Protection Warrior Talent Spec Link

Building Towards 80 — A Fast Leveling Protection Warrior Spec

This is the last post in a series that explores the best talents to choose for leveling your Protection Warrior fast.

Today I’m going to finish up the series by examining the remaining talents on the Protection tree, as well as looking at your options from the Fury and Arms trees.

A good selection here can really help your leveling speed, or if you like to dabble in PvP, give you some options that will make you all the more competitive when you want to take a break from the grind.

The most important thing to remember as we proceed is that this spec is not for raiding warriors!

I heartily recommend that once you hit 70 or 80 you respec (or dual spec) a raid build Warrior from the ground up, because this build is utter crap for dungeons and raids.

So Protection Warriors, read on to find out how your class can level (almost) as fast as a Fury Warrior. Thank you Blizzard!

Protection Warrior Leveling Build: 50 to 80

If you’re not at level 50 yet, you’re about to start adding in some of the defining (and most enjoyable) talents for Warriors in World of Warcraft!

Row 9 (Warbringer, Devastate, Critical Block)

Starting off we have Warbringer – at first sight you know its not great for leveling, but unfortunately we need it to open up row 10 – but you’ll find it fun to use in PvP if you’re into it.

Second up, your new best friend in the whole wide world – Devastate. If you took my recommendation and went for Puncture, Devastate is now your staple damage causing talent, and should be spammed constantly whenever you have the rage, and whenever something more pressing (like interrupts) isn’t disrupting your attacks.

Critical Block is a nice talent too, giving your successful blocks a 30% chance to block double the damage (less downtime resting, thank you), and increases your chance to crit with your other best friend, Shield Slam.

Row 10 (Sword and Board, Damage Shield)

Sword and Board, that’s what we are, and this talent can’t be missed regardless of which build you take for a Protection Warrior. As its name suggests, this talent pairs up with a sword related talent, and a shield related talent – namely Devastate and Shield Slam.

Take 3 points in this talent and get ready to unleash a nice constant stream of high damage attacks at low cost – the essence of a good leveling build for warriors, and very handy in any other situation, too!

Plug in another 2 points into Damage Shield after you’ve spent up in Sword & Board to further increase your dps by causing 20% of your block value as damage whenever you take damage or block.

Row 11 (Shockwave)

The final ability in the Prot Warrior talent tree is Shockwave – an instant cast ability that damages everything in front of the Warrior causing damage based on attack power – but exact calculations aside, this skill is amazing for AoE attacks on groups of mobs (you can tank plenty of mobs at once while leveling as a Protection Warrior if you need to).

It can also come in very handy in PvP if you manage to run into an in-progress furball and unleash, stunning everyone for 4 seconds and no doubt giving your side the winning edge at the same time.

While its not exactly a staple leveling talent, Shockwave will be very handy when you need it.

Other Talent Trees:

On the way to 80 we’re left with 19 talent points. Where do we spend the rest? Fury? Or Arms?

I personally like Arms more for leveling, opting to build out the tree until Deep Wounds opens up, which is a nice extra damage causer without any extra micro needed on your part.

Improved charge is also nice, generating 10 extra rage points on the charge and ensuring your abilities are running 100% of the time.

What else is there to say? I hope you find this build useful for getting to 80 as fast as possible! I guarantee you’ll see when you employ it that it really does match up well against Fury as a leveling spec for Warriors.

The only thing left to do is race choice — and while I always advocate taking a race you simply like the look or history of, I like Trolls for leveling faster, and Tauren for end game main tank duties (See also: Trolls as a Warrior Race).

If all you have on your mind is leveling fast, check out my Horde Leveling Guide front page where I compare some commercial in-game leveling addons.

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