Anyone else not "feeling" it?

[Wildberry]

Got into beta and I have to agree whole-heartedly with the OP. Legion is shaping up to be a fantastic expansion. Questing feels great, leveling feels great, storytelling (not story) is fine, order halls are fine (and I was very skeptical of them), and there's actually a plethora of world content.

However, since Blizzard feels the need to reinvent the wheel every expansion, Legion, an otherwise decent expansion, is going to suffer.

Classes are in a horrible state. People might enjoy "class identity;" I do, too. Despite that, this thorough remaking of classes has left many bare and in a poor state overall.

The new talent system is partly responsible for this. The MoP talent trees were added in an effort to "offer players a choice." While I preferred the talent trees we had from PreBC-WotLK, the MoP system was fine. We're still using the MoP talent trees, but talents have been reshuffled, and talent swaps have been made tedious in an effort to make "talents meaningful."

This has created a few problems. The MoP talent trees made sense. Roughly speaking, the tiers were all grouped together (mobility tier, defensive tier, etc.). Now, we have nonsensical tiers that feature AoE, Single target active abilities, CDs and/or single target passives sharing the same talent tier. For active abilities, this makes keybinding a nightmare. I mentioned before that classes felt bare, they are; however, paradoxically Legion requires an absurd amount of keybinds. You won't be pressing a lot of abilities, of course; in fact, you'll only have less than half of your keybinds "in use" at any given time. I won't even get into the absurdity that is the new talent change system. They make talents very situational, take away themed tiers, and make switching talents tedious; it won't work well.

On the topic of talents, we've seen a major philosophy shift. Before Legion, talents were useful abilities that augmented ones class. Now, they don't augment, they "complete" classes. This is most obvious for fury warriors, the talents Carnage and Massacre (Both on the same tier now, horribly enough) should be baseline, as they make the spec as a whole work. Instead they're talent choices. While that's the most blatant example, there are more subtle examples on other specs, and it seems to signal a shift in design philosophy.

To go back to the lack of abilities that classes have, PvP talents are another culprit. I like where they're going, in theory, with PvP. Removing trinkets, gear, focusing on stat templates, etc. That's great (and long overdue)! However, while PvP talents are fine for PvP, they come at the expense of the rest of the game. I'll use warriors, again, as an example. Spell Reflect and Intercept are now PvP talents. For players that used those abilities usefully in PvE, well they're out of luck. In addition to the mistake that is pruning 2.0, the PvP talent trees have managed to remove quite a bit of class utility.

I expected the expansion after WoD would see class design fixed. I was wrong. Instead, everything else seems to have significantly improved, but it's all for naught, because class design itself has become much, much worse.

Class identity, talent synergy, meaningful talents and PvP talents sound great on the drawing board. PvP talents should've stayed there; everything else could work, but currently doesn't because of horrendous execution.

[grexly75]

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.

Yes they do they can have up to two if they want to, I myself use Earthgrab totem.. When I first started in the beta I missed the other totems but as I have played I have found that it is great not having to plonk totems down all the time.. Only have to worry about that if Ele or Resto..

[Wildberry]

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.

Yes, instead we've gone from everyone having utility and CC to nobody having utility at all. How wonderful and exciting!

[Saverem]

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".

But it results in less variety for the class.

[RedGamer030]

Just going to leave this here... In response to the title...

[rhorle]

But shouldn't a class come before a spec?

Not anymore. Specs are more like sub-class now with their increased focus. You still can freely switch between them (yes hampered a bit by artifacts). They are trying to make each class be the theme, and each spec be the class. When choosing a character to play you are picking the theme and then picking a spec to play within that theme.

If you are boiling the different melee specs down to "3-4 dps abilities, CC ability, weird situation ability" etc then you will never have distinct classes. Every class in WoW shares mechanical similarities because of the way combat functions. What makes the classes different is look and function. You seem to be defeating your own discussion by saying All melee are the same. You will never "Feel it" with a viewpoint like that.

[pblasque]

Yes, instead we've gone from everyone having utility and CC to nobody having utility at all. How wonderful and exciting!

That's why I said some. Blizzard has never been good at balancing, they should really look into that.

Also, I still can't like the talent system since MoP. Up until Cata it was ok, MoP made sense, although I didn't like it.

[grexly75]

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

Actually Enhance Shammies do a have at least one totem, be it earthgrab totem or voodoo totem, the windrush totem and the new capacitor totem forget what it is called..

you can have up to two though the row that the windrush totem is on has a better talent instead..

[Wildberry]

That's why I said some. Blizzard has never been good at balancing, they should really look into that.

Also, I still can't like the talent system since MoP. Up until Cata it was ok, MoP made sense, although I didn't like it.

Wasn't a fan of MoP's talent system, honestly. Legion's talents made me appreciate it quite a bit though.

[Sylreick]

This pruning makes me think they're eventually going to add controller support. I don't know why, but the small number of abilities (made smaller if you opt for passive talents) just makes the classes feel like a shell of themselves.

It's not a terrible thing, for people that are easily frustrated by having to do things. It just seems like instead of going after simple to learn/difficult to master, they're opting for simple from both points. More so now than in WoD.

[Nihilist74]

I hate prune2.0 with a passion and would love to see it burn in fire. Most of specs I've played on Beta are the shadows of their former selfs.

Agreed. Most of the classes I liked in legion except for arms warrior. I felt like adding slam baseline for arms warrior was nice but they took away sweeping strikes as we know it. I feel they have ruined beast master hunter spec. They ruined demonology and affliction lock. I really loved affliction lock in WOD. They ruined ret pally and blood dk. Its horrible the way they made ret pally so that you have to change talents for aoe mobs and change to single target talents for boss fights.Based on the ptr, they have made me want to play less classes than before.

[MoanaLisa]

I'm not happy with what they've done with shadow. There are other classes and specs. I'm in for the expansion itself and we'll see where it all ends up with what my main is. I could say a lot more but that's it in a nutshell. I'm skeptical but will wait to see how it actually goes. I'm not going to try and express any sort of detailed opinion on a class I haven't played yet.

[l33t]

they have made me want to play less classes than before.

Exactly, could not have formulated that better by myself.

[F1reheart]

*snip wall of text*

Thoroughly agree with everything you said, you probably put it better than I could.

This pruning makes me think they're eventually going to add controller support.

I laughed really hard at this...but it might be true one day.

Also yes, I was thinking of spongebob when I made the title.

[Hexxidecimal]

The way I've seen it, everyone who dislikes a class in alpha/beta usually mains it on live. People like a class in legion that they've never played before, or rarely touched. Usually this is because you don't know what you're missing.

You say class identity has become more clear, but I couldn't disagree more. To reiterate, they removed everything fury used to be about, changed the "rotation" to be just like havoc, frost, windwalker, ret, and whatever spec I can't think of atm, attached a "holy vrykul" theme and said it's damage is going to be consistent, as opposed to arms being burst. Completely opposite of the WoW warrior I've come to know over 11 years.

11 years? Fury wasn't really bursty in vanilla. That is why MS was the spec to play in PvP cause it was VERY bursty. Since then, I haven't played much warrior so I am not to familiar with them since then. I do remember that Fury had ridiculously high sustain in Vanilla given good weapons.

But I have to disagree here. The classes you name all server the same purpose and have very basic similarities but that is where it really ends. Mobility set up for DHs for instance have you constantly moving to keep your buff up. Fury doesn't do anything like that. I will agree though that overall Fury feels less interesting, as you just build fury then spend it. Not very interesting. Frost DKs still have to manage Runes to Rune Power and really be aware of procs and how they have to adapt their rotation to fit them. Windwalker is still annoying as shit with a bunch of little buffs/debuffs they have to constantly keep up with super low durations. Sorry my bias is showing. Anyhow, regardless of what you like or don't like, How each class achieves their damage and manages their mechanics feels very different.

That being said, some classes are kinda losing some of their identity in that they are losing things like stances and other abilities they may be use to just having. But, I would argue the major portion of those things didn't get used most of the time anyway. In all reality how often did you actually switch stances? I do remember a time when stance dancing was a serious thing but since most of the restrictions on stances was taken away it hasn't been that impactful of a thing.

Personally I like the direction they have taken the classes. They actually all feel very different to me in both aesthetics and in game play. The artifacts play heavily into each classes (what I would call) distinct flavors as well further setting them apart from other classes and more importantly their specs. There is a definite switch to where a class feel like more like broad view of things and specs are, exactly what they are; specialization within that view. Like Branches of the military. We have the Air Force that work in a particular capacity but there are engineers, code monkeys, and pilots. All do something vastly different with their branch of service.

[Mectrid]

I actually think, and this is a bit of a long shot, but if they manage to balance at least 2 of the 3 talents each tier for the majority of content, that the simplification of classes is going to be a great thing. The game can be more about using what you prefer and not what gives best numbers, a certain 2 talents may give you an awesome rotation you love to do that has its own ebb and flow, another may make your rotation change a fair amount based on what type of situation you're in/CDs/procs. With the simplification of classes, all of these extra justifications for talents and changing your play style seem more viable to balance because they're less adhered to spells and abilities that were really only in the class to serve the other specs.

If you lost an ability from a spec and lost utility because of it, can you pick it back up via a talent now? Is that useful for certain fights or does it hinder your rotation/damage too much to be viable? If we see real choices in the talents then each spec gets it's own depth, sure we lose some buttons but that allows us to focus more on the niche things each class now has access to, with spec specific talents that don't limit what the class can have as other abilities. Maybe Gorefiend's Grasp was too strong an option for Frost and Unholy but essential for Blood for example. Not having to balance Frost and Unholy around having a utility spell that good seems like a decent payoff for taking it away.

[Eleccybubb]

Not hyped whatsoever. Gonna play it get to 110 try the raids if it sucks then back to FF14.

[Kourvith]

Did you try the PTR ? I tried rogue, and it's an amazing refresh. If you want less active gameplay, you pick the passive, and if you're more into active gameplay, you take all the active. On Sub, when I picked all the active, I barely had the time to use all the spells. It's exactly what WoW needed to refresh its gameplay, choices. Now that gameplay feels exciting and varied upon your choices again, you could repeat the same dungeons over and over, it will not get boring as quick as before.

[jaber2]

I feel the same way, I think with every xpack I just lose a bit more of my soul, never being happy of fully satisfied, I think I need anther Snickers Bar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UyVgaFE8-s


Ok, much better now

[Saverem]

Actually Enhance Shammies do a have at least one totem, be it earthgrab totem or voodoo totem, the windrush totem and the new capacitor totem forget what it is called..

you can have up to two though the row that the windrush totem is on has a better talent instead..

I might give Shamans a try in Legion now. By far the worst part about playing Shaman to me was the totem management.