WoW Forever Protection Warrior Endgame Guide - Talents, Rotations, Races & More

1. Stamina
2. Defense until 440
3. Expertise rating until 6.5%
4. Hit rating until 8.0%
5. Expertise until 14%
6. Agility
7. Strength

• Stamina is self-explanatory, if you don't have enough HP, you will be more likely to die
• Defense rating is important to remove critical strikes against you from the hit table, making you much more survivable and less susceptible to RNG 1 or 2 shots
• Expertise grants you reduced chance for the enemy to dodge or parry, and since you are tanking, you benefit twice as much as DPS do. Not only is it a great TPS/DPS increase, but it also reduces the chance that you get parry hasted. When a mob parries you, its swing gets hastened, leading to massively spiky damage
• Hit increases your chance to hit. Missing means no threat
• Expertise after 6.5% loses the double benefit, as dodge is capped at 6.5%. It is still incredibly good until the parry cap at 14%
• Agility gives crit, armor, and dodge
• Strength gives a tiny amount of shield block value and scales your weapon dps and most abilities

My first suggestion for picking a race will always be to pick what you want to play, as the racials, at least in PvE content, are all within ~1% of each other. That being said, the clear winner for Protection, at least in terms of DPS, is Undead. Damage scaling with hit points on a role that stacks health is already strong enough, paired with the fact that tanks have weaker kits for DPS lowering the value of stat racials, makes it a clear choice. Honorable mention to Tauren for the 5% HP, Dwarf for potential Stoneform shenanigans, and Night Elf for the strongest snap threat racial.

Horde

Orc

• Blood Fury is a strong offensive cooldown and can be paired with Death Wish and Recklessness for maximum effect
• Hardiness is a pretty solid racial, mostly for PvP, but sometimes in PvE also
• Shatter Curse is situationally incredibly strong, removing pesky curses while leveling, and also removing debilitating curses in end-game
• Command increases pet damage by 5%, which is useless for Warrior

Orc is a solid pick overall, but not the greatest offensively or defensively

Tauren

• War Stomp is strong as an on-demand interrupt, particularly in PvP
• Endurance is great for tanking
• Plainsrunning is nice quality of life, but becomes pretty useless after your mount at level 40
• Cultivation is mostly useless

Tauren is a solid pick if focused solely on tanking and PvP, but weak for dealing damage

Undead

• Will of the Forsaken is pretty redundant for a Warrior, as we have multiple fear breaks. Charms and Sleeps are much rarer, mostly occurring in dungeons, where you would want to be grouped with a Shaman who has access to Tremor Totem
• Touch of the Grave can be nice for sustain and 1v1s in PvP, and strong offensively. Slightly better as a dual-wielder
• Underwater Breathing is just quality of life and not useful in end-game
• Cannibalize is pretty weak for Warriors since we don't benefit from the mana return

Undead is among the strongest races for dealing damage, and the added sustain is nice to have in PvP or leveling

Troll

• Berserking, similar to Orcs' Blood Fury, is a strong offensive cooldown that lines up well with Death Wish
• Regeneration is actually very strong for Warriors as we benefit the most from spirit-based health regeneration, but useless in end-game
• Rapid Regeneration is a nice pick-me-up for Warriors while leveling, but its uses are more limited in PvP because you lack crowd control to be able utilize it outside of Intimidating Shout, and you would have bandages to use anyway
• Beast Slaying is actually really nice for leveling, and either useless or overpowered in end-game, depending on whether or not you are hitting a beast

Troll is by far the best Warrior race for leveling, but towards the lower-middle for dealing damage

Skyborne

• Wind Blessed provides a strong boost to damage
• Elemental Insight isn't super strong as elemental mobs aren't a super popular mob type, but can potentially be incredibly strong in end-game raids
• Walk on Air is probably my favorite racial ability, allowing for high jumps and increased mobility
• Skysight provides a pretty strong mobility boost

Skyborne is a small amount behind Undead in terms of pure single-target DPS, but the situational increased damage to elementals and movement speed boost puts it slightly ahead in my opinion

Alliance

Human

• Ruthless is strong offensively
• The Human Spirit is mostly useless in all content
• Will to Survive is potentially useful in leveling and PvE content, and very, very strong in PvP
• Perception serves no uses in leveling or PvE

Human would be my overall pick for Alliance warrior, being close to Night Elf in damage output, but having a very strong PvP racial to boot

Gnome

• Escape Artist is perhaps the strongest racial in the game for PvP
• Expansive Mind is mostly useless as reaching the Rage cap will almost never happen
• Engineering Specialization is mostly irrelevant
• Eureka! can be strong in situations where you've pooled rage prior and used your cooldowns, but does not increase auto attack damage

Gnome is incredibly strong in PvP but noticeably weaker in PvE

Dwarf

• Artisan's Precision is very strong while you're below hitcap, and useless when above
• Stoneform can be pretty strong while tanking or PvPing vs rogues, priests, feral druids, or other warriors
• Find Treasure allows for extra treasure in treasure chests. Mostly useless
• Big Game Hunter is pretty nice for leveling, and by far the strongest racial if fighting a beast

Dwarf is on the weaker side offensively and weaker in PvP compared to Gnome or Human

Night Elf

• Shadowmeld is a small threat drop in combat and largely useless out of combat
• Elune's Light lines up nicely with Death Wish and is potentially stronger than Human's Ruthless depending on fight length. Also great for helping to generate snap threat
• Quickness is nice for tanking and running around a little bit faster
• Wisp Spirit lets you run back to your corpse faster. Useless as we will not be dying ever

Night Elf would be my choice if I were primarily focused on tanking or PvE DPS

Skyborne

• Wind Blessed provides a strong boost to damage
• Elemental Insight isn't super strong as elemental mobs aren't a super popular mob type, but can potentially be incredibly strong in endgame raids
• Walk on Air is probably my favorite racial ability, allowing for high jumps and increased mobility
• Read Leyline can be strong for leveling but useless in the end-game

Skyborne is close enough to Human in terms of DPS and potentially much, much better vs Elementals, being a strong choice for PvE. Much weaker in PvP, however

In WoW: Forever, consumables are king. You may have ONE of EACH of the following active:

• Strength Elixir (e.g. Elixir of Greater Strength)
• Agility Elixir (e.g. Elixir of Greater Agility)
• Attack Power buff (e.g. Winterfall Firewater)
• Food buff (e.g. Smoked Desert Dumplings)
• Dragonbreath Chili. Must be used AFTER you have already gotten Well Fed
• Sharpening Stone (e.g. Elemental Sharpening Stone) x2
• Armor Elixir (e.g. Elixir of Greater Defense)
• Health Elixir (e.g. Elixir of Greater Fortitude)
• Health Regen Elixir (e.g. Major Troll's Blood Elixir)
• Alcohol buff (e.g. Rumsey Rum Black Label)
• Zanza or Blasted Lands buff (e.g. Spirit of Zanza or Swiftness of Zanza R.O.I.D.S. or Ground Scorpok Assay). Not 100% certain on this as we don't have the proper information yet
• It is currently not known what Elixir of the Mongoose and Elixir of the Grizzly will stack with

If you want to take it a step further, you can use Spell Power consumables to buff your Dragonbreath Chili:

• Greater Arcane Elixir
• Elixir of Fire Power

Potions are another consumable that are normally used in combat, providing extremely powerful effects. All potions (except Invisibility potions) share a 2 minute cooldown.

• Greater Stoneshield Potion is your default combat potion for mitigation. You should use this on almost every encounter
• Mighty Rage Potion is your default combat potion for threat. Only use this for emergency rage generation and if you don't need Greater Stoneshield Potion
• Free Action Potion is very strong vs fights with unavoidable crowd control, such as Gehennas in Molten Core
• Restorative Potion can be used on debuff-heavy encounters to help your healers or mages
• Limited Invulnerability Potion can be paired with Challenging Shout for an immortal AoE taunt
• Greater Fire Protection Potion, Greater Frost Protection Potion, Greater Holy Protection Potion, Greater Shadow Protection Potion, Greater Nature Protection Potion, Greater Arcane Protection Potion can all be useful depending on the boss you're fighting

Explosives are another category that share cooldown with one another. They usually require Engineering, but some don't

• EZ-Thro Dark Bomb does not require Engineering
• Goblin Sapper Charge requires Engineering

Since we haven't seen what's actually available yet in the endgame with regards to professions, we have to make an educated guess as to what will be the strongest. With the information we know from Season of Discovery, we can assume there will be strong bind on pickup loot from each profession, meaning that Blacksmithing will likely be the default choice for all Warriors. Historically in World of Warcraft, Engineering has been the single best combat profession.

• POOL RAGE! You don't always need to spend your rage during a pull; if you have enough threat on a trash pack, hold globals to save rage for the next pack
• Pre-casting Berserker Rage can give you a little extra rage