Utolsó módosítás Willis, ekkor: 2014.07.16.
Ebben a cikkben sorra vesszük a Prot Warri képességeit(WoW 4.3), és hogy hogyan is használjuk őket (rota). Megnézzük azt is, mikor érdemes használni a CD képességeidet. Aztán kicsit részletezzük a azokat a finomságokat, amikkel egy Prot Warri szembe kerülhet. A többi Prot Warri leírás elérhető a bal oldali tartalom jegyzékből.
1. Alap egy targetes rota
Az egy targetes rota elég egyszerű, és így néz ki (a túlélő képességek nélkül):
Shield Slam;
Revenge;
Rend (csak frissíteni kell, ha lejár);
Devastate;
Heroic Strike (50 rage pont felett).
Ahhoz, hogy rendesen kihasználd a karaktered, ezt a rotát kombinálni kell a túlélő képességeiddel (alább részletesen). Ezen kívül a raid környezet megköveteli, hogy fenn tarts egy-egy buffot 
Commanding Shout vagy 
Battle Shout, és debuffot 
Demoralizing Shout és 
Thunder Clap.
Ha életben maradsz és tartod az aggrót, akkor már csak arra kell törekedni, hogy minél nagyobb sebzést ossz ki.
2. Alap több targetes rota↑top
- Fenn kell tartani a Rend -et (a Thunder Clap segítségével, az első alkalmazás után);
- Thunder Clap;
Shockwave;
Cleave (50 rage pont felett).
Ezeken kívül váltogathatod a targeted, és használhatod az egy targetes képességeket, ha valamelyik mobon csökken az aggród (pl.: Shield Slam és Revenge).
3. Tauntolás↑top
Taunt a fő taunt képesség. Csak egy targeten működik, és 8 sec a CD-je (ami frissül minden alkalommal, ha megütik azt a raid tagot, akin a 
Vigilance van). A Vigilance-ről bővebben annak részletes leírásában olvashatsz.
Challenging Shout egy AoE taunt. 10 yardon belül minden mobra hat, 6 secen keresztül. 3 perces CD-je van. Fontos, hogy ez nem hat a mobok aggrójára, a 6 másodperc letelte után visszatérnek előző targetjükhöz, ha nem sikerült elég aggrót termelni ez idő alatt rajtuk.
4. Védekező és támadó CD képességek↑top
Hogy jó teljesítményt hozzunk ki a Prot Warriból, rendszeresen használni kell a védekező és támadó CD képességeket.
Védekező CD képességek:
Additionally, you can provide your raid with 
Rallying Cry. It increases the maximum health of all party and raid members by 20% for 10 seconds. Note that it shares a cooldown with 
Last Stand.
Offensive cooldowns:
Inner Rage: reduces the cooldown of Heroic Strike and Cleave by 50% for 15 seconds. Excellent for bursts of threat and dumping excess rage.
Recklessness: increases your chance to critically hit with special attacks by 50%, but increases your damage taken by 20% for its 12 second duration.
Retaliation: causes you to deal damage to anyone who attacks you, once for each attack made, for a period of 12 seconds or a maximum of 20 attacks.
5. Stance↑top
You should be in 
Defensive Stance at all times, as this provides you with a crucial threat-modifier which allows you to keep aggro. There is a single exception to this, namely when needing to switch to 
Battle Stance in order to cast 
Shattering Throw (described below), though should only be for a few seconds.
6. Mastering Your Protection Warrior↑top
The guidelines given above will enable you to play your Protection Warrior with good results. If you want to push things further and master your character, then we advise you to continue reading.
6.1. Rage Generation
Warriors use a resource called Rage (Feral Druid tanks are the only other class in the game to use it). For you to properly master your Warrior, you must understand how Rage works.
The Rage bar has a maximum capacity of 100, and is empty by default. Rage decays at a rate of 1 per second when out of combat. In combat, Rage does not decay.
Rage is generated through three sources: taking damage (all sources, except for fall damage), dealing damage (only white attacks) and through the use of certain talents and abilities.
Taking damage generates rage, depending on the amount of health you have and the damage you receive. "Taking damage" includes every possible source of damage (including magic damage), except for fall damage. While the formula itself is not public, and not very relevant, all you need to know is that if you are taking a lot of damage from boss hits, then you will have ample rage. Otherwise, your rage generation will suffer.
This does not mean that you should ever increase the amount of damage you take (through unequipping gear, for example) to generate more rage.
Dealing damage generates rage, depending on your base weapon speed. Rage is only generated from white attacks, so not from special abilities (yellow attacks). The formula for this is simple: 6.5 * the base weapon speed. Off-hand attacks generate only 50% of the rage of a main-hand attack, but this is not relevant as you will never use an off-hand as a Protection Warrior.
The only factors which affect offensive rage generation, outside of base weapon speed, are attack speed and chance to hit (only up to the point where you are guaranteed to hit, so 8% chance to hit). This is because the more you attack, the more times you will generate rage. For more details on white (normal) and yellow (special) attacks, and how they are influenced by Hit and Expertise Rating, you can check our guide on the mechanics of melee attacks.
When choosing the Protection specialisation, you gain the passive ability 
Sentinel. Among other things, Sentinel affects your offensive rage generation in the following way: the rage generated by your white swings, when attacking a target of which you do not have aggro, is increased by 50%. This is designed to make up for the damage loss that Protection Warriors suffer because they receive no rage from attacks when they are not the active tank.
Rage is also generated through a variety of talents and abilities. We will detail these in their relevant sections.
6.2. Vengeance
Vengeance is a passive ability which you receive for choosing the Protection specialisation. Essentially, it increases your attack power for 5% of the damage you receive, up to a maximum of 10% of your maximum health. It is an essential mechanic in allowing you to maintain aggro of mobs.
6.3. Threat and Damaging Abilities
You will find yourself using most of these abilities during any encounter, either to generate threat, or simply to deal more damage.
- Shield Slam: this is your main threat-generating ability, and one which you should always use on cooldown. In addition to its damaging effects, it also removes one magic effect from the target. Thanks to the
Sword and Board talent, your Revenge and Devastate have a chance to reset the cooldown of Shield Slam and cause the next Shield Slam to cost no rage.
- Revenge: this ability costs an extremely low amount of rage, and causes a high amount of damage and threat. It is only available after you block, dodge or parry and attack. In addition to this, it has a chance to proc Sword and Board. With the appropriate talent, it also damages a nearby enemy.
- Devastate: applies a stack of
Sunder Armor to the target (stacking up to three times) and deals a moderate amount of damage. In addition to this, it has a chance to proc Sword and Board.
- Heroic Strike: this ability is mostly used for dumping excess rage. It generates a high amount of threat, and causes a moderate amount of damage. Note that it shares a cooldown with Cleave.
- Rend: places a bleed effect on the target, which can be spread to other nearby enemies through Thunder Clap, when the
Blood and Thunder talent is taken.
- Thunder Clap: this is your standard, low-cooldown AoE ability. It deals a moderate amount of threat and debuffs all affected enemies with an attacking-speed reducing debuff.
- Shockwave: your 31-point ability, Shockwave deals a moderate amount of damage and stuns all enemies in a cone in front of you (naturally, as a stun, it does not work on raid bosses).
Concussion Blow: allows you to stun a target for 5 seconds and deal a moderate amount of damage to them. Deals a high amount of threat.- Cleave: the AoE equivalent of Heroic Strike. Note, however, that it does not benefit from the same extra threat coefficient that Heroic Strike possesses.
Heroic Throw: this is your only ranged ability (outside of shooting with your ranged weapon, which not only has a cast time but also generates a pitiful amount of threat). It deals a small amount of damage and a moderate amount of threat. It is on a 60 second, but Gag Order lowers it to 30 seconds and attaches an interrupt and a silence effect to it.
6.4. Movement and Utility Abilities
While not strictly involved in your rotation, these are abilities you will find yourself using often in encounters.
Charge: charge towards an enemy mob, stunning it for a short amount of time and generating a small amount of rage. It is a very useful ability for reaching mobs before other players (or getting away from mobs).
Intercept: this ability works exactly like Charge, except that it costs rage instead of generating it, and the stun lasts slightly longer.
Heroic Leap: allows you to leap to a target location (within 40 yards), dealing a small amount of damage when you land.- Taunt: gives you threat equal to whoever is currently on top of the target's threat table, and forces the target to attack you for 3 seconds. If you are already at the top of the threat table, then it has no effect on threat.
- Challenging Shout: forces all enemies within 10 yards to attack you for 6 seconds. Unlike Taunt, it has no effect on threat.
Pummel: interrupts the target's current spell cast. If Gag Order is talented, it also silences the target.- Vigilance: places a buff on a friendly raid member, which causes the cooldown of your Taunt to be refreshed each time that raid member is attacked. It also generates Vengeance as if 20% of the damage received by the target was received by you.
Berserker Rage: removes all Fear, Sap and Incapacitate effects from you, grants you immunity to such effects and doubles the rage you gain from taking damage, for 10 seconds.
Spell Reflection: causes the next spell cast against you to be reflected back to the caster (instead of affecting you). This ability only works against single-target spells, but most boss abilities are not affected by it.
6.5. Pulling
The sequence of abilities you use when you pull a boss (or a group of mobs) can determine whether or not you are able to hold aggro for the remainder of the fight or not. As such, it is important that you familiarise yourself with the best way to do this.
6.5.1. Single Target
In the case of single target pulls, you want to use the following sequence:
- Heroic Throw;
- Charge and Heroic Leap (this means you should leap while your character is charging);
Shield Block (for 
Heavy Repercussions) followed by Shield Slam;
After this point, you will want to get Rend, Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout up, as your threat level allows. Additionally, you will want to get 3 stacks of Sunder Armor up through Devastate. Any Sword and Board procs that you get should be used on Shield Slam immediately, as the more Shield Slams you can squeeze in while your Shield Block is active, the better.
6.5.2. AoE
For AoE pulls, your main priority is to apply Rend to a target and then spread it to the others through Thunder Clap.
You should use Charge and Heroic Leap to get to the enemies faster, and you should use Shockwave early, to keep the mobs in place and allow you to cast Rend and Thunder Clap without losing aggro.
6.6. Advanced Ability Usage
6.6.1. Shield Block
Shield Block serves two purposes:
- It provides you with considerable damage reduction (physical damage reduction through increasing your chance to block and critically block, and magic damage reduction thanks to
Shield Mastery).
- It provides a 100% increase to the damage done by your Shield Slam, thanks to Heavy Repercussions.
Because of its low cooldown, you will want to use it often. When using it, you should keep in mind the extra damage to Shield Slam, and you should attempt to maximise the number of Shield Slams you can use during its uptime. Shield Block has a 10 second duration, and Shield Slam has a 6 second cooldown, so even without any Sword and Boards, you should be able to time it so that you can Shield Slam twice.
You should also use Revenge and Devastate as many times as you can while Shield Block is active, in an attempt to reset the cooldown of your Shield Slam.
If there is a particular spike of damage during the encounter, which you need to mitigate, you can save Shield Block for this moment.
6.6.2. Shield Wall, Last Stand and Enraged Regeneration
These are your three defensive abilities with longer cooldowns. The way in which you use them will vary greatly based on the encounter and the way you coordinate with your healers, but the following guidelines are useful:
Shield Wall, because it provides damage reduction, is a cooldown which should be used proactively, before you anticipate that you will take a great amount of damage.- Last Stand, because it provides an instant heal for 30% of your health (and increase your maximum health for its 20 second duration), should mostly be used reactively, when your health reaches a low value. It can, however, be used proactively, to provide you with enough health to survive a particularly big hit.
Enraged Regeneration, because it is based on your current maximum health, should be used while Last Stand (and any trinkets which provide health increases) is active.
Note that if you lack an Enrage effect from Bastion of Defense (a requirement for using Enraged Regeneration), you can use Berserker Rage.
6.6.3. Vigilance
Vigilance provides two benefits:
- Resets the cooldown of your Taunt, each time the target of your Vigilance is damaged by an attack.
- Provides you with Vengeance as though 20% of the damage received by the target of your Vigilance was received by you.
For both these reasons, it is advisable to use Vigilance on someone who is taking sustained damage; this will, in most cases, be one of the other tanks.
6.6.4. Rage Issues
If you are having problems with rage generation, do any of the following things:
- Use Berserker Rage, which doubles the amount of rage you gain from damage taken, for its duration. It also grants you 5 rage with the appropriate glyph.
- Use your Commanding Shout or Battle Shout, as they provide an amount of rage.
- Use Recklessness, as the extra damage taken from caused by this ability also increases the rage you generate.
If you have an excess of rage, you can simply dump it with Heroic Strike (or Cleave, in the case of multiple targets). In addition, you can use Inner Rage to allow you to use these abilities more often.
