I’m not a warrior expert but I have noticed a few things with the Prot warrior tree compared to other tank trees and would love to have some other peoples thoughts or even a blizzard response would be helpful.
If you compare the prot warriors tree compared to other tanks you will see a few things:
don’t get me wrong, I love the gameplay of warrior tanks but I feel like other tanks have an advantage in talent selection over warriors. If we compare their talent tree to other tanks there’s a few things we can observe.
Prot Warrior: Has 8 choice nodes
Prot Pally: Has 6 choice nodes
Brew Master: Has 7 choice nodes
Guardian Druid: Has 5 choice nodes
VDH: Has 4 choice nodes
BDK: Has 2 choice nodes
This is a fairly large spread. I know choice nodes don’t make or break a spec but it restricts choices and different builds.
The second thing I want to mention is the structure of the warrior tree compared to the other tank classes.
If you take a look at each you will see the Prot Warrior tree is much more restricted compared to their counterparts. This restriction is created by two things. First being three segregated “mini trees”. The second restriction is how many chances you can cross over to the opposing mini tree to the left or right. Compared to other tank specs there is very clear comparison.
Adding utility to the class tree would be helpful for all warrior specs. Maybe something like a meat hook to pull in a pack of mobs, allow for spell reflect to silence the caster so they run in, intervene should spell reflect spells as well. any of these would help warriors come up to par on regards of utility.
I’m NOT making this post to hope for a buff to prot warriors but rather the same flexibility to the tree just like the other specs!
I haven’t looked yet but having played Prot Warrior for 15 years I will say we are probably the most stable tank in the game insofar as Blizzard knows how we are built and the players do as well. We probably see the fewest amount of changes of the tank specs. Being restrictive isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
That said, again, I haven’t looked and this is shooting from the hip.
Edit: Three choice nodes are an “Execute” choice node, which won’t see the play in M+ that it probably will in raiding. You can for all intents and purposes make this 5 choice nodes.
Then you have BV and FbV. I’m not sure this is a real “choice” and people will take what sims best. I’d argue this isn’t a real choice as well.
That leaves us with 4 choice nodes.
Heavy Repercussions vs Into the Fray. Both good talents, hard choice, but ItF will probably win out in season 1 if haste levels are normal.
Tough as Nails vs Spellblock. I’m a fan of Tough as Nails, but this will come down to dungeon/encounter and damage intake profile.
Then you have Defender Aegis vs Impenetrable Wall. This will be tough, but I like IW historically.
Then you have the Ravager choice node, big yawn. This is another sim situation/preference (if you even take it). I don’t see this as a real choice that has to be made like the 3 above.
In my mind, unless I am missing something, we have 3 REAL choices to make.
Don’t you feel that this makes the flexibility and choices not even choices now but straight up almost mandatory to take? I feel like subjectively the purpose of a choice node is to… give us a choice. If we don’t have a choice then it really it shows the class spec tree is even more restricted.
Your statement allows me to view it in a different way and I appreciate that. Most the choice nodes are not really choices but if you want to play in raid spec or M+ spec. Which ultimately reduces builds or ironically choices in itself.
I was looking at the choices at face value. But further you’ve explained, more I see less options Prot warriors have.
There are few “take what you prefer” options in choice nodes in general. Many of them that closest represent this are more like, “take this for arena, take this for ST” type of choice. These are mostly false choices.
The best part of Prot Warrior is that it is probably the most stable tank (construction wise) in the game. Spriest has scaffolding up 24/7/365 while Blizzard reinvents that spec every 7 months, Prot Warrior is kinda like “this is what we are and if you don’t like it play something else”.
I look at my actions bars and many of these abilities were here in 2009 when I started playing Prot Warrior. You also won’t see many Prot Warrior players asking for reworks. Sure, we might want to handle magical damage/bleeds better or have better group utility, but in general we are fine with where we are.
Finally, as far as choice goes this game is made up of FotM rerollers that have ruined this game or tried their best to ruin it. These people copy their talents from some streamer and never think twice about the build in the first place.
These “choice” nodes you speak of would be better off if this game returned to being an MMORPG again and not some meta-slaving game by players that pretend that they are competitive while they avoid arenas like cowards.