Season of Discovery Protection Warrior Tank Leveling

This guide will aim to provide you with a clear skill and gear path to level 60 as a Protection (Shield) Warrior in WoW Classic Season of Discovery Phase 4. We will focus on talents, skills to buy and spell rotation, as well as leveling gear and the class specific quests you will find along the way.

Protection, as a tank spec, is mostly meant to tank for a group while leveling. One easy way to do this by yourself is to constantly look for dungeon groups, which should be very easy to find or create as a tank specialization.

You will also want to obtain the new Season of Discovery leveling runes Victory Rush and Devastate quickly for self-healing after killing an enemy or added tanking efficiency in groups.

In the short trek to level 60 we recommend the following talents for Protection Warrior leveling in SoD, which can continue being used at maximum level:

Keep in mind that, while no protection talents are currently used, this build is still optimal to use with a shield for damage and threat generation purposes, which are the main thing you need to worry about while leveling.

You can also try a more classical approach, and learn about which weapons to chase, or what spells to buy on our level-by-level WoW Classic leveling guides listed below:

The new Rune system in Season of Discovery is extremely important, and so are the early game runes Victory Rush and Devastate, which you should aim to obtain quick. You can also obtain the Furious Thunder very quickly, as well as Blood Frenzy for a full set of leveling runes.

Make sure to check our Warrior Rune guide, which has all runes you can obtain, in order to find them as you level up:

The Cozy Sleeping Bag is a new item in Season of Discovery that you can use to gain extra experience and rested experience, for yourself and any nearby party members, even if they do not have it themselves!

It has a lengthy unlock process that will take you all around the world:

Horde starts at a charred body near 46,74 in the Barrens, and then goes to the charred body at 37,50 in Westfall, while Alliance does the same in opposite order.

Afterwards, head to 40,52 in Stonetalon Mountains and look for a box next to a tent with a red cross on it. Click the nearby item to turn in the quest and proceed to a pile of dirt nearby at 40,50 for the next part of the quest.

Head to 49,13 in Loch Modan to turn in the next step at the top of the dam, to a eagle statue. Finish by going up the Thoradin Wall at 87,49 in Hillsbrad Foothills using a nearby cart to climb up the wall. Inside you will find the final turn in spot (bag and note) to receive Cozy Sleeping Bag. Make sure to use it on cooldown to speed up your leveling!

By setting yourself up with an upgraded user interface and macros from the get go, you will make your leveling process much easier. Check out our Warrior Macros and Addons guide in the link below for the full list.

Learning professions early on is very useful, as you can naturally level them as you go, avoiding extra work at max level. This is especially true for gathering professions, but crafting professions compensate your efforts by giving you extra tools to level with.

We recommend that you learn First Aid as soon as possible for easy self-healing. Skinning, Herbalism, and Mining are great primary professions for a leveling Warrior, allowing you to make extra gold, or accumulate materials that you can use to level crafting professions later. There is also a case to be made for leveling Engineering early on, since its bombs allow you to keep threat more easily, especially in area tanking situations.

While leveling, the number one thing is to use weapons with high damage, as these will make Devastate hit much harder. High damage per second on a weapon is also good, as it increases your general damage and Rage generation.

The rest of your gear should have Strength/Agility on it, as these stats increase your damage the most. You should also aim to have high Stamina/Armor, in order to be able to sustain more damage while tanking.

Early on, for Warriors, Spirit has a huge impact on regeneration speeds and should be obtained whenever possible. However, by the time you reach Level 40, your maximum health will scale past your regeneration abilities, which means you should look to buy food, craft bandages, and use potions instead to keep yourself healthy.

Every class in WoW Classic SoD has important class-specific quests that allow them to gear up and learn new active abilities, which are often critical to the class. For Warriors, these are the quests that grant you the Defensive Stance and Taunt abilities at level 10, the Berserker Stance and Intercept quest at level 30, and Whirlwind Axe, also at level 30. We will detail every single step of the way for you in our full guide for quests below.

Once you grind your way to 60, browse through our Protection Warrior PvE Guide in order to learn all the tricks and tips relative to the current maximum level Protection Warrior gameplay, or try out DPSing with Arms Warrior or Fury Warrior instead!

Enjoy Azeroth!