar no longer give rage;
• Thunderous Words only increases bleed damage while Thunderous Roarbleed is active;
• Reinforced Plates now gives 10% of armor instead of 20;
• Second Wind now also constantly heals you while you are below 35% health;
• Honed Reflexes has been redesigned to reduce the cooldown of Shield Wall, Intervene, Spell Reflection, Storm Boltand Pummel by 5%.

Protection talent tree, on the other hand, has had only two significant changes.

• Improved Heroic Throw has been replaced with Fight Through the Flames;
• Dance of Death now increases the duration of your Ravager by 2 seconds,up to 3 times, if an enemy dies while affected by Ravager;

The above changes are the most relevant ones for Protection Warrior.

While nothing changed for Protection Warrior's core features,The War Within still has major implications for all specs thanks to the HeroTalent Tree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondarystats when entering a new expansion.

Protection Warrior has the choice between the Colossusand Mountain Thane Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk moredeeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec, and somethoughts on what looks strong and weak ahead of launch.

The Colossus Hero Tree opens up a new ability, Demolish.The rest of the tree consists of various talents which buff or interactwith Demolish in some way.

Gameplay-wise, nothing really changes outside of getting to press Demolish every once in a while. The ability itself hits veryhard, so it is definitely a satisfying button to press. Something to note,the ability is a hasted channel. This means that you are unable to moveor cast the majority of your abilities while it is channeling. You can stillblock, and use Shield Wall, Shield Block, Spell Reflection, Last Stand during it. You can also Charge and Heroic Leap,but doing so will cancel the channel, and thus the damage. In addition, you can reducethe cooldown of Demolish with Dominance of the Colossus, this createsa guaranteed short burst window on a low cooldown. Your aim is to use Demolishas often as possible, and ideally pair it with other cooldowns like Avatarand Demoralizing Shout to increase its damage. Missing out on Demolishcasts will put a big dent in your overall damage, so using Shield Slamas often as you can will be crucial due to Dominance of the Colossus.

Power-wise, the tree performs very well. Demolish will provideyou with big numbers, especially in single target, while AoE is slightly behind. Revenge will also play a bigger part in your overall damage output,as the Colossus tree has some talents focusing on its damage output.

Defensively, it has some solid options. Demolish itself reducesyour damage taken during the channel, and for 10 seconds after the channel.You will also take 2.5% less damage at all times, thanks to Mountain of Muscle and Scars. No Stranger to Pain and Veteran Vitality are on a choice node. The 15% more damageprevented by Ignore Pain will go a long way, consideringhow much we are using the ability. There is also Martial Expertwith the 20% increased damage blocked with critical blocks. The issuewith this talent is that if you do critical block, you already neglectthe damage down to almost nothing, causing this extra 20% be irrelevant.

Utility-wise, you get access to a knock-up with Earthquaker.This pairs very well with Rumbling Earth, in any AoE situation.Knock-ups do not share diminishing returns with stuns, which meansthat you can still knock enemies up, even when they are already stun-immune.Alternatively, you can gain access to Boneshaker, which increasesthe stun duration of Shockwave and provides a short slow after the stunends. Between the two, Earthquaker should be the default option.

The Mountain Thane Hero Tree focuses on Thunder Blast and Lightning Strikes. This tree is totally passive, and full ofrandom procs, which in turn can proc other procs, eventually leadingto a full circle.

Gameplay-wise, you are looking at a totally passive tree. The whole conceptof this talent tree is revolving around various procs, which can start a chain reactionof proccing various other effects, creating a full circle as shown below.

• Burst of Power allows Lightning Strikes to proc Shield Slam;
• Strategist can proc Shield Slam;
• Shield Slam can proc Thunder Blast;
• Thunder Blast can proc Lightning Strikes thanks to Flashing Skies;

And if that was not enough random procs, Lightning Strikes can also activate Avatar for 4 seconds through Avatar of the Storm, it shouldbe mentioned that this Avatar does not provide you with 2 Thunder Blasts.Taking all the above into consideration, playing your normal rotation of focusing on Shield Slam and Thunder Clap, you are already taking full advantageof this Hero tree. Thunder Blast hits like a truck, and has a reallysatisfying animation to it, and the best part is, it just replaces Thunder Clapwhen it procs, no extra button to worry about. Mountain Thane being focused on Thunder Blast ( Thunder Clap) and Shield Slam, provideit a more fluid gameplay, than its counterpart in Colossus.

Power-wise, it performs well in all situations, but excells at AoE. Whilethe whole tree relies heavily on random procs, it still provides a heftyamount of damage over the course of the encounter. Thunder Blastis the biggest damage part of the tree, and while being mostly randomlyprocced, you can guarantee 2 stacks of it every time you use Avatar,thanks to Avatar of the Storm. This means that you have guaranteed burstwindows every ~45 - 60 seconds on top of all the other Thunder Blastand Lightning Strikes procs.

Defensively, you gain access to Strength of the Mountain and Keep Your Feet on the Ground (or Steadfast as the Peaks).The first one causes Demoralizing Shout to reduce 5% more damage.This can lead to a lot of extra damage reduction, especially when paired with Thunderlord. Keep Your Feet on the Ground reduces your physical damage takenby 2%, and also causes Thunder Blast to reduce damage taken by8% for 5 seconds. Both of these are great passive defensive benefits foran already tanky class.

Utility-wise, you get to choose between Storm Shield and Storm Bolts. Storm Shield makes Intervenealso grant a magic absorb to your target, while Storm Boltsmakes Storm Bolt hit 2 additional enemies. There is a clearwinner here, and it is Storm Shield. The absorb is based on3 times your Armor, and Protection Warriors have a lot of armor.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Protection Warrior in The WarWithin. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentarythat is italicized.

• Warrior Protection 11.0 Class Set 2pc — When Shield Slamis reset through Strategist, you gain a buff, increasing the damage of Shield Slam by 5%, and reducing damage taken by 3% for 6 seconds.Considering how often Strategist resets Shield Slam,you can expect a fairly high uptime on both of these bonuses. Neither of themare significant, but they still provide a tiny bit of extra damage anddefensiveness on a 70%+ up-time. A totally passive bonus that is keptup by focusing on the highest priority rotational ability, Shield Slam.
• Warrior Protection 11.0 Class Set 4pc — Shield Slam critical strikesincrease the damage dealt by Thunder Clap and Revenge by 10%.Theup-time of this is heavily reliant on your Critical Strike stat. Luckily, Critical Strikeis a solid second stat option to stack for Protection Warriors, after Haste. As it was withthe 2 piece, you do not need to actively pay attention to this damage increase. Playingthe rotation properly, you will be pressing Thunder Clap or Revengeafter most Shield Slam casts, taking benefit from the increased damage.

Warrior Protection 11.0 Class Set 2pc is numerically fairly weak. The saving grace for this is thatit has a fairly high up-time, if Shield Slam is pressed on cooldown,as supposed to.

Warrior Protection 11.0 Class Set 4pc is also fairly lackluster, as it relies heavily onCritical Strike. With enough Critical Strike, it becomes better and better,as the up-time of the buff increases.

It is a totally passive tier set, which just works off of ourcore rotational abilities. The 2pc can be expected to have 80%+ up-time,but the 4pc will be significantly lower until we get to higher crit values.Compared to previous tier sets, the bonuses are very bland, unnoticeable anddull.