Warrior Protection Rotation & Opener

First ~12 casts of actual top-ranked kills. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Wrecking Throw 2 Heroic Throw 3 Demoralizing Shout 4 Shield Charge 5 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 6 AvatarOff-GCD 7 Thunder Blast 8 Shield BlockOff-GCD 9 Empowering VenomOff-GCD 10 Shield Slam 11 Shield BlockOff-GCD 12 Thunder Blast 13 Shield Slam 14 Ignore PainOff-GCD 15 Thunder Clap

1 AvatarOff-GCD 2 Shield Charge 3 Demoralizing Shout 4 Shield BlockOff-GCD 5 Thunder Blast 6 Ignore PainOff-GCD 7 Shield Slam 8 Thunder Blast 9 Shield Slam 10 Shield BlockOff-GCD 11 Thunder Blast 12 Revenge 13 Ignore PainOff-GCD 14 Shield Slam 15 Shield Slam

1 Shield Charge 2 Demoralizing Shout 3 Thunder Blast 4 AvatarOff-GCD 5 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 6 Thunder Blast 7 Shield BlockOff-GCD 8 Shield Slam 9 Thunder Blast 10 Shield BlockOff-GCD 11 Shield Slam 12 Thunder Blast 13 Shield Slam 14 Thunder Clap 15 Shield Slam

#showtooltip Shield Charge
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Avatar
/cast Shield Block
/cast Shield Charge

Ability	Top-player CPM
Shield Slam	16.4
Ignore PainOff-GCD	12.7
Revenge	11.6
Thunder Clap	8.6
Shield BlockOff-GCD	5.6
Demoralizing Shout	1.9
Spell ReflectionOff-GCD	1.8
Execute	1.7
AvatarOff-GCD	1.2
Shield WallOff-GCD	0.9
Impending Victory	0.7
Charge	0.7
Heroic LeapOff-GCD	0.5

CPM = median casts per minute across the sampled top kills. If you're far below on a core ability, that's usually the first thing to fix.

First ~12 casts after the pull starts, taken from actual top key runs: the AoE opener is the first pack of the run, the single-target opener is the first boss. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Thunder Clap 2 Shield Slam 3 Heroic LeapOff-GCD 4 Revenge 5 Heroic Throw 6 Charge 7 Shield BlockOff-GCD 8 ChargeOff-GCD 9 Thunder Clap 10 Shield Slam 11 Spell ReflectionOff-GCD 12 Shield BlockOff-GCD 13 Revenge 14 Ignore PainOff-GCD 15 Thunder Clap

1 Charge 2 Thunder Clap 3 Shield BlockOff-GCD 4 ChargeOff-GCD 5 Charge 6 Revenge 7 ChargeOff-GCD 8 Shield BlockOff-GCD 9 Shield Slam 10 Thunder Clap 11 Ignore PainOff-GCD 12 Revenge 13 First Mate's ShellwardOff-GCD 14 Ignore PainOff-GCD 15 Demoralizing Shout

1 Heroic LeapOff-GCD 2 First Mate's ShellwardOff-GCD 3 Thunder Clap 4 AvatarOff-GCD 5 Thunder Blast 6 Shield Charge 7 Shield Charge 8 Thunder Blast 9 Shield Slam 10 Ignore PainOff-GCD 11 Thunder Clap 12 Ignore PainOff-GCD 13 Shield Slam 14 Shield BlockOff-GCD 15 Impending Victory

#showtooltip Thunder Clap
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Shield Block
/cast Charge
/cast Thunder Clap

Collected from public Patch 12.1 guides and checked for this patch. Spell names follow the language you selected on this site and must match your game client. If a macro does not work on your client, report it with the button on the card.

#showtooltip Pummel
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] Pummel; Pummel

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:2] !Defensive Stance; !Battle Stance

#showtooltip
/cast Ignore Pain
/cast Shield Slam

#showtooltip Heroic Throw
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] Heroic Throw; Heroic Throw

#showtooltip Taunt
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] Taunt; Taunt

#showtooltip Charge
/cast [@mouseover,help,exists,nodead] Intervene; Intervene
/cast [harm,exists,nodead] Charge; Charge

#showtooltip Heroic Leap
/cast [@cursor] Heroic Leap

Keybinds are personal — this is not a layout to copy wholesale. What it does say is which abilities you press most, measured from the same top parses above: the more often an ability is cast, the less effort its key should take. Interrupts, defensives and movement are deliberately left out; they barely register in cast data yet must always be within reach, so choose those yourself.

Rows marked Passive are not pressed at all — they fire on their own (auto-attacks, procs) and get no key, even though they top the casts-per-minute table.

Key	Ability	Top-player CPM
1	Ignore PainOff-GCD	16.8
2	Shield Slam	16.4
3	Revenge	11.6
4	Thunder Clap	10.8
5	Shield BlockOff-GCD	5.6
Z	Demoralizing Shout	2.0
X	Spell ReflectionOff-GCD	1.8
C	Execute	1.7
V	AvatarOff-GCD	1.2
R	Shield WallOff-GCD	0.9
F	Charge	0.8
T	Impending Victory	0.7
G	Shockwave	0.6
Shift+1	Heroic Throw	0.6
Shift+2	Heroic LeapOff-GCD	0.5