So it has been confirmed that Fear Ward is now being stretched out to not only Horde side but to all priests with the coming of Wrath of the Lich King. Many players are rejoicing at this but I'm not one of them. I like to think I think outside of the box sometimes and the first thing that crossed my mind when this was announced was the implications of such a change.

As far as I can see, there are only two ways in which Fear Ward can be implemented in such a way, these two ways being:

1) Fear Ward is made a priest spell and new racials are implemented for Dwarfs and Dreanai.
2) Fear Wards is made a standardised priest ability and other class abilities, like star shards and devouring plaque, are removed from the game.

Let's work under the assumption that (for the sake of ease) it replaces the current class racials. The reason I am using this argument is because we cannot assert what racials Dwarfs and Dreanai might get in the event it is made a spell so we must work with the only one we can work valid projections and implications from.

There are two things that strike me about such a change. Firstly, it is not a nerf. That is not to say it is a complete buff either but I draw attention to this point as it is the first sign that priests are considered to be lacking in some ways. Secondly, it is yet another nerf to fear effects in the game, something that has been occurring on a regular basis for the past few months.

Undead Shadowpriests at this moment in time are, for the most part, the single most unbalanced class/race combination in group PvP for priests. Notice that I didn't say PvP in general? That is because they are not. Dwarf shadowpriests out do Undead Shadowpriests in 1v1 because they have more survivability than Undead Shadowpriests, thanks to deperate prayer and stoneskin. Undead Shadowpriest in group PvP (at this moment in time) should have two ways of breaking fear effects, these ways being:

1) Will of the Forsaken (which breaks fear, charm and seduce effects and grants immunity to these effects for 5 seconds).
2) PvP Trinket (which breaks all effects that cause loss of control of your character).

So what we have is a class/race combo that provides sustainable and high amounts of dps with little threat from fear. That said, however, there is still the time it takes to break those fear effects with these abilities which gives other players time to at least do something.

Now let's add Fear Ward to this combination. This means that, not only do Undead Priests have the ability to, "tank," 3 fear effects (possibly 4 if we take into account the immunity granted by WotF) but that they are completely immune to the first fear effect without risk of even a slight interrupt.

Unbalanced much? This change makes an already simple (but not the simplest) class spec even more simple. The only people who benefit from these changes are the people who don't know or can't be bothered to put the effort into breaking fear with the abilities they have already. In other words, the simple people benefit whilst the people who like a moderate challenge are screwed over by the ever more ignorant machine Blizzard seems to be.

As you can see I have highlighted issues with this change (in the assumed way) in my own class/race combo. Many might be wondering why I have done that and frankly it is because I don't like this change. Shadowpriests as they are now, are where they need to be. Changing them in this way would simply make my race/class combination simple. At the moment, casters give me the most amount of trouble.

As it stands, I am not to happy with the confirmed change. What my opinion hinges on is how they change other classes to take account of this, how they can justify another nerf to fear effects and how the general dynamics in the classes changes with WotLK. Until then, I'm just going to sit in silence and grit my teeth at the prospect of a simple, boring and generally mind numbing play style with my priest and hope and pray they introduce something interesting in the 51-point trees to balance the announced change.

You never know, Fear Wards might be made the 51-point talent - god forbid!