Will "class fantasy" ruin warrior?

[Treno]

I dunno about ruin. I feel that's a bit excessive. I remember in WoD they took CS and HS from Fury due to class fantasy. I also feel like they've gimped one of the more iconic aspects of being a Warrior, the weapon availability. Granted Bis often dictated specific weapon types for Fury now anyway.

I guess it's too early to say for sure. But I am seeing a lot of potential issues crop up from their overuse of class fantasy.

[Deleted]

Haha, first all of the shamans are "savage" orc monkeys, now all warriors are hollywood vikings. These "class fantasies" all suck IMHO. I'm already quite a sure they will be one of the biggest flaws of the expansion on my list. They don't enhance my immersion, they just strangle it, forcing me to be something i never wanted to be. When i made my nelf warrior in classic, i never even thought about vikings. I was lithe swordsman of the dark woods.

But no can do.

[Count Zero]

All this "class fantasy" stuff is not going to be as extreme as people fear, or as extreme as people hope, and especially by the first minor content patch it will take a backseat to general gameplay / balance concerns.

[Toppy]

All this "class fantasy" stuff is not going to be as extreme as people fear, or as extreme as people hope, and especially by the first minor content patch it will take a backseat to general gameplay / balance concerns.

Blizz has stated multiple times they are building the classes (and their gameplay especially) around "class fantasy".

[Count Zero]

Blizz has stated multiple times they are building the classes (and their gameplay especially) around "class fantasy".

I think they're paying a ton of lip service to that notion, yes. I just think that at most it will be a secondary priority to overall gameplay. They've already stated that with, like, the Fury thing of taking damage to do damage ... that they will watch and adjust as necessary.

[Toppy]

I think they're paying a ton of lip service to that notion, yes. I just think that at most it will be a secondary priority to overall gameplay. They've already stated that with, like, the Fury thing of taking damage to do damage ... that they will watch and adjust as necessary.

Well we also lost spell reflect due to class fantasy, and some specs are getting dps buffs that are exclusive to them, something that was removed a long time ago for being a kinda bad idea and it encouraged to always bring certain classes.

Thats kinda the point of this thread. A lot of stuff is being removed, not just numbers wise, because "class fantasy".

[Archimtiros]

Class Fantasy is nothing more than a buzzword(phrase) used to explain or excuse any number of changes, and it's not exactly a new concept.

The trick of it is that the term can be applied to literally anything if you take time to rationalize it. Warriors using big weapons and wearing plate is class fantasy, casters wearing lighter armor is a form of class fantasy. Rogues using stealth or poison is class fantasy. Calling the new spec of Rogue an Outlaw can be class fantasy, as can changing Shadow Priests resource to Insanity.

It even contradicts itself; Warriors are raging berserkers, and Warriors are stalwart knights, are both class fantasy, regardless of the spec. There's no reason to pretend that a Fury Warrior cannot be a knight with two weapons, just like there's no reason to pretend an Arms Warrior cannot be a berserker with one.

Don't put so much stock in ambiguous words.

[Murlocbait]

Well we also lost spell reflect due to class fantasy, and some specs are getting dps buffs that are exclusive to them, something that was removed a long time ago for being a kinda bad idea and it encouraged to always bring certain classes.

Thats kinda the point of this thread. A lot of stuff is being removed, not just numbers wise, because "class fantasy".

I disagree. We lost spell reflect due to Blizz deciding to remove it for balance/simplicity. Same reason we lost shouts. Same reason we lost banners. Class fantasy is the justification they give us later to shut us up - but I don't believe it is really why these changes are being made. Poor design decisions happen due to designers making them, not because they are trying to shoehorn us into a fantasy. There may be a few exceptions (extra damage for Fury is one I would actually point to as Class Fantasy run amok), but mostly, you're looking at decisions made for what they think are "balance" reasons, then class fantasy is used as justification to players.

[Toppy]

I disagree. We lost spell reflect due to Blizz deciding to remove it for balance/simplicity. Same reason we lost shouts. Same reason we lost banners. Class fantasy is the justification they give us later to shut us up - but I don't believe it is really why these changes are being made. Poor design decisions happen due to designers making them, not because they are trying to shoehorn us into a fantasy. There may be a few exceptions (extra damage for Fury is one I would actually point to as Class Fantasy run amok), but mostly, you're looking at decisions made for what they think are "balance" reasons, then class fantasy is used as justification to players.

Its still a possibility they are making these changes with a sense of "class fantasy" in mind though. Look at Unholy DK, which has a lot of changes, most of which have to do with more undead summoning. Look at Paladin, who is suddenlly getting unique buffs again.

Yes they are excuses, but maybe in blizzards cases they really are the real excuse. Warrior in its entirety is all over the place in legion, likely because blizz has no real sense of what they are.

[Shelly]

Class fantasy is meant to invoke style of play.

You can say it's all over the place but that's just the nature of an alpha/beta as they iterate on each build.

However the core philosophy for each remains the same.

Fury - Crazy berserker charging in and rending limbs. Highest rage income, biggest rage dump, functions around an enrage mechanic.

Arms - The gladiator or knight, the calm cool fencer that waits for the right moment then strikes without hesitation. Moderate rage income, built around a window of increased damage through colossus smash.

Prot - The front line soldier. Shrugging off wounds and holding the attention of the enemy. Several sustained AoE abilities, ignore pain as a rage dump now to lower damage taken, active mitigation in the form of shield block, multiple threat tools at all distances and for one to many targets.

Anyway chances are Odyn could have done something more about the Legion getting through except he had to go and sex up one of his Valkyr then done did that lady wrong and is now cursed to his halls with his warriors. He is only able to escape in the guise of Hodi a wanderer. That and I figure he is doing something about the tomb now. Hence us.

[Toppy]

Class fantasy is meant to invoke style of play.

You can say it's all over the place but that's just the nature of an alpha/beta as they iterate on each build.

However the core philosophy for each remains the same.

Fury - Crazy berserker charging in and rending limbs. Highest rage income, biggest rage dump, functions around an enrage mechanic.

Arms - The gladiator or knight, the calm cool fencer that waits for the right moment then strikes without hesitation. Moderate rage income, built around a window of increased damage through colossus smash.

Prot - The front line soldier. Shrugging off wounds and holding the attention of the enemy. Several sustained AoE abilities, ignore pain as a rage dump now to lower damage taken, active mitigation in the form of shield block, multiple threat tools at all distances and for one to many targets.

Anyway chances are Odyn could have done something more about the Legion getting through except he had to go and sex up one of his Valkyr then done did that lady wrong and is now cursed to his halls with his warriors. He is only able to escape in the guise of Hodi a wanderer. That and I figure he is doing something about the tomb now. Hence us.

The bigger issue I was making regarding the class fantasy is that warriors have no utility in legion, while others are getting it (in the name of class fantasy)

[satimy]

Maybe classes wouldn't feel the same if the game wasn't pruned to a mobile game level of complexity

[Calamari]

Class fantasy is meant to invoke style of play.

You can say it's all over the place but that's just the nature of an alpha/beta as they iterate on each build.

However the core philosophy for each remains the same.

Fury - Crazy berserker charging in and rending limbs. Highest rage income, biggest rage dump, functions around an enrage mechanic.

Arms - The gladiator or knight, the calm cool fencer that waits for the right moment then strikes without hesitation. Moderate rage income, built around a window of increased damage through colossus smash.

Prot - The front line soldier. Shrugging off wounds and holding the attention of the enemy. Several sustained AoE abilities, ignore pain as a rage dump now to lower damage taken, active mitigation in the form of shield block, multiple threat tools at all distances and for one to many targets.

Anyway chances are Odyn could have done something more about the Legion getting through except he had to go and sex up one of his Valkyr then done did that lady wrong and is now cursed to his halls with his warriors. He is only able to escape in the guise of Hodi a wanderer. That and I figure he is doing something about the tomb now. Hence us.

Since they decided to retcon norse mythology with Odin/valhalla and whatnot, wish they had gone all the way and maybe thematized Ragnarok by having Odyn bring his vrykul army out for one last giant ass whooping against the legion, before dying off with lots of fireworks.

Maybe even march all vrykuls right on through one of the legion portals and make a fierce last stand in the heart of the demon world of Argus.

Odyn's contribution to the war effort against the legion amounts to giving us some pokers and a t-shirt that says "ur the Skylord now gl". Whoop dee doo Odyn.

[tankbug]

Currently the class fantasy for all specs is Viking Berserker.
No idea why though. I absolutely despise the notion of having my Nightelf Sentinel anywhere near that but I doubt that they will let class fantasy destroy a class.
That would be like rubbing your car down with wire wool becasue you actually wanted a different color.

Well, you have a vivid imagination if you place a sentinel in the warrior fantasy. They would be closer to rogues, light and agile hunters, hiding in their trees. Blizzard's warrior type characters are modeled after the knights, grunts and blademasters of warcraft, and barbarians of diablo. Rather macho influences. But don't worry, gnomes can be warriors, so they're not gonna go all purist on the concept all of a sudden, and force your night elf warrior to wear dirty bear skin and dual wield crude axes.

[Supercool]

Its still a possibility they are making these changes with a sense of "class fantasy" in mind though. Look at Unholy DK, which has a lot of changes, most of which have to do with more undead summoning. Look at Paladin, who is suddenlly getting unique buffs again.

Yes they are excuses, but maybe in blizzards cases they really are the real excuse. Warrior in its entirety is all over the place in legion, likely because blizz has no real sense of what they are.

I agree with this. For all that class fantasy can be used as an excuse for whatever Blizz wants to do, they also genuinely seem to want to undo a large amount of the homogenization of the past few years and inject some flavor back into the game, because that's the kind of thing that attracts most players (at least when it's an upside; nobody gets excited at the idea of taking more damage).

[thatmikeguy]

Well they so far are going back on old, very well recieved, decisions. The removal of class specific damage buffs for instance happened for good reason. Fury not taking extra damage was removed for a reason, nor would it be the first time they released specs in an unusable condition

There will be no balance of anything in Legion. I'm already seeing tons of people starting mages now. Anything resembling balance as it has or has not been in the past will depend on the artifact and how things change as the expansion goes on. The smallest nerf to something in an artifact tree can change everything.

[tankbug]

Maybe classes wouldn't feel the same if the game wasn't pruned to a mobile game level of complexity

At least now almost all specs are viable. In the old days, there was usually one role and one spec for you. C/P off the internet, done!
And if you had the wrong class, you were at a major disadvantage, like trying to kill an elite as a warrior with shitty CC and no self-healing.

[satimy]

At least now almost all specs are viable. In the old days, there was usually one role and one spec for you. C/P off the internet, done!
And if you had the wrong class, you were at a major disadvantage, like trying to kill an elite as a warrior with shitty CC and no self-healing.

Mmos are about making people come together to accomplish things, making every class viable at everything destroys the need to have anything other than fotm.

[KrotosTheTank]

Mmos are about making people come together to accomplish things, making every class viable at everything destroys the need to have anything other than fotm.

This. I think that is a major aspect of an MMO slowly being lost in WoW. The removal of buffs just furthers this problem. There's hardly anything left that makes me feel more powerful in a group apart from the obvious number of players. I believe this was in another thread, but someone mentioned part of what was so great about the imbalance was that it forced you to adapt. Back in BC, if you did a 5-man and didn't have any CC it drastically changed how you approached the dungeon vs having a group with 3 CC. Having a tank that could tank large packs easily allowed for larger pulls. Pace mattered. Now it's just queue with whoever, don't talk to said whoever, pull entire room, aoe, pull next room, aoe, ninja pull boss, loot generic gear that works for everything of your armor type (maybe ok with this) and move on. No discussion on how to handle the next pack that has 7 mobs that hurt like hell; I feel like half the player base isn't even aware of what an interrupt is, and that goes for raiders as well, shit I joined a mythic guild pug for a bit and topped the interrupts by 5 to 1, it wasn't even close and that's on fights with enough casts where I missed plenty because mine was on CD.

Anyways, I would love for the "need" for others to return to this game, even though right now it's ironically shitty that we, as warriors, are the only tanks who truly do need a healer.

[Damaind]

Im saying it again and again. This "viking" theme just doesnt fit to WoW. Class fantasy for me: Arms a loyal warrior for example (Lothar or Wrynn). Fury should be a normal berserker or even just like arms with two weapons wielding. Prot a legendary defender like he was in classic.

EXACTLY THIS, Arms isn't Norse bull-crap its a Strong veteran solider who travels the land looking for a worthy fight.... not hurr-durr smash me drink mead and eat meat.