General Information
On this page, we present the viable talent and glyph choices forProtection Warriors in World of Warcraft MoP 5.4. We detail what each of the talents andglyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.
The other pages of our Protection Warrior guide can be accessedfrom the table of contents on the right.
1. Talent Choices↑top
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- Performance-enhancing
- Survival
- Crowd Control
- Movement
- Utility
- Situational
There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents arenow viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to 
Dust of Disappearance(and 
Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90).You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs betweenencounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics.Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does andhow they affect your play style.
2. Tier 1 Talents↑top
Tier 1 talents offer you a choice between 3 improvements to your
Charge.
Juggernaut reduces the cooldown of Charge by 8 seconds(down to 12 seconds).
Double Time removes Charge's cooldown, instead making itoperate on a charge system. You can have a maximum of two charges. Each chargehas a 20 second recharge time. Note that, in this system, Charge only generatesrage every 12 seconds, so you cannot use two Charges in a row to get a burstof rage.
Warbringer causes Charge to root the target for 4seconds, and to reduce the target's movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds.
We believe that Double Time should be your default choice for thevast majority of situations, since it increases your mobility greatly wheneverthere is more than one active target (allowing you to charge to one targetand then immediately to another one, covering a great distance). It also makesit easier to pick up multiple targets, and it also grants you an extra stun,which can be beneficial.
Warbringer has situational benefits, while Juggernaut isgenerally inferior to Double Time.
3. Tier 2 Talents↑top
Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 self-healing talents.
Enraged Regeneration instantly heals you for 10% of your maximumhealth, and also heals you for another 10% of your maximum health over thenext 5 seconds. If used while enraged, the healing is doubled. It has a1-minute cooldown.
Second Wind causes you to heal yourself passively for 3% of yourmaximum health every second, while you are below 35% health.
Impending Victory is an improved version of 
Victory Rush,which it replaces. Impending Victory has a 30-second cooldown and costs 10rage. It heals you for 20% of your maximum health, and does a bit of damageto the target. After killing an enemy that yields experience or honor,Impeding Victory acts just like Victory Rush, its cooldown being reset.
We feel that the best choice is Enraged Regeneration. Not only doesthis talent offer the healing exactly when you need it, but it can alsobe used while stunned, and its power can be increased by coupling it with
Berserker Rage. This talent basically becomes an additional defensivecooldown, whereas the other options are just small benefits.
Second Wind is a decent option, providing its benefit passively, butwe do not believe it competes with Enraged Regeneration.
Impending Victory costs a global cooldown that could be used on muchmore valuable abilities, and it costs rage, which is a much needed resourcefor your 
Shield Barrier/
Shield Block uptimes. We do not advisetaking Impending Victory.
4. Tier 3 Talents↑top
Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd-control talents.
Staggering Shout causes all snared enemies within 20 yards tobecome rooted for 5 seconds. It has a 40-second cooldown.
Piercing Howl snares all enemies within 15 yards, slowing them by50% for 15 seconds. It has no cooldown.
Disrupting Shout interrupts all spellcasting within 10 yards, andlocks out interrupted players for 4 seconds. It has a 40-second cooldown.
Choosing one talent over another here will be based on the kiting methodwhich you may have to employ in the encounter, or on the need to have an AoEinterrupt. That said, we feel that Disrupting Shout will almost alwaysprove to be the most useful option.
5. Tier 4 Talents↑top
Tier 4 offers a choice between 3 important, damage-dealing abilities.
Bladestorm deals damage to all enemies within 8 yards for 6seconds. While Bladestorm is active, you cannot perform any actions except forusing your shouts. You are, however, immune to disarms, and movement-impairingand loss of control effects, and you continue to dodge, parry and block attacks.It has a 1-minute cooldown.
Shockwave deals damage to and stuns all enemies in a 10-yard conein front of you for 4 seconds. It has a 40-second cooldown, but if it hits 3or more targets, the cooldown is reduced to 20 seconds.
Dragon Roar deals damage to all enemies within 8 yards, knockingthem back and knocking them down for 0.50 seconds. It ignores armor and it isalways a critical strike. It has a 1-minute cooldown. Unlike most other AoEattacks, the damage of Dragon Roar drops sharply as more targets are hit by it,so for single target situations, it is desirable to only hit your main targetwith it.
Only Shockwave provides you with any kind of survivability increase(assuming that you are facing stunnable adds), so if this is the case, andyou are interested in gaining a small amount of survivability, this is a goodchoice.
In terms of DPS contribution, Dragon Roar is ideal against a singletarget.
Bladestorm is ideal for moments when you want to avoid being thevictim of movement-impairing effects or effects that cause loss of control ofyour character, but its damage is quite a bit lower than the other two.
6. Tier 5 Talents↑top
Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 abilities that help you protectraid members.
Mass Spell Reflection reflects the next spell cast on you and on allparty and raid members within 20 yards for 5 seconds. It has a 1-minutecooldown and, unlike its single-target counter-part (
Spell Reflection),it does not require that you have a shield equipped.
Safeguard is an improvement over 
Intervene, which itreplaces. It allows you to intercept the next melee or ranged attack (notspells) made against the targeted raid member (the attack is done to youinstead), and it reduces the damage they take by 20% for 6 seconds. In theprocess of doing so, you charge the targeted raid member, also removing anymovement-impairing effects that may have been on you. Safeguard has a 30-secondcooldown.
Vigilance reduces the damage taken by the target by 30% for 12seconds. While Vigilance is active, your 
Taunt has no cooldown, andTaunt's cooldown is reset when Vigilance is cast. Vigilance has a 2-minutecooldown.
While the choice here depends somewhat on what the encounter mechanicsare, Vigilance is the best choice in most situations. The talent isexceptional because not only does it essentially provide an extra defensivecooldown to the other tank (or another raid member), but the fact that iteffectively removes the cooldown of Taunt makes it great for picking upmultiple targets. Given the fact that using Taunt on a target of which youalready have aggro causes you to generatean additional 200% threat against that target for 3 seconds, this can even beused to boost your threat generation (although you will need to be mindful ofthe diminishing returns of Taunt).
Safeguard is also quite good, but beware of the fact that it causesyou to intercept the next attack made against the target (you take the damagefrom the attack), which may not always be desirable.
Mass Spell Reflection is useful in the event that there are importantspells that can be reflected. Since most boss abilities can not be reflected(and those that can be generally do not pose problems), this talent will not beused very much.
7. Tier 6 Talents↑top
Tier 6 talents provide you with a choice between 3 powerful,gameplay-altering abilities.
Avatar is a DPS cooldown that increases your damage done by 20% for24 seconds. It also removes roots and snares when activated. It hasa 3-minute cooldown.
Bloodbath is a DPS cooldown that causes all your special attacksto place a bleed on the target, equal to 30% of the damage of the respectivespecial attack. The ability lasts for 12 seconds, and the bleed lasts for 6seconds. Each new special ability cast while Bloodbath is active will refreshthe bleed duration, and update its damage. Bloodbath has a 1-minutecooldown.
Storm Bolt is a 4-second single-target stun, that also deals amoderate amount of damage to the target. If the target cannot be stunned(as is the case with raid bosses), the damage it deals is much increased. Ithas a 30-second cooldown.
None of these three talents improve your survivability. The only exceptionto this is Storm Bolt, which can be a survivability increase if you areable to stun the mob that is attacking you (although bosses are not stunnable,and in a raid, there should be plenty of stuns available anyway).
In terms of DPS and threat output, all three talents are nearlyidentical, but we find Bloodbath to be best. It is also worth notingthat Avatar can be beneficial in situations where movement-impairingeffects are involved. Choose based on your preference.
8. Major Glyphs↑top
As a Protection Warrior, Major Glyphs offer you various damage (and threat)improvements, but they do very little for your survivability.
The following glyphs improve your damage and threat.
Several other glyphs can, in some situations, increase your DPS andthreat.
Glyph of Death From Above reduces the cooldown of your 
Heroic Leapby 15 seconds. If you have a chance to make use of HeroicLeap more often than its standard cooldown allows for, then this glyphis a solid option. That said, this glyph should pretty much always betaken.- Glyph of Unending Rage increases your rage pool by 20, giving you amaximum rage amount of 120. This glyph will probably be beneficial in everypossible scenario, making it much easier for you to manage your rage.Additionally, it allows you to pool up rage (even if only slightly), which youcan then use in a time of need.
Glyph of Shield Wall causes 
Shield Wall to reduce an additional20% damage taken, at the expense of increasing its cooldown by 2 minutes. Whilethis glyph is not something you would normally use, it can be very beneficialin some situations.
Finally, Glyph of Enraged Speed increases your movement speed by 20%while you are enraged.
9. Minor Glyphs↑top
Minor Glyphs do not provide you with any worthwhile benefits. Many of themoffer cosmetic improvements that you will probably want to check out. Twoglyphs, however, are worth mentioning.
Glyph of Bloody Healing increases the amount of healing you receivefrom bandages by 20%, while you have 
Deep Wounds (passively applied aspart of your normal rotation) up on at least one target. Since bandages areseldom used, its benefit will probably be very minor.- Glyph of Intimidating Shout changes your
Intimidating Shoutto no longer cause the enemies to run around in fear. Instead, they will simplystand still for the duration of the fear. This is very useful when you wishto avoid the feared mobs aggroing other packs.
10. Changelog↑top
- 25 Feb. 2014: Updated the description of Glyph of Incite.
- 15 Oct. 2013: Revamped the discussions for all talent tiers, andadded Glyph of Shield Wall to the list.
- 12 Sep. 2013: Patch 5.4 update.
- 03 Aug. 2013: Updated the description of Bladestorm to nolonger mention that the Warrior can be disarmed during it.
- 20 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update.
- 24 Apr. 2013: Made several updates.
- Reworded the Tier 2 talent discussion, giving top priority to Second Wind.
- Refined some of the other talent discussions.
- Removed Glyph of Shield Wall, since it is not desirable.
- 04 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
