BfA Class Design = Yikes!?!

[Shakou]

The stat squish, losing our insanely powerful artifacts, artifact talents, artifact ability, and legendary gear effects... the thing I'm mostly worried about is how much weaker we are going to seem in the next expansion.

None of this save for artifact traits is true tho, you will not be replacing full Antorus raid gear and your artifact with the first quest greens you get. The people testing alpha right now are using template characters that start with crappy greens and can't just copy their toons over. In reality you won't replace your artifact until you find a full I lvl upgrade (close to 110, and probably from a dungeon), you will still level up with legion legendaries and you won't just instantly replace tier gear with greens.

The people playing the game on live right now that are massively complaining about things on Alpha BFA because they were expecting the game to feel more or less like it does now on live, even tho on Alpha they're playing buggy content with no add ons and characters in full shitty greens and so on are exactly the people that won't be invited to Alpha next time.

People have been more or less describing every alpha ever. Most of those people are going to find the leveling content boring no matter what.

Let's recap the purpose of Alpha:

1. Early testing of Leveling Quest/Dungeon Content
2. Early testing of classes/specs at intentionally lower power levels
3. Early testing new game systems

You can't even get to Max Level in Alpha let alone obtain a decent set of starter gear for a level 120 character...hell you cannot even play Alpha BFA with the gear your live characters currently have. I've been watching the development of all the classes/specs I usually main and I have absolutely no reason to believe I'll have to switch, nothing looks even slightly out of the ordinary.

That doesn't mean I have no criticism of the things I have seen and know about, but the only thing I've seen so far that's been a huge let down is the Alliance side questing experience.

I mean...on the Horde side the story is believably escalated from "you have defeated the Legion and are now back on the trail of some old god/titan shit" on the Alliance side it's literally "you have defeated the Legion, now go collect 12 bear asses and 10 ounces of squirrel droppings and some twigs and shit".

It's hilarious watching people in 2018 that expect a new WOW expansion to practically feel like a brand new game or else consider it shit tho.

Take notes Blizzard: these aren't the people you want in your Alpha anyways.

[Oneirophobia]

Shadow priest been in the shitter for quite some time bro!

They were fine more than they were bad this expac.

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Shadow has at least it's dedicated AoE ability again and does not rely on the SW:P and MF fuckery. While that is obviously not as desireable in raids, at least for questing and WQs this will probably be a boon to many. I certainly cursed the annoyance that was aoeing low health adds.

Oh my god tell me about it. I’d often switch to holy for holynova if I had to do AOE against stuff that does really quick. Low level dungeons in particular.

[Varolyn]

Well assassination plays pretty well on the alpha from the people I've talked to on my class discord, and the talent tree appears to be well developed. Most of the changes look positive too, and since it's my main spec, I'm pretty happy with what I see/hear so far.

[Deleted]

The beta will begin in 2 months in June. That is when the classes are finalised. And instead of focusing on the classes, they are focusing on Vulpera racial options and adding GCD's to everything.

At this rate, I suspect 90% of the specs will go live as is.

Beta will be before that. Most likely in May. It's going to exactly be like the Legion Schedule, Beta in May, Launch in August.

[Tradu]

Say thanks to guys like preach and other toxic streamers that need to rant about class specs while they are not final yet.

If they were final, there'd also be no reason to give feedback, because there'd be no more time left to implement it. Oh wait, no. It's always the right time to give feedback.

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None of this save for artifact traits is true tho, you will not be replacing full Antorus raid gear and your artifact with the first quest greens you get. The people testing alpha right now are using template characters that start with crappy greens and can't just copy their toons over. In reality you won't replace your artifact until you find a full I lvl upgrade (close to 110, and probably from a dungeon), you will still level up with legion legendaries and you won't just instantly replace tier gear with greens.

The people playing the game on live right now that are massively complaining about things on Alpha BFA because they were expecting the game to feel more or less like it does now on live, even tho on Alpha they're playing buggy content with no add ons and characters in full shitty greens and so on are exactly the people that won't be invited to Alpha next time.

People have been more or less describing every alpha ever. Most of those people are going to find the leveling content boring no matter what.

Let's recap the purpose of Alpha:

1. Early testing of Leveling Quest/Dungeon Content
2. Early testing of classes/specs at intentionally lower power levels
3. Early testing new game systems

You can't even get to Max Level in Alpha let alone obtain a decent set of starter gear for a level 120 character...hell you cannot even play Alpha BFA with the gear your live characters currently have. I've been watching the development of all the classes/specs I usually main and I have absolutely no reason to believe I'll have to switch, nothing looks even slightly out of the ordinary.

That doesn't mean I have no criticism of the things I have seen and know about, but the only thing I've seen so far that's been a huge let down is the Alliance side questing experience.

I mean...on the Horde side the story is believably escalated from "you have defeated the Legion and are now back on the trail of some old god/titan shit" on the Alliance side it's literally "you have defeated the Legion, now go collect 12 bear asses and 10 ounces of squirrel droppings and some twigs and shit".

It's hilarious watching people in 2018 that expect a new WOW expansion to practically feel like a brand new game or else consider it shit tho.

Take notes Blizzard: these aren't the people you want in your Alpha anyways.

Pretty sure those "shitty greens" are roughly Nighthold equivalent, so if playing at 110, that gives a pretty good picture of what specs will play like during the middle of the expansion.

[Riistov]

When I saw they added a cooldown to flame shock again I was pretty livid. Elemental ended up as one of the most fun specs to play in Legion, why the steps backwards?

[Deleted]

If they were final, there'd also be no reason to give feedback, because there'd be no more time left to implement it. Oh wait, no. It's always the right time to give feedback.

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Pretty sure those "shitty greens" are roughly Nighthold equivalent, so if playing at 110, that gives a pretty good picture of what specs will play like during the middle of the expansion.

It's around the item level of NH Heroic and ToS Normal.

--

1000 -> 265
960 -> 240
945 -> 225
930 -> 210
915 -> 195
890 -> 188

[Tradu]

190 is around the item level get from ToS Normal which is 188-192.

Right, so mid-expansion levels of gear, which is pretty reasonable for testing things.

[Deleted]

Right, so mid-expansion levels of gear, which is pretty reasonable for testing things.

Yeah right now on Alpha I'm 119 with 250 item level, so if you're geared mythic you'll destroy the leveling content as even with greens it's very fast and easy to level. I'm kind of happy they went with 3 leveling zones, it makes the leveling experience fun and short and keeps 3 zones as a surprise for when you ding 120.

Really happy with the squish too, feels so good to have an easy time to spot your big hits lul.

[digichi]

Boomy desperately needs to absorb some legendary boosts / moony spells that came with legion... if you tried the spec and thought it was pretty basic in legion ("lolzjustspammoonfiresunfire") then ya'll arent even prepared for how preschool the spec is right now in alpha.

Hence.. gonna pull the 'its just alpha' card here too.

[netherflame]

Maybe the game is just going to slow down?

[Mirishka]

It took me nearly 6 months to get my Warrior to 60, I think I can handle the slow down.

In fact, since I dropped out of raiding a while back, I have really missed to slow, serene pace that Levelling used to be, up until Wrath, They have sped it up so much each year, that with a concerted effort, I reckon I could have max level ready to go with less then 12 hours playtime(not using any boosts, etc)

Leveling is closer to vanilla, in terms of pacing/etc, than its probably been since vanilla. Yeah you can go all heirlooms and spam dungeon queues and get through it faster than intended, but if you quest and play 'normally' (as in, not doing dungeons until you go insane), it takes some legitimate effort again.

In WoD I leveled a toon to 100 in like, 18 hours played. Took my void elf around 4 days played to hit 110 - mind you, I chat with friends a lot in the game so I could probably have shaved a day or so off that if I had just said "OMG PRETTY ARMOR IS WAITING LEAVE ME ALONE".

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Yeah right now on Alpha I'm 119 with 250 item level, so if you're geared mythic you'll destroy the leveling content as even with greens it's very fast and easy to level. I'm kind of happy they went with 3 leveling zones, it makes the leveling experience fun and short and keeps 3 zones as a surprise for when you ding 120.

Really happy with the squish too, feels so good to have an easy time to spot your big hits lul.

I have to be honest, I am too. It feels... more like the game used to. Like Wrath, for me, was the perfect levels of HP/damage etc. And now as we play in Legion, and my DH pops Meta and hits 22m health... I honestly do feel like, is this really necessary? Do I need 100 million health at 120? A billion at 130?

Squish away, Blizzard. Squish away.

[Tradu]

Maybe the game is just going to slow down?

I hope not, they already slowed it down enough.

[Frolk]

If i want a slower MMORPG ill go play FF14 Online

[Azelas]

hmmm I feel like a lot of people can't understand what happens to a character with crappy ass stats. Not saying some classes aren't duller, some DEFINITELY are (Moonkin comes to mind instantly), but others work well, it's just the power spike artifacts (and traits) gave us in Legion was WAAAAY too much (imo) where every single skill had 2-3 passive extra shit attached to it. Losing that will feel bad at first I think, but it should be fine after a couple weeks (except, as I said, some cases like Moonking not having the Full Moon rotation)

[Saverem]

These posts will never end until they unlock 120 and azerite armor.

Right now BfA is like playing Legion without your artifact weapon equipped. Alpha is Alpha.

[Deleted]

These posts will never end until they unlock 120 and azerite armor.

Right now BfA is like playing Legion without your artifact weapon equipped. Alpha is Alpha.

Yes, but the Azerite armor isn't going to add that much more depth to the class based of how it is right now, it's gonna give you mainly utility and defensive options and a row of offensive options. Artifacts made classes more smooth and made rotations feel better, taking that away is going to create huge gaps in the enjoyment of playing a class. Blizzard needs to realize this asap, artifacts need to be more or less incorporated in the passives of a class, and not just one trait, but potentially a 3rd of all the traits.

[tru]

I may main a healer for the first time....dps feels bad I know that armor crap will help some but how in depth will it be. Bandaid tier type set fixes or a metric ton of passives that make these specs more enjoyable. Don't see how anyone could enjoy this in it's current state.

I will say I've not played holy preist in a long time but that end talent they have now is OMG amazing.

[Shakou]

Pretty sure those "shitty greens" are roughly Nighthold equivalent, so if playing at 110, that gives a pretty good picture of what specs will play like during the middle of the expansion.

Ah yes, it's easy to explain away an in depth post with thoughtful conclusions and actual real knowledge of how things are when you're talking straight out of your ass.

Beside the fact that if you had Nighthold Gear now compared to Mythic Antorus+ (which most of these Alpha players do have on live) you would notice a substantial drop in performance, those shitty greens they are all wearing are the equivalent of Wrath of the Lich King starter gear.

They are in I lvl 200-213 or slightly above that gear. To be perfectly clear about it your post doesn't even make sense because we don't know what the actual stat squish is going to be or exactly what it is compared to Legion gear. All that we know for sure is that they are in significantly lower item level greens with no set bonuses and no legendary effects, playing at higher than current max level but not able to reach the new 120 level cap, and they are playing in mostly broken content.

Sorry but the classes in general don't look like they're in any better or worse spot than they were in Legion on the whole. And I give precisely no fucks that a bunch of people are bitching on a message board because "nothing about this excites them" like literally go cry to your mother if that's you. I honestly don't care.

Tp be perfectly frank, I'd bet good money that a huge chunk of people posting in the Alpha forums on the official boards don't even have Alpha access. At any rate, it's a very bad idea to gauge reactions from forums because A) the vast majority of people that play WOW do not use these or the official forums. B) You get a lot of posts from people on these boards that actually make no sense but the people who post them will insist that they do anyways.

[Saverem]

Yes, but the Azerite armor isn't going to add that much more depth to the class based of how it is right now, it's gonna give you mainly utility and defensive options and a row of offensive options. Artifacts made classes more smooth and made rotations feel better, taking that away is going to create huge gaps in the enjoyment of playing a class. Blizzard needs to realize this asap, artifacts need to be more or less incorporated in the passives of a class, and not just one trait, but potentially a 3rd of all the traits.

And where did you get your information? Out of the data mined TIER ONE abilities that were released for some specs...? Or does your dad work at Blizzard like every one else who's crying about it?

All they have to do is add abilities like "10% faster CD rate" and most classes would be fixed in terms of fluid gameplay. They'll most likely add an on-use ability to every spec as their final top tier ability that you can choose between.