Class Design

[Nero Stormchester]

Let me just start with this , I'm not here to say your opinion is right or wrong , im just here for elaborative purposes. I keep seeing this statement in like every 2nd topic that I open , no matter what the subject is, "class design sucks, but it was sooo good back in X expac".
So my question is , what makes class design awesome for ya? Is it having a fuckload of abilities half of which you'll never use ? Is it having a ridiculously complex rotation where a single mistake is an equivalent of failure ? Or is it having a relatively compact kit that allows you to deal with most things?
Personally I lean towards the latter. I also happen to enjoy Legion class design. I've tried 4 melee specs , 1 ranged , and 2 tank ones on max level - and they all play differently without having a 1000 buttons. Hell, Havoc DH and WW Monk feel very different to play despite both being mobile leather melee specs. And I call that a job well done tbh. Yes there are similarities among different classes, like gap closers or heals , but even those are done in a thematically appropriate way.

[Jimson]

Class design is obviously a bit subjective, but speaking as a destro warlock I thought MoP was awesome. The rotation felt fluid, things happened naturally, it was fun. Compare that to Legion, where you have a maintenance buff to keep up (Empowered Life Tap), two resources to avoid capping (Portal and shards), another buff to watch (Conflag), your AoE is shard-dependent (Rain of Fire)... there's less abilities and that's fine, but the way they interact with each other feels clunky and tedious. This is the first time in a long, long time that I've temporarily shelved my lock and am running a prot warrior, and loving it.

[Volitar]

There is no factual way to say what is good class design and what is bad, its all feely craft. Mop DPS warrior was amazing, WOD dps warrior was diarrhea.

[Deleted]

We are getting to a point where every spec is dumped down to 3-4 buttons and 1-2 cooldowns. That makes the game look more like diablo and less like WoW.

Having many abilities that you never use is stupid but having many abilities that you sometimes use apart from your main ones is imo really good and shows the difference in skill between players. Having a complex rotation and making one mistake shouldn't mean "failure" like you said, but it should mean you'll perform slightly worse than the better player who executed the complex rotation better. That's healthy game design if you ask me.

And of course, removing a bunch of spells every patch makes the classes boring and similar. Smoke bomb, amplify magic, aspect of the fox etc were all fun abilities that made dps players feel useful to the raid apart from just spamming their 3 button rotation. Their "reason" for removing them was that it made certain specs "required" and promoted class stacking but obviously a much better solution would have been to give unique abilities to every spec. That would of course require more work from blizzard's part and it's evident that they don't like going that route latlely.

[deniter]

I'll always prefer lots of skills, which mostly are situational and reactive rather than a sequence you can memorize and repeat in every fight. Too few skills makes a game boring and unengaging while too many makes it confusing and hard to learn.

I don't know when the pruning started in WoW really, but pre-Cata the number of skills was perfect for my taste. Lately, i've played games like Wildstar and Neverwinter Online and i was very disappointed with the amount of skills they had, if i put it mildly.

[Deleted]

Class design is good when:

* everyone has - to some extend - something unqiue to contribute to the raid, but no one has something so OP that it becomes mandatory
* class balancing is good and every DPS is capable of doing more or less the same damage (some better at AoE, some better at ST ofc)
* playing your class feels good. You have a solid rotation and some interesting choices. When there are speccs that are a bit more difficult and some that are a bit easier, without too much of a gap
* When you actually have enough abilities to fill your action bar. They stripped so many abilities from my blood dk I almost felt completely naked when playing after Legion launch. It got a bit better (they gave us back IBF, yay!), but I still miss having the options from before (Lichborne + DC, DC to shield allies, etc).
* When failing your rotation costs DPS, but not completely cripples it right away. Mistakes should be costly, but a single mistake should not be totally devastating. You should be able to recover from making a few mistakes.

[tss]

Is it having a fuckload of abilities half of which you'll never use ?

Half of which you'll never use.

[Jaylock]

Let me just start with this , I'm not here to say your opinion is right or wrong , im just here for elaborative purposes. I keep seeing this statement in like every 2nd topic that I open , no matter what the subject is, "class design sucks, but it was sooo good back in X expac".
So my question is , what makes class design awesome for ya? Is it having a fuckload of abilities half of which you'll never use ? Is it having a ridiculously complex rotation where a single mistake is an equivalent of failure ? Or is it having a relatively compact kit that allows you to deal with most things?
Personally I lean towards the latter. I also happen to enjoy Legion class design. I've tried 4 melee specs , 1 ranged , and 2 tank ones on max level - and they all play differently without having a 1000 buttons. Hell, Havoc DH and WW Monk feel very different to play despite both being mobile leather melee specs. And I call that a job well done tbh. Yes there are similarities among different classes, like gap closers or heals , but even those are done in a thematically appropriate way.

I would agree with you for the most part.

I like how Blizzards philosophy is simple to pick up, hard to master, which I feel the current class / spec combos fit that bill perfectly.

One of the things that I may not 100% agree with you on is the amount of skills removed from the game. Sometimes a skill is just fun to use once in awhile.

Like eye of killrog, sometimes i just like using the eye and flying around the city or using it to explore an area before i go full steam into it. Or eyes of the beast, or far sight.

Stuff like that is great to add a little more flavor to each class and makes them feel like the class they are (adds class fantasy). I'm in favor of adding more flavor skills to classes.

[TOM_RUS]

Class design sucks in Legion. Legion completely ruined all classes and specs. It was fine in WotLK, MoP, WoD, why change something that already working fine?

[Griffter]

I like to have three or four main abilities that all work differently (a dot, a channelled spell, a long cast, etc) and no more than two big cooldowns to track. I don't care much about extremely situational CC or anything like that because I'll never remember to use it in the moment I finally need to. I find most classes in Legion to be designed very well.

[clevin]

Let me just start with this , I'm not here to say your opinion is right or wrong , im just here for elaborative purposes. I keep seeing this statement in like every 2nd topic that I open , no matter what the subject is, "class design sucks, but it was sooo good back in X expac".
So my question is , what makes class design awesome for ya? Is it having a fuckload of abilities half of which you'll never use ? .

Yeah that's not a biased OP. Nooo..... not at all.

OT: the fact that one person doesn't use an ability != no one uses that ability.

[Kazgrel]

No comment on Legion design, but overall, going from MoP to WoD class design felt like a gargantuan step backwards, but as far as I remember, the only class/spec with any serious issues in MoP was shadow priest (which weren't keeping up numbers-wise, iirc). Current/former shadow priests are free to correct me if I'm wrong there (maybe the spriests we had sucked horrendously, but I also recall log sites reflecting the same sort of thing).

Ele shaman went from sith lord hilarity with CL spam to having to finagle with Earthquake and having their mastery gutted (even though on paper, the new mastery should've been an improvement...goes to show what's on paper isn't always an improvement), not to mention losing out on all sorts of niche and/or useful abilities (RIP Ancestral Guidance). Oh, and let's not forget losing cast-while-moving Lightning Bolt. Arms warrior...holy hell, they fucked that one up so bad.

[GreenJesus]

I like to have three or four main abilities that all work differently (a dot, a channelled spell, a long cast, etc) and no more than two big cooldowns to track. I don't care much about extremely situational CC or anything like that because I'll never remember to use it in the moment I finally need to. I find most classes in Legion to be designed very well.

This is who Blizzard caters to everyone. Casuals that have trouble keeping track of 5 abilities. GG

[Lulbalance]

This is who Blizzard caters to everyone. Casuals that have trouble keeping track of 5 abilities. GG

Looking to eat away at that league player base, yum yum!

[Mlz]

MoP was the pinnacle of class design for me. I keep on seeing the argument that 'less is more' while for me it's more like 'push those 4 buttons you have on CD' which basically translates into no synergy/clunkiness and classes feeling so much alike.

- - - Updated - - -

Looking to eat away at that league player base, yum yum!

In League you have at least skillshots.