Prot warrior is straight-up silly.

This isn't a "wah wah tanks/warriors have it so hard" post, I already made that one, this is a "What the hell is even that?" post.

I spent my pre-Outland levels as a fury tank and thought that's demanding in terms of button-mashing, I respecced to protection yesterday because Outland mobs hit too hard thinking "I'll miss the AoE threat and the damage, but at least it will be easier cause you mostly stay in one stance instead of juggling all 3"...

lol
lmao, even.

I'm not gonna describe the experience with adjectives that are my subjective value judgements about the process, I'm just gonna lay it out for you:
I have to shield slam on cooldown, revenge on cooldown whenever I can which is very often but irregular, devastate whenever I have the spare rage or prioritize it in some cases, heroic strike as a second priority, thunder clap on cooldown, shield block on cooldown if I have the spare rage and/or worry more about incoming damage than threat, taunt whenever needed which practically means on cooldown, shield bash as needed which also often means on cooldown, concussion blow on cooldown to make up for shield bash being on cooldown and on top of that I have to keep my battle shout up and remember to demo shout.
Oh and I have victory rush now which seems to good not to use but I can't for the life of me figure out how to fit in there except post-charge.
And that's the bare minimum that you have to be constantly spamming, there are also long-cooldown abilities that you need to remember you have when shit goes sideways or the fight is pushing your limits like shield wall, challenging shout and retaliation and niche/utility skills from other stances like Intercept that you hope not to need to use but must use if needed.

Again, I'm not complaining, I'm just genuinely gobsmacked with that playstyle proposition that's been laid out before me.
It's not "press your buttons in the right order", it's not "press all the buttons you can", not "don't leave your buttons unpressed" nor "press your buttons with the right rhythm", it's all and none of the above depending on what the mobs and the players are doing. It's like playing free jazz but you're the band member who doesn't get to improvise and has to be reactive. Like you have to claw out rhythm and order and harmony from chaos while rolling with its punches instead of confronting it head-on. It's pure insanity.

And keep in mind that I haven't even touched on targeting and positioning, this is just what's going on on your action bar.

I played casters before, I know that it's not fair to say all they do is shadowbolt and blizzard, there are buttons to mash if you want to play optimally, especially in more chaotic situations, but god damn, this is something absolutely, completely, categorically different.

I genuinely believe that there should be a warning pop-up when you try to put your first point in Protection tree saying "Are you sure you want to play a game that's more like competitive Starcraft than what everyone else is doing?". I mean, I would have pressed "yes" cause I'm actually kinda stoked about how bonkers this is, but treat my post as a public service announcement that prot tanking is absolutely no joke.

Still, if you have any tips on how to manage this madness, I, of course, greatly appreciate that. And I appreciate everyone who stuck with me through this rambling.