When I read that sentence in the article I had a mini-panic attack until I realized the typo.

Ditto on the panic attack. "Wait, they... what? Why? And why is he being so nonchalant about it?"

My brain completely locked up before I was able to get to the part about pummel.

A telepathic Freudian slip between me, Matthew and blizz maybe? Because that would have been a much better solution to the problem that they are trying to fix! And yes there is a problem.

I am a pve tank who also pvp as prot in BG (ctf & keeping cap-points alive (av,arati,...all of them really)) and arena (just for the free candy (1,9k in 2v2 is the highest)), so i do understand that there is a problem here. But the problem is not Shield Bash/Gag Order. Its Battle Stance! Yes, the secret is out ... prot-warriors pvp in Battle Stance (or at least they shuld) and here is why.

What we loose is next to nothing from abandoning Defensive Stance. We take 5% more and do 5% more damage. Then we loose Shield Wall, Shield Block, Disarm, Intervene, but all of those are on long cooldowns so a simple macro will fix all of them. We also loose Revenge but get Overpower to replace it with witch is much better for pvp.

What we gain from Battle Stance is unbelievable. Except for the +5%damage and Overpower we get: Shattering Throw and Retaliation (ok, long cooldown and can still be used with macros), Colossus Smash and Hamstring (can you pvp without it?), Execute and ... wait for it ... Pummel. Yes we have both Shield Bash and Pummel!

So per one minute fight (excluding time 0): Fury/Arms gets 6 interrupts and a prot-war in Battle Stance gets 11. Gag Order witch is mutch more accessible for prot gives Fury/Arms 6sec of silence and 21sec for pot (per one min). Add to that Shield Mastery+Glyph that puts Spell Reflect on a 6sec cooldown = 10/min. Now throw in Warbringer, Concussion Blow and a glyphed Shockwave and you'll understand the problem.

Despite all that we are far from overpowered. One singel retri-paladin or a blood dk can not and i repeat NOT fail in eating a prot-warr alive while having more then 90% of its health. An icemage who knows what hes doing can still kill you easy and you basically can not kill anything with selfhealing, specialy druid and shawman or any healer and thats only one on one. In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice they are not, so make no mistake, all these candy cant all be used perfectly on every cooldown like on paper and you are never alone and never targeted for kill so all that spelreflect and Mastery (critical block) and resil is waisted. We (prot-pvp) are still overpowered in what we do and that is staying alive with the flag or protecting capturepoints/graveyards until reinforcements come (blood dk's are still mutch better! Both at staying alive and doing more damage (150% vs dummy and 2x in arena) so op we are not). Eating/avoiding phisical damage and shutting down caster damage is what we do ... maby a little 2 good on that caster part and thats what they are fixing.

As a pvp prot-war im sad to see 6sec spelreflect go and crying a little to say goodbye to Shield Bash. As a pve tank i can not believe these changes. These are all clearly for pvp reasons and for that there are so many other more elegant fixes, that removing them entirely from the game just stunned me (not in a good way (Second Wind)) .

How about removing Shield Slam as Matthew accidentally kind of suggested, but from a pvp point of view. Remove Shield Slam, Shield Bash, Spell Reflect and any other shield abilities (that will come in future i hope) from Battle Stance and put Shield Bash and Pummel on a shared 10sec cooldown.

Shield Slam (+Sword and Board & Heavy Repercussions) is our biggest damage dealer (pvp). On a 6sec cooldown you can no longer stay in Battle Stance and change to use it. And no more Shield Bash and Spell Reflect means you can never again even think about going Battle Stance. That means you loose Colossus Smash, Hamstring, Execute and Pummel and 1sec stance penalty for using shattering Throw and Retaliation and another 1sec again for changing back. You get your pvp nerf and much much more and pve stays unchanged!

And for god sake, make the new Shield Mastery give its magic damage reduction effect to Spell Reflect and NOT Shield Block. Or make Spell Reflect 20sec and glyph that adds 10-20sec cooldown and gives it the magic damage reduction effect. We use Heavy Repercussions for the initial aggro spike and initial damage from bosses and heaving our magic damage reduction bind to Shield Block reduces our control over our cooldowns. We use Spell Reflect for casters adds spell, and should use the same ability for the boss spell!

Ye ... i didnt feel like playing today.