Protection Warrior

Colossus

Not supported in this fight ⓘ

With the Single-Button Assistant and its cooldowns, Protection Warrior (Colossus) deals 88% of perfect manual play in M+ dungeons (rank 2 of 12) and 87% of perfect manual play on a raid boss (rank 2 of 11).

At a glance

4-piece set · SimulationCraft's talents · share of manual DPS kept

Fight	Manual DPS	SBA + cooldown	SBA alone	Assisted Highlight	Rank (SBA + cooldown)
M+ dungeon	213,390	88.0%−12.05%	62.9%−37.05%	100.2%+0.23%	2 of 12
Raid boss	172,979	87.5%−12.54%	59.0%−41.01%	97.6%−2.37%	2 of 11

Fight

Tier set

Talents

Change tank

What the assistant costs

M+ dungeon · 4-piece set · SimulationCraft's talents · data as of 2026-10-23 12:52 UTC

88%of manual DPS with SBA + cooldown. SBA alone reaches 63%, Assisted Highlight 100%.

Manual213.4Kreference
SBA + cooldown187.7K88% of manual
SBA alone134.3K63% of manual
Assisted Highlight213.9K100% of manual

SimulationCraft does not support this fight for Protection Warrior.Its own report says results for this spec in the M+ dungeon are inaccurate and should not be used, so the build is not ranked there. The raid boss figures are not affected.

The assistant uses Revenge 63% less.Revenge: 129.3 casts in manual play (29.9% of its damage), 48 with SBA + cooldown. This is a real loss of the assistant: the figure stands.

Cooldowns and defensives

Damage onlyThese figures are the damage this tank keeps with the button. It says nothing about survival: the button presses only a few defensives (Death Strike, Marrowrend, Shield of the Righteous) and none of the others, listed below. Bind those to their own keys.

Cooldowns in SBA + cooldown

The button alone never presses these. In SBA + cooldown you press them on your own keys, with your potion and on-use trinket, and the simulator presses them on time.

Best talents for the button

Our standard build is already the best we found for one-button play on a raid boss.

Best of 193 builds tested with the button on the raid boss (2026-10-22): our standard build, the 3 most played builds on Warcraft Logs for this hero talent, then every single talent swap from the best of them. Defensive talents are locked: the search never trades survival for damage.

Searched on the raid boss only: SimulationCraft does not support tanks in its dungeon fight, so AoE talents for Mythic+ are not tested.

Standard build (best on the raid boss for the button): talent string Recommended for one-button

CkEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA02AAAzMDzMzMzMzmxsMjxYmGGDLzMzMDGzMAAAAYZAYGDAsYGDbwAzwCNmZBmxMDmNAAzMAgZgxA

In game, open the talent window, choose Import and paste it. SimulationCraft's standard build. Every figure on this page uses it.

Where the damage comes from

M+ dungeon · 4-piece set · SimulationCraft's talents · data as of 2026-10-23 12:52 UTC

Compare manual play with

Damage per second and casts per ability, averaged over the simulated fights. Pets and summons show their own name in brackets.

Ability	Manual	SBA + cooldown	SBA + cooldown vs manual
Revenge	63.8K29.9% · 129.3 casts	21.2K11.3% · 48 casts	−42.6K
Shield Slam	35.3K16.5% · 81.4 casts	39.7K21.1% · 93.1 casts	+4,365
Demolish (Third Attack)	15.8K7.4%	16.8K9.0%	+1,028
Thunder Clap	11.0K5.2% · 56.1 casts	16.8K8.9% · 62.5 casts	+5,739
Devastator	11.5K5.4% · 252 casts	11.7K6.2% · 252.1 casts	+127
Phalanx	7,7553.6% · 51.7 casts	11.3K6.0% · 56.4 casts	+3,536
Rend	8,0303.8% · 110.1 casts	10.5K5.6% · 163.7 casts	+2,481
Ravager	8,5244.0% · 30.3 casts	8,8124.7% · 30.2 casts	+288
Perfected Guillotine	8,2993.9% · 28.5 casts	8,4584.5% · 28.6 casts	+159
Bloody Rebuke	8,4283.9% · 193.8 casts	8,3834.5% · 179.6 casts	−45
Execute (Damage)	8,1823.8% · 19.6 casts	7,4924.0% · 17.8 casts	−690
Auto Attack (Main Hand)	5,9212.8% · 252 casts	6,0363.2% · 252.1 casts	+115
Deep Wounds	4,2412.0% · 47.3 casts	4,3162.3% · 49.4 casts	+75
Demolish (Second Attack)	3,1761.5%	3,0201.6%	−156
Demolish (First Attack)	2,7011.3%	2,5701.4%	−131
Shield Charge (AoE)	2,1901.0% · 5.2 casts	2,3661.3% · 5.3 casts	+176
Shield Charge (Main)	2,1821.0% · 8.3 casts	2,1371.1% · 8.3 casts	−45
Venomfang Burst	1,8380.9% · 83.5 casts	1,8591.0% · 82.6 casts	+21
Devour Morsel	1,7060.8% · 49.5 casts	1,6910.9% · 49.4 casts	−15
Venomfang	1,4080.7% · 88.5 casts	1,4200.8% · 88.3 casts	+12
Rune of Unleashed Fire	9460.4% · 54.4 casts	9550.5% · 54.5 casts	+9
Rune of Lingering	2520.1% · 54.4 casts	2570.1% · 54.5 casts	+5
Wrecking Throw	1430.1% · 0.7 casts	–	−143
Charge (Impact)	30.0% · 1 casts	30.0% · 1 casts	+0
Total	213.4K	187.7K	−25.7K

A dash means the ability was never used in that mode. Damage is attributed the way SimulationCraft reports it, so a pet's damage appears under the pet.

Questions about Protection Warrior (Colossus)

How much DPS does Protection Warrior (Colossus) lose with the Single-Button Assistant?

Related builds

Other hero talents of Protection Warrior

Protection Warrior · Mountain ThaneM+ −13.06% · raid −12.39%

DPS lost with SBA + cooldown, 4-piece set, SimulationCraft's talents (a top player's build for the hero talents SimulationCraft has no profile for). All specs · Ranking

How it's measured, and its limits

SBA + cooldown is a best case: the simulator never misplays. It is always better to sim your own character.
Manual play is SimulationCraft's own rotation executed perfectly, so it is an upper bound for what a person can do, not a typical player.
Assisted Highlight assumes every suggestion is seen and pressed at once, which is generous for a player reading the highlight.
The M+ dungeon is SimulationCraft's own DungeonSlice fight style, its approximation of Mythic+ pulls, not a specific dungeon route. Nothing hits the tank there, so SimulationCraft does not support it for tanks.
The raid boss is SimulationCraft's Patchwerk fight with a boss that hits the tank. Only damage is compared: survival is not measured.

Full method, reliability rule and patches: Sources · Simulated with SimulationCraft 1210-01 (WoW 12.1.5.70575) 710c240 +16 patches, 10,000 iterations per figure.