Leveling the Warrior: Protection at 40

Yesterday, level 40 came and went for Radish. A few exciting things happen at level 40. Every class gets a fast horse and dual spec. Of course not everybody buys dual spec at 40, but Radish is my alt and I can afford it. Plus, I want to compare specs. Another really important thing happened at 40 as well: Shield Slam and Mortal Strike.

Up to this point, a lot of warrior leveling is just sitting, staring at the screen. Unlike the rogue, death knight, and druid, your pre-40 warrior doesn't have anything to do with spare GCDs. You engage a mob, apply rend, maybe do a demoralizing shout to reduce incoming damage, hit thunderclap if you've got the rage, and wait for the mob to die. Sometimes you wait a while. I've taken to using mocking blow as a damaging move while solo, it hits reasonably hard, especially if you get your target to 22% and he starts running away before you hit again to make him executable. Against single targets, thunderclap doesn't look so hot on the damage charts, but it's better than nothing. In prot spec with a shield, you can at least revenge from time to time, but you don't have execute or victory rush on the other hand, so it's a wash.

This changes at 40, and really would have changed sooner if I had been arms all the way, but 40 was when I picked up arms as a dual spec. Here are my two specs at 40: Protection / Arms. I'll talk about protection today, and arms pretty soon. The one thing I'll point out is that I skip anticipation and vigilance in this build. I've had no trouble tanking thus far, and I find that the talents you usually skip to pick those up in a standard raiding tank spec are too worthwhile while leveling.

The funny thing about protection spec is that you have to fight in defensive stance for most of your moves to work. This not only applies a flat 5% damage penalty to your damage, there's the opportunity cost of not having 10% ArP or 3% crit from being in battle or berserker stance. Plus, you've got a 1H weapon and fewer damage talents. However, you can do a lot of things still, provided you look at your defensive talents properly.

First of all: shield block is a DPS skill for you. Whenever you block somebody, it lights up revenge (a nice high-damage move) and you generate 5 rage. So use shield block on cooldown. Shield block also increases the damage of your shield slam, which is calculated based on your block value. Secondly: with the talent points in improved disarm, you get 10% more DPS on a disarmed target, so disarm often as this is another free source of extra damage. Even talented, thunderclap isn't all that sexy against single mobs, but if you've got the rage, use it.

The key to efficient mob killing as prot is getting the right number of mobs. If you're fighting only one at a time and they're yellow or green to you, you're WAY better off in an Arms spec- I can kill a single mob in about 60% of the time as an arms spec, compared to prot spec. In arms spec, if I pop sweeping strikes and retaliation and cleave, I can take down a pack of 3-5 yellow mobs and stay at about 25% health. As prot, I can take down the same pack in slightly more time, but I'll be at 80% health and don't need to eat afterwards. Paradoxically, I get killed more often as prot, because in that spec I feel more overconfident, and am likely to pull a ton of guys. I can also easily solo most at-level elites, or red-level nonelite mobs, for example, I was killing the level 40 ogres up in alterac at level 33 or so with prot.

Once you have the right number of mobs on you, remember to use demoralizing shout to reduce incoming damage, put up shield block and berserker rage, and go to town with cleaves if you have the rage. Thunderclap on cooldown, and hit revenge and shield slam whenever they're off cooldown and available as well. I usually put rend up on my first burn target, and if I'm feeling aggressive (or worried), I'll try and tab around and apply rend to everybody. But without glyphs or talents, rend doesn't really do enough damage for me to worry about it, spamming thunderclap and cleave seems to do more pack DPS for me as prot. Keep taunt handy as well, because it has a long range and you can use it to pull in extra mobs when your friends start dying.

But that's about it. Farming troll ears or tusks or whatever becomes a breeze. If you can afford a shield spike, you'll do a fair bit more damage, but up until now I've been going through shields quickly enough that I haven't gotten around to enhancing them. If only there was an heirloom shield, that would rock.