Developer Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas - Battle for Azeroth

[Deleted]

No I don't normally watch these things anymore since its usually cherry picked questions that don't interest me, not to mention I can't stand Ion for reasons. As for the notes, I read the three lines there, there's nothing about being able to transmog a staff into a claw and shield (for ele as example). Only that transmog is still "spec locked". So if there's a separate list of notes somewhere, it'd be appreciated if you could link it.

Woah, thats like comenting on an article based on it's title ofc u are so entitled to yourself that you find excuse to fuck up like that. Hopefully there are more bad changes for this type of player base, so they might not come back

[Wyrt]

God you are all over the place. You complain about shit in raids, then the Mythic Invitational as if that is some amazing representation of what the player base is doing in the game. Reincarnation is still utility despite what you think of it. I'm glad you stopped complaining about the other utility I pointed out for you.

Stop wasting my time, thanks.

Reincarnation is a 30 minute cooldown. It's not utility, it's a flavor ability. It's worse than Ice Block or Divine Shield or Cheat Death with a significantly longer cooldown.

I'm talking about PvE content. Raiding and mythic+ are both parts of PvE content. If shamans were in a good place for M+ they would have been involved in the invitational, but they weren't. BfA is doing nothing to change that.

I actually play an enhancement shaman. I know what it's like. I've played beta, I know what that's like. I know what issues enhancement has and I'm really frustrated that Blizzard isn't going to touch things until 8.1 for a class that already had issues in live.

[morph4037]

Woah, thats like comenting on an article based on it's title ofc u are so entitled to yourself that you find excuse to fuck up like that. Hopefully there are more bad changes for this type of player base, so they might not come back

Not entirely sure how "entitlement" fits into your piss poor attempt at an insult besides being lazy enough to use a random buzzword, but the other person said I didn't watch it or read the notes. I however did read the notes and what the other player said is just a "well he said..." thing, which he (Ion) has gone back on before with other issues.

However I do agree, there should be more bad changes (/s), after all you'll have your own ghost town to play in!

[SirCowdog]

I feel ya. Think I'm finally at the breaking point and am probably jumping ship to druid or pally. 10 years of the same crud is more than enough.

I would love to main a pally, but I can't handle their slow movement speed. That horse on long-ish cooldown isn't enough. Used to be you could equip Aggramar's stride, but that's going away(or at least getting super-nerfed) in BfA. I hate to say it, but I think I might have to break down and play a demon hunter. Druid is fun, but there's only so much animal forms I can handle.

[Argorwal]

God you are all over the place. You complain about shit in raids, then the Mythic Invitational as if that is some amazing representation of what the player base is doing in the game. Reincarnation is still utility despite what you think of it. I'm glad you stopped complaining about the other utility I pointed out for you.

Stop wasting my time, thanks.

If your metric for a spec's capability is being in the MDI then you're going to be disappointed in a lot of specs no matter what happens.

3 spots for 24 dps specs in a highly competitive race.

[RamGuy]

So they are basically admitting that they are not pleased with many classes but they don't have all the time they need to re-work them all so much might be pushed back to patch 8.1? This just underlines the feeling I have from the current BETA-builds that the game doesn't feel all that polished. They have 1 month, tops, before they have to move into release candidates / golden master builds and still the BETA feels like what Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of Draenor and Legion did 2-3 months before release.

I'm not saying the expansion will be bad, but it seems like they are rushing it all? Why paint yourself into this corner? Why announce a release date this early just to end up with having so little time to finish and polish everything before release? They should have delayed the release for 1-2 months and get everything neat and tidy for release instead of start pushing things back to 8.1.

It's not very reassuring to have the lead developer saying stuff like this in interviews with less than a month before they start having to push release candidate builds. They are still experimenting with a bunch of stuff when this late in the development cycle should be all about polish, optimisation and bug squeezing.

[Solitare-sp]

I rather wish Blizz would restrict War Mode to your own servers even outside of RP mode, as I wouldn't mind that old feel. Considering how much Blizz screams "server identity! server identity!" when it comes to mythic raiding being realm only, they're pretty set on combining all servers for everything else to the point where server identity really isn't a thing anymore. Feels more like a convenient excuse rather than something Blizz really wishes to preserve.

Probably the issue with that is that it would show 'how' dead some of the servers are.

[Kyanion]

If your metric for a spec's capability is being in the MDI then you're going to be disappointed in a lot of specs no matter what happens.

3 spots for 24 dps specs in a highly competitive race.

It isn't my metric, I was refuting the other person who was bemoaning that ele shammy was only on one of the MDI teams (not that I went to fact check it, I dont care enough).

[Blorgo]

Reincarnation is a 30 minute cooldown. It's not utility, it's a flavor ability. It's worse than Ice Block or Divine Shield or Cheat Death with a significantly longer cooldown.

I'm talking about PvE content. Raiding and mythic+ are both parts of PvE content. If shamans were in a good place for M+ they would have been involved in the invitational, but they weren't. BfA is doing nothing to change that.

I actually play an enhancement shaman. I know what it's like. I've played beta, I know what that's like. I know what issues enhancement has and I'm really frustrated that Blizzard isn't going to touch things until 8.1 for a class that already had issues in live.

Give up. This guy thinks ankh is utility and powerful and he thinks that astral shift is better then barkskin, yet completly forgets that druids have Bearform which lets them survive "everything" in my+ without a cooldown.

I'm not sure what he's playing but it sure as hell isn't shaman on a level above heroic raids and mythic+15.

[Kyanion]

Give up. This guy thinks ankh is utility and powerful and he thinks that astral shift is better then barkskin, yet completly forgets that druids have Bearform which lets them survive "everything" in my+ without a cooldown.

I'm not sure what he's playing but it sure as hell isn't shaman on a level above heroic raids and mythic+15.

Ahh man, you know you could just quote me if you're going to try and insult me in such a fashion. Fun fact Astral Shift IS better than barkskin. Go and compare the tooltips and get back to me. Druids only have a strong bear form if they are guardian affinity and don't forget this is also being NERFED in BfA but you probably don't know that because you sure as hell aren't a druid on a level above heroic raids and mythic+15. (I love twisting people's words right back at them like this.)

Sorry that you think ankh isn't utility, if you want you can petition for them to remove it for ya.

- - - Updated - - -

Give up. This guy thinks ankh is utility and powerful and he thinks that astral shift is better then barkskin, yet completly forgets that druids have Bearform which lets them survive "everything" in my+ without a cooldown.

Druid-
Barkskin- 1 min CD lasts 12 seconds and provides 20% damage reduction.
Frenzied Regen- MUST shift into bear to activate this, must also maintain bear form the entire time if you want the full heal. Heals you for 30% of max health over 4 seconds (in its current form). The moment you leave bear form Frenzied Regen turns off. Shifting to bear form gives an increase in stamina for max health and an increase in armor.

Shaman-
(Enh and Ele)Astral Shift- 1.5 min CD lasts 8 seconds and provides 40% damage reduction.

(Elemental only)Primal Elementalist (Talent) Harden Skin- You can use this to make your Earth Elemental provide a 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds to YOU and the Earth Elemental. This is a 5 minute cooldown for the Earth Elemental so the 1 min cooldown on the ability is irrelevant.

Both specs have the option of taking a talent that can provide a heal in Nature's Guardian for shaman and Renewal for moonkins and there is no point in comparing the healing potency of our spells yet as those tuning passes haven't happened.


So Elemental shamans can have 2 damage reduction cooldowns if they wish, huh. I wonder if you even knew about the Earth Elemental one.

[Ponky]

If shamans were in a good place for M+ they would have been involved in the invitational, but they weren't. BfA is doing nothing to change that.

Rofl. You can count on one hand how many class/spec combos were actually present in MDI. Does that mean that 80% of all the classes/specs should just be deleted from the game because they don't get picked for MDI?

MDI =/= every day life of a regular m+ player. You guys should stop looking at MDI when choosing what class/spec to play.

[Kaeth]

Balance and tuning is mostly focused on BfA content. The team doesn't want old content to be significantly harder or things to be significantly broken.

Geared tanks at level 110 in the beta feel squishy in Legion heroics. Expect either some serious tuning adjustments to tanks for current content in the prepatch, or some major nerfs to Legion dungeons and raids.

- - - Updated - - -

You fucking ruined mythic plus. Idc if majority doesnt swap gear. As a tank I consistently use 5-6 different sets in dungeons. Some sets are tailored to specific bosses which puts it beyond 5-6

I think "ruined" is too strong a word here. But I am going to miss swapping between two drastically different gear setups as well. The removal of Legion legendaries should lessen the blow, though. Without considering those, it'll just be a difference in secondary stats and trinkets.

[Wyrt]

Give up. This guy thinks ankh is utility and powerful and he thinks that astral shift is better then barkskin, yet completly forgets that druids have Bearform which lets them survive "everything" in my+ without a cooldown.

I'm not sure what he's playing but it sure as hell isn't shaman on a level above heroic raids and mythic+15.

Yeah, pretty sure he's trolling. Ion himself said that shamans have issues that need to be addressed. He's pretty much arguing against Ion at this point.

The problem is those issues aren't going to be addressed until 8.1.

Rofl. You can count on one hand how many class/spec combos were actually present in MDI. Does that mean that 80% of all the classes/specs should just be deleted from the game because they don't get picked for MDI?

MDI =/= every day life of a regular m+ player. You guys should stop looking at MDI when choosing what class/spec to play.

Why would you take an enhancement shaman to a high level m+ over any other melee?

[Kyanion]

Yeah, pretty sure he's trolling. Ion himself said that shamans have issues that need to be addressed. He's pretty much arguing against Ion at this point.

The problem is those issues aren't going to be addressed until 8.1.

Yet he never said what those 'issues' are. It could be something totally different than what you believe they are.

[Wyrt]

Yet he never said what those 'issues' are. It could be something totally different than what you believe they are.

He said it was based on player feedback. Feedback which has been primarily about utility, survivability, or the slowness of resource generation and RNG reliant nature of the rotation. And mobility for elemental specifically.

Seriously, go look at any of the shaman feedback threads here or on the official forums. That's what they'll be about.

[Kyanion]

He said it was based on player feedback. Feedback which has been primarily about utility, survivability, or the slowness of resource generation and RNG reliant nature of the rotation. And mobility for elemental specifically.

Seriously, go look at any of the shaman feedback threads here or on the official forums. That's what they'll be about.

Ah man I can't wait to see what you guys REALLY get in this 8.1 patch. You think you are going to get all that? Get real.

[Wyrt]

Ah man I can't wait to see what you guys REALLY get in this 8.1 patch. You think you are going to get all that? Get real.

Yeah, so silly of shamans to want to be a complete class instead of the halfassed mess it is now.

[Kyanion]

Yeah, so silly of shamans to want to be a complete class instead of the halfassed mess it is now.

Keep thinking that, you guys aren't going to get more utility, more survivability, resource generation, damage on the move and blah blah blah. You might get some of that but to expect ALL of that is fucking funny.

[Wyrt]

Keep thinking that, you guys aren't going to get more utility, more survivability, resource generation, damage on the move and blah blah blah. You might get some of that but to expect ALL of that is fucking funny.

The whole fucking point is we shouldn't have to fucking wait for the fucking first patch for our class to be finished.

[Kyanion]

The whole fucking point is we shouldn't have to fucking wait for the fucking first patch for our class to be finished.

Don't play until 8.1 then.