Bring the player, not the class

[Akka]

Okay, it took them about eight years to realize they went too far and their design was detrimental to the game.
Now, how long until they realize that ilvl inflation does the same ?

[Deleted]

All the philosophy starts at the beginning of the game - make leveling harder.

Then people will not have full character tabs with alts on many different realms and people will not bring 'best class', they will bring class that has been played the most.

Leveled class to the maximal level has to be something special, like a reward that person has done long journey to actually get there.

From this perspective I'm really glad how artifact power works, but of course it could be better, but idea is good that players has to implement time to get stronger and stronger each time they received artifact power and us it for the new talents.

[ItachiZaku]

I loved having a raid slot simply because I was a shadow priest back in BC. Added raid bonus was that I was also top damage/dps. That caused arguments, mostly from the shit paladin that wouldn't give me sanc.

[Swalload]

They removed most buffs, thinking it would make all classes equal, but brez and lust are still not baked in group mechanics that the leader can use as he wants regardless of his class.

Yes that's how it should be, not how it is now.

Also the big difference in AoE vs ST dmg makes a big difference in what classes get invited or ignored.

[Marrilaife]

All the philosophy starts at the beginning of the game - make leveling harder.

Then people will not have full character tabs with alts on many different realms and people will not bring 'best class', they will bring class that has been played the most.

Leveled class to the maximal level has to be something special, like a reward that person has done long journey to actually get there.

From this perspective I'm really glad how artifact power works, but of course it could be better, but idea is good that players has to implement time to get stronger and stronger each time they received artifact power and us it for the new talents.

Doesn't work really, it would be a lottery did you happen to invest in the correct class or not, if you invested in the wrong one, welcome to the world no one wants to recruit you and no one is gonna even find out whether you're a valuable addition to the team because you won't get a trial in the first place. Guilds are always recruiting specific classes which is mostly a factor of loot distribution (can't have too many on the same tier token / armor type) and a belief of what is fotm.

For example start of legion ele shamans were really shunned no one wanted to recruit them, even the usual "recruiting all ranged dps" guilds.

It doesn't matter what utility you bring if the classes aren't balanced well, unless you make something a "must have" like spriest mind control or dk mass grip and then enjoy playing the cc bot for the 1-2 fights that needs the cc then back to the bench. Unless a class can hold its ground outside of the utility it brings.

Bring the player not the class is actually fairer, you can bring players based on skill, or based on who is your friend so you trust them. I raided in cata and start of MOP when the philosophy was on and we never had raid made of "the same 2 tanks the same 3 healers and the same 5 dps" people are so worried about (back when 10man hc raiding was a thing). Class stacking actually becomes the worst when specific classes "shine on specific encounters" or are blatantly OP.

Legion actually showed me no matter how much convoluted you make rerolls, people will be pressured to reroll if the balance delta is big enough, and the harder it is to catch up as a reroll, the more likely they're to burn out from endless catch up and just outright quit. I've seen many tanks reroll from warrior to druid, I've seen mages and warlocks switch specs depending how the pendulum of balance swings. I've seen many people who switched specs or classes just burn out and quit. But none of them really said "I'd rather keep playing this underpowered spec instead and not switch".

If Blizzard wants to see more variety in specs, they should start fixing the unwanted specs in raid comps like mistweaver monks, blood dks, feral druids, surv hunters and all the other specs no one wants to recruit because they have no incentive to. And adding a spell let's say surv hunter brings a no one else then making it mandatory for an encounter is not a solution, it's just a headache for raid leaders. The spec needs to be appealing as a whole, if they make the "token utility you need for 1 fight" then you can bring that poor surv or feral for 1 fight and then swap him out for DH or Warrior just because the others hold their ground majority of the time, they aren't there just for utility.

If people had to stick to a class it would only make recruitment worse and not solve anything. It would just become harder for the guilds to recruit what they want if all the apps they're getting are from let's say demon hunters and they defo don't need more of them, but these DHs are stuck with their choice they made at the start of Legion. You know, DH situation is actually in much better balance than DK situation was in WOTLK, back then there were droves of guildless DKs no one wanted to pick up.

We're also far away from vanilla design where majority of people didn't even step into raids, so tons of people who can't find a raiding guild was less of a concern, and pugging raids was very rare if any. Being turned down because you play a popular class and "we don't need more of x" doesn't make anyone excited and is prone to make him just quit if rerolling is not an option.

[Xandrigity]

Balancing utility/ what a certain class brings is almost as fun as balancing pve/pvp gear and stats.