Can we please let Paladins and Warriors tank with 2-hand weapons without downsides?

Community General Discussion
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Death Knights can tank with a 2-hand weapon. Warriors can not, Paladins can not.

I joined this game with BfA and played back then exclusively Tank because I love the gameplay of a Protection Paladin. But now, after Shadowlands I don’t want to ruin my transmog and pick something else than the Kyrian 2-hand mace as weapon.

So I am kinda forced to play Retribution (which I am fine and technically good at) or Holy (which I don’t like to play because it is in a weird design spot).

I would love to go back to Protection Paladin and be the Tank the other players wish for so desperately in queue times, but not if I have to run 1-hand + shield.

Blizzard could add certain passives to the skill tree or by default to make it work. For example, Frost Death Knights have a passive skill called “Might of the Frozen Wastes” which describes as follows:

Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Obliterate damage by 30%, and your auto attack critical strikes always grant Killing Machine.

Now I am sure this skill refers to dual-wielding 2-hands, but you get the idea. Such a passive applied to Paladins and Warriors with fitting additional skills that require a 2-hand, could work pretty well.

And I am mostly certain that some Warriors and other fellow Paladins would also welcome a change to the Weapon restrictions for effective Tank play on their classes.

When I am thinking of a Fantasy Class as Tank, I am not thinking of a Warrior or Paladin with a huge shield and a tiny sword. I am thinking of a Warrior or Paladin with thick armor, a talent to anger the opponent into focusing them and keeping hits away from their allies. And that doesn’t need a shield.

Gameplay-wise, you can just compensate the missing Block-stat from the Shield with an equal high amount of the Parry-Stat for Paladin and Warrior Tanks when running 2-hands and a slightly boost to Stamina.

It ain’t that hard!

Edit: What some of the readers here seem to misunderstand with my idea is that they think I want to make 1-hand + shield useless and 2-hand better. No, I don’t. I want people to have more choices with their very own character and how they can play. Opening up the weapons restriction DOES NOT mean players would then only play 2-hands as tanks now. They would still play what they like. If you like your 1-hand + shield more, you still can do it if you wish to. Just let others have their fun choice too.

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I don’t relish having to face more competition for my main weapon.

So personally I’d say No, but it’s not up to me :rofl:

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But competition forces advancements and inventions :wink:

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Personally, in any depiction I have seen of paladins at, unless they were built for the offensive they were generally wearing a one hander and a shield. I would go as far as to say that a shield is a staple mark of a paladin, so you cannot really drop it for protection.

Your proposal would also bring up design issues that the developement team would need to balance, such as how would Avenger’s shield work without a shield?

What I can see working is to give the option for paladins to wear a two-hander next to their shield, like a Crusader does in D3, but again, that will bring its own balancing headache along with them. They either need to design an ability that makes sure that using a two-hander does not cause the one-hander playstyle to lag behind, since a two-hander has higher base damage.

As from a fantasy standpoint Blood Death Knights pay a hefty price for tanking with a two-hander, and have their mechanics built around this fantasy (take big hits and heal it back).

In my opinion it just too much additional balancing work for Blizzard to put effort into it. I can see it happening for warriors, but not for paladin. I cannot really see it fitting their class fantasy.

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and remove armor. That doesn’t make any sense anyway, because it hardly reduces the damage.
monks and dhs can fill up much easier…

I’d rather wear cloth because it looks a lot prettier and cooler… but no POINTLESS plates!

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I’d be ok with that if Blizz create specific tanking 2-handers. Hands off of my DPS weapons!! :stuck_out_tongue:

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You know nothing stops you from playing a dk right, its not like having an alt is forbidden

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Well, technically it is a shield made of holy light you throw, not your actual shield. So there is surely a way to explain that in lore.

As I said, in the main post, using a 2-hand basically removes any block chance because block chance requires a shield. 2-hand would instead have more parry stat and higher base damage, which then means following:

1-hand + shield = more survivability (ability to block damage), less damage
2-hand = less survivability (no block chance at all but high parry), more damage

Parry allows to parry frontal melee attacks with a chance. That means a 2-hand protection paladin deals higher overall damage but would be easier to kill in melee, since you have only 1 instead of 2 ways to tank melee damage compared to 1-hand+shield.

A 1-hand+shield protection paladin or warrior both have parry and block stat, while having only a 2-hand would reduce it to parry only. That means again, less survivability but higher damage for both classes.

In other words:

  • Play 1-hand+shield = Main-Tank
  • Play 2-hand = Off-Tank

In a Raid scenario, depending on the fights and mechanics this can even beneficial, because a tank that isn’t really needed but can deal a bit more damage could make a difference in some cases where a certain damage output is needed.

Warrior kind of does the same as Tank. And Paladins have Word of Glory that can, depending on your talents, heal 2-3x the amount on yourself if it is empowered by your talents.

Fury Warrior has also separate balancing for their “wield 1-hand or 2-hand as dual” problem. That passive is called “Titan’s Grip” and describes as following:

Allows you to dual-wield a pair of two-handed weapons. Two-handed weapons deal more damage, and provide more Strength and Stamina, than one-handed weapons.

All Blizzard would have to do is untie the throwing shield from requiring a shield, add another damage/threat skill to Protection to make up for the Shield Bash and add a passive like Fury Spec has on Warrior that grants a certain amount of Parry stat when wielding a 2-hand weapon.

They only need to balance this one additional damage/threat skill and the passive named above is simply resolved by changing the values depending on how they see fit.

It isn’t sorcery. That’s something even a internship would be able to do in a few days of playtesting.

If it doesn’t make sense anyways, then why are you using it anyways? Can’t be that useless if you still run it?

They would only need to add another value on 2-hands that is only active on certain specs, similar like how strength/agility/intellect work.

I have a Death Knight and I love to play Frost on it because I like that spec more. I don’t like the theme and setting of Blood DKs. To each their own.

And when it comes to my preferred class, I still take Paladin over every other.

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Old dk used be able to tank on every spec or dps, this was Blizzard biggest mistake in wow history not letting dk tank and dps on all specs

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Frost tanking was the best and I abandoned DK when that was not a thing anymore. Ah, the memories.

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For me more than enough would be if my warr could tmog main hand as 2hand . 2h+shield is damn epic

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If personally always played blood dps and tank so i lost nothing but damn i still hate that change :smiley:

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The reason I always reject having a DK as main is: they are the only plate class that can’t equip shields. That isn’t fair is it ?

Edit: if you want to have the 4 armour types having a DK makes you play a shaman in order for shields to be unlocked. But if you play a shaman it means you need to play a rogue to unlock ranged weapons which cuts off any chance of playing a DH and have access to warglaives.

Cheers.

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How would you do all your shield spells without a shield?

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Replace them. No need to keep shield spells in your action bar when you don’t run a shield. They can add alternate weapon skills that require 2-hands in the skill book

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So you want spells to be tied to weapons rather than class/spec?

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Nope! cant speak for Paladins but warriors this is a big nope. The whole point of a warrior is a sword and board. Dont want my tank warrior to become an arms warrior-lite.

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18

Can we please have a sword and board DPS warrior spec*

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Hard pass for me, since i am a big fan of the tanks with shields for one.

Second it will bring a huge issue with balancing or using the abilities of classes like someone else mentioned.
For a warrior the following spells will need 2 versions to work with a 2 hander and in my eyes a different name / spell altogether:

  • Shield Block
  • Shield Wall
  • Shield Slam
  • Spell Reflect
  • Shield Bash

And for paladins there are also multiple changes.

Overall a 2handed warrior tank doesnt work for me personally.
There is the DK / Monk / DH classes which can tank or play dps with the same weapons were the first 2 use 2 handers (or monk can even pick dual wield or 2 handed) and overall those could be picked if people want to tank / dps aswell.

That simply is copy pasta from a Blood DK, who get said stats boosted with a blood spec.

Might be so, but i doubt if others will think the same.
Tanking isnt attractive enough for people due to the role / passive leadership it gets you in dungeons.
And the issues that come in with the responsebility and you have a role that isnt so wanted anymore.

Opening up the way to tank by removing class restrictions gearwise to be able to tank wont fix how tanks are treated nor will people switch to it.

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Looks above anything is a sweet concept.
But what if you could mog 2h weapon as mainhand and get some transparent Aegis of Light appear out of thin air when you respec prot.
Would that do it for you?
Or 2hander is the only deal on the table to see you as a tank in lfr?