Class Fantasy is a big deal to a lot of us, and for me personally, my class fantasy is that I’ve always just wanted to be a Knight of sorts. I loved Gladiator spec when it was around in WoD too, and before that and since it’s removal I’ve returned to Arms. Funnily enough, my class fantasy for my warrior has always been to be like my Dark Souls character who is also a Knight.
My point? Well, for those out of the loop, in Dark Souls, you can put your shield onto your back, and wield your weapon (regardless of size) with both hands. By that measure, seeing an Arms warrior with a shield on their back, and a 2h unsheathed would look incredibly cool, and it honestly fits the “Arms” theme really well. If there were ever a class or spec to have more equipped than they needed, it would be Arms Warriors.
As this game delves further into class personal customization, (like the Warlock Green Fire, the Hunters with quivers, the paladins with tomes, and Demon Hunters getting bare-chested unique chest pieces, etc) I think being able to transmog backpieces into shields not only puts the dozens of fantastic looking shields into a second-life as cosmetic pieces for Arms Warriors, but it also just suits them so dang well thematically.
From a gameplay perspective, a change like this wouldn’t even affect how we interpret tanks for dps. We already identify tanks by their HP pool at first glance, and by their abilities second. Even less so would be by whether or not they’re wielding their shield, as more tanks don’t even use shields than those that do anyways, so this cosmetic change wouldn’t affect game clarity at all. Additionally, for split-second recognition, still seeing a Warrior holding just a 2-handed weapon would still register easily, as the backpiece is behind them anyways and wouldn’t obscure that either.
TL;DR -
Along with many other great class/spec-specific customizations like Quivers, Tomes, Green Warlock Fire, etc- Arms Warriors being able to transmog their capes/backpieces into Shields would be very awesome and really enrich the warrior and arms-master fantasy even more.
