Ability Suggestion: Defensive Stance (with added weapon swap!)

Classes Warrior
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TL;DR at bottom

Defensive stance

Baseline Ability

  • Bring forth your shield and enter a defensive stance, gaining the shield’s benefits, allowing use of any abilities that require a shield and reducing all damage taken by 20%.
    – Whilst weilding your shield, you gain it’s armour and can block, but your weapon’s damage value is reduced by 25%

(Off-GCD, 0.5 second cooldown)

I’ve recently re-started playing my retail warrior after playing Classic, and one of the things I miss (along with stance-dancing) is weapon swapping, so what I’d like to see is for arms warriors to be given some kind of weapon ‘stances’, maybe literally defensive stance, or maybe a separate ability that switches weapons. I think with spell reflect returning it makes even more sense.

In their inventory, Arms warriors would be able to equip a 2h weapon and a shield, and they would wear this at all times, this would be part of their normal gear, a 2h weapon and a shield (like a shield-based titan’s grip).

By default, they would only get the benefits of the main hand (the 2h weapon) and would be in all ways the same as an arms warrior is now. They’d have no bonus armour from their equipped shield, and would be unable to block (whether they’d receive it’s stats is a balance question I don’t have the answer to).

Using this ability, warriors would have the option to ‘toggle’ their shield, which would visually show the shield (or it’s transmog) as well as their weapon. When swapped to their shield, the weapon would do 75% of its normal damage (the difference between 1h and 2h weapons). They would receive the armour bonus, be able to block and would be able to use the abilities that require shields.

The ability could also be baked into the current defensive stance talent-ability, with the 10% output reduction removed (as the weapon damage is already reduced). The intake reduction on def. stance would make sense to keep, as the amour only applies to physical resistance, where warriors should shine.

This would avoid the required use of macros to switch weapons from classic, while maintaining the feel and nuance of switching your weapons. It would also strike a good balance with gearing, needing 2 pieces you will always wear instead of 3 pieces, 2 of which you will only use in certain circumstances.

TL:DR - Give Arms Warriors Titan’s-Grip + shields, then give them an ability that visually and mechanically reflects the pros & cons of 2h vs sword and board to limit chasing gear that goes unequipped most of the time.

5 Likes
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As a totally different person and totally not just the same guy faction transferred, I agree.

I have also missed weapon swapping and stance dancing and think this is an elegant solution that strikes a nice balance between the added layers to gameplay but not too much complexity for newer players

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Glad to see everyone and their mom has also had this idea, now we just need blizz to accept some variation of it as the best way forward

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Yeah I was playing and had the idea, wrote this then noticed there are a lot of similar ideas.

It would seem strange for them to bring back shield-based abilities, and then break it in M+ where you can’t swap gear

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It’d also look aesthetically really god damn cool.

My idea was almost similar but I’d also let arms warriors wear 1 handed weapon in addition to shield and 2h weapon- Which would be swapped automatically when you swap stances.

it’d look super cool to be hauling all those weapons & gear around. And even if people happen to dislike it for whatever reason like aesthetics, you could just make a glyph that hides the extra weapons that are not used in that particular stance.

1 Like
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This is about what the D4 Barbarian looks to be, and I’m really excited to check that out

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My own version is a bit different, stops the need to farm out stuff, which is annoying and changes the abilities to discourage turtling in the Stance.

My suggestion would be to see the return of stances in a limited fashion.

• Battle Stance: Normal ability use (Arms).
• Defensive Stance: Reduce the damage that the player takes and deals by 10% and gives them a one-handed weapon and shield of the same ilvl as their main-hand with the same secondary stats. Their main attack ability is replaced by Shield Slam, Charge by Intervene and Shield Block becomes available for use. The weapon and shield can be transmogrified and replaced with a one-handed weapon and shield with the secondary stats that the player wants.
• Berserker Stance: Normal ability use (Fury).

Going into the various stances costs no Rage, having no cooldown and never activates the CGD.

By doing it this way players are discouraged from turtling in Defensive Stance and continuing damage as there are clear drawbacks to sitting in it. There’s also a survival benefit by using it so it’s curse/kiss. By having the MH transform into a one-hander and shield there’s no need to farm one out for the slot which makes it feel optional rather than mandatory. That they can be transmogrified gives the player some agency in how they’re going to look and with no Rage-loss or GCD activation Shield Block can be used in a pinch as well as can Intervene. And importantly it frees up hot bar slots.

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I miss stance dance. So much.

1 Like
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My main issue is that I quite like the idea of getting the shield I want, rather than it transforming into another one - with that line of thought (taken to an extreme) we may aswell do with all gear and doing dungeons has a chance to increase your ilvl.

I still want to obtain the specific gear I use rather than it just appearing (I’ve never liked the alliance/horde shields you get).

I do think my idea needs to be slightly more fleshed out though, as it only really applies to Arms warriors - while Fury warriors also have access to shield-based abilities

1 Like
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Me too - but I don’t know if I think it would fit the game any more, definitely not the way it used to be.

It’s a shame, but I hope we can get some form of stance dancing and some weapon swapping that both feel good, like you’re playing a master-at-arms… I’m mainly hoping that Arms stops being a DoT spec, or at least give us daggers and poisons along with our bleeds :wink:

1 Like
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You can still do that. You can farm out the gear you want and if you give no ***ks about that you still have a one-hand + shield of an equal ilvl to your MH. It would also only Arms and Fury that had that functionality. This prevents the need for farming out multiple items and if you want to do that then you still can.

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Hopefully they read this but i doubt it.

1 Like
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Yeah me too. The general feeling is they don’t read EU forums, but I thought putting it out there is better than just thinking about it, even if is unlikely to be read.

…and who knows - if I coincidentally had the same idea they were already going with I can stroke my ego and pretend I helped develop wow

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Just no. Firstly, there isn’t even a mention of Fury, so are all warriors now going to be given a ‘Defensive Stance’ ability? If we’re going to all get Defensive Stance, why not just bring all stances back as they were? There are so many problems with this re-introduction of ‘being able to use shields’ for Shield Slam, Block, Spell reflect and so on, without bringing back stances and stance related abilities. This is not even considering the problem of not allowing the swapping of gear in M+.

Either we end up with a half baked and redundant set of abilities that allow a warrior to tank briefly, and there really are very few reasons Arms or Fury need to be doing that. Even back in the day, you just did not have the talents or abilities to tank for anything more than the duration of Shield Wall (unless you over-geared a dungeon or raid). So unless you’re suggesting we get most of the protection kit back, as well as stances this un-pruning is going to fall flat. I’d rather a more inventive way in which we could use, block, spell reflect and ignore pain, not some halfway house weak-sauce work around that literally serves no purpose other than making DPS warriors needlessly more complicated.

Secondly, it’s pretty clear that Blizzard are not going to allow arms to ‘just have’ Titan grip, whether or not it is visually hidden by a one-hander and a shield. It is a fundamental defining aspect of Fury, this is not going to become something that Arms gets as a work-around for badly thought out ‘un-pruning.’

The game currently cannot be compared to Classic or Vanilla, all classes were different beasts back then, hybrids or pure. Warriors basically had the same toolkit and 3 stances. The trees added in a few more abilities and talents that played to and leaned on those strengths. Currently, warriors are of 3 distinct flavours and playstyles that have (arguably) more that sets them apart than in common. You cant just add back some protection abilities and hope that they can be shoehorned back in given significant changes to the mechanics of the class. Either they become too powerful, or they will serve little purpose.

I raided for years as a DPS warrior, almost exclusively Fury, and it took a very long time to convince people that was the role I wanted to play and that I wasn’t interested in the slightest in tanking. I for one cannot think of a more reckless and less thought through backward step by Blizzard to resurrect the old ’ hybrid vs pure class’ debate. Labouring under the delusion that giving all warriors a shield and spell reflect will magically bring back some semblance of class theme.

To me Warriors share rage, mobility, wear plate, martial prowess is what we excel at, we don’t use subterfuge or magic and don’t back down. Giving me a shield as a berserker is like giving all mages arcane explosion in the hope it will make people feel more ‘Magey.’ This aspect of unpruning is the biggest red-herring warriors have fallen for in ages. But it stands to reason, given that much of our mobility, CC and utility has been stripped back or removed entirely. Giving you a shield and pretending to be a tank for 10 seconds once in a blue moon, will not change that.

Without the reintroduction of stances and a common toolkit this will fail, however, if that is what people wish for then there are significant consequences that will come along with it. But as I’ve already said, these will either be vestigial or overpowered and to the detriment of every Warrior spec.

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I’ll condense some ideas and put them on the us forums in a while if I don’t see them there already

2 Likes
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Very little of your rant has anything to do with what I’ve said. Shield block, Spell reflect and Ignore pain are coming back and that’s a blizzard decision that I, as a warrior doesn’t have much love for Fury, am excited about.

I do accept that my suggestion doesn’t cover fury, but from what you’ve so passionately said, maybe the solution is to not give fury the option to use them at all (I also think it doesn’t thematically make sense for fury warriors. Maybe Arms should be the utility spec and Fury should continue to just be damage.

My suggestion also deals with the issue of swapping gear in M+, because the gear is already equipped. I’m not saying Arm’s should “Just have” Titan’s grip, I’m saying they should be able to hold a 2h and a shield, with the 2h doing reduced damage while holding the shield. The fact that there is a 2h weapon in the mainhand is the only similarity.

The rest I think is mainly your personal vendetta and hangups which you could maybe put into a letter to blizzard.

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Poor attempts at straw man arguments aside, I did fully engage with your argument, it really isn’t my intent to merely rubbish the idea (Which I don’t), but I was trying to highlight the wider context of how such ideas might or might not fit into Warrior design. Personally, much as I like the idea of getting more utility, what we get, and how it is implemented is far more important to me.

You’ve just conveniently side-stepped the entire argument about class theme and the whole reason WHY Blizzard feel the need to un-prune. It seems like you are basically saying that Fury does not matter because you don’t care for Fury. I’m fine with someone not liking a spec, but not fine about how this should be implemented across all Warrior specs. Especially if you’re saying Arms should get all the utility and Fury, because you’ve not thought about it, should not. Clearly this is no imposition for Protection, given they use a sword and board as standard and most of these abilities are already available. However, if Arms can do it, why take a Protection Warrior? But Arms is a single handed DPS (with a 2 hander) and Fury Dual wield DPS (with 2x 2-handers), both of which do not use shields and one-handers. Why should arms get all the fun?

This is merely a shoehorn approach to making something work for Arms, that clearly impinges on Fury and Protection with regard to wielding a two hander in one hand and a shield in the other or Protection-lite. It simply wont fly, visual or not. And you happily disregard any arguments around shared mechanics. abilities or specs.

No, you literally said it.

The main argument is also not explained, which is WHY would arms want to wear a shield? Outside of turtling in PvP (and we know how that ends most of the time), or in a pinch where a Tank dies (there are more profound issues at stake in most of these situations), what is the use? Either way both of those situations are a compromise that will not likely see a good result.

Are you suggesting that Arms should be a tank spec?

Are you suggesting that Arms can DPS then tank at the push of a button during combat? If so what is the niche for such power?

Are you suggesting that considerations for both Fury and Protection are irrelevant to Warrior design?

Are you advocating that just Arms gets more utility than Fury or Protection?

Is this for Raiding, Questing, Mythics or PvP, some or all of this content?

Are you asking for Arms to be an off-tank? If so, how will this function in the aforementioned content. Why would I bring you over a focused tank or DPS spec?

I have no vendetta or desire for revenge (unless I go Protection), nor do I have any inhibition with regard to discussion around the Warrior class. So I’m not sure what you are trying to tell me with this? Could you be a little more specific and careful in expressing what you mean please? Do I care about the class? Yes! hence my impassioned reply. If you cannot answer some straightforward questions or handle critique about your suggestions, then why post it? I appreciate you’re excited about changes, this is truly great. But could you at least try to see it from my perspective, as Fury I’m concerned about the implementation, and I can tell you now, your suggestion has many unanswered problems. Issues that will affect both Protection and Fury and to their detriment. Just because this seems like an elegant solution to you, for Arms, does not make it so.

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Oh boy, these replies are going to get longer and longer. I’m going to jump around a bit here, and I’m not going to be highlighting everything you’ve said individually, sorry for breaking the norm - let me know if I miss/you want me to specifically answer anything.

The reason I feel arms warriors (and fury warriors, for that matter) should have the choice to wear a shield, is the same reason that an Elemental Shaman should have access to Healing Surge - Does that mean Elemental shamans are healers now? Is it vestigial or overpowered to ever Shaman’s detriment? Should we remove heals and dispels from Elemental and Enhancement for the better of the class? Warriors are a hybrid class, just as Shamans, Paladins and Druids are hybrids.

I admit, my idea was thought up in an Arms-based vacuum - but I think we can both agree shields don’t ‘fit’ the general idea of Fury as it currently exists - but that doesn’t mean defensive stance, or the abilities it gives access to have to require a shield, they could simply require the stance, as someone who has more of an affinity for Arms, I’m not the right person for that. Maybe that could be where you come in? – And yes, I do think Arms should get more utility than Fury, as it always has (which is why Fury has historically been unused in PvP).

The reason I feel Arms warriors would want to wear a shield when it suits them is because the spec is literally called ‘Arms’, as in a Master of Arms. Much like a Feral druid might want to go into bear form, or a Resto Shaman cast Lava burst, an Arms (or Fury) warrior might want to wear a shield to play more defensively.

I apologise that my TL;DR summary didn’t adequately lay out the boundaries for exactly how I wanted the words ‘Titan’s grip’ interpreted. Currently when an Arms warrior goes into defensive stance, they hold a generic faction shield, and their two handed weapon. It already flies.

Regarding your last paragraph, this suggestion is a bridge between ‘abilities are being implemented that require a shield’ and ‘you are unable to switch weapons in M+’, with a little ‘the generic faction shield is awful’ thrown in. Your main concern seems to be with the fact that the abilities are being implemented, not with my suggestion, which really when you boil it down is what we have in game already, except slightly modified to work with M+ and the returning abilities.

I think you’ve gotten very lucky that the current design of Warrior has a spec which already meshes with your personal fantasy for the class. The stripping down of abilities has removed more and more ambiguity from specs across the board, over time eroding the ability for a player to have their own personal ideas - For example, if you don’t want to be a poison-Assassin, a shadow-Assassin or a Pirate, or want to play something inbetween, then you’d better not play Rogue. (If you wanted to imagine yourself as a thief or a trickster, then you should play another game; because that doesn’t exist here. Even the idea of a ‘Swashbuckler’ has been hijacked and any ambiguity removed - google swashbuckler and see how often ‘pirate’ comes up).

In my opinion, stepping back from clearly defined and outlined spec identities is only a good thing, as it allows for personal fantasies and stories within WoW, and makes the game more of an MMORPG, and less of a theme-park.

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