TBC Classic Protection Warrior Guide

Warriors are melee fighters, heavily trained in the art of combat. They rely on their strength and incredible toughness to guide them through the thick of battle. Warriors are less flexible than other classes, but are tougher and capable of dealing devastating damage to their enemies much more quickly.

Focusing on the Warrior's defensive nature and wielding a shield, the Protection tree is undoubtedly the strongest spec for tanking Warriors. Warriors are still the only tank with game-changing cooldowns like Last Stand and Shield Wall, making them still strongly desirable as the main tank of any raid.

If you would like to see where Protection Paladin tanks fall in the overall rankings among tank specs for PvE in TBC Classic, we have created a page dedicated to explaining what classes and specializations are the best of the best through multiple factors. However, ultimately, you should not let this list dissuade you from playing what you enjoy.

Strengths

• Lowest damage taken out of all tanks
• Great survivability cooldowns
• Brings great debuffs
• Becomes crush-immune almost instantly through Shield Block

Weaknesses

• Struggles with tanking multiple mobs at once
• Can struggle with Rage when out-gearing content
• Very reliant on using large amounts of different consumables

Human is the best choice for Alliance Protection Warriors, offering a nice threat boost through Expertise, and increased reputation gains.

Humans are a great, well rounded choice for Warriors, offering increased Expertise if using a Sword or Mace (Sword Specialization/Mace Specialization). The increased reputation gain from Diplomacy helps immensely with the early game reputation farming, but falls off later as it has no benefit other than that.

Added to the game with Burning Crusade, Draenei make good Arms Warriors as the Hit Rating from Heroic Presence is great, especially since it applies to your entire party.

Dwarves are a decent option for tank Warriors, as Stoneform offers an additional defensive cooldown.

• Quickness

Night Elves have very high base Agility, and with Quickness they have a bit extra dodge compared to other races.

Tauren is the best choice for Horde Protection Warriors, and Troll can be a good a good option for pure threat.

Taurens make amazing tanks, as the extra health from Endurance scales more as you gear up, and in good gear will easily give you over 1,000 health for nothing. War Stomp also has many great uses, especially in dungeons or during trash.

Troll definitely has the highest threat capabilities out of any Horde race, but typically this is not needed and losing out on the extra health from Tauren is not worth the small gain. Their racial bonuses are Berserking and Beast Slaying.

While Orc is weaker than the other options for pure tanking, it is a very strong choice if you plan on DPSing often. They have the following racial bonuses.

• Axe Specialization
• Hardiness
• Blood Fury

Engineering remains one of the best professions available to Protection Warriors, offering multiple different explosives and utility items to help with tanking. The multiple type of bombs can be used frequently to help greatly with tanking multiple mobs at the same time. The trinkets offered last a long time, as well as the goggles available in Phase 2. Engineering is a Protection Warrior's best friend.

Enchanting will be your best secondary profession, giving +8 all stats. While this gain is fairly minor, there is not any other profession offering higher stats.

Leatherworking can be a good option if there are no other players with drums in your group during raids.

If you would like to learn more about how your profession of choice can be used to supplement your goldmaking, along with a variety of other means to bolster your income, see our full goldmaking guide linked below: