PvE Protection Warrior Tank Guide

PvE Protection Warrior Guide

Stat Priority

Talents & Builds

Gear & Best In Slot (BiS)

Gems, Enchants, & Consumables

Rotation, Cooldowns, & Abilities

Welcome to the Protection Warrior guide for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Classic. In this guide you will learn about how to tank in dungeons and raids along with which consumables to bring, what enchants and gems to use and what gear you should aim for.

Best Races

Horde

• Undead: Undead is a resourceful race with Cannibalize, allowing them to regenerate a percentage of their health if they’re within 5 yards of a Humanoid or Undead corpse. While primarily used for its PvP dominance, Will of the Forsaken does have its share of situations to be useful in PvE, as well.

• Tauren: As a Tauren, you’ll immediately start off with more health than your friends of different races with Endurance, increasing your total health by 5%. One of the best abilities for any tank is War Stomp, effectively causing an AoE stun of up to five mobs for two seconds.

• Orc: As a way to combat Humans with their specialization racials, Orcs carry Axe Specialization, which increases your Expertise by 5 while wielding Axes. They also have Blood Fury, which increases your Attack Power, but reduces healing on you by 50%, so it is not recommended to use this while tanking. The final thing Orcs bring is Hardiness, increasing your chance to resist stun effects by 15%.

• Troll: For extra threat against beasts, Trolls are equipped with Beast Slaying, increasing damage by 5%. Trolls get an even bigger boost to their threat with Berserking, increasing their attack speed by 10% and an additional 10-20% if used when they are badly hurt. The final thing Trolls bring is Regeneration, increasing their health regeneration by 10% and allows 10% of health regeneration to continue while in combat. 

Alliance

• Human: Humans bring two different things to the table that can be considered a benefit for tanking. The first of which is Mace Specialization and Sword Specialization which happens to be their most notable. As a tank, both of these can be activated by wielding a 1-Handed Mace or 1-Handed Sword. The second would be Diplomacy, increasing your reputation gains by 10%.

• Dwarf: Dwarves also bring two things to the table that can be considered an asset to Warrior tanks of any caliber. The first of these is Stoneform, an ability that immediately increases your armor by 10% while granting immunity to disease, poison, and bleed effects for a short period of time. The second is Gun Specialization, granting an increase of 1% critical strike rating for guns.

• Night Elf: Night Elves provide Quickness, increasing their total dodge by 1%. They also benefit from Wisp Spirit, which increases their movement speed while dead by 50%. The other thing that Night Elves benefit from is Shadowmeld. This allows the player to fade into the shadows and have less of a chance for a mob to see them and begin attacking them.

• Gnome: Gnomes benefit greatly from Escape Artist, which allows players to escape from any immobilizing or speed reduction effects. They also benefit from Engineering Specialization, which increases your Engineering skill by 15.

• Draenei: Draenei benefit from having a heal free from any resource, Gift of the Naaru. This isn’t a major heal, but it’s nice to have some heals coming in. They also benefit from Heroic Presence, increasing your chance to hit with melee swings by 1%.

Horde: Thanks to War Stomp being an AoE stun, Tauren would be the ideal choice in terms of survivability. Comparing Taurens and Trolls, we won’t see enough beasts in dungeons and raids to benefit from Beast Slaying. Also, many of our abilities are now instant-cast and don’t have the same timing as in Classic, so Berserking won’t be as necessary.
Alliance: Thanks to how many things are affected by Expertise, a Human would be the ideal choice for Warrior tanks. Expertise affects your threat and survivability, so having an increase of 5 Expertise is a great start for any tank!

Best Professions

Engineering

This profession is pretty universally preferred amongst the tanking community, regardless of class. You can craft Goblin Rocket Launcher beginning in Phase 1 which is not unique so players can equip two if they’d like. Coming along in Phase 2, you can craft Tankatronic Goggles. The biggest team benefit from Engineering, though, would be being able to craft Field Repair Bot 110G for the nights when the raid is proving more difficult than was expected.

Blacksmithing

Apart from being able to craft Red Havoc Boots in Phase 2 after being the lucky recipient of Plans: Red Havoc Boots from SSC (Serpent Shrine Cavern), there is no definitive advantage of being a Blacksmith over another profession. Red Havoc Boots can be replaced with Boots of the Resilient which drop from Tempest Keep, another Tier 5 raid.

Enchanting

As a Warrior, Enchanting is used mainly as a way to earn some extra gold. This is mainly due to the fact that the Enchant Ring – Stats only provides +4 Stats which provides roughly 42 Health on a Pre-Raid-geared tank for a total of 84 additional health.

Leatherworking

The main appeal for raiders to pick up Leatherworking used to be stacking Drums of Battle but since Blizzard has confirmed that they are nerfing the usefulness of this item, raiders won’t likely be expected to carry them in TBC Classic.

Jewelcrafting

As a Warrior tank, your biggest takeaway from Jewelcrafting in Phase 1 would be Falling Star, Facet of Eternity, and Figurine – Dawnstone Crab. Keep in mind that each of these items are unique and can only be equipped once. While you won’t likely need the added defence from Figurine – Dawnstone Crab, the dodge rating may seem extraordinary. Keep in mind that that equates to an approximately 6.61% increase. If mitigation is your priority, it would be a better idea to obtain Figurine of the Colossus as it permanently increases your block chance by 4.06% and has an on-use effect that heals you.

Alchemy

Along with being able to craft Guardian’s Alchemist Stone in Phase 5, Alchemists are also able to craft a wide assortment of flasks, potions and elixirs that may be of use to you as a tank. Some of these include Flask of Fortification, Mighty Rage Potion, and Flask of the Titans. 

Gathering Professions

The gathering profession that will assist Warriors the most would be mining because they’re not as adept at farming as Protection Paladins are so being able to collect their own materials is definitely a strong asset.