Prot. FTWFollow

I have read a few threads about questions concerning Prot. spec. warriors. More specifically, pve concerns and leveling.

I leveled my warrior all the way to 70 with Arms then finally fell to the DW Fury lure - and loved it for the most part. My DPS @ 70 suffered and was not up to par. However, my guild was requiring me to tank more and more instances - Sooo, I said goodbye to my fury build and went prot.

My concern about prot. speccing was questing. I read forum after forum saying prot. questing was a no-no. But, wow - how I was amazed! After speccing prot and changing gems and gear some - I was able to quest most of the grp. quest we are swamped with at later levels. Solo play became much more surviable. I was able to solo all the netherstorm grp quest with little problem. My strategy changed from mob to mob. Melee elites were much easier than casters. However, with casters, just focus on spell reflect and shield bash and they are soloable too.

Now, it does take a fair amount of time to quest b/c it takes longer to kill the mobs. But, my downtime from corpse runs and using consumables is reduced drastically.

I absolutely love Prot. spec. Not to say I don't miss the potential of DW fury - but love prot. spec.

Just wanted to share that prot. specced warriors can quest to - and can quest effectively.

CC

I agree with the above.

I first leveled a fury warrior to 70, then an arms warrior to 70, then rolled yet another warrior... Around level 10 I started noticing a) how much more survivable he was in defensive stance, and b) how efficient Revenge is. So ignoring everyone's advice I decided to go prot all the way. And never regretted it.

Sure, kills take 50% longer. But kills represent only about half of XP. And yes downtime is nil, especially for my troll who constantly regenerates health even in combat. Ok so overall it takes about 10% longer to level. Big deal.

There are certain times where I am tired of running scared with my fire mage - uber powerful but so fragile. The prot warrior is the perfect anecdote. Multiple pulls? Adds? Elites? Just stand there laughing at their feeble attempts to get past your dodge/parry/block.

Do you go 2h, DW or 1h/shield while leveling prot?

Does that mean you are also leveling in defensive stance?

I did not level in Def.Stance. I had read all my leveing career of how bad / slow it was. I switched to prot. @ 70 and was absolutely amazed.

CC

i went prot with my warrior all the way, but if i had to do it again i might wait until lvl 50. once you get devastate, soloing is cake. i go 1h + sporegar shield in battle stance and i rarely stop to eat.

if you're going prot early, just plan to spend a lot of time in instances because questing is a little rough pre-50.

Same here. I dual-wield swords and spam the bejesus outta Devastate. Works fairly well for me for normal questing and grinding. Just keep shield on a hotkey for those "oops" moments

I switched to Protection when I entered the outlands. Figured with all the major gear upgrades from quests, re-gearing would be easy. I was both Arms and Fury while leveling, and really enjoy Protection more.

I have a Warlock, Hunter and Rogue at the level cap, so when I want to farm something or do massive DPS I have my options. When I just want to feel like an invulnerable juggernaut, I can do that now too.

One major downside to Protection soloing/questing is the severe increase in damage you will take from a mob that deals elemental damage. All your armor and shield block do nothing, and you kill even slower than normal without Revenge proc'ing all the time.

Another, less painful but more irritating, problem with Protection soloing is dealing with caves and other one-way-in-and-out type areas. Since we kill so slowly I often find that the area has respawned behind me. This is most problematic when trying to leave, as you can easily have things spawning on top of you. Not a huge problem when dealing with Melee mobs but casters or elemental-damage dealers will make life unpleasant.

Still, the two downsides are more than made up for the benefits. With my previous classes, I had to go looking for groups. Now the groups come looking for me. You just can't beat that.