WotLK Classic Protection Warrior Spell Summary

Protection Warrior has a wide arsenal of spells available to them; knowing your important spells and when they are best suited to be used is a key part of performing well in any environment. The sections below aim to show you your most important spells by each category and give you a brief example of what each spell does.

Warriors have 3 different stances, each having unique functions that are needed in certain situations. Some spells can only be used in certain stances as well, making it important for you to understand the general purpose each stance has.

• Battle Stance — Increases Armor Penetration by 10% and allows the use of abilities that require Battle Stance.
• Defensive Stance — Reduces all damage taken by 10%, reduces all damage dealt by 5%, and allows the use of abilities that require Defensive Stance. Also greatly increases threat generation. This is the main stance you will use as a Protection Warrior.
• Berserker Stance — Increases your crit chance by 3%, but increases all damage taken by 5% and allows the use of abilities that require Berserker Stance.

As a Protection Warrior, you will be focusing on generating threat and surviving. These are all of your main damaging spells that you will want to focus on using.

• Heroic Strike — Increases the damage of your next melee attack. This turns your melee attack from a Rage-generating attack to a Rage-spending attack, costing you Rage twice essentially as you will lose the Rage you would have generated from the normal melee attack as well as the Rage you spent using Heroic Strike. Only use this when you have a high amount of Rage to spend.
• Heroic Throw — Deals decent damage and good threat. Use this on the pull and if your target is out of range. Silences the target for 3 seconds when paired with Gag Order.
• Thunder Clap — Deals damage and high threat to all nearby enemies.
• Cleave — Increases the damage of your next melee attack and causes it to hit an additional enemy. This turns your melee attack from a Rage-generating attack to a Rage-spending attack, costing you Rage twice essentially as you will lose the Rage you would have generated from the normal melee attack as well as the Rage you spent using Cleave. Only use this when you have a high amount of Rage to spend.
• Concussion Blow — Stuns the target for 5 seconds and deals high threat. Only has a 30-second cooldown.
• Devastate — Deals damage to the target and applies a Sunder Armor debuff. This is simply an improved version of Sunder Armor for a Protection Warrior as it also deals damage.
• Revenge — You can only use Revenge after you block, dodge, or parry an attack. With Improved Revenge, this will hit 2 targets instead of 1 for very high damage and threat.
• Shield Slam — Deals high damage to the target, increased by your Block value, and very high threat. Also dispels a magic buff on the target. Shield Slam has a cap on the amount of Block value that can increase the damage it deals.
  • At 1,960 Block value you will start to get diminishing returns on the damage increase of Shield Slam through BV.
  • At 2,760, BV will no longer increase the damage done by Shield Slam.
  Luckily, this block value cap can be bypassed by both Glyph of Blocking an Shield Block, so you can still deal massive damage with Shield Slam. This Block value cap only applies to Shield Slam; BV has no cap on reducing damage taken.
• Shockwave — Deals moderate damage to all enemies in front of you and stuns them for 4 seconds. With only a 20-second cooldown, this is a powerful ability in AoE situations.
• Taunt — While this is not a damage-dealing ability, you will use it often. Using Taunt when you are not currently tanking gives you threat equal to the current tank and forces the target to attack you for 3 seconds. Taunt counts as a spell, meaning it will require 17% Hit Rating to never miss. Taunt is not on the global cooldown, allowing you to use it whenever you need to.

For a better understanding of what your tanking rotation should be, be sure to check out your rotation page for a full explanation of both your single-target and AoE tanking rotations.

Protection Warriors have a selection of cooldowns that all fulfill different needs. Using the proper cooldown at the correct time can easily be the difference between a smooth pull with great threat, or DPS players having to hold back and wait for you to get ahead. Improper cooldown usage is also a danger during boss fights, as you must use your limited defensive cooldowns properly to survive what would otherwise kill you.

• Shield Block — 40-second cooldown with Shield Mastery. This is a great cooldown, doubling your Block Value and giving you 100% Block Chance, preventing any attacks from hitting you normally. This is a great defensive cooldown, especially when AoE tanking as it can outright prevent you from taking damage from all but the hardest-hitting mobs. Shield Block also has a hidden feature of allowing our Shield Slam to bypass the Block Value cap added during original WotLK. This means when you pair Shield Block with Shield Slam, you will greatly increase the damage output and threat generation of your Shield Slams.
• Challenging Shout — 3-minute cooldown. Forces nearby enemies to attack you for 6 seconds. This is useful at the start of a pull if a damage dealer starts AoEing too early. This is not a taunt, as after 6 seconds the mobs will go back to attacking whoever has the highest amount of threat.
• Mocking Blow — 1-minute cooldown. Forces the target to attack you for 6 seconds. This is useful if you have a taunt resist at a crucial moment. This is not a taunt, as after 6 seconds the mob will go back to attacking whoever has the highest amount of threat.
• Last Stand — 3-minute cooldown. Increases your max health by 30% for 20 seconds. This is mostly used when you are low health and would likely die if another ability or melee attack lands on you before you get healed.
• Shield Wall — 5-minute cooldown. This is your main defensive cooldown, reducing your damage taken by 60% for 12 seconds. You will want to use this whenever a major boss ability is about to go off that will deal high damage to you. You may choose to take the talent Improved Disciplines to reduce the cooldown down to 4 minutes. That talent paired with Glyph of Shield Wall will reduce your Shield Wall down to only a 2-minute cooldown, but reduce the damage reduction down to 40% instead of 60%. This is useful when you need multiple defensive cooldowns during a fight.
• Retaliation — 5-minute cooldown. This is mostly a cooldown you will use on trash. You will attack any mob that attacks you while this buff is active, helping generate threat while gathering mobs.
• Recklessness — 5-minute cooldown. Makes your next 3 special attacks guaranteed Critical Strikes and increases your damage taken by 20% while the buff is active. You should be able to use this at the start of a boss fight as you will have all healers focusing you and there is no one else to heal yet.
• Enraged Regeneration — 3-minute cooldown. This will consume an Enrage effect to restore 30% of your max health over 10 seconds. Better when paired together with Last Stand.
• Shattering Throw — 5-minute cooldown. This should be used as a raid DPS cooldown and coordinated with other raid DPS cooldowns like Heroism / Bloodlust. The 20% Armor reduction stacks with other Armor reduction debuffs, such as Sunder Armor. With multiple Warriors in one raid, this will typically be coordinated to keep the debuff up back-to-back for a longer period of time.

In addition to your main spells and cooldowns, you also have many utility spells that can be game changing when used in the proper scenario. Make sure you understand each of the spells listed below to fully take advantage of your entire spellbook.

• Charge — Quickly rush to an enemy, stunning them and generating some Rage. Thanks to Warbringer, you can use this ability in combat and in any stance.
• Berserker Rage — Removes and makes you immune to fear and incapacitating effects. Useful if fighting any enemy that uses either of those. Also increases your Rage generated when you take damage, which is useful if there are no fears or incapacitates to worry about. Counts as an Enrage effect.
• Intercept — Quickly rush to an enemy, stunning them. Thanks to Warbringer, you can use this ability in any stance. Great for closing the gap on enemies far away.
• Intimidating Shout — Fears nearby enemies for a short duration. Can be useful if you are in danger or surrounded by enemies.
• Shield Bash — Interrupts the target, preventing them from casting. This is an important spell that you should be making use of whenever possible. This spell is not on the global cooldown, letting you cast it freely.
• Disarm — Removes your target's weapons for 10 seconds, greatly reducing the damage they deal.
• Intervene — Rush to an ally, causing the next melee or ranged attack made against them to be redirected to you instead. Also reduces their threat by 10%. Great for mobility and saving people that are being targeted by mobs.

Buffs and debuffs are an important part of any party or raid group as they greatly increase your abilities to tank, heal and deal damage as a whole. Make sure you keep your buffs and debuffs up at all times to ensure the highest chance of success in whatever content you are in.

• Battle Shout — Increases the Attack Power of all nearby raid and party members. The duration of this buff can be increased by using Glyph of Battle.
• Commanding Shout — Increases the Health of all nearby raid and party members. The duration of this buff can be increased by using Glyph of Battle.
• Vigilance — Transfers threat from the target to you. Make sure you keep this buff on someone who will generate high threat.

• Thunder Clap — Reduces the attack speed of nearby enemies.
• Demoralizing Shout — Reduces the Attack Power of nearby enemies.
• Sunder Armor — Reduces the target's Armor by 4% per application, stacking up to 5 times.

• Hamstring — Useful to slow a mob down if they are running away or if you need to get away from them.
• Bloodrage — Instantly generates some Rage and then generates Rage over a short duration. This is useful to keep your Rage high in-between combat, as well as gain bursts of Rage during combat. Counts as an Enrage effect.
• Spell Reflection — Reflects a spell back towards the caster. Typically has very little use outside of dungeons and PvP.