Leveling 1-80 as a Protection Warrior

[Pharia]

Disclaimer: This guide was entirely written by myself, and can also be found on the official forums - considering I haven't contributed to MMOwned much recently, I figured I would post it here as well. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it!

Introduction
I know many people leveled 70-80 as protection with WotLK simply because they already had tanking gear and the new talents allowed very good damage, specially in AoE grinding. Thanks to BoA gear many people are leveling new alts, sometimes even with unusual builds (restoration shaman/druids, protection warriors/paladins..) because leveling is easy enough. I used to have a warrior at 60 which I leveled as fury although I had the chance to tank just a bit, so given the many changes this class had been through (shield block one of the most important), protection seemed like the fun choice.

General advice is to level as fury or arms. At least pre-3.1 fury was considerably faster until relatively high levels; for this reason I went fury around level 20 ("dude, where's my rage?" *respec* "oh here it is") to find out it indeed was. Now probably things have changed for arms too so this may no longer be true. Anyway, protection isn't the first choice, but now it was mine. I found a couple guides for protection, one from someone who never actually tried it, and another one I eventually disagreed with, so here's what I did. Please note that it is not exactly a leveling manual, but rather my experience so people can compare theirs when trying this. Please add any comments about how you did it or you would do it because I'm sure some things can be improved, or there are other valid options at least.

1-10

You have no talents, you cannot dual wield.. Your only choices are: one- or two-handed weapons? I kept my shield for the added armor and used one-handed weapons. Charge, rend (sometimes not even that), heroic strike when enough rage, watch your autoattack going. It would've been boring if it hadn't been for the funny noises gnomes make when they fight (they're oh so cute).

I made the mistake of not paying too much attention to Thunderclap, but truth is even this early, without talents or glyphs, it's very efficient. HS uses up a lot of rage unlike TC while dealing very similar damage, so TC is worth against single mobs too.

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10-24

The true journey begins! My talent choices:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The way of killing mobs in defensive stance around these levels (only 5% damage penalty, when it used to be 10% I believe) is: heroic strike/TC when possible but always saving 5 rage for revenge, revenge as soon as it's up. If you don't have it, turn Floating Combat Text interface on to show reactive abilities (overpower, revenge, etc) because it will help you. Check the damage of your abilities because you won't upgrade thunderclap and heroic strike at the same time, and sometimes one's better than the other and viceversa. Rend is useful to kill runners without leaving a pack you just pulled, and does decent damage too; just don't use it if you see the mob's gonna die fast or the DoT goes wasted.

Revenge is very important because at certain levels (generally whenever you update your Revenge rank) hits very very hard and is very cheap in terms of rage. At 15 we can get Glyph of Revenge, which makes your next Heroic Strike free. It is actually not free because whenever you use Heroic Strike you don't get rage from the next autoattack, but still makes it very efficient damage. The alternative I see is Glyph of Resonating Power, to make Thunderclap cheaper. I eventually took both at 30. Glyph of Heroic strike is not worth it yet, in my opinion, because we don't have enough rage to spam it and our crit even with BoA gear will be very low (around 10%, 25% with talents). Maybe with Cruelty and better gear..

Rage starvation was a problem at some levels, when mobs' health pools suddenly increased after moving from one area to another but I wasn't getting new ranks of my attacks yet, a good revenge+strike combo no longer being devastating. Patch 3.2 arrived when I was in Stranglethorn Vale and I noticed a huge rage increase thanks to Shield Specialization. Given we now get 5 rage for every dodge, parry or block, it's worth considering getting 5/5 Deflection and 5/5 Anticipacion as soon as possible. That also means more Revenge.

I was however a few levels higher already so I didn't bother with respecs. My strategy against the lack of rage: shield block whenever up (Shield Mastery!), pulling several mobs if possible to fill the rage bar really fast. Note that at these levels Shield Block basically means 10 seconds of damage immunity, with good use of Cleave and Thunderclap for lots of damage. Demoralizing Shout is a good idea just before Shield Block ends because it affects mobs damage by a big chunk, and even if you don't take much in the end you may have to stop to eat.

Very important: Glyph of Bloodrage. Once every minute you use it (often to keep Battle Shout up). Now it's even better because you get 30 rage. Get this glyph!

At level 12 you have Shield Bash. Use it with intelligence to bring two caster mobs together (bash one, move to another while the interrupt lasts), or as a poor man's hamstring when you can't afford switching stances and the mob is just about to run away.

Last Stand was my "ooops, too many mobs" button. I think everybody gets it, because too many times you run from the graveyard when you could've made it with just a bit of help, and this is it.


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24-30

At level 30 my spec looked like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I started using Thunderclap a lot so took 2 points to improve it. Glyph of Resonating Power at 30 made it a lot more powerful. 5/5 Anticipation gave me more Revenge and rage in general, and Concussion Blow was an obvious choice.

The right time for Concussion Blow is not just one. Use it to finish off a mob without switching stance to execute (relatively powerful instant damage), to heal youself (5+ bandage ticks if you can't fear), to stop a runner (wait just until they show their back so they don't parry) or just before Revenge stun procs end (stunned mobs can't dodge/parry). However don't abuse, because mobs not hitting you means you are not getting rage. Stuns are best used when other mobs are still attacking you so you have rage to take advantage of them.

At this point pulls got bigger, Shield Block, Thunderclap, Cleave spam, Revenge+Heroic Strikes in between. I even thought of getting the Glyph of Cleave, but gave up as I still was taking many mobs alone or in pairs.

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31-49

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Casters were a pain compared to my endurance against melee mobs so I decided to take Improved Spell Reflection. One miss every now and then made a difference in the long run. Improved Defensive Stance means almost 10% more damage (uptime is a bit far from 100% due to low avoidance in leveling gear; just try not to use any rage until it procs to get the most of it), and obviously less damage. One-Handed Weapon Specialization is another obvious choice: another 10% extra damage.

Focused Rage is gold. It makes Revenge cost 2 points, Glyphed Thunderclap 9-12 (depending on how improved it is).

Why Gag Order? Sometimes you don't have enough rage to Bash right away until the spell hits you, but you don't know for sure and you go for it anyway.. and fail while spamming the button. This still gives you 3 seconds which isn't too bad. Of course if you for some reason can't interrupt a spell, don't silence the mob afterwards! Wait until they start casting again and bash just before it ends, to maximize the silence effect. The extra damage for Shield Slam is not bad at all (you get it at 40, and remember its damage is increased when Shield Block is up), and it's useful to dispel magic armors, but I didn't use it that much because it was expensive (17 rage with Focused Rage). It becomes an excellent talent at 55+ thanks to Sword and Board.

Then I took 3 Points in Vitality (more damage, more damage blocked, more survivability), 3/3 Improved Thunderclap (I missed the 3rd point) and 1 point in Improved Blood Rage, although just for 49. Why? Because at 50 I respecced.

50-60

These are by far the most amazing talents ever. If you decided to get 5/5 Deflection, please respec as you reach 50. Devastate is incredibly powerful now it deals 100% weapon damage, and you want 3/3 Puncture. My new build for 60:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I thought of getting a point or two in Improved Spell Reflection again later on (specially because at 64 I'll get the ability to give it full potential when in party), but I dropped them at the time. Why? Devastate!

I got the slowest main hand weapon I could because that improves Devastate damage. Note that for tanking you want them fast because of more Heroic Strikes. I then got Glyph of Devastate (dropped Revenge!) to stack 5 sunder effects fast and voilà. Charge, revenge whenever up, devastate until mob dies. No Heroic Strikes at all gives you more rage for more efficient Devastates; however once you rage goes 30+ you can start using it for more damage.

At 55+ Sword and Board gives you free Slams, and you become an unstoppable single-target mob killer. All the rage needed to use an ability in every cooldown. I even got Glyph of Rapid Charge because I did a couple levels in AV, and when grinding I found myself killing mobs in a lot less than 15 seconds. At level 55 I killed one of those Stone Guardians from Un'Goro (elite, level 60-61, 8500 health), even with all the miss miss parry miss. Yes, Devastate is that good.

With Warbringer you don't have to bother about stances. You can even pull with Taunt to get precision kills, run back a bit, and then charge.

AoE grinding? Well, you get Shockwave at 60 (again don't abuse but time it well, because you need rage!) and Damage Shield just before that. I'll now go farm Sporeggar as fast as possible for the shield available at Honored that should make it quite easier.

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60-80

Then I took some tanking talents: 5/5 Deflection (even though that decreases the damage from Damage Shield, it's more rage etc), Armored to the Teeth (more damage!), Cruelty (more damage!), Toughness (more damage from you, less damage from them!).. More and more effective tanking and grinding. Glyph of Cleave proved to be extremely useful, and now I rarely pull less than 3 mobs at a time. Multiple mobs mean not just AoE abilities but more rage, and more AoE abilities. Your dps just goes skyrocket high.

At 77 I gave a try to Deep Wounds. It seems the 5% crit loss is worth when your abilities already have an extra +15% from talents, but I have yet to try it seriously. The only drawback is no Puncture in that build, which turned out to be a show stopper against single targets. Great for AoE and instance tanking though, and most likely my choice for level 80 tanking.

In the end I did those last 3 levels with a PvPish build putting those non-prot points in Fury instead: Unbridled Wrath for more rage, of course Armored to the Teeth, Cruelty, and Blood Craze. Blood Craze is obviously useless if you go turtle, but with dps gear you get crits now and then and this combined with a nice trinket (the one from Grizzly Hills, or the BoA one) keeps you practically at 100%. And yeah, 3/3 Puncture back in place. I did quite a lot of battlegrounds between quests, and it turned out to be a pretty nice build for both tasks.

Some tips:
- Always bring food. You'll eventually need it a lot less as you level up, but after killing 6 mobs at the same time you'll say "damn, why didn't I bring any"
- Kill mobs a level or two below you instead of above you -unless you must do otherwise-. It's not just you hit harder on them, but you dodge/parry/block more too because of how defense works. That means more rage, even more damage.
- First Aid! Let a friend or alt of yours make the highest level bandages you can (remember you can use better bandages than you can make), and keep your first aid skill as high as possible
- Shield Spikes help, but don't get too excited. I've leveled with Thorium Spikes (good luck finding a crafter), and even with extensive use of Shield Block and some AoE it was roughly 5% of my damage. You don't block that often!
- Taunt is a great and cheap way of pulling mobs when charging is not safe.
- Even though you're Protection spec, that doesn't mean you have to stick to Defensive Stance. Learn when to Hamstring, or even fight in Battle or Berserker Stance against single targets (however I prefer Defensive because Revenge, even without glyph, is a lot better than Overpower, while soon talents will boost that stance).
- Intimidating Shout + Bandages save lives. Make a macro if needed.
- If you're battle stance, hit retaliation, and then shift to defensive stance, you keep your retaliation up. Use it wisely!

[benevan]

nice thread +rep

[tkoreaper]

This guide was entirely written by myself, and can also be found on the official forums

Good way of getting Blizzard to know who are are. (Someone who visits a hacking/cheating/ect website)

[soto]

Good way of getting Blizzard to know who are are. (Someone who visits a hacking/cheating/ect website)

being a member of the mmowned community isn't banable, I asked a GM once

[wafflicious]

Great guide, given me a few tips I hadn't thought of. Level 42 warrior

+Rep!

[BaboonX]

Nice guide. You really explained well what to do and you even organized it well by dividing the different levels. Different colors would of been a nice touch on this guide.

[darkblood14]

tkoreaper, do you think blizz put a deathmark on you by knowing you visit this kind of sites? To keep track of every one in your way is a titanic work and require manpower(like alot). What are you suggesting is a spy job, assign x guy to watch our op because it happens to post on a hacking site legit, non hacking stuff.

Nice guide

[Pharia]

Thank you for the kind comments, I will definitely be fleshing this guide out to make it more appealing to the eye!

[tkoreaper]

tkoreaper, do you think blizz put a deathmark on you by knowing you visit this kind of sites? To keep track of every one in your way is a titanic work and require manpower(like alot). What are you suggesting is a spy job, assign x guy to watch our op because it happens to post on a hacking site legit, non hacking stuff.

Nice guide

Not saying it will get you banned, but it will let them know to keep an eye on you. Besides, we're talking about blizzard here, they will and DO (I know for a fact) follow people who are known to be visiting site like this.

[Trollblod]

Good way of getting Blizzard to know who are are. (Someone who visits a hacking/cheating/ect website)

Mhm, I posted a few of my guides on the official forums aswell as here, I have also spoken to Gms ingame and told them who I am here, but I'm into guides, and that is not banable as mentioned

[Dobbs]

Nice guide +Rep