For everyone who’s thinking about starting a new tank, or better put a protection warrior, I’d like to give my personal recommendation on how to spend your precious talent points :-). Please bear in mind that everything in this post is just MY PERSONAL recommendation! There might be others who claim that to be complete bullsh**. There’s no such thing as THE perfect talent build, just different point of views ;-). Also I wanna warn you about something with my build: I’m deeply commited to being a tank, therefore I do not fancy the idea about leveling as a fury or arms warrior until a certain level just to unlearn all skills and relearn them again to be a tank later. From the beginning on I was leveling as a protection warrior only and enjoyed it! Sure it takes longer and sometimes it’s not as much fun as if being a classic damage-dealer. But it’s also fun to be a walking fortress without fearing to die any minute just because you accidently attracted one or two mobs too many :-).
Level 10-14: Some might say that you should start with the Protection tree right away but in my opinion it’s better to complete the two Arms skills frist. Apart of the obvious advantage of not being hit when parrying a blow Deflection also has the benefit of feeding your Revenge skill whenever you successfully parried.
Level 15-17: Improved Thunder Clap is one of the most important skills throughout the entire game and should definately be updated very soon! It has lots of advantages but the greatest is the fact that it’s the only warrior skill to threat multiple mobs at the same time (I don’t count Challenging Shout with its 10 mins cooldown). Furthermore it does some damage to up to four mobs and slows their attack speed, which means less damage.
Level 18-22: From now on you’ll be using your talent points in the Protection tree for a long time ;-). Your first 5 points should therefore go into Anticipation.
Level 23-27: The next skill to learn should be Shield Specialization. If you’re not using a shield already, do it NOW ;-)!
Level 28-32: Now we reach already the first debatable step in the Protection tree. Some say to wait with this skill for later, I recommend to go ahead and learn Toughness immediately. At maximum you’ll get 10% extra armor on your items. 10% extra armor can mean up to 10% less damage ;-).
Level 33: In my opinion you should first learn Last Stand. For 20 sec. it grants you a very important 30% extra health boost which can be a life saver in a lot of situations. It’s just one talent point but can mean the difference between success and failure.
Level 34: Next on your list should be Improved Shield Block. As a tank your main tool is your shield so one of your main priorities is every skill connected to it.
Level 35-37: Whenever there’s a way to increase your threat generation you should use it. Defiance not only does that but also gives you an increased expertise.
Level 38-39: For me this was quite a hard decision because now you’re facing two very important skills which you wanna update immediately. But slightly more important is Improved Taunt. Whenever you’re in an instance you’re gonna use Taunt very often so you’ll need every reduction you can get!
Level 40-42: Finally you can reduce the rage cost of one of your most important skills: Sunder Armor/Devastate. With Improved Sunder Armor you save 3 rage points which can be used elsewhere while in combat.
Level 43-44: Improved Shield Bash is pretty useful when fighting any kind of spell casting mob. It gives you the guarantee to silence your target for 3 sec. if you hit it successfully with your shield.
Level 45: This talent point seems like a waste, which it honestly was for me, but unfortunately you really need it for another very important skill. So go ahead and spend 1 point on Concussion Blow in order to get Shield Slam later. Some say that the 5 sec. stun can give you an important break where you can either flee to safety or be healed by one of your group mates but I still don’t like Concussion Blow :-).
Level 46-47: Your next aim should be to acquire Shield Slam as fast as possible. Therefore I recommend to just invest 2 points into Shield Mastery first. Once you’ve learned Shield Slam you can invest the last point into Shield Mastery.
Level 48: With 30 points in your Protection tree you can finally learn THE threat generating skill of all: Shield Slam. This is an absolute must have, for no other skill produces as much threat as this one!
Level 49: Now it’s time to fill the last point of your Shield Mastery skill, thus giving your shield the ability to absorb 30% of your damage taken.
Level 50-52: The next very useful investment you should do is Focused Rage. With that you reduce the rage cost of all your offensive skills by 3, which can mean the world in lots of situations.
Level 53-57: Vitality is your next obligatory step in becoming the ultimate tank :-). This skill increases your total stamina by 5% and your strength by 10%.
Level 58: Now that you’ve got 40 points in your Protection tree you can learn the awesome upgrade to Sunder Armor: Devastate. This skill not only reduces the armor of your target and generates threat like Sunder Armor, it also does damage… and quite a lot as well!
Level 59-63: Again, it’s debatable how to proceed next. You can either invest your talent points in Improved Defensive Stance or, what I recommend, spend them on One-Handed Weapon Specialization first. The greater your damage when using a one-handed weapon the more threat you generate ;-).
Level 64-66: Your next step should be to build up your defense against magical attacks, therefore invest into Improved Defensive Stance to reduce spell damagen taken by 6%.
Level 66-70: From now on it’s really very difficult to say how you should spend your last 4 talent points. Some would suggest to use them in the Fury tree on Cruelty to receive a 4% higher chance of getting a critical strike in order to gain more threat. Others might say it’s better to invest them into the worst case skill upgrade Improved Shield Wall to increase your Shield Wall ability by 5 sec. and some might suggest to use them on Improved Revenge to give your Revenge skill the 45% chance of stunning your target for 3 secs. That’s really up to you but I’m gonna spend my last 4 points to fill Improved Shield Wall completely and to update Improved Revenge to 2 of 3 points.
