Introduction :
Warriors are a close-range melee class, those who haven’t played a warrior or do not have a main warrior toon know them for their short-timed buffs that are overridden most of the time by paladin buffs.
During my 3 years of having a main fury Warrior character I can say that before WOTLK I used guns ONLY to pull a mob, seeing that I can’t rely on guns for anything else, it was just there in my gear…sitting as a stat stick, and an item to “pull†mobs to me in quest grinds.
With the release of WOTLK, and introduction of “heroic throw†which was an ability first given to a weapon in Karazhan (I really liked that weapon and used the throw on any mob/enemy player I could find) It was clear that heroic throw was “better†than ranged weapons in various of ways Both DPS wise and threat wise.
The idea of banners came to me when I wanted to suggest a forth talent tree in MMO-Champion, The forth talent would create a main role called “buffersâ€. But that didn’t work out as priests and druids along with paladins didn’t have a suitable buffer talent tree. But my warrior banner Idea seemed quite fitting, it can work even without a dedicated talent to it. So I trashed my “forth talent†Idea and focused on Banners.
Banners are flags or faction standards that Warriors carry on their back (like Japanese samurais) they do not need to “hold it†in their hand or anything, it doesn’t apply penalties to movements or fights and it doesn’t reduce your maneuverability.
Banners can be there to spiritually buff the warrior’s allies in a number of ways, they either create Auras (like paladins) that gives allied players buffs, they can be used by warriors to grant them and their allies “super buffs†for a short period of time (like 5 or 10 seconds) or they be impaled or planted into a fallen enemy’s body and decrease your enemies’ morale by debuffing them.
Banners can also boost a warriors’ certain ability, like making executes deadlier, make shouts stronger and longer, reduce CDs or remove some certain events that unlocks a certain ability (victory rush no longer needs you to kill something in order to be usable.)
Mechanism :
The Banners can have "use" and "equip" effects just like normal gear. They can either be forged by tailors/leatherworkers (whomever sounds more fitting) or bought by badges.
Warriors who do not like banners can still carry their ranged weapons, Warriors who like to carry ranged weapons instead of a big flag can still do it the old-fashioned way. The ranged weapons slot is modified to support both banners and ranged weapons items, and there is no “extra slot†for banners.
Once you drag banners into your "ranged weapon" slot they will remove the ammo slot and stay there like they are relic. And once you decided you need a little target practice you can just drag and drop a ranged weapon item on relic slot, the ranged weapon will replace the relic and the ammo slot will appear again.
Lore Support :
There might be a question that you guys are asking yourself, are banners even in Warcraft universe? Do warriors have anything like that in lore?
The answer is no, Warriors do not have banners.
But blademasters have :
http://www.wowwiki.com/Blademaster
Banners are flags carried by Blademasters in Warcraft 3, but seeing as Warriors are already taking Blademaster abilities and all that, I’d say they fit. They have a class dedicated to 2 hand weapons and they can use Bladestorm, plus they do nasty criticals.
So why not give banners to Warriors? They seem capable of carrying it both lore-wise and mechanic-wise. They are big enough to make a warriors look unique, Paladins are known for their libarms, Shamans are known for their totems, so let warriors be known for their big banners.bear in mind that I'm not saying that other relics should not be shown :D.
Blizzard isn’t planning on making Blademasters a playable class in WoW, due to the fact they have given their abilities to warriors and their mirror image to mages. Their banners are their symbol, It lifts their allies spirit to fight on. Lore-wise I say banners really fits the warrior’s atmosphere, warriors buffs are shouts that encourages their allies and either gives them more health or more attack power.
Banner Role :
Warriors don’t need guns in fights, maybe some people prefer having a gun than having a banner, they are free to choose ranged weapons and not banners. In case of ranged hits (like tank pulls) blizzard can give them more throwing abilities like a stunning throw or a throw designed to create mega threat.
Banners are not for the main purpose of being a stat stick, they grant bonuses to our abilities, some create auras, some grant effects while "used".
Banner Models :
Already there are tons of banners in game, so I don’t think blizzard is going to run out of banner models. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.
After a few minutes of searching in WOWHEAD, I can say that banner models are plenty in WOW database. with a minor modification blizzard can create various of banner models to fit Warriors and allow banners to change size according to the warrior's race.(Tauren carry big banners and gnomes carry smaller ones.)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19046#screenshots:id=66081
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19045#screenshots:id=9409
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18606#screenshots:id=9407
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25458#screenshots:id=54827
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18607#screenshots:id=68052
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=32382#screenshots:id=24400
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41372#screenshots:id=99827
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=10622#screenshots:id=107628
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38578#screenshots:id=104498
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40601#screenshots:id=102853
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38544#screenshots:id=97691
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=21986#screenshots:id=102561
Problem in Arenas :
As for arena flags or WSG flags : these flags WILL replace the banner's model ONLY untill the arena ends and in case of WSG, untill the player drops the flag via death or manual removal.
Banner effects:
[color=red]Here are some of my ideas for warrior banners :[/color]
Some banners create special auras once they are equiped, giving everyone in warrior's raid/party some bonuses, these auras do not provide buffs already given by paladins but some special bonuses like bonus to movement speed, chance to resist CC and fear effects and also chance to hit/deal crit damage and so on.
For instance :
Banner Of Triumph. (instance banner)
Equip : An effect that activates after warrior lands a killing blow on an enemy, increases allied movement speed within a radius by 10% for 5 seconds.
Banner Of Courage: (instance banner)
Use : increases the mastery of allied players within a certain range of warrior by X% for 10 seconds.
Tanks can have specific banners dedicated to them that boosts their threat generate or reduces their CCs...or other TANK benefits.
Banner Of Vengeance:
Use : your revenge has 50% chance to apply a sunder armor effect.
Banner Of Fortification :
Use : increases Warrior's defense rate by 1% whenever he is hit by an attack, stacks up to 10 times.
banners can be used to remove fear and doubt from allies, lifting their spirit to fight through odds.
Banner Of Bravery :
Use : has a 45% chance of removing fear and CC effects from all allies within a close range to warrior.
And many many instances of how banners can be a useful addition to WoW
some certain banners can be "used" on fallen hero corpses (impale the corpse to dishonor it) to boost the morale of warrior's allies (casting a buff aura around the banner.) or demoralize enemies (cast a debuff aura around the corpse.)
Of course these aren’t balanced nor strong abilities but they should give you the main idea behind banners.
Visibility :
In case other relics will be made visible in WoW : cataclysm, I suggest blizzard should put an option "show relic* in interface menu. if someone does not want his libarm, banner,sigil to be shown he should disable this option :).
Links for WoW Forums :
Someone was kind enough to put this idea in WoW forums (I couldn't do it because I don't have active account anymore, thanks alot college exams.) here is the link to this post in WoW forums :
WoW Suggestions Forum:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748818122&sid=1
WoW Warrior Forums:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22748818115&sid=1&pageNo=1
Preview is available in MMO-Champion forums.
see the original post in here : PREVIEW IS ONLY AVAILABLE ON MMO-CHAMPION FORUMS.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/general-discussions/warrior-idea-banner-instead-of-ranged-weps/
Edited, Jan 29th 2010 5:00am by banestalkerr