That fact Gladiator Stance has remained gone is probably the best example you can site as proof Blizzard isn’t really listening to the player base. Or at very least they’re only hearing what they want to hear from them.
Is it really?
Because a stance that allows you to change roles is a pretty horrible idea within the confines of WoW. For balance and class/spec design.
Especially since the playerbase complains about “homogenization” so much.
Absolutely. Other than reforging, I can think of no other feature more requested to make a comeback.
Why? You were locked into a role at the start of every combat. A Glad Stance Warrior couldn’t switch to tank mid fight.
The way you combat homogenization is to make specs do unique things. The fact Prot Warriors could be a DPS by flipping a talent unlike any other spec was literally the opposite of homogenization. It made them unique.
2 cents anyway
Except it was literal homogenization.
It used the exact same abilities.
Making the stance do unique things is creating an entire new spec.
It means you have to do twice as much work with any prot war rework. You have to design the actual spec. Then you have to make the same talents work with an entirely different role.
Its stupid.
When you say homogenization, what do you actually mean? Because you’re using the word in a different way in this thread from how I usually hear it here.
Homogenization - the process of making things uniform and similar
Nothing is more uniform and similar than using the exact same abilities
Well yeah - you’re still playing the same spec. I guess I’m not following you.
A Frost Mage who decides to go down the left side of his talent tree also doesn’t change his entire rotation and uses mostly the same ability as one who goes down the right side of his tree… I wouldn’t say that makes Frost Mages homogenized though.
If you made a frost mage with a healer stance.
But to heal he used the same exact abilities as the frost mage.
That would be silly.
That is my point. Using the same exact abilities in a completely different role.
True, but only because that doesn’t fit the fantasy.
A Prot Warrior chosing to forgo the defense of his shield to use it very aggressively for more of a Gladitorial fantasy (literally in the name)… still fits the fantasy
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Then make it an entire different spec.
The issue is the gameplay design of making it a stance.
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OK fair enough. I could absolutely live with that.
I’d have no issue with there being a melee dps shield using spec.
My issue is specifically the with gameplay issue of making it a stance. And that specifically is why I feel it was removed. Not the fantasy of a shield bashing warrior. But specifically how it would cause issues from a gameplay and design stand point.
Basically the entire reason they split cats away from bears in druids. Trying to design an adequate melee dps and tank dps in the same tree becomes a hassle where someone is left behind.
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I get that, but I’m still not really sure if that was the best thing for the game - I think Druids being able to step into other roles on a dime is part of what made/makes them unique and I think Blizzard agreed, which is why they at least left them with an option to take a cooldown that allows them to play another role for 45s every 5 minutes.
But I get we’re not likely to go backwards on that. I just hope one day we get Sword & Board DPS back, be it as an option for Prot or as a seperate spec. Only time I ever mained a Warrior was in WoD, simply because the fantasy of a Shield-wielding DPS was so cool.
And a cd allowing someone to do something like that isn’t even druid specific.
Shaman have a pretty major group healing cd for the dps specs. And that sorta temporary utility is great.
I just dont think it should be an always on stance. people have suggested something similar for enh shaman and tanking, which I am also against.
One of the roles, if not both, would suffer in design. If anything like that did happen, would rather a full spec where the concept could be fully explored.
I think there could be a fun role for a shield melee dps. I dont think a stance would do it justice. It wouldn’t allow for some shield creativity.
You could do a ton of things with a shield, mechanically, as a dps that I think would be really cool. But I think you’d be limited as a stance.
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Pour one out for glad stance. I was so hyped for that mess of a spec.
Vengeance was comical when we had it too.
Seriously though, I’d love it if they brought back glad stance as a shield sub spec for fury (like mistweaver or frost dk having two combat styles in the tree). 1h already drop in the loot table.
Maybe if they expand the support role after dabbling with Aug a quasi offtank dps may not be terrible. Give it crap like sunder, Group wide spell reflect, demo shout at reduced effectiveness but now for party members, intervene being more core to the spec. Like a dedicated off tank for the party. I’d play it.
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This is exactly the point - you had the prot gameplay as a pure dps role. I love prot warrior and the way it plays - why must it be a tank only role - why cant there be a 1h+shield dps role - nuke its survivability but leave its gameplay. 25% increased damage dealt + taken!
This is the coldest take I have ever heard. How is something being fun for someone making something else less fun for other people. Lmao that is so stupid. That’s like saying, “I have fun with Mage.” “Oh yeah? Well I don’t like Mage, so now I’m not having fun with what I play.” Too bad Blizzard listens to nonsense like this and removes fun things literally any time someone complains about it.
This is as dumb as saying that Blood DK was homogenized back in Wrath because you could get into Unholy presence. Wtf are you talking about? lol
Pot, meet kettle.
wut
It’s literally just…“Here are abilities for Prot. Enjoy. Also, you can press this button to remove threat gains and increase damage done.”
Why would there need to be twice as much design? 
Comparing a DPS spec switching to a supportive healing role is a manipulative, cherry-picking comparison, when you compare that to the difference between a tank and a DPS. A tank is just a DPS that holds threat. A Prot Warrior in Glad Stance is a tank that does more damage and holds less aggro. If Glad Stance was a healing stance, it would make no sense and be stupid, but it wasn’t.
No, they don’t need to. You said earlier that they’d have to design twice as much if they kept Glad Stance. They wouldn’t. You’re directly contradicting yourself. They WOULD have to design twice as much if Warriors had a 4th spec that was just Prot with no threat though. Literally. They’d have two DPS specs and two sword and board specs. What the hell for?
The DPS and tank parts of the feral tree were always distinct and separate from each other. You took bear talents, you tanked. You took cat talents, you DPS’d. The only way this comparison makes sense is if there were people tanking as a cat and DPSing as a bear and if anyone was doing that, they were playing wrong.
That =/= Glad Stance. How hard would it be for someone to understand the difference between a tank Prot and a DPS Prot? This game isn’t that complex. But for those who would be lost, there’s a fancy little button on the UI that let’s you toggle. How about that.
God damn. Is this what the discourse was like over this back in WoD? Thank God I wasn’t on the forums back then. I have never seen so many people so confident and vindicated in their own impotent wrongness.
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You intentionally ignored half the words I stated.
You disagreed with me, then later contradicted yourself.
I appreciate the attempt. You didn’t actually say anything, though.
My dude, do you want me to quote every single word you’ve posted in here? It’s almost 1AM and it’s not worth arguing over every single one of your sub zero perspectives.
What am I, auditioning? Attempt deez.
I’m going to bed. You should too. Maybe your brain will work better in the morning.
Like they’ll be doing from now on with every single hero talent tree?
Gladiator was not OP at all, it was the bottom DPS spec in the chart, by a large margin, but it was, indeed, fun.
It was removed because they’d rather have less work then, just like DK (blood DPS, UH/Frost tanking).
Also, tanking/DPS aren’t that different when it comes to what they actually do in WoW: Tanks use their damage to generate threat and have some extra abilities to mitigate damage - make those do damage instead and you’re set.
Healing is a different monster indeed, and even then you can have some hurt/heal overlap in abilities, as seen with Evoker’s Living Flame (just like your frost mage example).
Finally, Gladiator should be its own spec, yes, but it was good enough as part of Prot.