Protection Warrior Frequently Asked Questions — The War Within (11.0.5)

Protection Warriors, when in the right situation, are extremely strong. They are more than viable for all types of content. See the introduction page for a more in-depth answer.

First and foremost, the differences between each race is so small that you should play whichever race you like the best. The different racial bonuses do not make any worthwhile difference.

Each race's bonuses are situationally useful and the best race for you depends on what kind of content you do.

This is the main question most people will ask with tanking. The basic answer is that if you are doing progression or are on a character you do not feel comfortable playing offensively with, you should play defensively. As you start to get comfortable, you should start looking at DPS a bit more and play a more mixed style, where you start pushing DPS while slowly giving up survivability. Once you feel completely comfortable with the encounter and you will not hold your raid back, you can then go for DPS. This point is different for every person, as it depends on your group, your character, your gear, and your skill level.

Once you are fully comfortable with the class you can optimise your talents to be either even more offensive or to a more defensive setup.

Maintaining Shield Block while actively tanking to reduce incoming damage should be your top priority. That said, there is a significant difference in the overall uptime of Shield Block, and effective uptime. Effective uptime means that you have Shield Block up while actively taking melee hits, while overall uptime also counts the time when you are not necessarily taking any blockable damage. You should always aim to have as high as possible effective Shield Block uptime, while covering any potential downtime with defensive tools like Shield Wall.

Generally speaking, if it is an item-level upgrade, it should be equipped. Only compare secondary stats when looking at items of the same item level.

Regardless, it is a difficult question to answer, because what is an upgrade for you may not be an upgrade for someone else. In other words, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer, even when talking about 2 completely identical comparisons from you to another person. Everything in your gear has an effect on everything else.

For the most part, there is no set "amount" of any stat that you should have. Nor are there stat goals or a particular distribution of stats that you want to go for. It is very common for people to overestimate the importance of having the "right" secondaries, when in reality, having a higher quantity of stats will almost always beat having "better" stats. Having 120 of your worst stat is often better than having 100 of your best stat, since the differences are not as big as many people think.