Prot Warriors

Lately I've been leveling my warrior simply b/c out of everything available to level it has been the most fun. However I finally broke down and bought dual spec and went Prot. Hot dam I love it. I thought rage would have blown goats but I found it relatively easier than leveling Prot (granted I leveled him in the middle of BC). Right now I'm level 54 (give or take 1 level) so I can imagine things picking up later on especially in the 60's when DK's come into the picture in instances. Has anyone else pick up a prot war after a pally and felt as if it was easier?

I leveled a prot warrior to see the "skill" and "difficulty" that all warriors claimed was necessary for tanking as one, relative to the paladin. While that turned out to be a bunch of hot air, since it's not really harder or easier, it does have its own unique sense of fun. It definitely feels a lot more aggressive and I love zipping all over the place with charge; also, I make sure to use intervene whenever possible cause people seem to always need to point it out in vent.

I had a blast levelling a prot warrior alt. However, I only went prot pally on my main after Stratholme, so I can't compare the levelling experience very well. Prot pallies got a major boost at the end of BC in the patch preparing us for wotlk - they were painfully low dps before then (and presumably, so were prot warriors). For level 70-80, I would say the pally is a tad "easier" to level because with lay on hands and healing we can survive more solo. For example, I could not solo Ragemane at L74 on my warrior whereas my prot pally did it with ease. But I suspect the dps is quite comparable.

More generally, I found the warrior an utter joy to level - so many tools (spell reflect, disarm, shield bash etc) and so much mobility (charge!). It made the prot pallies fixed rotation seem staid and dull.

However, after 4.x, my tilt has switched back to the pally. The Holy Power mechanic and the improvement in our offensive tools (low CD AS, ranged judgement, HW on all mobs, CS etc) has made it feel more fun. By contrast, my warrior now feels less responsive than before and harder work. That may all be subjective though. Objectively, I think the two are very similar - almost identical in gearing choices, very close in survivability and threat.

I just convinced my 50 yr old father to start playing wow and he he is a prot warrior... He LOVES it. I tought him to use Charge, Victory Rush, Shield Bash (or slam - I forget right now). He is able to chain kill mobs!

I also have a higher level prot warrior (which I'm about to reroll goblin) and it's sooo much more fun to level up then my pally.

As a side note though.. with all the recent changes.. almost ALL of the classes are much more enjoyable to level now.

Rerolled my Draenei warrior to Dwarf and tanking before you can get Warbringer before level 29 is frustrating to say the least. But once you get Warbringer and plop three points in shield spec it isn't horrible.

World leveling is easy, but world leveling is always easy.

Flex wrote:Rerolled my Draenei warrior to Dwarf and tanking before you can get Warbringer before level 29 is frustrating to say the least. But once you get Warbringer and plop three points in shield spec it isn't horrible.

World leveling is easy, but world leveling is always easy.

I *wish* I'd had it at level 29! Was nasty when it was what? Level 50?

Yeah, but before 4.0 a Prot Warrior could use Charge from level 20 with a macro and Stance Mastery. It was hard to adjust back on my lowbie Warrior when I realised I couldn't Charge any more because they moved Stance Mastery to level 58.

Nikachelle wrote:

Flex wrote:Rerolled my Draenei warrior to Dwarf and tanking before you can get Warbringer before level 29 is frustrating to say the least. But once you get Warbringer and plop three points in shield spec it isn't horrible.

World leveling is easy, but world leveling is always easy.

I *wish* I'd had it at level 29! Was nasty when it was what? Level 50?

i hated tanking on my warrior until i got warbringer at 50

now its my first 85 in cata lol

(necro thread ftw!)

I'd love a quick rundown on "how to play" for prot warrior; I had the unpleasant experience the other day on my (arms) warrior where our tank fail-quit in Auchenai Crypts. We were waiting for a replacement, I volunteered to go prot to 4-man some more trash, and then realize that I had NO IDEA what I was doing, had terribad keybinds, etc etc. (I haven't played my warrior as a tank since pre-Wrath.)

It's probably already in a thread elsewhere here, or at Tankspot, but if someone has a quick 2-paragraph version, I'd love that. (: Or, a link to a L2P guide too that you recommend.

Kelaan wrote:I'd love a quick rundown on "how to play" for prot warrior; I had the unpleasant experience the other day on my (arms) warrior where our tank fail-quit in Auchenai Crypts. We were waiting for a replacement, I volunteered to go prot to 4-man some more trash, and then realize that I had NO IDEA what I was doing, had terribad keybinds, etc etc. (I haven't played my warrior as a tank since pre-Wrath.)

It's probably already in a thread elsewhere here, or at Tankspot, but if someone has a quick 2-paragraph version, I'd love that. (: Or, a link to a L2P guide too that you recommend.

ill look for a guide, but if i dont find one ill type one up

This is how I play my prot warrior. I am by no means an expert, so feedback would be educational.

Gear - as pally.
Spec - you have more discretion than with prot pally; personally I went for most of the prot talents (I only skipped safeguard), plus the 5 healing talents in other trees.
Glyphs - the primes (shield slam, revenge, devastate) are obvious; for majors, I like shockwave, cleave and sunder armor (as my focus is 5 mans atm); for minors, berserker wrath, demoralising shout and intimidating shout.

How to pull: unlike with the pally, I tend to let the CC pull. The issue is that most of our AOE moves break CC whereas with the pally some of our attacks are smart, skipping CC, and with dazing shield, we can give the CC lots of time to be applied after the pull.
The main tools on the pull are heroic throw for stationary pull (or gagging healer) and charge. I sometimes throw, backpeedle and then charge, to give more time/distance. Charging into BC style dungeon packs can be trouble, as you may pull a second pack.

Single target: I prioritise shield slam and revenge procs (in that order). A shield block followed by a shield slam is a good front loading of threat. Beyond that, I try to maintain debuffs: rend, three sunders, TC and demoralising shout. When rage is at or above 60 or so, I will heroic strike - it is off GCD. (I have set up power auras to tell me when rage is high, so I can then HS or cleave.) I also tend to use concussion blow, Shockwave and disarm on cooldown, as I really like reducing damage and they are nice threat too. Spell reflect and shield bash (with SW and heroic throw as backups) are great on casters - one on one, they seldom are able to get a spell off.

AOE: where I can, I like to start with rend followed by TC thanks to picking the blood and thunder talent. However, if I am worried by snap threat, I might do an initial TC without having first applied rend. This is typically followed by a cleave to cement AOE aggro and then a Shockwave when I have the mobs lined up in my frontal cone. TC (esp. with rend), SW and cleave are the bread and butter for AOE; I tend to use them as much as I can (CDs and rage permitting).

However, all the moves (except heroic strike) mentioned previously under single target have a usefulness too. A shield block/shield slam keeps threat on the skull and gets your +25% block chance up when all the mobs are still pounding on you; devastate is still your "filler" move when you need one. For dealing with outlying mobs where threat is an issue, I use charge, heroic throw and taunt ofc; not quite as good as righteous fury.

For CDs, we have last stand and shield wall, plus enraged regeneration can help - as can glyphed intimidating shout. Impending victory can help heal us for quite a bit on large numbers of weak trash.

All in all, warrior tanking has many more tools and much more flexibility to use them than palatanking. I've found it surprisingly close in threat and survivability. It is weaker in self-healing though, but compensates by rocking against healers and having delicious maneouvrability.

Flex wrote:Rerolled my Draenei warrior to Dwarf and tanking before you can get Warbringer before level 29 is frustrating to say the least. But once you get Warbringer and plop three points in shield spec it isn't horrible.

World leveling is easy, but world leveling is always easy.

My goblin did not need warbringer.... Maybe you had problems because you went dorf, and dorf has no rocket belt it did make it easier once I got Warbringer on my goblin warrior though. Except for healers, who constantly complain that I'm running away from them.

I even made a macro to start the dungeon.

/p Welcome to Pitunia's Dungeon tanking service.
/p I am a warrior tank, I know what I'm doing.
/p I will be charging EVERYWHERE.
/p I'm not going to pull 10 packs at once, but if your mana is >30%, I'm charging the next pack.
/p Thank you from flying Pitunia air

(Pitunia is the name of the gobling warrior alt)

I too started to see what all the hubbub was about. Warriors and Druids saying "Paladins Are EZ MODE LULZ". I have even had 2 people in guild tell me that they lost respect for me as a tank once they rolled and tanked with a paladin (One getting to 64, the other getting to ~58). SO I rolled a warrior (the main class of one) and I'm level 40. This is faceroll. I'm sporting 20%+ avoidance and 20% block. I take no damage. I do more dps than anyone else in the run on trash and bosses, and I wonder when the skill is going to kick in. I have a 61 druid alt (the main class of the other person) who I have now tanked with in outland dungeons, and I just don't see the problem with them, (except the distinct lack of a nice way to deal with casters).

Moral of the story (tl;dr)
Tanking is easy while leveling. Don't tell me you lost respect for me because you leveled a paladin to 64 and it was faceroll.

i am one of those rare ppl who have a high level tank alt of every class (ok no DK yet but im working on her, and will prob be switching my pally over to SC so i have access to my BS on him.....shit.. HI AMI!)

anyway, no class is really HARDER, they all come down to being a smart tank

It is never getting to the mobs, it is having rage to do anything. Charge helps that, Shield Spec makes it insane.

there are times that i can hit nothing but cleave and still have rage....
i <3 shield spec

Anyone else hear the rumor that Shield Bash is going away? what gives?! Are they making Pummel usable in any stance?

yes:

Heroic Throw is now available from trainers at level 20.
Pummel is now usable in all stances.
Shield Bash has been removed from the game.
Spell Reflection cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10.

from http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2193-Patch-4.1-Notes-February-28-Update

Yes; I blame PvP, Yes.

another case of pvp fucking up our pve
i honestly think they should just leave it, i mean ffs if you want to protpvp then you should get the perk of an extra silence

this game wasnt meant to be balanced around pvp.....
more and more im moving closer to the dual tooltips camps
make abilities do one thing in pve and one in pvp

that is one thing i do like about rift, all thier resil/pvp crap is in a separate tree so to be great at pvp you have to spec into it

The shield bash change definitely sucks but while we lose the silence at least we gain a faster interrupt. I think I'm more pissed about spell reflect going on such a long cool down relative to before. It was a great tool for packs with lots of casters, free rage + threat at range without having to move.

My goblin alt is now 70, and really really really beginning to hate DPS in PUGS. I mean... Is it SO FREAKING HARD to wait until you hear/see Thundclap before you start unloading on everything? 2 Globals is all I ask. 2 freaking globals.

I have tried marking, but well.... That doesn't seem to matter. I have tried letting people die, that doesn't matter because healing is faceroll. I have tried griping at people, that doesn't seem to matter. The pulls in UK right before first boss, and at the top of each set of steps truly make me miss having Avenger's Shield. As it is, I'm rocketing one, Taunting one, and Charging another, and people still find ways to run the mobs all over the place.

Stupid Effing DPS making my job harder.

the good thing is that at that level the dps can tank for a bit on thier own

it will get a little better once you get Heroic Throw at 78
but yes, i miss AS pulling too

At least the healers aren't in terrible danger, and DPS that choose to die pyrrhically are free to do so IMO. Here's hoping it gets better. Once I level my warrior more, I'll share your concerns, I bet. (Once I L2Prot, that is to say.)

Also, boo on forum-preview eating my post.

Shield Bash removal is PvE screwing up PvP, not the other way around. I like it - ONE interrupt to use (and balance around), no matter the spec or stance.

After leveling my goblin warrior from 1 to 85 in about 2-3 weeks of casual leveling I am convinced anyone who is leveling a warrior at this time is HORRIBLY wrong if they are not Prot. Insta-Q's for dungeons, more dps than almost anyone until around the 70's. The ability to easily AoE pull & kill quest mobs..

KysenMurrin wrote:Yeah, but before 4.0 a Prot Warrior could use Charge from level 20 with a macro and Stance Mastery. It was hard to adjust back on my lowbie Warrior when I realised I couldn't Charge any more because they moved Stance Mastery to level 58.

Yeah the changes to when you learn things were really jarring if were mid levelling. I actually had a level 20ish mage that I hadn't played in around 5 years, but I decided to pick her up again in Cata. Something like 70% of the abilities she was used to having as a level 22 frost mage were either gone, or bumped up to level 40 or level 50 abilities. Even seemingly basic things like conjure water and mana shield became really high level abilities, and because of the new not-getting-a-talent-point every level, even talented abilities in your primary tree are a lot farther than they look. It really seems that for some classes at least they want you to have almost no decisions to make for the vanilla levels.

She's 64 now though, so is no longer feeling lobotomized, but now she's back to no decisions because everything dies in 2 arcane blasts - sometime she goes frost to deal with groups or just to make things more interactive, but that's slower on the kill quests so I end up switching back.