Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Having talked about Firelands for a while and then the rather esoteric concept of reforging and optimizing your gear, this week we’re going to switch gears and talk about leveling in Cataclysm. Specifically, we’re going to talk about leveling as protection, which quite possibly is the best leveling spec for a new player. This guide is aimed at people who are just starting the game or the class.

Leveling as protection in the post-Cataclysm landscape offers several advantages.

Once you reach level 14 or so, you can begin queuing for instances as a tank, leading to fast experience and rewards. This makes gearing up a protection warrior fairly easy.

If you intend to tank in the endgame, leveling as protection will allow you to learn the role as you level rather than having to pick it up all at once.

Protection works well as a PVP spec in many brackets as you level.

Especially as you hit Outlands and Northrend, protection offers a good combination of survivability and the ability to destroy mobs for ease of questing, even for quests that normally indicate a group. Prot warriors can often pull more mobs and solo faster than DPS warriors.

Vengeance is a lot of fun.

If you’re playing an alt, there are now several heirlooms for tanking warriors.

Hitting things in the face with a shield is pretty awesome — I’m not going to lie.

Quite frankly, even if you don’t intend to tank at max level, protection can be an extremely fun way to level. Let’s take a beginner’s-eye view.Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: A beginner’s guide to leveling as protectionFiled under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, CataclysmThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: A beginner’s guide to leveling as protection originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Having talked about Firelands for a while and then the rather esoteric concept of reforging and optimizing your gear, this week we’re going to switch gears and talk about leveling in Cataclysm. Specifically, we’re going to talk about leveling as protection, which quite possibly is the best leveling spec for a new player. This guide is aimed at people who are just starting the game or the class.

Leveling as protection in the post-Cataclysm landscape offers several advantages.

Once you reach level 14 or so, you can begin queuing for instances as a tank, leading to fast experience and rewards. This makes gearing up a protection warrior fairly easy.

If you intend to tank in the endgame, leveling as protection will allow you to learn the role as you level rather than having to pick it up all at once.

Protection works well as a PVP spec in many brackets as you level.

Especially as you hit Outlands and Northrend, protection offers a good combination of survivability and the ability to destroy mobs for ease of questing, even for quests that normally indicate a group. Prot warriors can often pull more mobs and solo faster than DPS warriors.

Vengeance is a lot of fun.

If you’re playing an alt, there are now several heirlooms for tanking warriors.

Hitting things in the face with a shield is pretty awesome — I’m not going to lie.

Quite frankly, even if you don’t intend to tank at max level, protection can be an extremely fun way to level. Let’s take a beginner’s-eye view.Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: A beginner’s guide to leveling as protectionFiled under: Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, CataclysmThe Care and Feeding of Warriors: A beginner’s guide to leveling as protection originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments