By all rights, I should’ve written a post like this after BlizzCon, but I wasn’t active in the game at that time. Since the official MoP talent calculator has gone up recently, however, it gives me a good opportunity to take a moment to talk about our prospective talent options.

Now, we’re not going to have to look for a single talent spec that we’ll be using the vast majority of the time; Blizzard has clearly stated that they intend for players to be able to (and to want to) switch talent specs about as freely as they currently change glyphs, and that changing talents around to suit the needs of different encounters should be encouraged. Therefore, I’m going to take a quick tour of the talents first, then list my picks for a general-purpose talent spec that should be suitable for most uses. Switching to certain situational abilities for specific encounters should still be something that all Warriors should be planning on, however.

Level 15

Juggernaut: Charge every 12 seconds instead of every 20 seconds.
From a tank perspective, I don’t see the niche that the ability fills, as while this reduces the cooldown on Charge, it’s still long enough that you probably won’t be able to rely on being able to use it twice in most trash encounters. Could be useful for add fights where adds spawn every 12-15 seconds where the default Charge cooldown would be too slow, but that’s a highly specific situation.

Double Time: You can use Charge twice before incurring its cooldown.
This is the option at this tier that currently stands out to me the most. This lets you use Charge twice in quick succession to pick up two different trash/add packs if needed, after which Charge’s standard 20-second cooldown will be incurred. My gut tells me that this will be considerably more useful for typical purposes than Juggernaut, as there’s no need to wait for the cooldown before you can Charge again.

Warbringer: Your Charge also roots a target for 5 sec.
Could have very situational uses for specific types of add fights in small-group content, but overall this feels like a PvP talent.

My Pick: Double Time will probably get the most use from me.

Level 30

Enraged Regeneration: You regenerate 30% of your total health over 10 sec. Can only be used while Enraged. 2 min cooldown.
Largely the same as our current Enraged Regeneration, with a few differences (no Rage cost, shorter cooldown, slightly less health regeneration, no restriction on new Enrage effects). As such, this should prove to be a fairly solid tank cooldown to use to get some health back when you need it. A solid option, in my opinion.

Second Wind: Whenever you are struck by a Stun or Immobilize effect you generate 20 Rage and 5% of your total health over 10 sec. Whenever you take direct damage, you have a 10% chance to regenerate 3% of your total Health over 5 sec.
This appears to basically be a slightly-modified combination of the existing  Second Wind and Blood Craze talents. The Second Wind portion is almost entirely a PvP bonus, and the Blood Craze portion is, while useful on its face, loses some of its luster for single-target boss encounters. It would likely shine in AoE tanking situations, however, or any situation where you’re taking lots of small hits.

Impending Victory: You can use Victory Rush at any time, but with a 30 sec cooldown, a 20 Rage cost, and a 10% heal.
The current incarnation of Impending Victory is arguably the weakest talent in the Protection tree, and this redesign apparently seeks to fix that. It removes the <20% health threshold limit, converting this into essentially a 10% healing spell with a 30-second cooldown and a 20 Rage cost. Being that Enraged Regeneration restores 30% of our health with a 2-minute cooldown, this talent provides more raw healing on paper (40% of our health every 2 minutes instead of 30%), but at a total cost of 80 Rage over that span of time. My thoughts on this are that (1) a larger emergency self-heal is usually more useful than a larger amount of smaller self-heals when things hit the fan, and (2) the Rage cost on Impending Victory could very well mean that you simply will not be able to use it when your life depends on it. The new Enraged Regeneration has no Rage cost.

My Pick: We’ll have to see how Impending Victory works out in practice with respect to our new Rage model, but on paper, I’d pick Enraged Regeneration 95% of the time for boss tanking as things stand right now. A larger, 2-minute-cooldown, 0-Rage emergency regen feels like it will be more useful to my gut than the alternatives. Second Wind for trash and AoE tanking situations.

Level 45

Throwdown: Knocks the target to the ground and stuns it for 5 sec. 45 sec cooldown, 15 Rage cost.
Seems like largely a PvP talent. While it appears (from the Talent calculator) that Concussion Blow has been removed (at least, I can’t find it), this could provide some utility for fights where we need to stun adds. However, the cooldown is prohibitively long, and we’ll still have Shockwave available for those purposes at level 90.

Piercing Howl: Causes all enemies within 10 yards to be Dazed, reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec. 10 Rage cost.
Has some utility for add-based fights. Some tanks currently spec into this talent as it is, so that utility will remain unchanged.

Cripple: Your autoattack hits and Rend ticks maim your target, reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Seems like another talent that will have the most benefit in PvP. For fights that require delicate add control, we’ll still have Hamstring (and Piercing Howl, if you spec into it) available, so this seems sort of unnecessary for PvE.

My Pick: Piercing Howl seems like it will probably prove the most useful in PvE of the three.

Level 60

Gag Order: Your Pummel and Heroic Throw hits silence the target for 3 sec.
Like the current incarnation of Gag Order, this is largely useful for pulling caster adds in dungeons. The cooldown reduction on Heroic Throw is removed from the talent because that cooldown reduction has been made baseline.

Rude Interruption: Successfully interrupting a spell with Pummel increases your damage by 5% for 30 sec.
For boss fights where  you’ll need to be interrupting spells on a regular basis, this would give you a nice threat boost. Not much use for fights with no interrupts, however.

Disrupting Shout: Interrupts all spellcasting with 10 yards and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec. 40 sec cooldown, 10 Rage cost.
Basically an AoE Pummel with a longer cooldown. Could have some utility for collecting trash packs with several caster mobs.

My Pick: Rude Interruption for boss fights that require interrupts. Disrupting Shout for trash packs with more than 2 caster mobs. Gag Order for everything else.

Level 75

Deadly Calm: You enter a battle trance, causing your next 3 Heroic Strike or Cleave attacks to cost no rage. Lasts 15 sec. 2 min cooldown.
I see this having a ton of use for building threat on a fresh pull when you have very little rage.  Use Heroic Strike for single-target pulls, and Cleave for AoE pulls. As a bonus, when using Cleave, this also helps quickly build up Meat Cleaver stacks.

Death Wish: You attack with reckless abandon for the next 10 sec, which Enrages you and causes you to generate additional rage from damage received. While under the effects of Death Wish, you take 5% additional damage. 3 min cooldown.
While this could also help us in situations where Rage is scarce,  the 5% damage vulnerability is something that’s hard to swallow on principle. I’d guess that this will have more utility on trash packs or in dungeons rather than in boss fights. Given that Deadly Calm also helps us in low-Rage situations, I don’t see a compelling reason to take this over Deadly Calm. That may change once we get to see it in action, however.

Bull Rush: Your Charge and Intervene Enrage you for 6 sec.
Seems like more of a PvP/DPS talent than anything.

My Pick: Deadly Calm for most situations, though Death With could have some use. Will have to wait and see how they work out in the end.

Level 90

Bladestorm: You become a whirling storm of destructive force, instantly striking all nearby targets for 150% weapon damage and continuing to strike all nearby targets every 1 sec for 6 sec. During a Bladestorm, you are immune to movement impairing effects and loss of control effects, but can be Disarmed, and you can only perform shout abilities. 1.5 min cooldown, 25 Rage cost.
Useless for tanks. You never want to lose control of your character to the extent that Bladestorm requires. Our weapon damage is fairly low, anyway.

Shockwave: Sends a wave of force in front of you, causing 456 damage and stunning all enemy targets within 10 yards in a frontal cone for 4 sec. 20 sec cooldown, 15 Rage cost.
Will remain as useful as Shockwave currently does, most likely, as a source of AoE threat and a nice AoE stun on stunnable targets. Certani current Shockwave-related talents (Thunderstruck) seem to be missing from the 5.0 ability list, so Shockwave’s usefulness may not be quite to the level that it is today. Still, a reliable workhorse ability.

Avatar: You transform into an unstoppable colossus for 10 sec, which increases your damage dealt by 20% and causes your attacks to generate extra rage. While transformed you are immune to movement impairing effects. 1 min cooldown.
A damage/threat and Rage buff on a short cooldown and with no downside. For fights where the utility of Shockwave is not needed, this may be a very nice buff to supplement our threat and Rage generation.

My Pick: The way things appear right now, I’d probably pick Shockwave for “default” use, and switch over to Avatar for boss tanking situations.

Talent “Specs”

The following are a couple of different talent specs that I’d imagine switching between for different situations. Just like everything else in this article, these are based entirely on the on-paper reading of these abilities, and may work out differently in practice (and after the inevitable adjustments that Blizzard makes).

Dungeon/Trash spec: Double Time, Second Wind, Piercing Howl, Gag Order (substitute Disrupting Shout for caster-heavy packs), Deadly Calm, Shockwave

Single-Target Boss Tanking spec: [Anything], Enraged Regeneration, [Anything], Rude Interruption, Deadly Calm, Avatar