Protection Warrior leveling guide

Level as Arms: a slow two-hander, Charge, Rend, Heroic Strike, Overpower on the dodge, Execute under 20%, and from 40 Mortal Strike on cooldown. Warriors are the slowest class to level in TBC because they have no heal, no pet and no ranged pull, and they are the class every dungeon group needs most; Arms is the tree that quests fastest and tanks dungeons well enough with a shield in the bag. Death Wish at 30, Mortal Strike at 40 and Sweeping Strikes at 63 are the levels where it gets faster again. The leveling tree ends on the Arms raid build exactly, so there is nothing to respec at 70 if you stay Arms, and one respec if you do not.

Your endgame is Protection, the TBC raid's main tank: Shield Slam, Devastate, Revenge and a shield that cannot be crushed with Shield Block up. Every raid needs one and most need two, and the gear section is about Defense, avoidance and Stamina. One respec at 70, and the tank gear you collect in dungeons on the way up is the point of the gear section; you will be asked to tank from 10, and you should say yes.

Arms, 1 to 70. Charge, Rend, Heroic Strike while you have rage, Overpower when the mob dodges, Execute when it is under 20%. The real priorities in the tree are Anger Management at 20, Death Wish at 30, Mortal Strike at 40 and Sweeping Strikes at 63, with Improved Heroic Strike from the first point because Heroic Strike is the button. Fury with two weapons levels about as fast once Flurry and Bloodthirst arrive and worse before them; Protection levels slowly and tanks every dungeon on the way, which is a fine way to reach 70 if you have the groups. Arms is also a raid spec, so there is nothing to undo.

1 to 10. Heroic Strike and Battle Shout, then Charge and Rend at 4. The first ten levels are the worst of the game for a Warrior: no rage without taking damage, no heal, and every two-pull is a bandage. Learn First Aid from the first trainer you see and keep it at your level all the way up; bandages are the Warrior's healing. Eat after every fight if you need to; a Warrior at full health kills faster than one who pulls at half.

10 to 30. The Defensive Stance quest at 10, then Sunder Armor, Taunt and Bloodrage: you can tank Ragefire Chasm and the Deadmines from here, and groups will ask. Carry a shield and a one-hander in the bag for it; quest in the two-hander. Overpower at 12 is free damage every time the mob dodges, and mobs dodge a lot at these levels. Execute at 24 is where the fights get shorter: everything under 20% dies to it, so spend all your rage on it. Death Wish at 30 is +20% damage every three minutes; the Berserker Stance quest at 30 is long and worth it, because Intercept and Whirlwind need the stance.

30 to 40. Whirlwind at 36 in Berserker Stance is the first real area attack; Berserker Rage at 32 is the anti-fear button; Intercept at 30 is Charge in combat. The loop is Charge, Rend, Heroic Strike, Overpower, Execute, with Thunder Clap on a two-pull and Retaliation (20) on a three-pull. Mortal Strike at 40 changes the loop: Mortal Strike on cooldown, Heroic Strike between, and the fight is two Mortal Strikes and an Execute.

40 to 60. Plate at 40. Mortal Strike, Rend, Heroic Strike, Overpower, Execute, and Deep Wounds bleeding under all of it. Recklessness at 50 with Death Wish is the elite killer. The Fury points arrive from 43: Cruelty first, Commanding Presence for a bigger Battle Shout, Enrage at 62 for +25% after you are crit.

60 to 70. Outland mobs hit harder and have more health; Victory Rush at 62 is a free strike after every kill, Spell Reflection at 64 answers the casters with a shield swap, and Sweeping Strikes at 63 with Whirlwind and Cleave finally gives Arms a pack. Improved Slam at 65 is the raid rotation arriving: Slam after every white swing. By 70 your tree is the Arms raid build.

Weapons: the slowest two-hander with the highest top-end damage you can find. Mortal Strike, Overpower, Slam and Execute all scale with weapon damage, and Deep Wounds and Impale scale with the crits, so a 3.6 speed axe or mace beats a faster weapon with the same damage per second. Train two-handed swords, axes and maces so you can take whatever the quest hands you, and polearms too; the weapon masters in Orgrimmar (axes and two-handed axes), Undercity (swords, two-handed swords and polearms) and Thunder Bluff (maces and two-handed maces) cover the types between them. A freshly trained weapon type starts at skill 1; beat on grey mobs for a few minutes before you swing at orange quest mobs. Keep a shield and a one-hander in the bag for dungeons from 10.

Why not Fury to level? Two one-handers from 20 with Dual Wield Specialization, Flurry at 35 and Bloodthirst at 40 level about as fast as Arms from 40 and slower before it, and two good one-handers are harder to keep current than one good two-hander. Fury is the right 70 spec for a Warrior who is not tanking and not the raid's Arms debuff; the respec plan below prices the switch. Why not Protection? Because it is slow alone. It is the right spec for a Warrior who tanks every dungeon on the way up and has the groups for it, and the respec plan covers switching at 70 or whenever the tanking starts in earnest.

The rule that governs the order below: a talent row is locked until you have spent 5 × (row - 1) points in that tree, and you have level - 9 points to spend. Row 2 opens at 5 points, row 3 at 10, row 9 at 40. The consequence is that you will buy talents you don't especially want purely to open the next row. That isn't a mistake; it's how the tree works. The order below has been checked against the real tree: every point is buyable at the level it is listed.

Where it ends: 33/28/0, the "Arms Slam" build WoWSims ships as its Arms raid preset, point for point. The Arms tree reaches Mortal Strike at 40 and Blood Frenzy at 42, and the 28 Fury points after it are the same 28 the raid build has.

Improved Demoralizing Shout at 48 is the raid build's choice, not a leveling one. Unbridled Wrath (extra rage on hits) is the better questing talent on that row, and if you would rather have it, buy Unbridled Wrath at 48 to 52 and plan to move the five points at 70; the engine validates either order, and the respec plan prices the swap.

Swords, axes or maces: Sword Specialization in the order assumes a sword. With an axe or a polearm, buy Poleaxe Specialization in its place (+5% crit, which with Impale and Deep Wounds is about as good as the sword procs); with a mace, Mace Specialization. All three are on the same row and the engine validates each. Take whichever your best two-hander is at 33 and do not swap specializations when the weapon changes; the difference is small and the respec is not.

Rage and stances

Rage comes from hitting and being hit, starts at zero out of combat (Anger Management and Bloodrage are the exceptions), and every ability costs it. The whole class is the question of what to spend it on: Mortal Strike first when you have it, Rend on anything that lives, Overpower the moment a dodge happens, Execute on anything under 20%, Heroic Strike with whatever is left. Never sit on rage; a Warrior at 100 rage is doing nothing with half of it.

Three stances, and the rule for each: Battle Stance for questing (Charge, Overpower, Rend, Mortal Strike), Defensive Stance for tanking (Taunt, Revenge, Shield Block, Sunder Armor, and 10% less damage taken), Berserker Stance for Intercept, Whirlwind, Pummel and Berserker Rage, at the cost of 10% more damage taken. Changing stance drops your rage to 10 with Stance Mastery at 20, zero before it, so you change stance for a reason and change back for a reason: into Berserker for Whirlwind on a pack and Intercept on a runner, back to Battle for the Overpower.

The solo loop

Charge, Rend, Heroic Strike, Overpower when it lights up, Execute under 20%. From 40, Mortal Strike on cooldown at the top of that list; from 62, Victory Rush first after every kill; from 65, Slam between swings when you have rage and nothing else is ready. Battle Shout before the first fight and every two minutes. Death Wish on elites and three-pulls, Recklessness on elites that would otherwise kill you.

Two mobs: Charge one, Rend both, Thunder Clap, Sweeping Strikes if you have it, kill the lower one first. Three: Retaliation if it is up, Intimidating Shout if not and nothing nearby will be angered by a feared mob, then Whirlwind in Berserker Stance from 36. A caster: Charge, Pummel or Shield Bash on the first cast, Hamstring if it tries to leave, and it never finishes a spell. A runner: Hamstring; nothing outruns a Hamstrung mob.

When it goes wrong: you have no heal and no escape, so the answers are bandages (First Aid, always at your level), Intimidating Shout to make the mobs leave for 8 seconds, a shield swap for Shield Wall at 28, and running. Warriors die to two mobs at 25 more than any other class; pull one at a time until Sweeping Strikes and Whirlwind, and carry food.

Tanking while leveling

Every dungeon from Ragefire Chasm to Shattered Halls will take you as the tank whatever your talents, and from 10 you should take the job; it is how Warriors get groups. Shield and one-hander on, Defensive Stance, Bloodrage before the pull, Charge is not available in Defensive Stance so you walk or Intercept from Berserker and switch. Sunder Armor five times on the main target, Revenge whenever it lights up, Shield Block when the mob is hitting hard, Taunt the mob that leaves you, Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout on packs, Cleave when two mobs are in front of you. Mark the kill target so the group knows which one you are Sundering. Shield Wall at 28 and Last Stand (talent) are the saves; use them before you are at 20%, not after.

A shield swap macro so the tank set is one press away:

#showtooltip Shield Wall
/equipslot 16 <one-hander name>
/equipslot 17 <shield name>
/cast Defensive Stance
/cast Shield Wall

Fill in the names of your weapon and shield; press once to swap and change stance, again for Shield Wall.

Shouts and debuffs

Battle Shout before every fight and every two minutes (Commanding Shout from 68 when health matters more than attack power, which is tanking and raid-wide damage). Demoralizing Shout on anything hitting you or a tank. Sunder Armor five times on anything that lives more than ten seconds in a group; in a raid it is the first thing you do and the Rogues' Expose Armor is the one debuff that replaces it. Rend and Deep Wounds on a boss are Blood Frenzy's 4% for the whole raid.

Macros

#showtooltip Charge
/cast [stance:1] Charge; [stance:3] Intercept; Battle Stance

One key: Charge in Battle Stance, Intercept in Berserker, and it changes to Battle Stance if you are in Defensive.

#showtooltip Overpower
/cast [stance:1] Overpower; Battle Stance

Overpower from any stance in two presses.

#showtooltip Pummel
/cast [stance:3] Pummel; [stance:2] Shield Bash; Berserker Stance

The interrupt for whichever stance you are in.

Train every new spell rank the moment you can afford it; an old rank of your main nuke is the most common reason a level feels slow. Keep your bags clear of vendor trash before leaving town, and pick up every flight path you pass; the map is the biggest time-saver in the game.

Leveling set (Arms): the two-hander first (slowest, highest top-end damage), then Strength, then Stamina, then crit, hit and Agility. Mail until 40, plate from 40, and a good mail piece in your 40s is still better than a bad plate one. "Of the Bear" (Strength and Stamina) greens are made for you; "of the Tiger" (Strength and Agility) nearly as good. Keep a shield and a one-hander with Stamina in the bag from 10; the dungeon tank set does not need to be good, it needs to exist.

Protection at 70, in order:

1. Defense to 490. Uncrittable against bosses. Nothing else matters until this is done; Anticipation gives 20 of it.
2. Uncrushable with Shield Block. Dodge, parry, block chance and 5% boss miss, with Shield Block's 75% block while it is up, must add to 102.4%; with Improved Shield Block covering two attacks, most Warriors are there the moment Defense is capped. Keep Shield Block on cooldown and you cannot be crushed.
3. Stamina. After the two thresholds, health is what keeps you alive to the hits you do not avoid, and raid bosses hit hard.
4. Avoidance. Dodge and parry rating, and Defense past 490 keeps giving both.
5. Block value. Shield Slam scales with it, and every block is damage not taken.
6. Hit and expertise. Threat. A missed Shield Slam is a lost Sunder; 9% hit and 26 expertise are worth having, after the survival stats.

Strength is threat (Shield Slam and Devastate scale with attack power), but never at the cost of Stamina or avoidance. Keep the Arms set in the bank for dailies; Protection in Arms gear quests slowly.

Quest levels by zone, Horde side. A zone is comfortable when your level sits inside its range; move on when the quests turn green.

Dungeon ranges are the levels the quests and drops are tuned for; you can enter earlier with a group that knows the place. In Outland, every dungeon has a heroic mode at 70 that needs a key from the matching reputation at Honored.

You have not picked professions yet, so this section is the advice on which to take; pick them in the character card and it becomes the route.

The two questions. Do you want the profession to make you stronger at 70, or to make gold on the way? The crafting professions with a bind-on-pickup payoff (Tailoring's cloth sets for casters, Leatherworking's sets for mail and leather wearers, Blacksmithing's Armorsmith and Weaponsmith lines for plate, Jewelcrafting's trinkets, Engineering's goggles, Alchemy's flask that lasts through death) make you stronger and cost gold to level. The gathering professions (Mining, Herbalism, Skinning) make gold and cost nothing but detours. The usual answer is one of each: the crafter your tank gear wants, and the gatherer that feeds it.

For a tank: Blacksmithing with Mining for the Armorsmith chest if you wear plate, Leatherworking with Skinning for the Dragonscale sets if you wear mail or leather, Jewelcrafting with Mining for a tank trinket, Engineering with Mining for the helm and the pull.

Leveling a profession costs the least when you do it while you level the character; every zone's nodes and drops are the ones the route wants at that skill. Pick early.

13/5/43. The Protection build WoWSims ships as its default tank build. Nothing from the Arms leveling tree survives except Improved Heroic Strike, Improved Thunder Clap and Anger Management, and Cruelty from Fury.

The core is not negotiable: Anticipation, Shield Specialization, Toughness, Last Stand, Improved Shield Block, Defiance, Shield Mastery, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Shield Slam, Focused Rage, Vitality and Devastate. The flexible points are Improved Sunder Armor (three ranks; Improved Revenge is the alternative if rage is never your problem), Improved Taunt (one rank, for the row), and the Arms and Fury side: the preset takes Deflection, Improved Thunder Clap, Anger Management, a rank of Deep Wounds and Cruelty, and the "Imp Demo" variant moves four of those points into Improved Demoralizing Shout for raids whose other Warriors do not carry it.

Raid job description: Defensive Stance, shield on, Bloodrage before the pull, Commanding Shout if the healers want health and Battle Shout if not. Shield Block on cooldown, whether or not you need it, because with Improved Shield Block it is what keeps you uncrushable. Sunder Armor to five stacks first, then Devastate in its place; Shield Slam and Revenge on cooldown; Heroic Strike with the rage left over on the next swing; Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout on the boss (both reduce the damage you take, and both are threat). Taunt the moment the boss turns, Challenging Shout and Intervene for the healer who pulled a pack, Last Stand and Shield Wall before you are at 20%, not after, and tell the healers when you use them. Spell Reflection on the caster mechanic the raid leader names.

Uncrushable is the whole TBC tanking game. A level 73 boss has a 15% chance to land a crushing blow for 150% damage unless your miss, dodge, parry and block add to 102.4%; with Shield Block's 75% block chance up, that is 27.4% from your avoidance and the boss's 5% miss, which Defense 490 and the dungeon blues cover. Keep Shield Block on cooldown and the crushes stop. Improved Shield Block making it cover two attacks is why that one point is the most important in the tree.

When to respec: at 70, or earlier if you are tanking Outland dungeons back to back in your 60s; the respec plan below covers both. A Warrior who has been tanking since 10 with a shield in the bag will find the switch is mostly a change of buttons.

Pre-raid gearing, the short version.

1. Defense to 490 from normal dungeon blues and quest rewards first; no heroic group wants a crittable tank. The Shadowmoon Valley and Netherstorm tank rewards are better than most heroic drops.
2. Heroic dungeon blues with Stamina, avoidance and block value. Honor Hold or Thrallmar Honored for the first heroic key, then Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, the Sha'tar and Keepers of Time for theirs.
3. Crafted plate from the auction house where it beats the dungeon drop; the Felsteel and Khorium pieces are made for you.
4. A fast one-hander with Stamina or Strength and the best shield you can find; the Honor Hold or Thrallmar reputation shield is the one you can plan for.
5. The Karazhan attunement chain runs through every dungeon on this list; do it as you gear.

The heroic keys are reputations from the dungeons themselves: Honor Hold or Thrallmar, Cenarion Expedition, Lower City, the Sha'tar and Keepers of Time, each to Honored. Tanks get the keys first because tanks get the groups first.

Karazhan attunement starts in Deadwind Pass and runs through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Arcatraz to Black Morass. Do it as you gear; every one of those dungeons drops something you want.

Start reputations before 70. Every Outland dungeon reputation reaches Honored from normal runs on the way up, and Honored is what buys the heroic key. Cenarion Expedition (Coilfang), Honor Hold or Thrallmar (Hellfire Citadel), Lower City (Auchindoun), the Sha'tar (Tempest Keep) and Keepers of Time (Caverns of Time) each gate a heroic; run the normal versions while they are your level and the keys are waiting when you arrive.

Pre-raid gear is dungeon blues, reputation rewards and crafted pieces. Heroics drop the best of it and pay Badges of Justice for the rest. Quest blues from Nagrand, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley fill the gaps; do not skip the last three zones' quest lines on the way to 70, they are the fastest gearing there is.

The Karazhan attunement (the Master's Key chain through Shadow Labyrinth, Steamvault and Old Hillsbrad, ending in the Black Morass) is the first raid gate on the Anniversary realms; start it the week you hit 70 because it takes a group for every step.

Anniversary realms have Dual Talent Specialization, so the cleanest plan is two trees: Arms for everything you do alone, and Protection or Fury in the second slot for the raid. A Warrior gets more out of dual spec than almost any class, because the raid wants a tank and the world wants a two-hander. Check the trainer for the price in game; sources disagree on what TBC Anniversary charges.

Reading an order from any level. Every talent order on this page is a list of which point to buy at which level, and the trees in the talent section have a level slider that can show any of them. To respec into a build at level 64, pick that build above the trees and drag the slider to 64: the highlighted cells are the 55 points to buy, in the order the table lists them. Every order has been checked so that each row is open by the time you reach it.

Into Protection. At 70, or in your 60s if you are tanking every Outland dungeon you see: follow the Protection raid order from the top. Switching before 60 is not worth it for a Warrior who still quests; Arms tanks the leveling dungeons well enough with a shield in the bag. A Warrior who respecs at 64 has Shield Slam the same day and Devastate at 70.

The number to budget: 50g per respec on original rules, the dual-spec price once on Anniversary. A Warrior who respecs once at 70 pays well under 60g; nobody should be flipping specs per dungeon.

A Warrior watches rage, a swing timer and the Overpower window, and the default UI shows the first and neither of the others.

• A swing timer (Quartz, or a WeakAura on your main-hand swing): the Arms rotation at 70 is Slam immediately after a white swing, and it cannot be done without seeing the swing. Tanks skip this.
• WeakAuras: Overpower available (the target dodged), Rend and Deep Wounds remaining on the target, Mortal Strike ready, Death Wish and Recklessness ready, Battle Shout missing, Sunder Armor stack count, Shield Block remaining and ready, Last Stand and Shield Wall ready, Revenge available.
• A threat meter (Omen) in every group; you are the one reading it, and the healers' threat on a bad pull matters as much as the Rogue's.
• Stance and gear set swaps: a stance bar you can see, and an equipment manager (ItemRack or Outfitter) for the shield swap, so the tank set is one click.
• One boss-mod addon, DBM or BigWigs, not both.

The addons that pay for themselves on any class: a quest helper (Questie) so you stop reading quest text for coordinates; a bag addon (Bagnon or similar) so you can see what you are carrying; a boss mod (Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs, never both) the day you start dungeons; and WeakAuras once you have a cooldown or buff you keep forgetting. Bind every ability you use in a fight to a key before you hit 20; clicking is the single biggest thing that makes a character feel weak.

Ticks are remembered in this browser for this class and spec.

Now

• Improved Heroic Strike 3/3 first; Anger Management the moment row 3 opens at 20
• First Aid from the first trainer you see and kept at your level; bandages are your heals
• The Defensive Stance quest at 10; a shield and one-hander in the bag from then on
• Train two-handed swords, axes and maces; grey-mob the skill up before you need it
• Charge, Rend, Heroic Strike, Overpower on the dodge, Execute under 20%; the stance macros from the basics section on keys

30 to 70

• 30: the Berserker Stance quest, Death Wish, mount; 36: Whirlwind
• 40: plate, Mortal Strike on cooldown from here
• 50: Recklessness with Death Wish on elites; 60: epic riding
• 62: Victory Rush after every kill; 63: Sweeping Strikes with Whirlwind on packs; 65: Slam after every swing
• Respec Protection 13/5/43 at 70, or when you start tanking Outland dungeons in earnest; budget about 50g

At 70

• Defense 490 before the first heroic; Shield Block on cooldown, five Sunders then Devastate, Shield Slam and Revenge on cooldown
• Commanding Shout or Battle Shout as the raid asks; Honor Hold or Thrallmar Honored for the first heroic key