Prot Warriors have been the topic as of late. You may have noticed a Prot Warrior team reaching 3000 rating and maybe the Prot Warrior team that played at MLG Orlando this past weekend. It is undeniable if you have played against them that Prot Warriors are a serious threat in PvP. With the current state, Blizzard has announced that they will be nerfing Prot Warrior PvP.

In the next content patch the current plan is to change Warbringer a bit so that it no longer allows Charge and Intercept to break roots or snares but Intervene would remain unaffected.

The diminishing returns on shield slam damage now starts to kick in when shield block value is more than 1960 (at level 80). It maxes at behaving as if your shield block value is 2072 when your block value is actually 3160 (again, at level 80). Remember this includes the scaling from both shield block value on gear AND shield block value from Strength.

There has been some heated resistance to these changes. There are many PvE warriors who are worried that it will affect their tanking. Likewise there are many PvP warriors who want Prot to be a viable option for them. I have two major problems with Prot Warriors (and Prot Paladins) in PvP:

1. They do not require resilience

There is (supposed to be) a reason that PvP gear doesn’t work in PvE and PvE gear doesn’t work for PvP. Resilience is that reason. You shouldn’t be able to step into arenas without resilience and not get insta-gibbed. Likewise, you should not be able to raid in PvP gear and top any charts. Right now, Prot specced characters can walk into arenas without resilience and survive.

Gear is and will continue to be a huge factor in arenas and PvP. This is most of what makes character development fun for me. It is a great feeling of accomplishment when you buy a piece of gear after a long honor grind or with arena rating. It is mainly what separates a character that just hit 80 and one who someone has devoted a lot of time into. Your gear defines your character.

I can remember back to vanilla WoW around the time that I hit rank 10 on my warrior. There were a couple warriors on the realm who had BiS gear. They would stand around Ironforge waiting for duels or just talking to their friends. Many people would gawk at their gear. For me, that gear was unobtainable and although I wished that I could have their gear, I knew that I didn’t want to put that much time into it. Today, gear is much easier to get but still separates the people who want to put in some work to advance their characters and those who just want the handouts. Try walking into an arena without resilience as a caster (especially healer) and you will get blown up so fast that it will take you back in time.

When Prot Warriors are allowed to not only participate but do well in arenas and PvP without resilience, it takes away the status of any PvP gear that is difficult to obtain.

2. They completely shut a caster down

When TBC first came out, I immediately crafted a mace when I hit 70 and specced into mace specialization. I wasn’t in the majority who chose to use the mace. Many warriors went with the Axe for the extra crit. I started playing some 3’s with another warrior and a druid. A few weeks into season 1 and my warrior partner switched specializations and crafted the mace because it was that good. Our double mace stuns carried our team up to around a 1900 rating. Any healer who played during S1, 2, 3 can remember how overpowered mace stun was. There really wasn’t any way to get away from a Stormherald wielding warrior who was stunning you every few seconds.

As much fun that was for me at the time, it was overpowered and there really was no skill involved with the stun. It was a proc that randomly happened and there was no way to control it. The healers that we hit did not have any options for getting away. When these situations come up where skill and knowledge are completely removed from arenas, you end up with complete RNG. You end up hoping that you don’t run into those overpowered classes because if they play it right, there is nothing you can do to beat them.

The way warriors stand pre-nerf, they have too many ways to completely shut down someone by themselves. AoE stuns, blanket silence, AoE spell reflect, interrupts, range (charge/intercept), and on top of all of that… burst damage. They are easy to heal because nobody is going to burst through 50k health, hard to kite due to Warbringer, and hard to get away from due to their snare and stuns/silences.

Now I’m not trying to say that playing a Prot Warrior doesn’t take any skill to do and you will hit 3000 rating. I just think that Prot Warriors have too many abilities that are designed solely around PvE that have now become too powerful in PvP. Powerful enough that it won’t just be a FotM class, but would stay this way unless it is nerfed.

Arenas are always more fun and rewarding when you win because of how you played and not because your class beats all.