Leveling as Prot.....the Low Levels

The baby tank in action

The low levels of leveling as a prot Warrior almost arent even leveling as a prot warrior. From 1-9, you are a Warrior wearing a shield and one handed weapon. You are not really a prot warrior. You only become "prot" once you hit level 10 and get your first talent point.

There are a few ways you can go about Prot leveling. You can go for damage or go for mitigation. I personally like to follow the tree in a manner that will give me the best tanking talents for instances.

Damage at the low levels. It sucks. The upside is that Prot is no worse really than Arms or Fury at the low levels. And once you start picking up tanking talents, you will be much less squishy.

When you first zone into the world, you have Heroic Strike. Heroic strike sucks ass, but what else do you have to burn your rage on?

Before long, you will be picking up Battle Shout. I recommend keeping this up at all times. It will help make your damage a little less sucky.

Then you will get a talent that is shit later, but great at the lower levels. Rend. Rend will not be in an instance tanking rotation later in the game. Early on, however, it is good for both tanking threat and soloing. In the first 29 or so levels, you dont have many abilities to use those global cooldowns on. Rend is a decent one.

Thunderclap will also be obtained relatively early. If you have tons of rage or are tanking multiple mobs, it is a good ability to use. It will also be your bread and butter if you are AOE grinding. Cleave is will replace Heroic strike for when you are dealing with multiple mobs.

Early on, you will not have Warbringer. This means that you cannot charge in combat. I recommend charging into combat whenever you can to generate more rage. Rage is a bit more of a problem at lower levels.

When you hit level 14 (edited, thanks Leah), you will hear the angels sing when you pick up Revenge. In its current condition, it is worse than devastate, but you will not pick that talent up for a while still. Revenge will be used every time it is up. It is good damage per rage. I would recommend picking up the glyph of revenge once you do get revenge. Free heroic strikes are win.

I prefer to stay in defensive stance once you pick it up. Do not use slam while you are in Battle Stance. It has a cast time. Since it has a cast time, it means that you can't block dodge or parry while you are casting it.

This is just my take on what you should be doing while leveling prot early on. Feel free to ask questions should you have them.