Protection spec'd PvPFollow

Protection spec does have some limited viability in Battlegrounds. You can be a complete nuisance and sit yourself on a healer. Between shield slam, concussion blow, charge, intercept, intimidating shout, and just plain smacking, their healing becomes complicated. Or you can be the first to charge the enemy mob and for some strange reason, they feel the need to attack the guy with the shield, don't ask me why, though it's quite hilarious and certainly entertains me. While these forms of play are all novel, they aren't extremely effective against a competent opponent.

There is a good deal of aggravation particularly among healers and tanks concerning re-specs between raids/grouping and pvp/farming. I've seen a lot of suggestions, from having two separate talent specs that one could switch between with a cooldown, to more ridiculous notions like free re-specs for tanks and healers. I don't have any clue for the other classes, but I would like to suggest a protection tree talent that would add some PvP viability to the spec, and isn't as radical. To be fair, this of course is not solely my idea. I've heard mention of something vaguely similar in that upcoming Warhammer mmorpg (and no, that isn't a plug =P).

Current Intervene tooltip:
Category: Protection
Level:70
Rage: 10
Cast: Instant
Range: 8 - 25 yards
Duration: 10 seconds
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Description: Run at high speed towards a party member, intercepting the next melee or ranged attack made against them.

Here is the idea for a new talent:

Improved Intervene
Rank 1/1
Requires 30 points in Protection Talents
Allows your Intervene ability intercept 50% of the damage taken by your Intervene target over the next 10 seconds.

The transfered damage would also be subject to the warrior's mitigation stats, not the target's. I'd like to hear the forum's opinions. Is this overpowered? Unneeded? Possible modifications and tweaks? Flame away

It's too powerful. Or, rather, it'd actually be useful so there's no way it'll ever happen.

I don't really agree. While it may take multiple ranks to put it in line with talent point worth, I don't see how it could be game breaking in any way. In PvE, intervene is rarely used and only in emergencies. The only way this makes a difference there is maybe your healer not getting 2 shotted in a heroic. On raids, using it on another tank is no good, since splitting heals is typically bad. And in PvP, it's 10 seconds out of 30, not like a warlock soul-link or the like. As it stands, prot warriors are laughable in the arena. This could give them a bit of desirability in the 5v5 bracket, preventing force fires. (only you can prevent force fires)

edit: lol, I couldn't resist

Edited, Dec 2nd 2007 6:19pm by thefunkmasterj

While i agree that it could be very useful in PvP, limited usefulness in PvE.

I dont see anyone putting points into a skill like this in Prot builds. Unless there were other changes to make a Prot build really something for PvP. Otherwise i have places to put those points that get me more PvE use.

I gotta say that prot spec probably does have a good point to all BG's:
WSG: Try killing an FC who's got all that extra defense.
AB: Okay so maybe a prot isn't going to be the best at charging enemies, but defending flags long enough to allow reinforcements to come in isn't a bad thing either (one reason paladins make great defenders is because of their survivability).
AV: If there's PvE involved, you may as well have a tank.
EotS: See WSG and AB.

http://www.theoryspot.com/forums/miscellaneous-pre-burning-crusade/438-current-shield-slam-records.html