[Warrior Suggestion] Sword and Board

[DatNewNew92]

When you are expected to switch between weapon sets to maximize the potential of your class, it just seems clunky. What I want, or any player should want is to have fun. When you involve macros beyond focus targets and delve into equipment switching, combat stops being fluid.

That said, there should be an ability to effectively switch between sword/shield and your offensive weapons (whatever they may be). Now that talent specializations are picked, an ability can reflect your specialization (If you're Arms, you switch between your strongest 1h/Shield and your strongest 2h weapon. Fury based on your last tier talent would choose between your strongest 1h/shield and whichever talent you chose.)

Battle Ready
Instant
10 Rage
The warrior switches between his defensive and offensive weapons, equipping your strongest shield and weapon or weapons, depending on your talents and what you currently have equipped. If you switch to a Shield, you automatically reflect the next spell cast at you within 3 seconds. If you switch to a two-handed weapon or dual-wield weapons, your next Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst or Devastate become a critical strike and can be used with any weapon type. These effects can only occur once per minute.

The 3 second reflect isn't there to actually reflect, it's to give the warrior some breathing room. If a skilled player is smart enough to notice the switch, then they can just wait 3 seconds without coming to harm, and prepare themselves for spell reflect. The warrior can now involve more strategy by having Spell Reflect (the ability) to use at another time.

The rage cost is there because you avoid the GCD and gain a benefit when immediately switching. To avoid spamming, the effect can only happen once per minute.

There can also be a talent in prot that allow them to use this skill, if they choose to do so.

Defender's Devastation
Whenever switching to a 2-Handed Weapon with Sword and Board, your armor is unaffected and you may use abilities as if you had a One-Handed Weapon and Shield equipped. Lasts 5/10 seconds. Can only occur once per minute.

Just imagine Shield Slam ---> Slamming with your 2H. Shield Bash ---> Bashing with your 2H. Blocking ---> 2H. Shield Block ---> Using your 2H to mitigate damage (You are a skilled defender, anything and everything is your shield).

[Mstermeg]

not entirely sure what the point is, I don't see any point at which using weapon setups not relative to your spec would be that helpful, I've seen skillful warriors switch to reflect the occasional spell in pvp but even so they don't need a spell to do it for them

[hodant]

Interesting suggestion but what I would prefer over this is to just make stance/weapon switching notification client side so we can just use single hit macros in order to switch stance and use ability.

Would make something like this completely unnecessary and also remove the "clunkyness" of weapon/stance switching that is currently server side.

[Chaltione]

Stop trying to cheese prot warriors with pvp gimmicks.

Also, please change the title to append " in pvp"

Sword and Board is fine in PvE, where prot is supposed to be used. It's viable in PvP, but it's not really made for or will ever be balanced for PvP.

[Dwight Howard]

I really like both of these ideas, but the buff duration of the second move would need to be slightly shorter and it would have to be a prot only talent imo for pvp balance purposes.

[DatNewNew92]

Actually, it could not only be used in PVP but as a "oh crap I need to get threat on this QUICK" button.

Yes, you have taunt. But instead of being so boring and yelling at the target, you can be awesome.

Plus, it would be fun when you overgear content.

I really like both of these ideas, but the buff duration of the second move would need to be slightly shorter and it would have to be a prot only talent imo for pvp balance purposes.

Yeah, I was thinking something closer to 5/10 seconds would suffice. And I was implying from the start the second talent would be Prot only.

---------- Post added 2010-08-05 at 02:49 AM ----------

Stop trying to cheese prot warriors with pvp gimmicks.

Also, please change the title to append " in pvp"

Sword and Board is fine in PvE, where prot is supposed to be used. It's viable in PvP, but it's not really made for or will ever be balanced for PvP.

I completely forgot that Prot had it as a talent. I'll make a note of it. I didn't mean for that talent to get "replaced" or "removed." It's just a fitting name.

[Chaltione]

That said, there should be an ability to effectively switch between sword/shield and your offensive weapons (whatever they may be).

It's called the Equipment Manager, it allows you to create sets (2H in one, 1H+shield in another) then drag the icons to your action bars for quick change.

More info on wowwiki or in the patch notes.

[Loxxie]

As much as I dont want to immediately shoot down your suggestion but something like this just wont happen, ever. Especially if you're trying to get it into PvE aswell.

Now before you take my next line out of context, I'm talking about Prot PvE.
Blizzard would just never make one class/spec have to use an additional weapon with weaponswapping in order to min/max, which will be what they'd balance around.

Rogues tried to do it with poisons, they did for awhile, until Blizz changed the mechanics.

Might be something that happens eventually to help warriors in PvP, but as of right now I highly doubt it.

Nice idea though.

[DatNewNew92]

As much as I dont want to immediately shoot down your idea but something like this just wont happen, ever. Especially if you're trying to get it into PvE aswell.

Now before you take my next line out of context, I'm talking about Prot PvE.
Blizzard would just never make one class/spec have to use an additional weapon with weaponswapping in order to min/max, which will be what they'd balance around.

Rogues tried to do it with poisons, they did for awhile, until Blizz changed the mechanics.

Might be something that happens eventually to help warriors in PvP, but as of right now I highly doubt it.

Nice idea though.

Blizzard has stated a couple things in the past:

Retribution will not get an interrupt.

Feral Druids have enough ways to interrupt.

Holy Paladins will not get an AoE heal.

Players will not get Faction changes.

I could go on (It's funny that your class is where I can get the most examples from) but you get the point, nothing is set in stone.

They wouldn't have to balance around this talent, because not everyone would take it or go through the effort to get a 2H. It's more of a DPS cooldown with a side-effect of higher threat generation. It wouldn't be necessary seeing as how threat scales and burst threat will pretty much be useless (because tanks have taunt and threat decay). It would only be necessary if you wanted to be a badass every 10 seconds/minute.

---------- Post added 2010-08-05 at 02:58 AM ----------

It's called the Equipment Manager, it allows you to create sets (2H in one, 1H+shield in another) then drag the icons to your action bars for quick change.

More info on wowwiki or in the patch notes.

It's still a macro, it is still affected by the GCD (you wait for doing nothing) and disrupts the flow of combat.