"Bring the player not the class" philosophy has backfired pretty bad

[AzazeltheRuthless]

I'd like to go back to when classes actually had something unique had showed definite differences in what they could do.

Never had a problem with lacking AoE and making up for it in single target or vice versa.

I agree, I missed it back in ICC when you'd take a wide menagerie of classes so you can get all the buffs. Spell Haste, Melee Haste, Crit, Stamina, etc.... where you'd move people around to bring in a Shaman or a druid to get a specific ability. We'd recruit Unholy Dk or Boomkin's back in wrath, so they can provide the elemental buff so Warlocks could use others curses.

[Craaazyyy]

Ooh, I see, so that's why everyone took bunch of mixed teams of whatever classes to their first Mythic Kil'Jaeden kill??
Oh wait, they didn't.

oh ye because some classes just deal more damage? but im not talking about that

[Ranger General Vader]

To the whole 1% of people raided back in the day. That statistic was specifically for vanilla Naxx because it was so tough and unforgiving, hence the change to more opportunity to raid for the casual player in TBC. Not saying they made it easy though.

I do miss all my aspects, hunters mark, and traps though. As much as I like the pure dps of MM these days I do miss my menagerie of super rare tames in my stable :/

[Phunkle]

How old is that phrase now? 7 - 8 years?

[Wildmoon]

People really don't understand Blizzard's stance and never bother to inform themselves. Their stance is that the whole bring player not the class is not meant to be always the case. They admit that at the very top there's always an exception. They just mean that all classes will have sufficient tools in most situations. Paladins will not be like in TBC where all their healing spells are single target or shit like that. Class stacking or some shenanigans at the cutting edge of world first competition or people who are pushing the limit has never been a serious problem. Some classes will always be better at some tasks than others thus when you are competing you will adjust based on encounters but that has never been the target of "bring player not the class".

The philosophy obviously achieved its goal because it's impossible not to. The goal is to prevent the extremes.

[ro9ue]

Honestly I kind of have to agree with the overall premise of the OP. On paper it makes a lot of sense to "bring the player not the class". Theoretically it would stop situations where someone would lose their slot to someone else just because of a particular buff.

But now we have flexible modes for normal and heroic. You can bring as few or many as you want. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to build a philosophy of the game around a mythic raiding team. They really aren't the average raiding experience. And even then, if you're a mythic raider, maybe it's part of the job to play the specific class for a specific buff?

Right now there are really no mechanical differences between most of the classes. Something was lost when they decided to get rid of Arcane Int/MotW. There is something to being the class/spec that empowers other players. One of the coolest things back in Burning Crusade was playing a shaman and providing Windfury. Sure there was always some internal debate on "I want WF!" "No I want Grace of Air!" "No I want (the int one)!". Then throw in totem twisting.... that's where the real enjoyment came from playing a shaman.

They totally fucked up as soon as they started going down the route of "ok everyone brings a buff". Then you made people make sure they fill out that 8 buff UI grid back in MoP (or was it cata?). Then it was like.. ok why even have the buffs to begin with?

Stormlash for Enh tells me MAYBE , just maybe they are still interested in preserving that feel of gameplay. If they give us talent options between buffing your group or improving your own damage, I will GLADLY take more support stuff. It's what drew me to a shaman earlier and something I love doing. Most of the time we're talking about you sacrifice a 3% self dps gain for a group-wide 1% boost (which you're also affected by anyway). This is fine in my eyes and much better than the current state of the game.

It's okay to keep MMORPGs a little rough around the edges. All specs are so fucking balanced right now it's not even interesting. Maybe all DPS shouldn't just be balanced on personal dps. What if my Enh Shaman does lower personal DPS, but I give such a good raid boost I'd rather take that.

Blizzard give us a talent options for raid buff vs personal and see how it plays out.


Also let me pre-emptively address the inevitable "if its an overall raid boost your raid leader will force you into taking it". No, you aren't forced to do that. You voluntarily joined a raiding guild, which means you voluntarily signed up for rigid rules, and thus have chosen to take that talent due to your playstyle. What's interesting is if there are more players (like me), who just enjoy giving that cool buff to other people and you see Enh Shamans running Windfury totem or something in LFR for people.

[GathOfBaal]

I raid heroic only because our guild is smaller and we have to join forces with another guild cross-realm. Our philosophy is bring the player not the class.

Given that, obviously if we have 9 good melee players, fights like Avatar will be very difficult as there are only so many ways you can dodge uncontrolled chaos, but we have a happy mix of ranged and dps.

I could see that certain mechanics do favor some unique abilities, but even then, there should be enough of an overlap with classes to deal with the mechanics.

I don't like the title of this thread because there is nothing that backfired. Instead, some raid leader feels that the only way they can overcome the mechanic is to bring specific classes. Which is not the case. And is the fault of the raid leader and no one else.

[Deleted]

I don't think it backfired at all, but I'm torn in my personal feelings.
On one hand it would be idiotic and impossible to go back to the old model. The new one brought just so much for us, for the developers, for the genre.

At the same time though I can't say I don't miss that level of "unpolishness" that left a high degree of creativity to players, their combinations, their setups. Classes were way more unbalanced -which was bad- but at the same time they were also way more diverse and fun. Most of all the role of "buffer" who focuses on buffing and deals less damage/healing than other classes (which is a role I personally adore) was still there!



tl;dr
Didn't backfire at all. Part of me wishes things could be like back then, but then again how about no!

[Marrilaife]

Been maining a Priest since TBC as a healer, Shadow from Cata onwards... been pretty much permanently benched this expansion, more so after Surrender to Madness nerf, because SPs generally suck all around in particular their single target dps... SPs don't bring anything that other classes already excel at, their own niche is council fights...

/yay

Honestly regret putting all my effort into this class -.-;

Yep, gone are times when priests were "mana battery" or even vampiric embrace was a good raid wide cd. Some classes bring nothing. Like WW Monk. Or ele shaman. I miss how much utility ele shaman had in mop - healing tide, ancestral guidance, grounding totem, now all the have left is bloodlust (hunters / mages have it too) and stun totem (which has a delay so is inferior to instant cast stuns in m+). Pure dps classes kept getting extra utility during the time "hybrids" brought raid cds / off healing, but now most of the off healing and raid cds were stripped (like anti magic zone from dks, vampiric embrace gutted, boomkins no longer having tranq and stampede) while pures still have things like turtle, iceblock, gateway, cloak of shadows and cloak of concealment (latter one proven to be immensely useful in m+ invitational).

Not even mentioning things like "must have a mage for mythic Gul'dan or bust" (my old guild tried it with a lock due to lack of mage, wasn't working very well).

[Deleted]

oh ye because some classes just deal more damage? but im not talking about that

Yeah, me neither

[Drusin]

But how awesome does it feel not to be there because of the damage you do, but because of a buff you provide to other players?

Ah so we have an important revelation here. We are assuming that people are doing a certain activity for a certain reason.

I raid, because I've always raided and that's the end of the story. I don't mind getting benched because I'm only there because I'm supposed to be there. Raid starts at 10pm, I'll be online ready to go with all my seals, alternative gear, and consumables at 9:45. If I'm not needed I just sit in discord and watch netflix in case they need me.

- - - Updated - - -

remember when you tried to make sure you had int, fort, mark, blessings x* in the raid? I kind of miss buffs; made raids feel more "raidy" if that makes any sense at all. I remember when inscription released, those scrolls were supposed to be a good way for teams who couldn't fill a buff need to do so if they couldn't find the class. I haven't really paid attention to that in forever though; does int just get applied by having a mage in the group now or nah?

I miss buffs sometimes then I remember whenever someone gets brezzed how much I hate hearing "buffs for x" then I gotta stop dpsing/healing to hit Mark lol.

[clevin]

Yup...pretty much...why bring the class with the lower dps when you can bring the class with better dps?

Because, as GOOD raid leaders understand, there's more to being a good raider than theoretical DPS. For example, ability to actually get the DPS that the class is capable of. Ability to move and generally to execute mechanics. Ability to use CDs when they're most useful, not just on cool down.

But then, we're talking about RLs who are good and few of those are trolling LFG for randoms to fill out a raid.

[Jaylock]

Oh, so it was good when you were benched because the niche you filled was not present on the boss you are progressing?

Yes it was good.

Not all bosses need to be cookie cutter so that every spec and class can shine. The point of a high fantasy MMO with classes that fill specific roles is to *GASP* fill specific roles! Some classes will have abilities that others won't and you will need to build and balance your raid according to the boss abilities and the classes that are best suited to deal with their abilities.

Whats bad about a raid where the raid leader has 30 people, with 5 bench players, and 5 that can be swapped in and out according to class needs?

[bewbew]

Sounds like you play with bads. Who the fuck stacks fotm? Bad raid leaders who fail their groups by bringing bads who are fotm instead of finding good players, thats who. Stacking only counts when it is world first race because all of their players are good, so why not bring the class that does 3% more? The fallacy of ToS turning into world of soakcraft is based on the bad guilds who think they are Mythic quality not being able to actually do the content. They think they are "Mythic" quality guilds based on their inflated ilvl. Instead they flounder around, getting smashed by content that is too hard for them and blame it on the "fact" that they can't find the right classes.

"Bad guilds".

Only ONE guild cleared Mythic ToS in my whole server. It's a high pop Brazilian server.

Their kill group had something like 5 or 6 rogues.

Your argument of "only bads stack" is "better-than-you" empty falacy.

Guilds do what it takes to beat bosses. If they can significantly make encounters they are struggling with easier by stacking classes...the fuck do you think they are going to do?

[Baelic]

Personally, I miss the Mana/Health battery functions of being a Shadow Priest and I would love to have that again. Even if I'd never be at the top of the epeen pole.

[Flurryfang]

Bring the player not the class is dead, now it's bring the class, and if you don't have it, force a player to reroll into it, which is painful in the world of legion legendaries. Well, unless you don't raid mythic, then yolo, just bring whoever isn't retarded and you'll do just fine.

Both mythic TOS and mythic+ invitational proved that specific classes / specs or even races are picked repeatedly over others and there are very few viable comps, people who brought different comps struggled more and there was little benefit to variety.

Now you don't bring classes for mark of the wild or totem buffs, you bring them for cloak of shadows and stampeding roar... how is that even remotely better.

It's not about "you can't do it without x class" it's about "class x brings advantage you can't easily ignore / replace while class y brings nothing so there's never a reason to bring it, even if both do the same dps".

The best thing is really to give utilities around, that are unique, but can do the same, like immunities and large AOE dmg reduction. The problem with ToS was that rogues have 30% permanent dmg reduction to AOE and that is a bit broken atm. Give it to one or 2 other specs and it is actually fine.

Blizzard is never going to make Mythic balanced or open to all classes. Mythic progression is the exception, where this balance matter little really, because unless blizz gets everything completly balanced, these players will still moan that they have to switch.

Right now, the balance in normal and heroic is okay. It is not perfect, but it is working. But we could do with more unique utility, that makes it fun to have specific roles with you. Maybe not as OP as Windfury and Shadow priest mana gain, but something in that area, something that makes you go "ohh, that is right, we have that spec, so now that thing aint so bad".

[Deleted]

Ah so we have an important revelation here. We are assuming that people are doing a certain activity for a certain reason.

I raid, because I've always raided and that's the end of the story. I don't mind getting benched because I'm only there because I'm supposed to be there. Raid starts at 10pm, I'll be online ready to go with all my seals, alternative gear, and consumables at 9:45. If I'm not needed I just sit in discord and watch netflix in case they need me.

It's nice that you are so indifferent to the whole thing, but I wanna have fun.

[Deleted]

If you're top 100 mythic or so the philosophy is Bring the Player Playing the Class.

For everyone else it's bring the player because - despite the doom and gloom you'll find on the forums - our average DPS is close enough that you can get by and the mechanics don't get absurdly punishing until you reach the mythic levels.

Not saying it isn't useful to have someone that can soak with an immunity, but it's not completely necessary for 99% of raiders.

If you're puging it's about hitting the iLevel required and keeping your play clean and DPS high enough that you aren't cut on the trash or after the first boss.

The only decent and true post of this thread.

[taishar68]

If you're top 100 mythic or so the philosophy is Bring the Player Playing the Class.

For everyone else it's bring the player because - despite the doom and gloom you'll find on the forums - our average DPS is close enough that you can get by and the mechanics don't get absurdly punishing until you reach the mythic levels.

Not saying it isn't useful to have someone that can soak with an immunity, but it's not completely necessary for 99% of raiders.

If you're puging it's about hitting the iLevel required and keeping your play clean and DPS high enough that you aren't cut on the trash or after the first boss.

Could not have said it better myself.

[Jastall]

Because, as GOOD raid leaders understand, there's more to being a good raider than theoretical DPS. For example, ability to actually get the DPS that the class is capable of. Ability to move and generally to execute mechanics. Ability to use CDs when they're most useful, not just on cool down.

But then, we're talking about RLs who are good and few of those are trolling LFG for randoms to fill out a raid.

Yep. Any raid leader that picks based only on aggregate logs is a moron. You're way better off with a good Fury warrior than with a bad Arms one even if Arms globally performs ahead of Fury.

I think that, apart from some shenanigans with two Mythic bosses requiring too many soaks which made immunities damn near mandatory, we're at a decent balance now. Some specs have clear advantages over others or unique tools that makes them shine, but you aren't shit out of luck if you don't have them in your raid. THAT is what Blizzard meant with their whole bring the player not the class. You don't need a Warlock for summons, but it makes life easier. You don't need Commanding Shout but your healers will like it nevertheless. You don't need to Death Grip the adds on KJ, or a Hunter to track Illidan, but it sure makes that phase less of a pain. And that's fine. What would not be fine would be if Grips were literally the only way to beat the boss, because now you make DKs mandatory and that sucks for everyone else. Same shit with tying down some people's DPS to some other people casting buffs.

Hell they tried to make Retribution a buffing DPS spec by tying some of their damage to Greater Blessing of Might. Three guesses as to how popular that was.