Protection Warrior Raid Guide

• Demolish
  • Gets significantly buffed by Colossal Might damage wise.
  • Can be used in niche scenarios to immune stuns and knockbacks or as another small defensive.
• One Against Many, Practiced Strikes and Tide of Battle
• With all of these Hero Talents combined your Revenge becomes your highest damage ability by far during AoE.
• Dominance of the Colossus
  • Demolish gets its cooldown reduced, significantly increased when you're pressing Revenge a lot during AoE.
  • Also a lot more cooldown reduction if you're talented into Sudden Death.

When to use this spec

Pick this talent loadout if you are comfortable with your damage intake and want to push the damage. To make your life easier, boss-specific talent loadouts are available in the Raids section.

Hero Talents

• Boneshaker
  • Can pick either talent here depending on the fight, Shockwave is rarely used in Raid encounters.
• Arterial Bleed
  • Default pick for Raid since it's better for single-target and most of the time One Against Many doesn't have enough targets to be valuable.
• No Stranger to Pain
  • Default pick since it's just a way better option than Veteran Vitality.

Opener

• The goal of the opener is to get Shield Block active as soon as possible to avoid the possibility of getting one shot after Charging in while also getting all your offensive cooldowns rolling.

• Below, you can see an example of how your opener might look, depending on proc and other factors.

Priority List

Make sure to keep this list in mind, unless some bosses or scenarios require you to hold some abilities listed here

1. Cast Ignore Pain as your main Rage spender.
2. Maintain Shield Block at 100% uptime.
3. Cast Ravager on cooldown.
4. Cast Avatar on cooldown.
5. Cast Demoralizing Shout on cooldown.
6. Cast Thunderous Roar on cooldown.
7. Cast Shield Charge on cooldown.
8. Use your Violent Outburst proc
   • On single target/under 8 targets with Shield Slam
   • Over 8 targets with Thunder Clap
9. Cast Shield Slam on cooldown.
10. Cast Demolish on cooldown.
11. Cast Thunder Clap on cooldown.
12. CastRevenge to apply Deep Wounds on AoE.
13. Cast Execute on 2 or less targets.

Tank mechanics

• Gruesome Disgorge is both a tank mechanic and a raid mechanic.
  • Gruesome Disgorge is cast at the active tank and shows a huge cone that faces and moves with you.
  • As the inactive tank, taunt when the cast succeeds.
  • When hit by Gruesome Disgorge you and anyone inside the cone is sent into a different phase, Baneful Shift.
    • During the phase, you need to kill the Lost Watcher and Forgotten Harbingers while preventing Blood Horrors from reaching the boss
  • Lost Watcher is your tank target make sure to taunt it.
    • Black Bulwark needs to be interrupted.
    • Spectral Slam is cast on you doing moderate damage.
    • Position the Lost Watcher between or close to Forgotten Harbingers.
• Spewing Hemorrhage.
  • Spewing Hemorrhage creates two beams on each side of the boss while being cast.
  • Boss facing determines where the beams are.
  • The active boss tank can move accordingly to adjust final beam positions during the cast.
  • Your goal is to place the beams as far away as possible from the inside group with Baneful Shift.
  • These Beams always turn clockwise so keep that in mind.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Use Heroic Leap when running away from Goresplatter to jump over the "water" to not take any damage.
• Utilize Shockwave for the inside phase Baneful Shift to stun the small adds spawned from Manifest Horror.
• Use Rallying Cry on Goresplatter if needed.

Tank mechanics

• Captain's Flourish is the tank combo mechanic during this fight.
• Sikran starts with 2x Expose followed by 1x Phase Lunge.
  • Taunting during any of these casts changes the destination target to the taunter. Watch out when to taunt here.
• Managing Captain's Flourish:
  • The active tank takes two hits of Expose increasing his physical damage taken.
  • The Inactive tank taunts during Phase Lunge increasing his damage taken by the next Phase Lunge.
  • After this combo, the tanks swap roles meaning the tank who took Phase Lunge now takes the next two Expose.
  • While the previous Expose tank now takes Phase Lunge.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Move the boss to be in a line with the Phase Blades images. This makes it easier for Decimate targets to hit them.
• Use Spell Reflection right before Decimate goes off to get the longest damage reduction on the Cosmic Shards debuff.
• Use Rallying Cry on Shattering Sweep if needed.

Tank mechanic

• Savage Assault is the only tank mechanic on this fight.
  • As the inactive tank, taunt when the cast succeeds.
• The mechanic does a high amount of damage and applies a dot based on 60% of unmitigated damage done to you, meaning you need mitigate the damage as much as possible.
  • The damage is split into magic and physical damage.
  • Both instances are calculated separately when it comes to the dot application. If you only have a physical absorb, you receive the full magic dot + the unmitigated physical one.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Utilize Shockwave for the Infested Spawn adds before they bit the initial target to avoid debuff applications.
• Use Spell Reflection and or Spell Block during Savage Assault to avoid as much as possible from the magic dot.

Tank mechanics

• Volatile Concoction is the very short duration tank mechanic.
  • It's very important that the inactive tank taunts when the cast succeeds.
• When you have Volatile Concoction on you it's very important to stay at the highest HP possible.
  • The debuff is a big magic dot and only 8 seconds long.
  • After the debuff runs out, you explode on the whole raid and the damage is reduced based on your current health percent when the debuffs drops. Staying healthy and as close as possible to 100% is your goal.
  • Volatile Concoction also applies a +damage taken debuff to you preventing you from tacking 2 back to back so make sure to taunt of your partner tank.
• Experimental Dosage spawns different add types throughout the fight. Your main concern is the Colossal Spider.
  • Whenever they spawn be ready to taunt or attack them to pick up the aggro.
  • They cast Vicious Bite at the target with aggro, this does magic damage to you.
  • At 25% HP they enrage and start stacking up a damage done increase.
  • Whenever you have Volatile Concoction be extra careful of your HP.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• During this fight make sure to position the boss next to the eggs you want to break next.
  • Here you want to make sure that the boss model is not covering the eggs. If it is covering the eggs, it is substantially harder for other players to break them.
• Spell Block is an amazing tool to counter Volatile Concoction.
• Utilize Shockwave for the Voracious Worm adds.
  • Stun them close to the boss cleave range before they escape.
• Use Rallying Cry on Ingest Black Blood if needed.

Tank mechanics

• Void Shredders
  • This ability consists of 4 hits each dealing damage and applying one stack of Chasmal Gash to the active tank.
  • As the inactive tank, you can taunt at any point during the cast or after it is over as it does not change targets.
  • This mechanic is just a regular tank swap mechanic and there is nothing more to it.
    • Sometimes it can be paired with a good amount of raid damage which can be dangerous.
• On mythic difficulty, pre-position the boss before every Twilight Massacre so your raid group can charge Death Masks through the boss.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• During Void Shredders both Spell Block and Spell Reflection should be used.
• Use Rallying Cry during the intermission Starless Night if needed.

Tank mechanics

• This council boss consists of two bosses: Anub'arash and Skeinspinner Takazj.
  • Both tanks want to preemptively decide on one boss to start on so make sure that is clear.
• Anub'arash casts Piercing Strike.
• Skeinspinner Takazj casts Poison Bolt and Void Bolt which are both magic casts that leave a dispellable dot behind.
• Piercing Strike deals a decent amount of physical damage to the active tank and leaves an increased damage taken debuff.
  • As the inactive tank, taunt after the cast succeeded.
• Skeinspinner Takazj casts either of her "Bolt" spells whenever she is not casting any encounter-related mechanic.
  • Both bolts are quite harmless on low stacks, but become dangerous fast when reaching higher stacks.
  • Poison Bolt is a poison only dispel mechanic.
    • Make sure to get dispelled by your fellow Paladins, Evokers, Monks, and Druids.
  • In Phase 2 Poison Bolt changes to Void Bolt and becomes a magic dispel that can be dispelled by any healer.
• The goal is to keep the bosses stacked as much as possible while swapping tanking roles after each Piercing Strike.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Use Spell Reflection on cooldown when tanking Poison Bolt and Void Bolt.
• Use Rallying Cry on Reckless Charge if needed.

Phase 1

• Liquefy
  • This ability is a combination of high amount of magical damage and low amount of physical damage.
  • It also leaves an undispellable dot that deals nature damage every second for 30 seconds and increases physical damage taken by 1.000%.
  • After the cast has finished, it does Acid Explosion dealing raid wide damage and leaving Acid pools on the ground.

• Feast
  • Inflicts a huge amount of physical damage and leaves a healing absorb that is affected by the amount of damage you've taken by the initial hit.
• Queen Ansurek will always use both abilities as a combination, starting with Liquefy followed by Feast.
• Each tank can only get hit by one of those abilities.
• If you're the tank always taking Liquefy you cannot tank the boss until the dot has run out.
• If you're the tank that is supposed to take the Feast make sure to always taunt during the Liquefy cast, as this ability gets hard locked on it's initial target.

Phase 2

• Make sure to pick up Chamber Guardians and move them to Chamber Expeller.
  • Chamber Guardians cast Oust which deals physical damage and knocks you back.
• Each time you elevate to the next platform, Caustic Skitterers are spawning on top of the bridge, pay attention to grab aggro of these.
  • Caustic Skitterer leave a stacking debuff that increases your damage taken per stack. Use Shockwave and run a few steps away if you feel in danger.

Phase 3

• Infest
  • This ability is a combination of high amount of magical damage and low amount of physical damage.
  • It leaves a 4 second long debuff on application, whenever this debuff runs out, it inflicts shadow damage and spawns 8 Gloom Hatchlings on top of the tank.
  • Make sure to run away from the boss with the explosion, because if Gloom Hatchlings reach the boss it does fatal raid wide damage.
  • Use Ursol's Vortex to prevent Gloom Hatchlings of reaching the boss.
• Gorge
  • Deals 6 instances of physical damage over 2.5 seconds, while also applying a debuff to you, that increase your physical damage taken per stack.
• Similiar to Phase 1, Queen Ansurek also uses both abilites in quick succession starting with Infest followed by Gorge.
• If you're the tank that takes the Infest make sure to taunt back the boss after you've successfully spawned the Gloom Hatchlings and the boss has finished it's Gorge cast.
• While having the Gorge debuff, you cannot tank the boss, so make sure that you're co-tank is taunting Queen Ansurek from you until the next Gorge happens.

Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.