Anyone else not "feeling" it?

[ZazuuPriest]

Enh Shamans dont even have totems anymore, fuck it what the point i might as well play a warrior if all I'm doing is managing rage... I mean maelstrom.

[FelPlague]

This is not a "I quit" or "I unsubscribe" thread. I would've posted this on wow forums but I feel like it would eventually turn into that, so I came here for an actual discussion.

Legion is shaping up to be a very good xpac, I'd say 90% of it's content is well designed and will be incredibly fun to play. The story and questing is fantastic, with Suramar being an amazing zone, and all the new tech is quite cool. However a lot of this is marred by the quality of class mechanics, feel, and gameplay. It honestly does drag down most of the experience for me.

Prune 2.0 was far more severe than the first one, and really took away class identity for a lot of classes I love. The two most prominent examples would be fury warrior and frost DK. I'm gonna nitpick at a few things here to convey a general idea, try not to focus on the "nitpicking", but rather the problem that all these things create.

Fury lacks any stances, rage management, utility, or significant burst outside bladestorm. Blizzard has said they wanted fury to be more consistent damage, whereas arms is bursty. This to me is completely backwards, and mix that with the lack of class-defining abilities and any real mechanic to think about, it'll feel "watered down", and ruin the rest of your experience. Also, pooling ALL of your rage into one ability reminds me of the 2005 blizzcon panel for classes. They said something like "It wasn't fun because you were just using your abilities like a metronome, there wasn't a lot of choice or any reason to NOT hit those buttons so we added a rage bar". Legion effectively removes the need to worry about rage, by having only one ability that costs rage.

Frost overall "works" in a dps-rotation sense, as does fury. But really that's all it feels like its built around, a raid boss rotation fixed around a frost theme. Runes are condensed into 1, blood/unholy abilities removed, necromany-themed abilities effectively gone. Not even something cool like stealing souls, similar to what Arthas does.

What I'm trying to get it as Blizzard decided to completely rework classes, but instead reworked specs, which really ruined class identity. I don't feel like a warrior without stances and rage management, imo they should design around a class first then have a spec buff a certain part of that class. There's no reason to not have any sort of necromancy or control over souls as a frost *death knight*.

I could keep ranting and nitpicking for days, you might disagree with some points, but what it comes down to is classes are your gateway into the world. If they don't feel right, and if they aren't engaging enough to keep the player interested, then everything else in the game becomes just as boring. There have been plenty of threads against the prune, with MASSIVE amounts of upvotes and posts, but it doesn't seem like they're changing direction for Legion.

Does anyone else feel like this? Or am I just being really stubborn with change?

Are you FEEEEEEELING it mr krabs?

but eh, overall it looks like a massive plus, every expansion has had issues...

[Akta]

I have to agree. I've been following (don't have alpha/beta access) videos and people's streams and youtube videos, and was really excited for Legion. Then the prepatch dropped on PTR so I scrambled to download it. Most of the classes I play (warlock, mage hunter) feel incredibly boring (demo is an exception, it's fun, just really low numbers). I understand that I don't have the artifacts and it's only WoD content with Legion specs. I'm just hoping that this isn't what Legion will really feel like. Maybe I just need to try out the rest of the classes and see if something else feels better.

lol you don't even have artifact

[pblasque]

Enh Shamans dont even have totems anymore, fuck it what the point i might as well play a warrior if all I'm doing is managing rage... I mean maelstrom.

I really miss my totems, I agree with you on that. But don't see why this Prune 2.0 is that bad.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Fury makes sense because they are the berserker going nuts and absurd. It's definitely a good identity to go for. I'd say you could call them Barbarians and such as well. Now granted Fury isn't perfect (Furious Strike). Blizzard is going for a very ideal situation with classes but it takes a lot of work. I think they should work on it the whole expansion mostly due to the fact not all classes have hit that fantasy.

And I'm purely talking about offensive capabilities, not *utility* or what not.

lol you don't even have artifact

Not all specs artifacts suddenly fix things.

[F1reheart]

Don't expect our heroes to do all the stuff like legendary characters do (arthas...).

Our characters are lesser heroes who can specialize in only one thing/role/spec, while legends like thrall can use pretty much any spell they like.

Necrotic plague, defile, remorseless winter, etc.

I wouldn't have a problem with that at all, if we weren't already able to do that now. We USED to be able to use any spell we like, it just wouldn't do as much numerically and likely would only be used in specific situations. But it adds flavor to the CLASS, which I believe should come before a spec.

As I said in another post, people generally like a class in Legion if they don't play it on live, due to not knowing what you're missing. By themselves, if Legion were a whole new game, the classes would feel like they play decently with nice themes, with a few exceptions and nitpicks (see: beta forums) but since blizzard doesn't have MIB technology yet, I'm still very aware and salty about it.

Another question I want to ask is if I'm alone in thinking they're incredibly wrong for NOT wanting to change a classes mechanics mid-xpac? Or even beta? I honeslty believe if a class needs a change, they should make it. Are people that worried about balance and fairness and use of artifact power that they won't let blizzard fix something broken?

[Akta]

Enh Shamans dont even have totems anymore, fuck it what the point i might as well play a warrior if all I'm doing is managing rage... I mean maelstrom.

lol cause you manage the elements.

- - - Updated - - -

Not all specs artifacts suddenly fix things.

yes and that's true but you can't talk about your class if you don't have a full artifact

[Saverem]

TBC was my favorite expansion so far and I'm glad to see they'll be bringing back demon theme. I'm enjoying the the expansion so far from what I'm seeing.

If I had one complaint, it would be Demon Hunters. I wish they'd give them 3 specs and not laze-out with only 2.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

yes and that's true but you can't talk about your class if you don't have a full artifact

Actually yes I can. My Class(spec) is not at an ideal place even with the Artifact.

[Cæli]

Pretty much everything is shaping to be good, except one major screw up which is the current wardrobe unlocking rules.
I woudn't comment on gameplay until I play and anyway it gets major changes each expansion, so we know it will change, so it's not that relevant, and there's enough classes to play if you only seek gameplay in my opinion.

[Deleted]

"feeling it"? feeling what? i expected something else when i started reading this...am i supposed to feel fury/frost class identity? or?

[Saverem]

Enh Shamans dont even have totems anymore, fuck it what the point i might as well play a warrior if all I'm doing is managing rage... I mean maelstrom.

Look on the bright side, you don't have totems anymore.

[Nihilan]

(Alpha/Beta Tester POV)

Legion is shaping up to be the only expansion where i am actually struggling to find a class that i want to play. Usually i cant decide what i want to main because i have so many enjoyable play styles to choose from. Now, this deep into beta the only class i can even stand logging onto is my warrior - and even that is because it is the class that annoys me the least. I really wanted to get back into healing this expansion, but im just... As the Op said - im just not feeling any of the healing classes.

Levelling and questing as heals may be less tedious than it used to be, but make no mistake, it is still slow. And none of the healing classes have offspecs that i enjoy, except enhance, but im friggin sick of shamans. Every expac since vanilla i have spent an appreciable portion of my time playing resto shamans. I just wanted to play something else this time around. Shadow looks enjoyable enough in raids, but given its ramp up time, i have no doubt that they will be pariahs in mythic+ (right alongside affliction warlocks.) And that same ramp up time makes them unappealing to me for world questing as well. If they ever get around to un-fucking brewmasters, i might be interested in playing my monk again as i wouldnt mind a MW/BrM (i dont like the new WW mastery).

Not having flight makes world questing dull and repetitive tbh. I cant stop thinking about how much less time id have to spend doing the shit i dont like every day (farming AP/CR) if i could just hop on my ironbound proto and be off to the site i needed to visit rather than having to run a loop around half the zone to avoid all the annoying terrain. (Fuck you Highmountain)

Hoping for the best, expecting the worst. Pretty much par for the course.

[nazrakin]

I don't miss totems at all. They havent been a good mechanic since TBC and after 10 years of failing to make them work well I'm fine with leaving them behind.

[l33t]

If I had one complaint, it would be Demon Hunters. I wish they'd give them 3 specs and not laze-out with only 2.

They actually managed to give a perfect explanation why they did that: to not split the iconic DH abilities between two specs, resulting in every spec feeling less as a DH. What really sucks in DH design, is them locking a new heroic class behind a wall of "you have to be a dobbie to play this".

[Nethlord]

I'm just going to put this out there; but the class identity people are feeling that is being lost might be the loss of the way each class up to legion played. There inlays the problem though. If you have a deep connection to how you've always played a class throughout the years and each spec more or less was around the same thing (the core of the spec) legion uproots pretty much all of that.

Look i've played a Warlock for nigh on 11 years now, I can play any of the specs to the uppermost limit. Demo was always my "go-to" spec for most of it, but the staple of the spec 'Meta' is gone and with it any familiarity I have. I could choose to mourn that loss, but I don't because every video i've seen on demo has me throwing waves of demons around like they were koosh balls (evil spikey koosh balls on fire!)

The identity of the class now feels right (as least to me) even at the expense of everything i've ever enjoyed about the spec in the past. I don't know if this might give people hung up about the changes a different perspective, but know that it really is for the best they align things like this in one fell swoop. The original class designs were flawed from the get-go and it has been endless wave after wave of fix and patch for an already broken system. Clean start this is, hopefully.

[Gilgameshh]

What doesn't sit well with me is the homogenization of classes. I don't mind if one spec feels similarly to another, but I do mind that three other classes can bring what I do to the table. Playing a warlock in vanilla meant that I brought a hell of a lot of cool, unique abilities/buffs. Today I feel like I can play a mage and nothing would really change. I understand the reasons behind it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

[MrKnubbles]

I'm not happy about all the abilities that got removed. As you said, the first prune barely removed anything but the second prune completely gutted the classes. I have more empty spaces on my bars than abilities now.

[Badl1fe]

lol you don't even have artifact

Did you not see that I said that? or just skim and see that it was slightly negative, but not finish reading it and make a snap judgement?

And I've seen a few of your posts saying that we can't judge without full artifacts. So you are saying that we should be expected to not enjoy classes until we are artifact capped? I should not have fun until then? That's terrible logic. Specs should be fun and artifacts should add to that, not the other way around.

EDIT: Not to mention, if we level a brand new toon, or a new player coming to the game is expected to play a gimped spec all the way to 100? A new player has at most 5 buttons to hit and that is generous for most classes, it's 2-3.

[pblasque]

What doesn't sit well with me is the homogenization of classes. I don't mind if one spec feels similarly to another, but I do mind that three other classes can bring what I do to the table. Playing a warlock in vanilla meant that I brought a hell of a lot of cool, unique abilities/buffs. Today I feel like I can play a mage and nothing would really change. I understand the reasons behind it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Well, when they made all that "EVERYONE HAS DEM CCs AND UTILITIES" sucked hard (still do), so removing some of that shit might be good.