Why are people obsessed with this? It was horribly designed when it came out in WoD and a fast-track to carpal tunnel without really being that interesting. It came out and was horrible, and then it got tuned into being incredible, maybe even overpowered. I don’t remember. Then it ceased to exist.
I’m all for innovating warrior but I am really bored of the DPS solution ‘new idea’ for warrior being sword and board DPS.
Because it was incredible fun and sword and board DPS is cool?
Because it is something people have wanted for years and honestly it felt AMAZING we were zipping around slamming into things and we were still strong and we have more protection because of the shield.
The only people that didn’t like it were the tanks because they now had to fight people for the shields and gear with extra armor on it because we also used them.
I feel it was a vocal minority.
That and a dps shield holding fighter class is something niche poeple wants. I don’t mean it in a condescendant way, but it is something a few player do really really likes.
Kinda like “engineer class”. It is never a really popular class compare to “pure archer” but poeple who like that fantasy are really passionate about it.
Tanks loved it, the only people who did not like it were people in arena
I can see the appeal from an aesthetics pov since people growing up playing games like the Legend of Zelda where they play as Link, or the Ys series where they’re playing as Adol Christin, both formidable fighters using a sword and shield to surpass surmountable odds stacked against them.
The rough part is in MMOs most of the time the Sword and Shield fighter is relegated to tanking which some people have unwarranted allergies to playing since they stress themselves out over a slight breeze.
Having played during WoD I can definitely say from experience Glad stance wasn’t really all that fun once you learned how to play it it was quite degenerate in it’s gameplay loop, you spammed heroic strike a lot while also needing to restack the buff that reduced it’s rage by 1/5th of it’s cost as it was a mongoose bite styled mechanic where you could add to it but not refresh the duration.
PvP players from the time, you know the ones who never really did any rated PvP to speak of and sat in random BG queues all day? They have fond memories of it, only because they would stomp the odd noob or two with it.
Players who couldn’t let go of Heroic Strike’s removal also view it fondly. Mind you not like they tactically hit HS to begin with during WoD since you practically keybound it to most attacks anyway due to it’s toolkit removing the ragecost almost entirely.
Would I like to see them have a crack at another sword/shield dps? Eh I don’t think adding a 3rd DPS spec to Warrior is necessary as it just provides more friction gearing in PvE as it would take away from Arms/Fury in a raid or m+ space.
I do however think they could placate those players eager for a DPS based sword/shield spec by enabling both Arms and Ret to xmog their 2h weapon into a 1h/shield combination through the xmog system while also changing their stances/animations according to it so they’ll be fighting moreso with their mainhand weapon and the shield would be more of a cosmetic addon they hold in their offhand and raise when they get hit.
Because it was hella fun. Shields have some of the best gear designs in the game. While tanking can be fun, it can also be stressful, it was nice to be able to slap on a shield and not have to be a tank.