World of Warcraft: Warbringer talent change causes a stir

Steven Legg 12 Jan, 2010 at 7:03pm ET Article published in Gaming

Warbringer as it appears on Live servers today.

Recently on the World of Warcraft official forums, an argument was posed to the Blizzard development team in regards to their decision to change the Warbringer talent by no longer allowing the warrior to Charge or Intercept to escape movement impairing effects.

Some players are suggesting that Protection Warriors should give up some of their ability to silence, stun, and otherwise control their opponents instead of losing the ability to pursue enemies that impair their movement. Blizzard’s counter to this argument is that Protection Warriors will lose too much PvE tanking effectiveness if these control mechanics are reduced in effectiveness or removed altogether–thus Warbringer is one of few choices they have in the way of balancing the spec.

Will this change make Protection Warriors too prone to the same trouble that melee currently face against control-based ranged opponents like Hunters and Mages? Or will Intervene still provide an adequate escape mechanic for those Warriors who want to stay Protection in the arena?

Let us know what you think by registering and sharing your thoughts below.

Comments

13 Jan 2010 ~ 8:58am wow strategy guide haha.. that's cool man! I'm a hunter and its favor for me if they less the impairing effects of warrior! I can hit them more by not always getting stun.. now I may say that hunter had much greater chance of winning over warrior. :P
13 Jan 2010 ~ 10:54am MAGIC Blizzard sucks.

But really, its very useful in PVE. I don't PVP so i couldnt care less about that. Maybe they can just disable the ability in PVP circumstances.
13 Jan 2010 ~ 3:35pm Norge Blizzard has stated on numerous occasions that they don't want to create different rule sets for PvP and PvE. Unfortunately that makes it almost impossible for them to balance both PvP and PvE at the same time. As being dual spec'd as tanking prot/pvp prot this change is a disappointment is both departments.

Norge
13 Jan 2010 ~ 3:39pm Thrax They don't want to create a "different game," but the physical <i>and</i> meta games of PvP vs. PvE are so fundamentally different that their resistance to separate spell tables comes off as insincere and lazy.
13 Jan 2010 ~ 3:54pm Norge I can agree with that. They say that they don't want to make the game too difficult for players by having two different rule sets but there is already a decent gap between PvE and PvP game play. They are two completely different skill sets. There is already a different thought process while fighting another player vs. a boss fight for example. Whether they want to admit it or not there is already a learning curve for getting into the PvP end of the game. That is amplified even more by high end arena play.

That aside I would have rather sacrificed another aspect of prot PvP over warbringer's snare removal. Being able to dart all over the place is a big draw of the spec. I love it for tanking and I love it for PvP. It won't break prot PvP to the extent some people say but it will certainly be less convenient. A well played frost mage or hunter knows how to handle warbringer as is. The change will reduce the QQ for a while until the next class nerf comes along. That's the cycle of the game.

Norge
13 Jan 2010 ~ 3:56pm poofie this is probably just my preference, but i have always seen WoW as more PvE focused. after all, world PvP is optional, depending on the sever you play on... i would prefer Blizzard to focus more on the PvE aspects of the game.

i probably would have more to say about this if my sinuses and inner ears weren't staging a violent revolution. i reserve the right to talk about this more when i feel better/if i feel like it.
14 Jan 2010 ~ 11:17am Pouncingfox Yet another example of Blizzard making the PVE game less fun for the sake of the marginal few who enjoy arena. It's a terrible design focus overall, and this decision is no exception.

At a time when the tank shortage is PAINFULLY obvious with the dungeon finder (hello instant queues for any tanks, 20 minute waits for any dps) they strip away fun abilities from the hardest tank in the game to master.

I know I want to play my Prot Warrior much less now. I haven't even dusted him off since I've heard of this change (as well as the nerf to shield slam, the SIGNATURE prot warrior ability...)

Overall I wish blizzard would realize what Arenas are-> a minigame. It's akin to a tetris app on a cellphone, yet they're balancing the whole game around it, to the game's overall detriment.