Need a lift (worried about class design in BfA)

[SNES-1990]

It's early alpha

It's late alpha... it's not even beta

It's beta...

It's the first patch...


So when CAN people give feedback and not be shot down by this ignorant bullshit from you people?

Just throw them on the ignore list. There's no getting through to them and there never will be.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Honestly I'm pretty concerned about tank design as someone that's had to force myself to stay on my tank through Legion simply because it's so hard finding a competent tank.

Is Vengeance DH indicative of what we should expect for tanks in BfA? If so, Tanks are looking like they are going to be awesome to play again after an expansion that was horrible to/for tanks.

Is the disaster that is BfA prot warrior what we should expect for tanks in BfA? If so, there's a 0% chance I will be tanking.

I don't need tanks to be even simpler/easier/less rewarding in BfA, you know?

I'm a Pally tank who sticks to heroic stuff. There were a few gripes here and there but otherwise I've felt fine as I've ever been. I'm all for steering the development by voicing concerns.

- - - Updated - - -

It's early alpha

It's late alpha... it's not even beta

It's beta...

It's the first patch...


So when CAN people give feedback and not be shot down by this ignorant bullshit from you people?

That was the best you could come up with, huh?

Anyway it's clear that there's a desire for something better than the Azerite system even at this stage. I disagree with that, but oh well.
The question to ask then is what works? I see calls for no more pruning and more talent rows or stepping back to the old talent system with X more levels. And that can be GREAT. Plenty of player choice abound! But this does things at different levels.
On the developer side, more abilities are added which add work to balancing. That's Blizzard's burden. Okay.
On the player side, sims will still ultimately dictate what the "best" builds are. The player's burden from here is to call for rebalancing to make other builds work. Which leads to more work in part of Blizzard.
I said this somewhere already, but players will eventually choose what's best while it gets harder and harder to make unpopular skills desirable for the sake of making them desirable. Should we keep stringing these old abilities along for the ride or make room for something else?

[clevin]

That was the best you could come up with, huh?
=

Best? No. All your comment was worth? Yes.

[Ithekro]

The best time to give feedback....when there is an issues, but give the feedback to Blizzard...the people that can look at it and fix it. Giving it to the community doesn't give it to the right department, nor even someone with access to the code or storyline to even attempt to fix your or anyone else's issued in Alpha, Beta, or whenever.

[Letdown]

I'm a Pally tank who sticks to heroic stuff. There were a few gripes here and there but otherwise I've felt fine as I've ever been. I'm all for steering the development by voicing concerns.

So there's two things about this that I don't follow you on.

The first part is how? Every single tank spec was significantly dumbed down in Legion from its WoD design, with many of the nuanced and depth mechanics removed. Tanking has turned into being a sub-par DPS with a big ass health pool, I just can't understand how you can find it fun if you're someone that actually enjoys tanking. I at least feel like there's 0 skill cap to tanking if you're doing tanking 101, and I am consistently amazed that there are people dumb/bad enough to struggle with it.

The second part is your experience in raid is limited to the part of content where balancing doesn't really matter. Raid composition doesn't really matter in heroic, nothing hits hard enough for tanks to feel vulnerable. For example, you can 100% run Seraphim without even stressing about it in heroic, even on progression content. That isn't the case in Mythic, where Mythic prog forces you onto talents that are less fun to play.

I don't think "Tanks feel fine in heroic" is a valid reason for "You have to play one of 3 tanks in Mythic, and 2 of those specs are completely braindead to play as they are on a 4 button or less rotation with 100% active mitigation uptime."

And in reality, all tanks are just getting carried by their healers now anyway, maybe with the exception of Blood DKs, because Blizzard took away the ability for tanks to be responsible for themselves in any meaningful way that isn't just a binary "did you push your active mitigation or cooldown?" check.

[SoulSoBreezy]

So there's two things about this that I don't follow you on.

The first part is how? Every single tank spec was significantly dumbed down in Legion from its WoD design, with many of the nuanced and depth mechanics removed. Tanking has turned into being a sub-par DPS with a big ass health pool, I just can't understand how you can find it fun if you're someone that actually enjoys tanking. I at least feel like there's 0 skill cap to tanking if you're doing tanking 101, and I am consistently amazed that there are people dumb/bad enough to struggle with it.

The second part is your experience in raid is limited to the part of content where balancing doesn't really matter. Raid composition doesn't really matter in heroic, nothing hits hard enough for tanks to feel vulnerable. For example, you can 100% run Seraphim without even stressing about it in heroic, even on progression content. That isn't the case in Mythic, where Mythic prog forces you onto talents that are less fun to play.

I don't think "Tanks feel fine in heroic" is a valid reason for "You have to play one of 3 tanks in Mythic, and 2 of those specs are completely braindead to play as they are on a 4 button or less rotation with 100% active mitigation uptime."

And in reality, all tanks are just getting carried by their healers now anyway, maybe with the exception of Blood DKs, because Blizzard took away the ability for tanks to be responsible for themselves in any meaningful way that isn't just a binary "did you push your active mitigation or cooldown?" check.

Oh don't take me for gospel, you can the opinions based on my experience and run in whatever direction you like.
I've got disappointments about tanking in legion but it's more on the encounters than the spec itself. The thrill of having to execute on mechanics correctly has been shared even more to non tank classes while giving us only the same amount of stuff to do. It makes the role feel like a bit less.
But over my ten or so years of tanking I don't share the idea of the dumbing down of the spec. Maybe it's because I suck, or because I only do heroic things. But my experience is one that represents the larger, if not the premier raiding population.

Going back to tank class design, I've observed that my enjoyment is based on the encounters first, and THEN how do the tanks handle them.
MoP Tanking felt fun thanks to vengeance, to battle healer, to handling certain encounters with chain blessings and whatever.
WoD tanking felt less fun because of making up for the void that losing vengeance left and there were fewer opportunities to make my class seem cool. Probably because there were fewer bosses, hur hur.
Legion tanking gave me a range of enjoyment; I liked ToS more than Antorus overall because Antorus didn't let me stretch my abilities as a class as well as I think it should.
But again, I feel that as a tank my enjoyment plays off whatever is trying to beat my face in, regardless of the difficulty I participate in.

[Will]

It's early alpha

It's late alpha... it's not even beta

It's beta...

It's the first patch...


So when CAN people give feedback and not be shot down by this ignorant bullshit from you people?

All the numbers tuning we've seen so far is super preliminary, some of it placeholder. At the moment complaining is kind of like complaining about the kind of pizza someone's going to make when all they've done is rolled the dough a little. Blizzard tend to announce, or make it outright obvious, when they've started properly tuning a certain facet, such as class balance or dungeon fight balance. At that point it's fair to start chipping in with your concerns, but prior to that?

Usually beta is the kind of stage where I start to get concerned about any direction it's apparent things are going. It's still a long ways off release, but Blizzard have turned their attention to tightening things up tuning them out.

With that said, they DID open questing in Drustvar and Nazmir, specifically seeking direction and feedback, so it's a fair time to provide input on those, in addition to the direction class playstyles are going. However, my point is, that anyone complaining about NUMBERS at this stage is just wasting their time.

Criticising lack of abilities or gaps in rotations when we FULLY KNOW that the Azerite system is still largely veiled, is a bit pointless. Let's see exactly what they release. If the system still leaves gaps then by all means these concerns are worth voicing at that time, but right now? It's like telling a painter you're not happy with the colour, when you don't even know what the colour is going to be and he hasn't even started painting the wall yet!

[Nere]

I agree with you OP. I want to believe that it is still alpha and a lot is just placeholders but on the other hand I don't really trust blizzard will fix everything. The classes are so pruned, so many spells removed. Ion said that we pruned class abilities to introduce new ones, well where are they? Everyone said wait for the Azerite system and recent datamining shows that it is very similar to the netherlight crucible which is boring. The artifact system was much better than this. I will say it again I understand it's alpha but I can't deny that I am worried.

[Shakou]

Well, it's not just the prune, it's the near total lack of character development and progression post level 60. If you go and count what you truly gain over levels 60-120 you'd be shocked at what you see for many specs. In BfA your character gains 10 levels and yet gains no character progression or any sort of character advancement what-so-ever. In a RPG that's really odd. RPGs and level gain are always (not sometimes but always) associate level gain with character gain (character gain not gear gain). After BfA when we lose our newest rental progression there will be another 10 levels in which your character once again gains absolutely nothing. So, you will go from 60-120 and gain 2-3 abilities/passives and 3 talents (75, 90 and 100) for 60! levels. That's not acceptable.

This sort of thing has honestly been an issue since Cataclysm when they made it impossible to reach the last and defining talents in your spec until you leveled up past 80.

Blizzard just fundamentally does not understand that players liked the way it was before on the whole, because on the whole from TBC-WOTLK our character started out complete and gained NEW THINGS, now they start out incomplete and sort of gain back things that were taken away.

[Soon-TM]

So there's two things about this that I don't follow you on.

The first part is how? Every single tank spec was significantly dumbed down in Legion from its WoD design, with many of the nuanced and depth mechanics removed. Tanking has turned into being a sub-par DPS with a big ass health pool, I just can't understand how you can find it fun if you're someone that actually enjoys tanking. I at least feel like there's 0 skill cap to tanking if you're doing tanking 101, and I am consistently amazed that there are people dumb/bad enough to struggle with it.

The second part is your experience in raid is limited to the part of content where balancing doesn't really matter. Raid composition doesn't really matter in heroic, nothing hits hard enough for tanks to feel vulnerable. For example, you can 100% run Seraphim without even stressing about it in heroic, even on progression content. That isn't the case in Mythic, where Mythic prog forces you onto talents that are less fun to play.

I don't think "Tanks feel fine in heroic" is a valid reason for "You have to play one of 3 tanks in Mythic, and 2 of those specs are completely braindead to play as they are on a 4 button or less rotation with 100% active mitigation uptime."

And in reality, all tanks are just getting carried by their healers now anyway, maybe with the exception of Blood DKs, because Blizzard took away the ability for tanks to be responsible for themselves in any meaningful way that isn't just a binary "did you push your active mitigation or cooldown?" check.

I've dabbled here and there in paladin tanking, especially during BC/WotLK. I tried my hand at tanking on pally, bear and DK at Legion, and honestly I am baffled by how simple is tanking atm. Insultingly simple. It's basically cycling through your defensive cooldowns, which even a basic bot could do. That was cool when it was reserved to a single class (DKs in WotLK iirc) because it was what it differentiated it from the other tanks; but now it's more of less the same gameplay for all the tanks, with the exception of BrM, which I have no clue about.

On the main subject, every single YouTuber in alpha (hand picked for being usually blizzard-friendly) is complaining about basic gameplay being dull and uninteresting. Hell, we aren't even getting a 115/120 new talent row, where devs could accommodate several of the former Artifact skills, with a couple of new ones.

[Ithekro]

Sometimes I miss having all those extra baseline abilities and spells as a Warlock that I has during Wrath. But, I also had quite full bars in Wrath that I had a significant part of the screen full of bars with buttons for all kinds of uses.

Now I have less bars and only one bar of spells I use most of the time and then another bar with situational spells or pvp spells, or zone specific spells on them. Plus a bar or two for professions, tinkers, mounts, and toys that I use often. And then I think one more bar just to have some stuff that rests over the other bars that I use only is specific instances, but I need to be able to see them when I need them. So five to six bars now, where in Wrath I has up to ten bars.

But having most of the old abilities were useful at times. As a Destro Lock, I can't just dot someone up quickly, and than Soulfire them while they are feared (you couldn't do that in Wrath often either...cast time was too long), I only have one dot and it has a cast time. I don't have many instant cast spells anymore. I really miss felfire as a cast when moving filler (green flame) option. It didn't hit nearly as hard as everything else, so it could be used for lore questing in lower zone back then...when you didn't feel like just hitting something with your staff or wanding them....or if it was really low level....punching things in the face. I've punched Furbolgs on Teldrassil for Loremaster.

[Lucavian]

People that say the azerite armor will fix the classes are fooling themselves. Think about how many times Blizzard has put out just garbage 2 set and 4 set bonuses that either changed your favorite spec to play horribly or was just such a minor bonus that it was meaningless. If the idea is to fix the classes with azerite armor. That same group is going to be modifying class feel & balance with bonuses or abilities that are choices. If they're weaker than set bonuses, then we're missing the power set bonuses did provide, if they're as powerful as set bonuses, then they can create drastic shifts between the fundamental playability of a spec. This is different than adding a bonus to a framework, it's instead changing the foundation of the class. You'll only get 9 total azerite perks (3 tiers besides +5 item level) across 3 different pieces of armor if you use armor that has the azerite perks. Remember, they also said not every helm piece would be an azerite armor piece for example. Think about how many traits you had on your weapon. You had netherlight crucible affects, 4 golden traits, an on use ability, and multiple passives, not to mention a 2 piece bonus and 4 piece bonus. So far at least some of those tiers seem to house netherlight crucible affects, so you might get 6 that aren't of that variety? We'll see how things go.

[HavokHeart]

While I don't think the sky is falling, doesn't the customisation make it the equivalent of only having half your artifact abilities available at any one time? There's still the heart of azeroth static AP progression, but instead of unlocking one trait at a time you unlock 4 but can only use 1.

There is also more than one azerite gear drop per slot.

[Teri]

No max level content/gear, no indication of true power levels.

Legion artifacts felt silly with leveling gear too, and low AP, then suddenly at 110 a power boost from more AP gains and better relics, even in 7.0 with Artifact knowledge being time-gated.

[Isilrien]

Perhaps you're overthinking this, Stormcleave. Give this some time, at least a month into the expansion release, and then re-assess how you feel then. Going in with certain expectations often leads to disappointment. Try to hold on to your hopes a bit more loosely.

[Nyel]

How can anyone say with a straight face that BFA classes are fine as is with what they have done?

This. Azerite armour was my last hope but setting how abysmal it is I really have no hopes for BfA class design anymore. It is just bad in an outstanding way.

- - - Updated - - -

Is it fair to come to that conclusion at this stage of development? I'm not insisting that you not be concerned and wait for launch, but going this far seems premature.

This argument over and over and over again. In WoD and Legion it was the same: most classes ended up like their first iterations during Alpha/Beta (except numbers). So yes, it is absolutely fair to come to this conclusion.

[Noxina]

Isn't the main "problem" with alpha, and how classes feel at the moment the fact that players don't have the necklase and the other "artifact" slots yet?
Not to be one of those "it's only alpha, just wait!" people (that are wrong in most cases, as the same thing have been said every Alpha, and look where we're now), but we kinda have to wait and see how everything turns out when we get those artifact things.

[Lahis]

Complaining about Alpha abilities and feel now is like complaining that your level 20 allied race you just created seems slow and unbalanced compared to your 110.


Wait until they actually introduce necklace/shoulder/chest/helmet traits before you proclaim the sky is falling.

The necklace traits will not fix a shit. It's just static +% buffs or some random procks. It won't fix gaping holes in rotation left by removign active abilities from Artifacts and beyond.

[Super Kami Dende]

Considering Alpha is at lvl cap 103 and Azerite gear is yet to be implemented. Any "freak outs" people are having is purely silly.

though the usual whinging retard brigades are sure to freak out regardless.

[Saverem]

The necklace traits will not fix a shit. It's just static +% buffs or some random procks. It won't fix gaping holes in rotation left by removign active abilities from Artifacts and beyond.

Oh no, that's terrible! I can not play a game that does that to its players! I'm gonna quit this game because of this, but you go first, I'll be right behind you.