Protection Warrior Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.2.5)

Generally, you will want to Taunt as you cast Charge.

1. Cast Ravager.
2. Cast Charge.
3. Cast Avatar as you Charge.
4. Cast Shield Block.
5. Cast Shield Slam.
6. Cast Demoralizing Shout (only with Booming Voice).
7. Cast Champion's Spear.
8. Cast 1x Thunder Blast.
9. Cast Shield Charge.
10. Cast Demolish.
11. Cast 1x Thunder Blast.
12. Cast Thunderous Roar.
13. Cast Shield Charge.
14. Cast Thunder Clap.
15. Proceed with the appropriate ability priority.

The single-target rotation as a Protection Warrior is based on the following priority. As said, this is a priority. It is not the exact sequence in which abilities should be cast, but rather, each time you are able to cast an ability, you should start at the top of the list and cast the first available ability for which you meet the criteria. This applies to all "rotations" hereafter.

This does not take into account the usage of your active mitigation abilities (we cover this important topic in a subsequent section). Active mitigation usage is generally much more nuanced, and it would not be optimal to list them within an ability priority.

The overall goal is to generate as much Rage as possible by casting Rage-generating abilities so that Rage can then be spent on active mitigation.

1. Cast Avatar on cooldown
2. Cast Demoralizing Shout on cooldown (only with Booming Voice).
3. Cast Champion's Spear
4. Cast Ravager
5. Cast Demolish on cooldown
6. Cast Thunderous Roar
7. Cast Shield Charge
8. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown
   • It can be reset anytime you cast Devastate, Thunder Clap, Revenge or Execute, so watch out for these procs
   • Watch out for Burst of Power procs, which make your next 2 Shield Slams have no cooldown
9. Cast Thunder Blast whenever it procs
10. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown
11. Cast Execute, if you do not need Rage for survivability
12. Cast Revenge, if the enemy is above the Execute health threshold, and you do not need Rage for survivability

Below you can find some additional notes to keep in mind before diving into the rotation:

• Ignore Pain will take priority over any other ability if your next cast would put you past your maximum Rage. Otherwise use Ignore Pain to dump any excessive Rage, as it is off the global cooldown.
• Outburst should always be used on Shield Slam on single-target.

If you really want to min-max your damage output, you should try to sync up your hardest-hitting abilities with Avatar and Demoralizing Shout windows. This allows you to fully benefit from the increased damage these two provide. However, be careful not to waste any casts by delaying them too long!

This AoE opener prioritizes gaining Threat on multiple enemies.

1. Cast Ravager
2. Cast Charge
3. Cast Avatar as you Charge
4. Cast Shield Block
5. Cast Demoralizing Shout (only with Booming Voice)
6. Cast Champion's Spear
7. Cast Thunder Blast
8. Cast Demolish
9. Cast Thunderous Roar
10. Cast Shield Charge
11. Cast Thunder Blast
12. Cast Thunder Clap
13. Cast Revenge

You can also take a look at the Mythic+ page if you wish to see if there are any changes in rotation when it comes to specific content.

Against multiple targets, when playing defensively, the ability priority is the same as the single-target priority. It maximizes Rage generation and, therefore, survivability.

In general, regardless of whether you are playing defensively, you should cast Revenge (even if it is not free) early on in a fight to spread Deep Wounds.

In dungeons in particular, where there are often new enemies to gain aggro on, it is worth casting Thunder Clap (or Revenge if Thunder Clap is not available, even if it costs Rage) over Shield Slam in order to pick up those enemies. Saving your allies is far more important than a bit of Rage.

1. Cast Avatar on cooldown
2. Cast Demoralizing Shout on cooldown (only with Booming Voice)
3. Cast Ravager on cooldown
4. Cast Champion's Spear on cooldown
5. Cast Thunderous Roar on cooldown
6. Cast Shield Charge on cooldown
7. Cast Demolish on cooldown
8. Cast Thunder Blast on cooldown
9. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown
10. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown
11. Cast Execute, up to 6 targets.
12. Cast Revenge

Some additional notes to keep in mind regarding the rotation can be found below:

• Ignore Pain will take priority over any other ability if your next cast would put you past your maximum Rage. Otherwise use Ignore Pain to dump any excessive Rage, as it is off the global cooldown.
• Outburst in AoE depends on your Hero Talent tree, and should roughly be used as following:
  • >Below 4 targets = Outburst on Shield Slam;
  • Above 4 targets = Outburst on Thunder Clap / Thunder Blast
  • Below 7 targets = Outburst on Shield Slam
  • Above 7 targets = Outburst on Thunder Clap
• Outburst usage in AoE is also dependant on various other buffs you have active currently, like Avatar and Demoralizing Shout in AoE would increase the value of Thunder Clap in AoE, with Unstoppable Force.

Remember that you are still casting abilities like Avatar and Demoralizing Shout in multi-target according to the above guidelines.

Whirlwind is not worth using, as Revenge does everything better.

1. Revenge applies Deep Wounds, Whirlwind does not
2. Revenge has a chance to reset the CD of Shield Slam, Whirlwind does not

This section only applies if you are using Unstoppable Force and assumes you have Avatar active.

With Unstoppable Force, when you cast Avatar, your ability priority stays the same, but you have to approach it differently.

During Avatar, Thunder Clap is available every other global cooldown. This means that you will be rotating between Thunder Clap and another ability based on the ability priority. For example, if you get lucky and many of your Thunder Clap casts reset Shield Slam, you will find yourself alternating between Thunder Clap and Shield Slam.

As another example, you might have a cast sequence that looks like this: Shield Slam, Thunder Clap, Shield Slam, Thunder Clap, Revenge (free), Thunder Clap, Revenge...

Again, your ability priority does not change. Shield Slam is still above Thunder Clap. Just be aware that during Avatar, Thunder Clap has a significantly reduced cooldown and adjust accordingly.

Also, it is very easy to Rage cap during Avatar, so be ready to dump Rage into Ignore Pain / Revenge.

While the rotation does not change significantly when playing Mountain Thane, there are still some things to keep in mind. The Hero Talent is almost fully compromised of various procs and buffs, which need to be responded to properly in order to get the full benefit from this tree. Below, you can find helpful notes for when playing Mountain Thane.

• Thunder Blast can stack up to 2 times;
• Thunder Blast should be your number one priority every time it procs, when playing with Flashing Skies;
• Avatar grants you 2 stacks of Thunder Blast thanks to Avatar of the Storm, so be sure to use all your remaining Thunder Blasts before pressing Avatar;
• Watch out for Burst of Power procs, as it makes your next 2 Shield Slam's have no cooldown;
• Storm Shield requires Intervene to be talented;
• Storm Bolts requires Storm Bolt to be talented;

Colossus brings a new active ability to the table, Demolish. This hits extremely hard and should be used as often as possible, ideally together with Avatar and Demoralizing Shout. If it lines up, great, but you should not delay a cast of Demolish for them unless the enemy dies before you would get an additional cast in.

• Demolish should be used on cooldown;
• Demolish is a channel, so be sure to position yourself in a way that no enemies are behind you before casting it or that you are not standing in any harmful ground effects;
• Demolish channel can be interrupted with movement abilities, such as Heroic Leap;
• Earthquaker and Boneshaker require Shockwave to be talented;
• Using Shield Slam on cooldown is even more important, as Colossal Might stacks buff the damage of your various abilities greatly;

The Combat Assistant is a feature introduced in Patch 11.1.7 which, simply put, helps you with your basic offensive rotation. To learn more about it we recommend taking a look at our Combat Assistant guide.

The assisted rotation uses the following abilities:

• Shield Slam
• Thunder Clap
• Ravager
• Thunderous Roar / Champion's Spear
• Execute
• Demolish
• Revenge
• Heroic Throw

The priority in which it uses these abilities more or less aligns with the detailed rotation we outlined in the other sections. It correctly prioritises using Rage generators and cooldowns before using spenders, and works decently well in single-target, but falls apart in AoE. It does not take into consideration the target counts in AoE for Execute, and instead only spams Revenge.

The assisted rotation is also not optimized for your choice of Hero Talents. I.e. as Colossus you want to prioritise Revenge over Thunder Clap, but the assisted rotation will not do so correctly.

Another thing to consider, is that the Assisted Rotation feature does not use all of your offensive abilities. Avatar, Shield Charge and Demoralizing Shout all need to be pressed by yourself at a proper time.

Last but not least are your defensive abilities. The assisted rotation only uses offensive abilities, meaning that you will still need to use your defensives yourself, while also managing your Rage via Ignore Pain.

All in all, the Combat Assistant feature is fairly usable in single-target if you properly weave in your offensive cooldowns, less so in AoE. Even so, you will lose out on about 10-20% damage in single-target, and much more in AoE. If you really want to get the most out of the class, we recommend against using this feature, as it does not take into account various factors like holding cooldowns for specific timings, your Colossal Might stacks, or target count.

Shield Block is your primary active mitigation ability. In the vast majority of situations, most of the damage you will take is blockable. As such, keeping Shield Block up as much as possible is key to smoothing out damage and helping you survive. Shield Block scales with the damage you are taking since it is a percent reduction to damage rather than a flat amount like Ignore Pain is.

It is important to understand the difference between overall Shield Block uptime and effective uptime. You want to have as much effective Shield Block uptime as possible. All that means is having Shield Block up when you are tanking something that actually melees you.

Essentially, anytime you are tanking something, you should be keeping Shield Block up as much as possible. It should still, however, be used intelligently, much like you would use major cooldowns.

Shield Block has the following properties.

• Causes you to block all melee attacks made against you for 6 seconds. These blocks can be critical blocks.
• The damage reduction provided by these blocks is determined by your Block stat. See here.
• It increases Shield Slam damage by 30% while active.
• It costs 30 Rage.
• It has 2 charges with a 16-second recharge time (reduced by Haste).

Shield Block is your primary mitigation ability. It takes priority over Ignore Pain, assuming you are taking blockable damage (which is almost always).

Using Shield Block is fairly straightforward. If you are taking blockable damage, you should be using Shield Block to reduce it. There are a few things to look out for in regards to getting the maximum out of your Shield Block usage:

• Shield Block works against all melee attacks (as in, auto-attacks/white hits), but there are also many boss abilities/mechanics that are blockable as well. Sometimes, things that you would expect to be blockable are not, and things that you would not expect to be blockable are. You simply have to know what these blockable mechanics are. The point here is that if you do know a higher damage ability is blockable, you are much better off delaying Shield Block so that the last bit of its duration blocks that ability.
• For further benefit, you can time Shield Block with the enemy's melee swings. Most enemies have a swing timer between 1.5 and 2 seconds. If you cast Shield Block right after a melee, you essentially just lost 2 seconds of effective uptime. Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell when an enemy is actually melee attacking you, so this point is not super important, but it can be beneficial if done properly.
• Also, be aware of the enemy's spell casts/channels. If the boss is about to spend 5 seconds casting a spell, you should delay Shield Block accordingly.
• Similar to the first point, but if you know an enemy is about to deal increased damage, you should delay Shield Block for those periods as well.

If you are not currently tanking, and there is a good amount of time before you do tank again, use Shield Block to increase Shield Slam's damage. Just be sure to time it in such a way that as you are about to tank again; you have close to 2 charges of Shield Block, so you can maximize effective uptime.

Ignore Pain reduces damage by a flat amount and, with its current tuning, is much weaker than Shield Block. As such, it should be used in addition to Shield Block, not in place of it.

Shield Block is limited by its cooldown, where Ignore Pain is simply limited by the amount of Rage you have available. So, once you have Shield Block up and on cooldown, spend your remaining Rage on Ignore Pain, making sure you save enough Rage to use Shield Block once it comes off cooldown. More or less, Ignore Pain should be used to further smooth out your damage intake.

Ignore Pain has the following properties.

• It removes 50% of any particular damage event. That is, for any damage taken, 50% of that damage is dealt to the absorb, and the other 50% is dealt to you.
• It has a maximum absorb size of 30% of your maximum HP.
• • This means the absorb does stack, just not very much.
  • The cap size is determined on cast.
• It has a duration of 12 seconds.
• It costs 35 Rage.

Just like Shield Block though, it can and should be used intelligently if doing so provides a benefit.

• You can use the following WeakAura to track your current Ignore Pain absorb and cap.
• If you are not tanking and are taking very little or no damage, do not use your Rage on Ignore Pain. Depending on how long you are not tanking for, it will simply expire, wasting that Rage. Instead, try to cast an Ignore Pain right before you start tanking again. If you are taking damage while not tanking, cast Ignore Pain as needed to help out your healers.
• While generally speaking, you will want to use Ignore Pain to smooth out your damage intake, it can also be very important to pool your Rage and cast Ignore Pain right before a large spike of damage, increasing the chance that you survive that spike.

The exception to the points above would be when you are close to Rage capping. In such situations, you should use Ignore Pain to spend Rage even if it means going over the Ignore Pain cap. Additionally, if you are ever in the extremely rare situation where there is very, very little blockable damage, or none at all, you will, of course, want to prioritize Ignore Pain over Shield Block.

When using Bolster, Last Stand should be used like Shield Block assuming you do not need Last Stand for a specific mechanic. Since Last Stand lasts 15 seconds, it gives you the time to gain very close to, or a full Shield Block charge (depending on your Haste). So, if used when you have a charge of Shield Block available, you risk wasting a bit of Shield Block cooldown time. Essentially, once you have used both charges of Shield Block and the actual Shield Block buff has expired; further, increase your effective block uptime by using Last Stand.

As a Protection Warrior, you have a number of defensive cooldowns. Using your defensive cooldowns properly is extremely important. You want to plan out your cooldowns before going into an encounter and maximize their usage as much as possible. Outlined below are your various defensive cooldowns and how they should be used. For more info on cooldown usage in general, see the how to improve page.

Last Stand can and should be used in two different ways depending on the situation. With Bolster, Last Stand should be used to extend effective block uptime as outlined above in the Shield Block section. If there are many high-damage mechanics or if you are able to have Shield Block up for the majority of your active tanking time, then Last Stand should instead be used as an emergency cooldown - if your health drops to a dangerously low level unexpectedly - or as a pre-emptive cooldown to prepare for a large damage spike.

If you are not running Bolster, then simply use it as an emergency or preemptive cooldown.

Shield Wall should be used to prepare for a large damage spike or during periods of high damage. This is especially useful against non-blockable damage. It is not recommended to use it if your health suddenly drops low, as it does nothing to get your health back up, but in situations where you have nothing else, you want to use it if it increases your chance to survive.

With Booming Voice, Demoralizing Shout should be used on cooldown and for damage purposes. More often than not, you will have it up at a good time, helping you smooth out damage.

Now, there are definitely situations where you will want to delay the usage of Demoralizing Shout if you know there is heavy damage upcoming and you do not have anything else available.

Without Booming Voice, simply use it as you would a normal defensive cooldown.

Spell Reflection can be used in two different ways. Either as a way to reflect a specific spell cast at you or as a magic damage reduction cooldown. The vast majority of spells cast by bosses are not reflectable, but the damage reduction portion still works, of course. Rarely, some boss abilities are reflectable, and in these cases, reflecting them can be extremely powerful, both in terms of damage reduction and dealing damage to the boss.

Most of the time, you will be using it as a magic damage-reduction tool. However, in dungeons and similar content, reflecting particularly powerful spells is a great use of Spell Reflection. Remember that when you reflect a spell, you lose the Spell Reflection buff, meaning you lose the damage reduction as well. Be mindful of this if you are in a situation where you need the magic damage reduction, but there are also reflectable spells being cast at you.

All warriors have access to various Stances depending on their specialization. For Protection, these stances include: Defensive Stance and Battle Stance. These are passive, constant buffs which provide us with individual benefits depending on which one we are in.

Broadly speaking, Defensive Stance stance reduces your damage taken, while Battle Stance increases your damage done. Choosing which stance to use should be done case-by-case. If the damage intake is high, then you should use Defensive Stance to reduce the damage you take, otherwise you should be in Battle Stance. You can easily swap between the stances mid-combat, so doing so depending on the situation will net you the best outcome. Below you can find some example scenarios on when to use which stance.

• Defensive Stance, reduces damage taken by 16%.;
  • Use it if the damage intake is high;
  • Use it if you are unfamiliar with the damage intake;
  • Use it if you are taking non-blockable damage;
• Battle Stance, increases Critical Strike chance by 3%;
  • Use it if the damage intake is not too heavy to deal more damage.