A Guide to the Protection Warrior (in PvP)
#17
IV. PvP Basics

There are some fundamental differences between Protection and Arms or Fury Warriors. First off, Protection Warriors almost must travel with a group (preferably with at least one healing class) to excel. Second, Protection Warriors need to play much more aggressively than Arms or Fury Warriors, because that’s where our disruptive abilities are best used. While an Arms or Fury Warrior can only beat on something in the hopes that they can kill it before it kills them (or their healer), a Protection Warrior can stun, silence, and still do a reasonable amount of damage, and are much harder to kill.


Things you should do as a Protection Warrior:

• Lead your group’s charge on the enemy formation. Get used to charging in, hitting Berserker Rage (to negate any knee-jerk Psychic Screams), and then following up with a Concussion Blow, Shield Bash, or Intimidating Shout.

• Pursue enemy casters without let-up. Several of your abilities can be particularly debilitating to enemy casters (especially if you’re using Silent Fang, and it procs), making it very hard for them to do what they’re supposed to be doing. In particular, you’re going to want to chase Priests.

• Avoid fighting one-on-one if you can help it; while you have the defense to support a lengthy fight, you lack the offense to end it. Against enemies that hit slow and hard (such as Arms Warriors), you’re going to lose, and lose badly. Against enemies that specialize in staying alive (Holy Priests, Paladins of all kinds, Druids), you’re going to spend 15 minutes before either of you gets anywhere near death. Your place is with your group, not playing Rambo half a klick away.

• Leave the Priest-sitting to your Fury and Arms comrades; they’re capable of killing that Rogue eating your Priest much faster than you are. Your place is at the front of the battle, not the back.

• Spread your stuns out. Revenge Stun aside, all of your stuns (including War Stomp, if you’re Tauren) share a single diminishing returns timer. That is, if you just hit one person with a Charge or Intercept, the next stun to hit them within 15 seconds is going to be at half duration. Don’t waste your Concussion Blow when it’s only going to be at half or one-quarter duration.


Things you should not do as a Protection Warrior:

• Turtle. Most people think Protection = Turtle, and that’s the exact opposite of how it's supposed to be played. While being Protection means you are hard to kill, it doesn’t mean the Priest keeping you healthy is. Your insane durability and disruption potential aren’t seeing much use if you’re camping in the back.

• Go play Rambo. You’re not cut out for fighting alone. If you want to be Rambo, go spec Fury or roll a Rogue.

• Ignore your healbot. If your healbot is out of mana (or close to it), treat as though you were out of life. If you charge that enemy formation when your healbot is out of mana, they’re going to kill you ten times before you hit the ground, regardless of how tough you are.

• Use Recklessness. Recklessness causes you to take quite a bit more damage than usual, and the fact that you’ll be critting every hit won’t make much of a difference when you weren’t hitting particularly hard to begin with. Save that timer and use it on a Retaliation, or preferably a Shield Wall.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
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A Guide to the Protection Warrior (in PvP) - by Artega - 02-05-2006, 06:06 AM

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