Since we can’t really do much aside from talking about the Changes that will come with Shadowlands, I wanted to mention one of few “new” things that I really hated to see.
Arms and Fury Warriors now do have Shield Block as a Baseline Skill, which is not really something bad, is a good defensive and Warrior could for sure use it.
The problem is that both Arms and Fury need to Swap to a Shield to use it, not that is really hard to do, you just make a Macro and here we go.
But why re-introducing a so clunky mechanic? I get it that they wanted to give us more Skills, but why make them so clunky to use? It’s not even a matter of “you need to be good to use them”/“You need to be Skilled”, is just something that force you to carry something more on your bag and force you to do something that has been removed for quality of life since years…
I mean, if they wanted to give Warrior another Skill that they could use, sure why not, but they could simply change the text of the ability and/or the name and make it usable with your normal Weapons.
This only force people without any good reason to do something clunky to stay optimal and/or competitive, which honestly is poor design in my opinion.
I mean, people choose a Class identity/fantasy for a reason, if people wanted to being forced to use a Shield they would’ve played Protection.
Options are always good, forced things are not… And being forced to swap Weapon for using a Skill is not a option/cool addition, is a forced clunky mechanic for being optimal in case you need to use that Skill (Which will probably be used a lot for being defensive).
For me i think Shield block should be called something like Sword block, parrying with sword have a cool animation and it adds a great utility fighting against Melee dps. No need for shield or anything. Apility that cost rage to intease block chance and that’s it no need macros or anything
The problem is “how” instead of “what” being re-added. If Defensive Stance at 10% became default, transformed your main-hand into a one-hand and shield at the same ilvl when you entered it, changed your MS/BT to Shield Slam, and paged an empty bar that you could place the unpruned tanking skills on it would be a tolerable.
This unpruning makes the statement, “no class should need macros to play,” to, “no class should need macros to play*” “*Except for Warriors.”
It also takes an enormous amount of space on your hot bars without the paging and you need to farm alternative gear for it to owrk.
Just gonna jump in here and say that I personally don’t agree with OP. I like having the option to go on the defensive, and for short periods emergencytank.
Also loved it back in the day when it was viable against rogues to swap.
I actually belive it added some depth and I’m really happy it’s coming back.
I do agree with you and I disagree in that it has to be done via macros as that’s inelegant and belongs to a design paradigm that’s literally 15 years old.
People destroyed this class and turned it into a complete clown class by their complaints, first they complained about having too many abilities then they complained about stances being too “complicated” and now they complain because they can’t handle adding 2 macros to their bars. It’s an MMORPG not a MOBA for god’s sake, if you cant handle more than 10 keybinds go play ESO or skyrim
You realize that having a Macro on the Bar or a Skill that do not require a Shield occupy the same amount of Key-Binds, right?
Nobody here or on the Warrior Shadowlands Beta Feedback asked for removing the Skill, they just said that Weapon Swapping from the bag, is a useless, old and clunky Mechanic.
But here we have the common people that usually said that Classic was deep and difficult and forgot 99% of the Classes used a single Skill to do their best DPS… Which are probably unable to understand why QoL Changes (Or in some cases the “Pruning”) were made.
Have you counted the unpruned abilities? You need eight or nine hot bar slots to even use it + the macro. And it would return stances if something like my suggestion was followed. You complain about something that would add more complexity o the class while at the same time portraying that you have a problem with the class having been made too simple. Cognitive dissonance, you should look it up because you have a lot of it.
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Do you realise that to use all the unpruned abilities + macro you need eight or nine hot bar slots? You also need to farm out a relevant level shield and one-hander since you would otherwise go splat fairly fast since you lack the complete suite of defensive tools that Protection has?
I never asked for removing the skill. I asked for it to be more intuitive mechanically. You should stop reading your own bias into things that other people have written in order to justify your own biases. You just look pathetic when you spout out stuff at random and are called out for it.
And using a macro is STILL swapping from your bag since you need the item physically in your bad. Which further takes two bag slots that no other class or spec has to use unless they multispec.
I agree with weapon swapping feels bad and clunky. But I come from the exact opposite. I like the fact that shields make a minor return to Arms, but the bigger problem is if you switch to a shield or use them in combat because you just like it you can’t use Mortal Strike. Its the only ability for Arms that has a 2h requirement as far as I know and that feels dumb. Another suggestion is to add Shield Bash to Deep Wounds.
This would in theory, give players that liked gladiator stance something like gladiator stance and actually make the unpruned abilities at least somewhat useful.
Deep Wounds means less as a single ability than it did before and is going to be more necessary with the current SL iteration. You’re going to have Cleave anyway and that applies DW. And you’re going to use Cleave as a single-target opener because having DW on your target is superior to anything else. And it’s the only short CD mass DW applier the spec has.
@Harvest Hi , I play warrior for 8years I grew up playing this class…and what I do hate is when blizz are making things simple … I like when things get hard so u actually do something I mean to press something … like cataclysm warriors a lot of macros a lot of switch between stances etc…
In pandaria I actually did like it , in pvp as a warrior it was… a good gameplay and this new thing to switch between weapons its actually that have been in pandaria so its not a new thing to me…so for me its okay I do like it this way
Man, are you dumb? I’m the one who made the Thread and you are responding to me like I’m against this Topic lol.
I was responding to the guy that said “You can’t handle 1 more Macro”, saying that having a Macro or an ability that do not require Shield have the same exact number of keybind so his point had no sense and they should directly make Shield Block usable without a Shield.
With that I indeed said that making a Macro is not intuitive and fluid and should not be a thing required to play a Class or use a Skill.
Delete or edit your Post, friendly advice to not look stupid.
You do realize that some of the abilities that got un-pruned are just that, un-pruned abilities.
You don’t need to use all of them.
Example: Whirlwind for Protection Warriors.
There is never a reason to even use it while you have Revenge & Thunder Clap.
Some are so stupid that they make no sense such as Hamstring for Protection
Because it was 1 expansion ago we had Thunder Clap reducing movement speed by 50% but nah lets add more buttons just for the sake of adding more buttons, without making sense at all.
I do worry that they’ll do something really stupid and bring back stances again, having to play against yourself to perform simple tasks such as Interrupt is a poor design choice that should be left in the past. Oh whats that ? you want to charge ? Yeah no you’re gonna have to swap back to battle stance and rage-starve yourself.
It’s really one of the reasons I don’t get excited by the news of “They’re listening to us!” some people (like the ones who want stances back) shouldn’t be listened to tbh.
People that keep asking for the unpruning or “bring back old mechanics” are just people that want it just for the sake of it… Mouse Clicker that probably never used more than five abilities but want to brag to have more of them…
Every expansion rotations got better and the abilities got more impactful and useful, what was removed 99% of the time was never used or useless for the spec…
Things started to went bad again when they started to listen to that vocal group of nostalgic people that probably are not even gonna use these Skills.
And that only make the life harder for people that want to play optimal and are forced to use old or clunky mechanics (example Shield Block in PvP if you are focussed by Melees), and for what? Because people just love to brag about old times… (These so beautiful old times where people just slammed Frostbolt or Shadow lot, wow awesome.)
They brought auras back for Paladin, which is an useless mechanic, because some nostalgic dudes wanted them (Even if they don’t do high end PvE or Pvp content). I would not be astonished if Blizzard reintroduce stances.
I’m currently playing a warrior on a cata private server and I have to say that turning each single spell into a macro is the proof that stances serve no purpose, other than just slowing down rotation.
That being said, if stances are like in Mop, then they would just be some sort of passives, which is like not bringing them back.
At this point, it would be better to have more active spells than just extra passives that would waste some GCD and that serve no purpose.
I would be okay with stances returning in this form.
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).
Changing Stances costs no Rage and invokes no GCD. Since then we could actually perform the role that the unpruned abilities imply.
Do you sincerly think Blizzard would introduce stances that don’t invoke GCD ? Nah, just forget those. At this point, I feel like those “unpruned” spells are only here for the sake of filling bars…
