Protection Warrior Leveling Guide From 1 to 80 for WotLK Classic

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Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.

• Levels 10 to 12 — 3 points in Improved Thunder Clap.
• Levels 13 & 14 — 2 points in Shield Specialization.
• Levels 15 to 17 — 3 points in Incite.
• Levels 18 & 19 — 2 points in Shield Specialization.

Improved Thunder Clap gives you a nice damage boost early on, along with Incite.

• Levels 20 & 21 — 2 points in Improved Revenge.
• Levels 22 & 23 — 2 points in Shield Mastery.
• Levels 24 — 1 point in Shield Specialization.
• Levels 25 & 26 — 2 points in Improved Bloodrage.
• Levels 27 to 29 — 3 points in Anticipation.

Improved Revenge is the main focus of this build, greatly increasing Revenge damage as well as making it hit a second target. Shield Mastery is good for the reduced cooldown on Shield Block. Improved Berserker Rage is good for additional rage.

• Level 30 — 1 point in Concussion Blow.
• Levels 31 & 32 — 2 points in Anticipation.
• Levels 33 & 34 — 2 points in Improved Disciplines.
• Levels 35 to 39 — 5 points in One-Handed Weapon Specialization.

Concussion Blow does decent damage and stuns the target. Improved Disciplines is decent to reduce the cooldown on Retaliation for big AoE pulls. One-Handed Weapon Specialization is a nice overall damage boost.

• Levels 40 & 41 — 2 points in Improved Defensive Stance.
• Levels 42 to 44 — 3 points in Focused Rage.
• Levels 45 to 47 — 3 points in Vitality.
• Levels 48 & 49 — 2 points in Gag Order.

Improved Defensive Stance is another big damage boost. Focused Rage helps with Rage issues, while Vitality gives a great stat increase. Lastly, Gag Order is good for the extra damage on Shield Slam.

• Level 50 — 1 point in Devastate.
• Level 51 — 1 point in Warbringer.
• Levels 52 to 54 — 3 points in Critical Block.
• Levels 55 to 57 — 3 points in Sword and Board.

Devastate is a good, spammable spell for single-target damage. Warbringer is good utility, and Critical Block is some decent mitigation and more crit chance on Shield Slam. Finally, Sword and Board is even more damage with Devastate and can proc free Shield Slams.

• Level 58 — Make sure to respec before continuing.
• Level 58 — 1 point in Improved Revenge.
• Levels 59 & 60 — 2 points in Shield Mastery.
• Level 61 — 1 point in Shield Specialization.
• Levels 62 & 63 — 2 points in Improved Bloodrage.
• Levels 64 to 66 — 3 points in Anticipation.
• Level 67 — 1 point in Concussion Blow.
• Levels 68 & 69 — 2 points in Gag Order.
• Level 70 — 1 point in Anticipation.

Here we are retaking most of the Protection talents we had previously. Improved Revenge pairs up greatly with Unrelenting Assault for absurd Revenge damage.

• Level 71 — 1 point in Anticipation.
• Levels 72 to 76 — 5 points in One-Handed Weapon Specialization.
• Levels 77 & 78 — 2 points in Improved Defensive Stance.
• Levels 79 & 80 — 2 points in Armored to the Teeth.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization, Improved Defensive Stance, and Armored to the Teeth all give you a big damage boost.

Your leveling glyphs will differ from your endgame glyphs. Glyphs can be a huge boost to your leveling speed as some greatly improve the baseline power of your key abilities. Be sure to check the price of these glyphs on your server to vastly improve your leveling experience.

1. Glyph of Cleaving
2. Glyph of Sweeping Strikes

1. Glyph of Battle
2. Glyph of Bloodrage
3. Glyph of Thunder Clap

1. Keep Battle Shout's buff up.
2. Heroic Strike all Rage.
3. Bloodrage to prevent your Rage from decaying between mobs.
4. Charge your enemy.
5. Charge your enemy and switch to Defensive Stance.
6. Charge your enemy.
7. Taunt far away enemies and proximity nearby ones; gather around 2-6 mobs.
8. Aggro as many nearby enemies as you can without moving too far.
9. Sweeping Strikes and swap to Defensive Stance.
10. Shield Block for damage reduction and guaranteed Revenge procs.
11. Revenge every possible time it is available.
12. Thunder Clap if no Revenge proc or if it is on cooldown.
13. Thunder Clap if no Revenge proc.
14. Shield Slam singular mobs.
15. Mortal Strike singular mobs.
16. Cleave when AoEing if you have at least 45 Rage.
17. Rend anything that will live for most of the bleed duration.
18. Thunder Clap does great damage early on and starts to fall off in the later levels.
19. Victory Rush make sure to use this before the proc expires.
20. Overpower if any of your attacks are dodged.
21. Heroic Strike rest of Rage.
22. Heroic Strike single targets only if you have a large surplus of Rage.

Protection does not differ much from other specs in the early levels. Utilize Victory Rush and Thunder Clap as your main damage sources to quickly move from mob to mob.

With Improved Revenge, they way you play will change drastically. You will want to aggro ideally 4-6 melee-attacking mobs at a time, gather them up, use Shield Block, and spam Revenge to destroy them all thanks to the 60% damage boost and cleave component. Use Thunder Clap as a filler between Revenge uses. Swap back and forth between Defensive Stance and Battle Stance to use Victory Rush when Revenge is on cooldown. Shield Slam is a good Rage dump to use before swapping stances, or if fighting a single mob.

Make sure to respec here for the even higher Revenge damage spec through Unrelenting Assault. This removes the cooldown from Revenge, allowing you to use it every global cooldown. Gather as many mobs as you can without taking too much damage, use Sweeping Strikes, use Shield Block, and spam Revenge to melt everything. Throw in some Cleaves if you have enough Rage and you will melt large packs of mobs at a time.

Training spells can be rather expensive, especially if you try to learn every spell available to you. Here we will give you a list of your top-priority spells that you will want to train so you know which ones you can avoid and save some money.

• Be sure to keep these spells at max rank — Battle Shout, Thunder Clap, Revenge, Cleave, Shield Slam, Mortal Strike.

• Rend — You can stop training this spell after Rank 3 as you will stop using it shortly after.

• Heroic Strike — This skill gets a very minor damage increase with each rank. You can hold off on training this skill if you are low on gold.

• Charge — The only benefit of increasing the rank of this spell is the increased Rage it generates. Only train this when you have excess gold as the few extra Rage points are generally not game changing.

• These spells only have 1 rank and should be trained as soon as possible — Victory Rush, Hamstring, Overpower, Shield Bash, Shield Block, Disarm, Retaliation, Intimidating Shout, Shield Wall, Berserker Rage, Recklessness, Spell Reflection, Shattering Throw, Enraged Regeneration.

• Save your gold instead of training these spells — Demoralizing Shout, Mocking Blow, Execute, Challenging Shout, Slam, Whirlwind, Pummel, Commanding Shout, Intervene.

Congratulations on hitting Level 80 in Wrath of the Lich King! Now that your leveling process is over, you can learn more about Level-80 Protection Warrior gameplay by reading our Protection Warrior Guide, which covers everything you need to know to properly play your Protection Warrior.