Warrior Protection Talent Builds

Protection Talents

Shield Specialization - “Increases your chance to block attacks with a shield by 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5% and has a 20, 40, 60, 80, 100% chance to generate 1 rage when a block occurs.” Max 5 Points. - Not a bad talent. 5% more block and the 1 rage per block are handy, but to block you always have to have a shield equipped. If you don’t always sword and board, then Anticipation is better. Improve Shield block does work well also.

Anticipation - “Increases your defense skill by 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10.” Max 5 Points. - 10 defense, always. Nothing to complain about it. Though the defense skill is not as powerful as it used to be.

Improved Bloodrage - “Reduces the Health cost of your Bloodrage ability by 25 or 50%.” Max 2 points. - Now bloodrage uses base health. And a warrior base health at 60 is about 2600. This skill uses 20% to activate for about 520 health, these 2 points lower it to 260. Bloodrage though is rather situational. So these 2 points are only worth it if you want Last Stand.

Toughness - “Increases your armor value from item by 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10%.” Max 5 Points. - More Armor. One could say that this is a good thing, but damage mitigation per point goes down with each point more you get. So as you get more armor the less you get out of hit meaning the less this skill is important. Still if you need to put points into Protection at Tier 2, this is the place.

Iron Will - “Increase your chance to resist Stun and Charm effects by an additional 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15%.” Max 5 Points - Worthless. Really. 15% Stun and Charm resistance is almost nothing. And considering how often those attacks are used against you, makes 5 points here rather expensive use of 10% of your points.

Last Stand - “Ability: When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum hit points for 20 seconds. After the effects expire, the hit points are lost. Cooldown 10 min.” - Emergency Ability, about 2000 hitpoints in a flash, though once the ability runs out you lose 2000 hitpoints again as well. So either kill whatever you were having problems with during that time or get healed otherwise if you are below 2000 hit points you will end up with 1 hit point.

Improved Shield Block - “Allows your Shield Block ability to block an additional attack and increase the duration by 0.5, 1 or 2 sec.” Max 3 points - The first talent point is worth a lot since it increases shield block from 1 to 2 attacks. The other 2 points just increase duration. 1 point is useful, maxing this out is a waste.

Improved Revenge - “Gives your Revenge ability a 20, 30, 40% chance to stun the target for 3 sec.” Max 3 Points - Revenge doesn’t come up too often and you can only use it in defensive stance, so really only useful for a full protection spec warrior who is always in defensive stance. Still, most higher level mobs are immune to stun so this is a bit of a waste.

Defiance - “Increase the threat generated by your attacks by 3, 6, 9, 12, 15% while in Defensive Stance.” Max 5 Points. - The best talent in this tree. Defensive stance already confers a bonus of 30% on any ability and damage. This increases that to 45%. Comparatively, Battle stance doesn’t add a bonus and berserk stance has a negative threat bonus of 20%. Only important in PVE fights. More threat on the tank means that DPS classes can do more damage.

Improved Sunder Armor “Reduces the cost of your Sunder Armor ability by 1, 2, or 3 points.” - If you are tanking then usually you have more then enough damage rage coming in that you shouldn’t need this talent. A waste in my opinion.

Improved Disarm - “Increase the duration of your Disarm ability by 1, 2 or 3 sec.” Max 3 Points - Duration increase only, and not all enemies have a weapon and their unarmed damage is pretty good as well, and lets not get into immunity against disarm. An extra 3 seconds just means about 2 attacks anyways.

Improved Taunt - “Reduces the cooldown on your Taunt ability by 1 or 2 sec.” Max 2 Points. - Having to taunt all the time is a bad thing, once should have more then enough threat. Higher level bosses are immune as well. Again, it is not all that great of a talent.

Improved Shield Wall - “Increase the effect duration of your Shield Wall ability by 3 or 5 sec.” Max 2 points - Shield wall is a 30 minute Emergency talent. So it is very situational. Using 2 points on a very situational talent? Wasteful.

Improved Shield Bash - “Gives your Shield Bash ability a 50 or 100% chance to silence the target for 3 sec.” Max 2 Points. - Useful, though bosses will usually be immune. Helpful versus minor targets though.

Concussion Blow - “Ability: Stuns the target for 5 sec. Cost 15 rage. Range 5 yd. Cooldown 45 sec.” 1 Point - Better stun then Improved Revenge. Still, higher level mobs are immune or resistant and diminished returns do factor in.

One-Handed Weapon Specialization - “Increase the damage done by One-Handed melee weapons by 2, 4, 6, 8 , or 10%” Max 5 Points - More damage, that is always a good thing.

Shield Slam - “Ability: Slam the target with your shield causing 288 to 352, 342 to 418, 396 to 484, or 450 to 550 damage and has a 50% chance to dispel 1 magic effect on the target. Also causes a high amount of threat. Cost 30 rage. Cooldown 6 sec. Range 5 yd. 4 Ranks. ” 1 Point - Worst of the 31 talents, though best threat generation ability for the warrior. Still, the damage isn’t all the impressive, and as a protection warrior you would always have to use a shield.

Protection

Protection talents are generally very useful for Main Tank group work, allowing the Warrior to put up with more punishment than otherwise possible. This does come at a cost however, and the Protection Warrior is generally slower to make longterm progress when soloing as a result. Always use a shield while tanking!

Talent	Prereqs	Ranks	Description
Improved Bloodrage	none	2	Increases the instant Rage generated by Bloodrage.
Tactical Mastery	none	3	Retain additional rage points when changing stances.
Anticipation	none	5	Increased Defense skill.
Shield Specialization	Protection 5	5	Increases the chance to block with a shield and has a chance to generate 1 rage on successful block.
Toughness	Protection 5	5	Increased armor value from items.
Last Stand	Protection 10	1	When activated, this ability temporarily grants 30% of maximum hit points for 20 seconds. After the effect expires, the hit points are lost (Active).
Improved Shield Block	Protection 10 Shield Specialization 5	1	Allows Shield Block to block an additional attack and increases the duration by 1 second.
Improved Revenge	Protection 10	3	Gives Revenge a chance to stun the target for 3 sec.
Defiance	Protection 10	3	Increases the threat generated by attacks while in Defensive Stance and increases Expertise by 2/4/6.
Improved Sunder Armor	Protection 15	3	Reduces the cost of Sunder Armor.
Improved Disarm	Protection 15	3	Increases the duration of Disarm.
Improved Taunt	Protection 15	2	Reduces the cooldown of Taunt.
Improved Shield Wall	Protection 20	2	Increases the duration of Shield Wall.
Concussion Blow	Protection 20	1	Stuns the opponent for 5 sec (Active).
Improved Shield Bash	Protection 20	2	Gives Shield Bash a chance to silence for 3 sec.
Shield Mastery	Protection 25	3	Increases the amount of damage absorbed by the shield.
One-Handed Weapon Specialization	Protection 25	5	Increases the damage dealt with One-Handed Melee weapons.
Improved Defensive Stance	Protection 30	3	Reduces all spell damage taken while in Defensive Stance.
Shield Slam	Protection 30 Concussion Blow 1	1	An attack with the shield, causing damage and a 50% chance to dispel 1 magic effect on the target. Also causes a high amount of threat.
Focused Rage	Protection 30	3	Reduce rage cost of all offensive abilities.
Vitality	Protection 35	5	Increase Stamina and Strength.
Devastate	Protection 40	1	Instantly cause 50% of weapon damage plus X and additional threat for each application of Sunder Armor on the target. In addition, renew the timer on all Sunder Armors stacked on the target.