Leveling with Protection

[usonian]

So I've been contemplating a respec to protection a little earlier than I planned (I"m 68 now) so that I can get into the next round of instances as well as be more effective helping in all the others.  I know a few of our warriors have leveled with a protection spec and I wanted to get some advice on how that went.  Is it gruelingly slow to level?  Did you primarily quest solo or did you try to group as much as possible and do lots of instances?  I enjoy the arms spec for shear solo leveling power (I only went prot at 60) but what are some tips to keep a decent leveling pace to 70 from 68 if I went protection now?

Thanks

-Uso

[voctovian]

Well, tanks are in such high demand that you may find it easy to level doing instances only.  I think the experience per hour for instances is as high or higher than questing.  I have heard that soloing is harder as protection, but you could probably do two instances in an evening and grind the last two levels in a few days.  Even the lower level dungeons will still net you good experience at 68.. I think I dinged 67 in Strat hehe.  This is also nice since the money from quests is quite good at 70

[dharq]

I leveled Darq with a prot build for levels 61 and 62, and it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't fun either. Mainly I did it because before the last patch, warriors had crap for rage generation, and with the extreme respawn rates in parts of HFP, the prot build was the only way I could survive getting in and out of an area to complete a quest. With the poor rage generation at the time, it was a lot easier for me than arms or fury.

With the new patch and rage generation, I'm finding the arms spec to be wonderful. I wouldn't imagine protection spec would be too bad, but I think you'll find solo grinding to be tedious. Like Voc said, I think instance leveling is much better in TBC than it was before, and I respec'd my shaman to full resto at lv60 in order to instance grind. Granted, it does take forever to fight solo, but in instances, it's terrific. The XP is as good or better than solo grinding, and there's a lot of money and loot drops.

Also, if you have a couple of alts so you can alternate between them and keep a full rest bonus, it helps a ton. It'll allow you to even solo a prot build at a reasonable pace, and if you're doing instances, it'll really improve the XP/hr gains. Overall, I highly recommend it.

[Genoism]

i've recently respec'ed out of endless rage to get deathwish - honestly that 25% more rage generation, i hardly notice it. 25% with a 2 hander will generate like...2 more points of rage a hit, nothing significant really. With AM and that other thing in fury that gets u rage im pretty good.
I know i use cleave, thunderclap (both with points into them) almost all the time when questing, i can't imagine how retarded it would be with just prot spec. Granted you'll live longer and leveling with a sword & board isn't as bad as ppl make it out but its slower...way slower.

[Lord Entropy]

The other advantage of instance-leveling is the rep you acquire.  If you save the rep quests for after you get honored or even revered (if possible), it will really help a lot.

Personally, though, it's not my cup of tea.  I prefer questing.