Is it time to return to 12 classes instead of 36 mini-classes?

[shamantime]

2 ways to solve this is. Returning to 12 classes is one of them.

Another solution is to remove 9 needless specs from the game and only focus on balancing 27 different specs. We don't need disc, fury, arcane, demo, survival, enhancement, balance, subtetly, unholy for instance.

Purely opinion.

[avahle]

They did that with warlocks to an extent. All specs have the same resource, offensive/defensive cds etc. They wanted all lock specs to feel like a warlock first. Look how splendidly that turned out. They should just prioritize functionality/practicality/fun over their design buzzword of the expansion and it should be fine. Class or spec fantasy should never come at the expense of functionality/practicality/fun.

[Teri]

First I hope for any future 2 expansions we dont get more classes, instead maybe 2-4 races or sub-race customization updates.

I'm sure blizz realized it too with demon hunter having 1 tank and 1 dps spec instead of 3 total specs.

[Polybius]

I have played all those speccs, that's besides the point. We could introduce 2 new specs to each class and make them different and we'd have over 50 unique classes to balance, do you think that's a good idea? Just because we have the specs we currently have doesn't mean that's the way it has to be and we can only ever add to it, not take anything away.

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Making extreme examples is no way to counter an argument. By that logic I can claim that you want blizzard to introduce 700 new specs cause you seem to think more is always better. I don't think 3 specs are enough, I do however think 36 are too many.

You really haven't. Enhancement and arcane for example have already had a balance in previous expansions. Arcane relied more on using most of mana and taking advantage of full arcane charges to maximize damage, while keeping mana above the danger zone, away from starvation. This is very different from any spellcaster, arcane plays with mana with charges and evoc.

I cannot speak for the rest, but reducing or removing other specs isn't going to help balance the game. It has always been imbalanced, since the start. The only reason it's clunky now is because they keep switching philosophies of hybrid taxation and streamlining/equalizing (see glass-cannon mage). Bi-polar Blizzard.

[Sliske]

There would still be 36 specs, just not as isolated as they are at the moment.

1. Development Resource Cost

This resource cost is worth it. The longevity of an individual class is increased 3 fold due to having actually interesting specs, rather than just "this spec spams shadowbolt and immolate, this one spams shadowbolt and curse of agony, and this one spams shadowbolt and corruption."

2. Opposite of class fantasy

I say this often because its true - Gameplay >>> Lore.

It would fucking suck if Arcane mages could delete entire armies, like they can in the lore. I'm okay with my warrior gaining some self healing for gameplay purposes, even if it will more lore nerds cry.

3. Balancing Nightmare

Vanilla wasn't balanced, nor was TBC. No expansion was balanced.

There will always be OP specs and shit specs. The benefit of spec focus is that if your spec is shit, you can just swap. If your class is shit, well, better make a new character, buddy.

[Deleted]

I main tank our raids as a Blood DK and I can honestly tell you that I do not miss army of the dead at all. I quite enjoy the leech focused build instead. So no, I approve of a class fantasy approach.

[Nurvus]

There would still be 36 specs, just not as isolated as they are at the moment.

No thanks.
I'm not interested in going back to the point where BM, SV and MM Hunters were pretty much the same shit with a different smell.
They haven't nailed the balancing aspect of it in Legion yet, but the design philosophy is much better.

Sure, there are some things in which they went overboard, but in most cases it makes sense.

[Kagthul]

Yes. They should never have gotten away from the Class being the important thing. About all they got wrong previously was the ratio of abilities - Should have been (ideally) 65% (core class abilities) / 20% (spec specific abilities) / 15% (Talents).

Right now, depending on class, the three specs feel like they arent even the same class at all (Hunter, Warlock) but rather 3 separate classes that have almost nothing in common.

[Staalsy]

2 ways to solve this is. Returning to 12 classes is one of them.

Another solution is to remove 9 needless specs from the game and only focus on balancing 27 different specs. We don't need disc, fury, arcane, demo, survival, enhancement, balance, subtetly, unholy for instance.

Oh honey. This is dumb. Even more than the OP.

[Kithelle]

They are examples of healing or dps specs for classes that already have at least one of those already. So that class can already perform that role without those specs. You could switch fury with arms or demo with affli for instance.

Yeah...and alienate many players if they did that...great idea!

[saeros]

3. Balancing Nightmare

Vanilla wasn't balanced, nor was TBC. No expansion was balanced.

There will always be OP specs and shit specs. The benefit of spec focus is that if your spec is shit, you can just swap. If your class is shit, well, better make a new character, buddy.

giving you the ability to change spec can be a good thing, but it is just a band-aid on the balance issue.

and is a bad band-aid, as this require the other specs not to be shit, and they are also forcing you in a role you don't like in hybrid classes with this argument. oh retri sucks? who cares, go holy

saying "having more spec is better because if one sucks there is the other one" doesn't imply that the other spec is what the player want.
the balance argument is not "a good reason to keep multiple specs".
just think about paladin in tbc, basically noone considered a paladin that wasn't holy for half of the content.

[shaunika123]

the only thing i miss about the old system are hybrid builds

those were usually the most interesting.

like hemo adrush rogue, or mutilate prep rogue, or shadowfrost DK, or feral/resto survivor druid etc.

plus the little nuances you could change in your talent build that were small yet significant.

[ScreddyLoix]

Yes, there needs to be a big re-think on talents and specs. Blizzards needs to either contract some specs and get rid of talents as a whole, or go back to the vanilla through wrath model of talents and no main spec.

[Aeula]

No way. I've always DPSed on my paladin. I don't want to return to the days where DPSing wasn't a viable role to take on as a paladin.

[Zanzha]

Posting in a bait thread.

Infracted: Spam {MoanaLisa}

[Fkiolaris]

I agree that all the specs, at least the ones I play, lost too much for my liking in WoD and Legion. No, they don't have to share 90% of their spells (with 30% of the same spells being slightly altered) and only have 10% extra that is spec-specific (random numbers are random), but the other extreme that we are having in Legion is utter shite for my taste.

[Saberstrike]

I think that the best way to solve this problem of 'we're playing a spec, not a class' is to make it so 'spec' as a thing doesn't exist, and instead we get 20 'talent rows' where we're free to pick and choose the spells we like. For example mage: First row is frostbolt (less dmg, faster cast, slows), fireball (medium dmg, 25% more crit) or arcane blast (highest dmg, longest cast). Second row is arcane power, icy veins, or "(passive) arcane charges cause your tier 1 spell to do more damage and cost more mana the more it's cast", etc etc.

That way the class fantasy thing will be fulfilled, and while I doubt it'll ever be balanced I honestly think it'll be more fun than what we have now.

[Advent]

I think that the best way to solve this problem of 'we're playing a spec, not a class' is to make it so 'spec' as a thing doesn't exist, and instead we get 20 'talent rows' where we're free to pick and choose the spells we like. For example mage: First row is frostbolt (less dmg, faster cast, slows), fireball (medium dmg, 25% more crit) or arcane blast (highest dmg, longest cast). Second row is arcane power, icy veins, or "(passive) arcane charges cause your tier 1 spell to do more damage and cost more mana the more it's cast", etc etc.

That way the class fantasy thing will be fulfilled, and while I doubt it'll ever be balanced I honestly think it'll be more fun than what we have now.

Final Fantasy 14 has that. If you're a paladin, you're a tank and that's all you'll ever be. And personally, it's boring as can be imo.

[Joeydivision82]

Every expansion has crazy balancing issues at the beginning and it continue through entire expansions at times.

It's the nature of an mmo and it will never be perfect. This just gets filed under "someone will always complain about something"

[ComputerNerd]

Players demand less homogonisation.
Specs get less buttons as a result.
Still stupid players whine when they get what they wanted.

You simply cant give every spec so many of the tools and still have them distinct.