The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Wrath report card -- protection
by Matthew Rossi 
Jun 25th 2010 at 7:00PM
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid, we're just crazy.
With patch 3.3.5 upon us and the absolute last raid instance of Wrath of the Lich King set to go live in a week or two, we're finally at the end of the roller coaster of class design for this expansion. Whether you love your class (i.e., play a warrior) or hate it (play one of those other classes like mages -- that one's for you, Dom), it's fair to say that barring any last-minute surprise redesigns, what you see is what you're going to get until Cataclysm.
So where are warriors as a class right now? Since we're a tank/DPS hybrid with two roles and three specs (if you count PvE, anyway; if you include PvP, then we effectively have four roles and three trees to fill them), how well does the class do in each role, and how do our specs shape up? This week we'll discuss protection, the dedicated tanking tree for warriors.
At the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, warrior tanking saw a pretty significant shake-up in terms of its talents and abilities. Tanking in general was redesigned to be more fun, and a new hero class that was a tank/DPS hybrid was introduced. All of this changed the playing field for warriors pretty significantly. Warrior tanks found that for the first time, protection was possibly the most viable leveling build.
With patch 3.3.5 upon us and the absolute last raid instance of Wrath of the Lich King set to go live in a week or two, we're finally at the end of the roller coaster of class design for this expansion. Whether you love your class (i.e., play a warrior) or hate it (play one of those other classes like mages -- that one's for you, Dom), it's fair to say that barring any last-minute surprise redesigns, what you see is what you're going to get until Cataclysm.
So where are warriors as a class right now? Since we're a tank/DPS hybrid with two roles and three specs (if you count PvE, anyway; if you include PvP, then we effectively have four roles and three trees to fill them), how well does the class do in each role, and how do our specs shape up? This week we'll discuss protection, the dedicated tanking tree for warriors.
At the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, warrior tanking saw a pretty significant shake-up in terms of its talents and abilities. Tanking in general was redesigned to be more fun, and a new hero class that was a tank/DPS hybrid was introduced. All of this changed the playing field for warriors pretty significantly. Warrior tanks found that for the first time, protection was possibly the most viable leveling build.
Talents like Warbringer brought unparalleled mobility (so unparalleled that protection actually saw a brief window of PvP viability in arena and is still fairly strong for certain kinds of BG play). The addition of moves like Shockwave, target cap removal for Thunder Clap, and passive talents like Damage Shield helped increase warrior AoE tanking viability. (Other tanking classes may have taken AoE overboard, but while warriors have been solid at it all expansion, it's fair to say the warrior AoE tanking model is probably the least brokenly overpowered.)
However, as the protection warrior progressed through content, it's fair to say that at times that old green-eyed monster of jealousy reared its head. Other classes had an easier time trash tanking; other classes had better cooldowns, better effective health, better talents. A lot of warriors deeply envied Consecration, Death and Decay and Bear Swipe. While some of this was the usual grass is greener syndrome, it can't be ignored that during the first tier of Wrath raiding content, the tank of choice for the hardest fight then in the game was a death knight, a druid or a warlock pet. Still, it wasn't so much a problem with the warrior class/protection tree or its design or balance.
Blizzard has touted the warrior protection tree as one of their success stories for this expansion, and while I've not always agreed with the fulsome levels of praise it's gotten, by patch 3.3 it's fair to say that they have every reason to be proud of it. The warrior class has benefited from and been hampered by its legacy as the oldest and most continuous tanking tree in the game. The idea of warriors as tanks is so ingrained into the game that even when the design process changed to broaden the tanking ranks, the result usually ends up with other tanking classes viewed as more or less in balanced in relation to how well they do against warriors. This unfortunately causes bias that makes evaluating the protection warrior tank on its own merits highly labor intensive.
It's fair to say that, unlike in Burning Crusade, there has been no major point in this expansion where a warrior tank was manifestly inferior for 5-man, 5-man heroics or either 10- or 25-man raiding. While it might be true that specific fights or specific instances might be easier with a different tank, in general, the wide array of tools brought by the warrior class means that as a whole warriors have proven most durable in terms of tanking longevity. The legacy of BC's tanking flip-flop (where druids and paladins were by far the strongest tanks for the first six or seven months of release, especially in 5-mans and 5-man heroics, only to find themselves dethroned halfway through the Tempest Keep/SSC tier of raiding by warrior tanks on bosses for the most part due to specific mechanics designed around warrior abilities) caused paranoia among all tanks that saw expression in the debate over massive spike damage from bosses.
I don't think that warriors fared any worse than any other tank in dealing with that new, extremely bursty kind of boss damage. Sartharion breaths, the raw damage of an angry Thorim, or Mimiron's plasma blast replaced the old "crushing blow" and put tanks and tanking cooldowns under a spotlight. Fights like heroic Anub'arak showed us that warriors (and paladins) could use or even abuse the block mechanic in ways it never seemed to be intended. The woes of block served to emphasize how the change to the crushing blows mechanic and its replacement with more spike damage created a stress test for tanking mechanics.
Throughout Wrath, warrior numbers declined behind those of our fellow hybrid tanks. But that's a misleading statement, because while warriors as a whole did indeed dip below paladin, DK and druid numbers, protection-spec tanking warriors are possibly the highest percent of the class, and in end-game raiding at least, warrior tanks still thrive. Their relative decline in 5-mans may be explainable by the complexity of their tanking priority system: there's no "rotation" for a tanking warrior. Abilities like Devastate and Heroic Strike are used fairly consistently, while others like Demoralizing Shout, Cleave, Shockwave, Thunder Clap and Revenge are used either when they come off of cooldown or when their effects will fall off of a tanking target or targets. The breadth and depth of the patch 3.3.5 protection warrior (effectively the 3.3.3 prot warrior; there have been no changes since then) require an investment in learning and understanding the abilities and their use (especially since rage is unlike mana or runes/RP in its use), but rewards the tank with a fairly active and engaging style of tanking that demands more attention from the tank.
As things stand right now, going into the last content for Wrath of the Lich King, the protection tree comes out a winner. It performs its designed role and does so well -- perhaps never the master of any particular tanking role or niche (you'd never think of a warrior first for multiple mob tanking or anti-magic cooldowns), but capable of doing pretty much anything that needs doing as a tank. It also should be said that in terms of pure flavor, the warrior arsenal probably has one of the best aesthetics in the game. (This isn't important to every player, but some view it as a positive must to have their class aesthetics match their idea of the class.) One drawback that has never been satisfyingly addressed is the idea that to achieve cooldown parity with other tanks, two major glyphs should be used up, but in the face of the spec in its entirety, that concern doesn't outweigh the overall strength of protection warriors.
Simply put, the protection warrior is still the standard by which all other tanks are judged. In great part, that is due to the spec's having received a great deal of positive attention across the duration of the Wrath expansion life cycle. Protection is a viable leveling spec, has seen in recent months changes to mechanics like Revenge and Devastate that give it more offensive punch than it has ever had, and possesses a tool kit for tanking that other tanking classes envy for its breadth and scope. The protection warrior is complex to unlock and understand fully and rewards the player of the class with options for just about any situation he or she might come across.
I'd give protection a solid B on launch, a B+ for the majority of Wrath's existence and an A from 3.3.3 onward. It's had its pitfalls, but most of those came due to outside mechanics or issues and not the spec itself. The PvP interaction with its talents and stats like armor pen caused hiccups that will be discussed in a PvP report. At present, the prot warrior does exactly what it was designed to do, and it does it for the most part as well as one could expect it to.
Next week, we're looking at more leveling, and then we'll talk about DPS warriors and how they fared this expansion.
Check out more strategies, tips and leveling guides for warriors in Matthew Rossi's weekly class column, The Care and Feeding of Warriors.Filed under: Warrior, The Burning Crusade, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
david_maurice Jun 25th 2010 7:07PM
My parents will yell at me unless I get an A+, so this makes me sad. Anybody able to falsify the report card? They promised me icecream.
Toren Jun 25th 2010 7:38PM
Pffft, changing an "A" into an "A+"? Are you serious? Get a pen!
david_maurice Jun 26th 2010 2:26AM
My intellect stat is too low to think of such complex plans.
Sleutel Jun 25th 2010 7:38PM
There were definitely some balance issues that needed to be addressed--even later in Wrath--but I think a lot of those, especially the HP-related ones, have been fixed by more recent patches. (The change to Vitality especially was overdue and quite welcome.) I still think the Warbringer nerf in response to PvP was a huge hit to PvE Prot Warriors.
But overall, I'm very happy with my class and spec right now. I am and always will be a Prot War, but it's especially nice when I feel comfortable with the viability of the spec, whether objectively or in comparison to other tanks.
Hades Jun 25th 2010 8:20PM
"...protection actually saw a brief window of PvP viability in arena and is still fairly strong for certain kinds of BG play."
Prot Warriors were not just viable, they were insanely overpowered. Prot is STILL a completely viable option in arena... i.e. Pal/Hunter/Prot
theRaptor Jun 26th 2010 5:46AM
So insanely OP that most of the top warriors were still arms. Can't have anything alter the status quo of 15 second arena matches. The horror, the horror, the horror.
vazhkatsi Jun 25th 2010 7:39PM
i've always been cofused by the cooldowns argument, druids have last stand and a 20% damage reduction and thats it.
we have last stand, shield wall, enraged regen, shield block, the 4pt10 bonus if you have it, and numerous stuns and other mitigation methods. why is it everyone says we have the short end of the cooldown stick?
DecoyTPH Jun 25th 2010 7:54PM
Last Stand vs. Survival Instincts - both do exactly the same thing, so total wash there
Shield Wall vs Barkskin - 5 min/60% vs. 1 min/20% - It's a toss up depending on your tanking preferences but some would say a more frequently available (5 times as available) cooldown is a better one for raid fights today that require frequent tank swapping.
Glyphed Shield Wall vs. Barkskin - 3 min/40% vs. 1 min/20% - Closer, but Barkskin is still looking better and it doesn't take a Major Glyph to get there.
Glyphed and Talented Shield Wall vs. Barskin - 2 min/40% vs. 1 min/20% - Identical in overall damage reduction, but now you've taken 2 talent points and a Major Glyph to get it that way.
Enraged Regen vs. Frenzied Regeneration - Both give 30% health over 10 seconds, but the Druid version costs some raged.. So technically it's inferior but in practice it's virtually identical.
Shield Block vs.. well, nothing the Druids have. Maybe Savage Defense + Improved Leader of the Pack. Not exactly cooldowns but self healing and damage-absorption are both two very sweet tools to compensate for a lack of block/block-cooldown.
4pt10 Bonus
Druid - Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike.
vs.
Warrior - Your Bloodrage ability no longer costs health to use, and now causes you to absorb damage equal to 20% of your maximum health. Lasts 0 sec.
Both create tanking cooldowns that would be better in different situations. They're basically a wash, depending on the fight.
DecoyTPH Jun 25th 2010 8:04PM
Oh, and forgot to mention that Stuns don't work on raid bosses. :) Not sure what other "mitigation tricks" you're referring to..
vazhkatsi Jun 25th 2010 10:27PM
well, stuns work on adds, and are invaluable when tanking, say the big adds on lk, especially if you dont have enough hunters to tranq shot them all.
Boobah Jun 26th 2010 2:22AM
As long as you're comparing cooldowns, you should point out that Frenzied Regeneration's glyph is far better than Enraged Regeneration; the druid glyph boosts all healing received, while the warrior glyph only buffs the cooldown's heal.
Manadar Jun 26th 2010 7:52AM
The thing is you don't wanna take a soul reaper with only barkskin when the Hellscream buff wasn't as powerful, but with a 2-min 40% you could. As a guy who plays both warrior and druid and have tanked and killed Lk on both I'd want druids to have a minor glyph that makes Barkskin equal to the glyphed and talented SW. Of course the warrior glyph should be a minor one too since it only changes the ability, it does't improve it.
michael.separovich Jun 26th 2010 9:07AM
@decoy.
oh look, a caster mob.
whoops, let me just charge and get aggro on it, now intervene back.
oh lets intercept another, shield slam it to put that tasty silence on.
and just for the fun of it heroic throw at another.
and finally make sure you have spell reflect up.
the mobs fear?
thats ok we have beserker rage to solve that every 30 seconds.
and
the druid version is.....
make sure lacerate doesnt fall off?
get another class to pull it in?
warriors cooldowns arent just about damage mitigation. theyre about utility.
not every fight is going to have a use for every cooldown.
but every cooldown will have a use for a fight.
and more importantly every fight will have a useful cooldown.
every tank class has their particular special cooldowns, most of them have a better version of the warrior ones.
but the most important fact is that warriors have about 80% of the available cooldowns in some form, and alot of them are alot better.
sure a dk has anti magic shell., but warriors have spell reflect, every 10 seconds.
and that beats the complete absence of abilities that druids and pallies have in that area.
ranged silence?
heroic throw, every 1 minute
pallies have a 3 target ranged silence with a talented avengers.
dk's have 1 target with strangulate.
bears get nothing.
mobility?
warriors have THREE cooldowns.
THREE!
charge everey 15 seconds, intercept on 30, and intervene, which is 30 secs.
bears only have their feral charge.
pallies only get hand of freedom.
dk's get very little to keep themselves from immobilization.
interrupts?
shield bash 12 seconds.
concussion blow. 30 seconds.
shockwave, multitarget, 17 seconds.
heroic throw, 1 minute.
hell im even a tauren so ill chuck in a 2 minute warstomp.
that means in a 2 minute time period i can interrupt TWENTY THREE TIMES!
thats just stupidly good.
dk's get mind freeze, 10 second cd interrupt.
pallies would have to change seals to do the same.
bears only silence is tied to their stun...
on the topic of stuns...
shockwave, 4 second frontal cone stun. 17 second cooldown.
concussion blow. 30 again.
bears get bash. thats it.
dks dont get any.
pallies can only stun demons and undead, and then only 30 seconds.
fear?
intimidating shout, 2 minute cooldown 5 target fear.
pallies can fear undead and demons, and thats all.
getting feared?
beserker rage, 30 second cooldown, 10 second duration.
bears had an equivilent, last time i checked it was a 51 point talent with a three minute cooldown.
noone has disarms?
noone has anything like vigilance.
noone will be passively keeping up a 20% armour reduction.
sure maybe us warriors dont have the newest shiniest set of tools, but we sure as hell have the largest set of them, and im fairly sure they're the most reliable.
DecoyTPH Jun 27th 2010 5:08AM
This was a post about tanking cooldowns. I'm not sure what relevance your rant about ranged pulls and class utility has to do with anything.
Grak Jun 28th 2010 6:28AM
Great list of comparisons there Michael. Also dont forget that a bear's only interupt (bash) isnt even off the GCD, so chances are you wont be able to use it in time to interupt that heal/spell before it goes off, unless you stop doing everything just to wait for it.
I have a tank of every class, and the bear is by far the saddest most lacking tank when it comes to utility. Bears have to rely on their group for just about every type of control needed to successfully tank. Even the small number of abilities bears do have to support the group/raid (Innervate, combat res) cant be used in form, which means they cant be used, because shifting out of bear for a second = dead. Its like telling a pally he has to drop all his armour and shield just to put Hand of Protection or Divine Sac on someone.
I laugh bitterly when warriors complain about aoe tanking and how other tanks have it so much better, because they clearly have never tanked on another class and dont know just how good they have it.
thebitterfig Aug 7th 2010 1:03AM
@ Grak.
I've tanked DK, Bear (ok, lowbie bear, but the basic mechanics are still there), and Paladin, and warrior AE tanking isn't worse, it's just more... fiddly. Paladins just drop consec on CD, swinging the hammer of righteousness and keeping HS up, all the same things they do in a single-target situation. DK have to hit a few separate keys, but they've got a pretty decent array of abilities, from DnD, to pestilenced diseases, to blood boil, covering any sort of AE situation. Druids have swipe and glyphed maul, which, while not complicated, are practical and with no CD but the GCD on swipe, entirely spammable.
Warriors have the threat, they just need to rotate TC, SW, and talented Revenge, using cleave on melee swings and keeping shield block up and tab-target. The threat is there if you want to fiddle around and do it. The one thing a warrior lacks is something which is less timing-dependent. 6 second TC cooldown means that if you didn't catch a few mobs in that area when you hit the key, they're loose until you single-target hit them down, basically. It works, it's just... fiddly. In the meanwhile, in live, every other tank has some sort of ability designed to prevent timing the ability a little slowly from causing problems. No, simply walking through consec won't make the mob glued to you, but it gets them looking at you first, buys you plenty of time to adjust, same with DnD, and swipe can be hit next GCD.
Again, I've made my peace with it (that and our last-place threat from range). Our superior mobility, our stuns, our anti-caster mechanics, and very capable rack of cooldowns make up for slightly fiddly AE methods.
Updawg Jun 25th 2010 7:54PM
I pulled 8.5k dps on trash the other night in icc25. I was well within the top10. I was so happy =)
I also ranked on worldoflogs in many fights for tank dps =)
what a great day!
whoops Jun 25th 2010 8:58PM
I think wrath was great for us prot warriors if you look at us in a vacuum.
The only downside was that we were given a taste of what everyone else has felt since day one- real competition with other specs. Before wrath, we were the only "real" tank spec in the entire game.
Then, all of a sudden, there were other classes that could do what we did just as well for the most part, and in some cases (gasp) better. Every dps and healing spec had to deal with it before wrath (some specs even had to deal with the fact that they were inferior by design!) It came as a shock to a lot of us.
Aedilhild Jun 26th 2010 12:39AM
I reached 80 on my warrior alt some time after Trial of the Crusader released, so missed the early adjustments to 3.0.2, as well as the experience of progressing through Naxxramas and Ulduar.
My main spec is protection and my off-spec is arms. I find arms to be a challenging change of pace from my main (retribution paladin), and protection to be so rich and inimitable that I'm unlikely to bother tanking on another class anytime soon.
I can always dream up improvements and criticize from a hindsight-oriented armchair, but the class' current state satisfies me.
Baba Jun 26th 2010 3:25AM
My favourite tank class has always been warrior, because of the added complexity of charge, warbringer, instant aoes rather than persisting floor effects, and the base dependance on all the various aspects of tank stats.
My friends play paladins and DKs, and laugh at my lack of aoe power, but I think that it's made me a MUCH more skilled tank overall, and is why HoR hc is one of my favourite fights, since its actually challenging for warriors (druids to an extent but they have a greater health buffer).
I really hope that Blizz find a way in Cata to keep the tank classes individual instead of homogenisation for balance's sake.