The unpruning brought some interesting variants of gameplay back, with warrior dps specs being able to equip a shield, use shield block, and such. None of that will change the meta of each spec weapon-wise, but it may allow some nice odd gameplay styles, maybe for solo questing with more defence in content where min/maxing dps isn’t a big deal and whatnot.
So why not do the same for prots and allow dual wielding?
Sure it means you won’t be able to use shield block, slam, etc, but devastate and revenge are technically usable without a shield, and the idea is not some dual-wielding tank meta, but just having the option of trading tankiness for some extra dps in other types of content.
Seems like the only thing making it impossible is a flag of “cannot dual wield” for the prot spec.
It feels strange that we are doing a circle of the same ideas with just different abilities. Fury being given Mortal Strike. Fury getting Defensive Stance. Arms being given Enraged Regeneration or a Bloodthirst self-heal and now protection requests for Titans Grip/Single-Minded Fury.
There is a reason these specialization only abilities are ironic for the identity of the spec. Because they are the identity and most defined ability of the specs. Protection’s role is that of the niche of the tank in the world of warcraft and it does not need the ability to wield offhand weapons when you can change between the three specs so casually to get those abilities.
it does not need the ability to wield offhand weapons
Does it NEED? No.
Would it be cool if it could? Yes.
Never said anything about Mortal Strike, though. Don’t know why you’re even mentioning it. MS was always arms-exclusive and it’s fine to stay as such. The ability to dual wield, however, was always part of the class until they did the pruning that served no purpose other than taking away player freedom to play around with their classes.
Besides, don’t like it don’t use it. Literally no one loses anything by just having the option to equip an off hand weapon.
Except everyone loses out on the developer resources wasted on this. And the things that are iconic about prot become less iconic to it, while dual wielding becomes less iconic to those specs to which it currently is.
You lose more damage from giving up shield slam than you gain from occasional off-hand auto attacks. Even if they lifted the ‘no dual wielding flag’ you gain nothing from it, you’re just flat out weaker. The flag is there to protect bad players from themselves. They’d have to flat out rebalance the spec to make your idea work, which would be monumentally foolish of them.
It almost feels like people arguing how to interpret a religious text when the different passages contradict each other.
“Cataclysm 4:16 says that Fury should have MS!”
“That was written by heretics, everything else says it’s the divine right of Arms alone!”
“Defensive Stance is clearly an Arms only talent by the words of BFA.”
“Nay! I say unto ye, in the beginning, when the class was formless and the void wasn’t a thing yet, Blizzard created all warriors with Defensive Stance!”
My favorite thing about Classic is being able to switch between tanking and dps mid fight. The current retail warrior feels like a shade of its former self and is, for me, the argument against specs. Just bring back talent trees.
They literally brought all of it back so that you could play that way if you want. Quit trying to turn retail into classic. These changes happened for a reason.
It’s like he saw other people use that phrase, decided he liked it for it’s power and simplicity, and decided to use it without ever actually figuring out what it means or when it’s appropriate.