Big class changes in 8.1

[Byleth]

That sounds morw like an abusive relationship to me. :/

Haha, I guess you're right.

But playing an MMO means you can't always win. I knew this starting out, and I accepted it.

Side note: I would not enter into a RL relationship with the same mindset. Spousal abuse is not ok!

[SoulSoBreezy]

I'm sorry, but I have to aggree with @Re4leader1. It's not really fun to play a class that's so far behind others because Blizzard couldn't be assed to actually finish it in time for launch, especially after this many years of WoW. It's pretty inexcusable.

Having a guild that's still cool can mitigate that a bit, but it doesn't help at all with the enjoyment of playing a class that's unfinished.

And while some DarkSouls challenge mode speed runners might enjoy playing a character under the weakest possible conditions, most people don't. WoW is a progression-based game that relies HEAVILY on improving stats through gear and levels. If your character just CAN'T perform as well(within reason) due to the design - it robs the class, and by extension the game - of some of its fun.

I'm not asserting that my version of fun is right, just that however we decide to enjoy the game isn't some absolute.
I totally don't share the same opinion as others on this site. I'll never figure balance to ever be something close to perfect as long as there's more to look forward to. I get the idea behind chasing the fotm, the roller coaster of emotion that comes with buffs and nerfs. Knowing that, I don't let it burden me.

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For me - competing on meters against my friends is one of the most enjoyable aspects of raiding.

It's a shame that for the whole of Legion, Anger of the Half Giants refused to drop for my Havoc DH. I completed Heroic Antorus and un-subbed without ever getting it.

Which means for the whole expansion - I couldn't compete.

That's specific to Legendaries, to which I think were a blah system that caused many players to feel the same way you do. When it comes to balance though, I found the rollercoaster to be more trouble than it's worth. That's why my guild only raids what it does.
It's a low bar, sure, if you want to see it that way. But it mostly relieves us of worrying about balancing.

[--Code--]

Druids have also got like no attention. It's been my main for a loong time and I was really hoping for some big changes. Bear still remains completely dull and boring. Considering switching to DK or warrior on launch.

[SirCowdog]

I'm not asserting that my version of fun is right, just that however we decide to enjoy the game isn't some absolute.
I totally don't share the same opinion as others on this site. I'll never figure balance to ever be something close to perfect as long as there's more to look forward to. I get the idea behind chasing the fotm, the roller coaster of emotion that comes with buffs and nerfs. Knowing that, I don't let it burden me.

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That's specific to Legendaries, to which I think were a blah system that caused many players to feel the same way you do. When it comes to balance though, I found the rollercoaster to be more trouble than it's worth. That's why my guild only raids what it does.
It's a low bar, sure, if you want to see it that way. But it mostly relieves us of worrying about balancing.

There's a difference between minor tweaks to the performance of super top end raiding, where the differences between classes are barely 2-3% apart....and classes that simply aren't complete, such as a Having DH without the right legendary, or shaman in BfA.

[Re4leader1]

Right.
Now ask yourself which path you want to go down, to take control of your situation or to push Blizzard to change the situation for you.

What..... did you even read the comment? How am I supposed to fix a busted class? That's not my job. I shouldn't be forced to reroll so something else just because I was to play a competitive class and because blizzard is to God damn lazy to fix their mistakes. So yes I fully expect blizzard to fix the situation THEY fucked up in the first place.

[Accendor]

Is it such a strange notion to you that some people will just play the class they love no matter what?

Believe me, I'm well aware how long things can stay broken. But at the end of the day I'm going to play my preferred class no matter what. I'm not going to re-roll to another class then spend a year whining about my original class. I'm going to spend that year enjoying the class I love, because I'll enjoy it even if something is broken. Eventually, usually quickly, sometimes not, the issue gets fixed.

As a Shaman main, I'm well aware of how long the downs in the balancing cycle can take. I've been playing since early BC btw, maybe that's why I have more patience for these things.

I am playing since closed Beta, so I can assure you that this has probably nothing to do with being patient or not ;-)

And hey, if you can enjoy playing a broken class, good for you. I stayed with my warrior for over 10 years and even played him in WoD which was the worst iteration it ever had (except Gladiator-Stance <3 - Gameplay wise, not numbers wise. Fury and Arms were very strong number wise in WoD, but the gameplay was terrible)
Point is: It took them over 2 years to fix the class and even if I stayed with it, I still think this was not ok.

[rda]

Don't get your hopes too high for 8.1, just in case. They will perhaps fix the worst issues, but that's about it, I doubt it will be "the specs are good now", just "ok, maybe the specs are playable".

[Zequill]

I swear, someday I will open a rant post on this forum that will explain with detail what wrong with spec/class and not just use generally vague complain.

Saying spec are unfinished is so wrong. What, you are missing a talent row? One of your spell is NYI?

What the real issue, you didn't get as much changes as other class? Mage got 3 changes and you got 2(fictional exemple)? Losing your weapon make you loose 4 passive and they only gave back 3?

I swear, Blizzard cannot say anything without those forum got flood by dim witted and their own wrong interpretation of quote that should normally be really easy to understand. A Blizzard employ "I like the color green" MMOC OP "Blizzard said they hate the color red, there is not red in green, why would they have said that if they don't hate the color red. The color red is unfinished. I'm going to reroll color".

[SoulSoBreezy]

Your whole post basically amounts to:


I know Blizzard is shit at their job. Despite them being a multi-billion dollar company, I am going to give them a pass on this.

Or you can just take the words at face value.

[Veyne]

Lol shadow needs number tuning

Compared to where Shadow ended at the end of Legion, BfA Shadow's problems are far from just needing a numbers tuning. They pretty much took away everything that most of us found fun about shadow at endgame.

The spec is okay in a vacuum, and if you didn't play it in Legion, you'd probably be fine picking it up in BfA, but feels jumbled and tangled compared to Legion's incarnation.

Definitely a hell of a lot better than their Cataclysm and Mists incarnations (can't speak for Warlords, it's the only expansion I haven't mained shadow).

[SoulSoBreezy]

There's a difference between minor tweaks to the performance of super top end raiding, where the differences between classes are barely 2-3% apart....and classes that simply aren't complete, such as a Having DH without the right legendary, or shaman in BfA.

Good thing Legendaries are gone!
As for shaman, or the other times Blizzard fell off, it feels like enough was admitted and addressed. I can't see how affected players can be "acknowledged more," if that's a thing. Unless Blizzard lets themselves give weekly updates as if players were their supervisors.
I'm sure we'll see the same show of band-aid fixes and tweaks to take the edge off before raids/M+ actually starts followed by whatever client changes that're needed, and in the meantime lots and lots of noise as usual.
Because apart from the spec specific issues there's nothing constructive that'll come out of this broad...well, whining.

[Veyne]

I swear, someday I will open a rant post on this forum that will explain with detail what wrong with spec/class and not just use generally vague complain.

It's hard to put in words for Shadow, because it's all about feeling. There was a certain feedback loop in pushing to get high voidform stacks. There was chaotic, frenetic sensation to the spec. With total voidform stacks being halved (at best) and the haste benefit being halved per stack, it just does not feel the same. With the changes the amount of time Void Bolt adds to our DoTs, DoT management, especially in AoE, feels more like a hassle, especially when forced to refresh a DoT in the middle of a Void Form. The most compelling thing about Void Form now is hitting it for the initial AoE damage.

The biggest problem is that they attempted to address our actual problems (no burst AoE) while addressing a problem we didn't have by nerfing void form. Their intent was to lower the skill ceiling so the difference between an average and an exceptional Shadow Priest wasn't so huge, but in doing so, they nerfed the Fun.

I think, perhaps instead of reducing the the haste per stack, maybe they should've just removed the increased damage per stack. I also feel that Shadow's definitely one of the specs that should've kept their Artifact ability as a baseline ability. And making Shadow Word: Death a talent is just plain silly.

At the end of the day, Shadow Priest theme is still strong, the gameplay just needs some more love and polish, and I'm optimistic for the changes that are coming in 8.1

[RobertoCarlos]

I like how these same threads have been popping up since TBC.

"my class is clunky", "why can't blizzard just finish everything in beta and have everything polished" "ion is the worst lead dev in the history of wow". The only thing that's changed is replace ion's name with ghostcrawler, or tom chilton, or jeff kaplan. This is what blizzard does and what they will always do. It's obviously working because they're still thriving in a dead/dying MMO genre. Maybe if you continue to despise the way blizzard runs the expansions, you should probably just look for another game, because it's not going to change, REGARDLESS of whether it's good or not.

its almost like people expect quality products from a company worth billions

[yjmark]

The biggest problem is that they attempted to address our actual problems (no burst AoE) while addressing a problem we didn't have by nerfing void form. Their intent was to lower the skill ceiling so the difference between an average and an exceptional Shadow Priest wasn't so huge, but in doing so, they nerfed the Fun.

I remember seeing a lot of complaints about voidform. Specifically on how it was very difficult to maintain while doing world content. When you are not in voidform, your DPS is not very good..which seemed like most of the time. Trying to keep voidform up while running between mobs was difficult. Until you were really well geared, it was a very clunky playstyle. I believe that some of what Blizz was trying to do was to make it a little more palatable. BUT, they admittedly did not get a chance to really flesh it out, so I think that your assessment is spot on, and your optimism in 8.1 is well earned.

[SirCowdog]

Good thing Legendaries are gone!
As for shaman, or the other times Blizzard fell off, it feels like enough was admitted and addressed. I can't see how affected players can be "acknowledged more," if that's a thing. Unless Blizzard lets themselves give weekly updates as if players were their supervisors.
I'm sure we'll see the same show of band-aid fixes and tweaks to take the edge off before raids/M+ actually starts followed by whatever client changes that're needed, and in the meantime lots and lots of noise as usual.
Because apart from the spec specific issues there's nothing constructive that'll come out of this broad...well, whining.

Legendaries are gone, but baked into talents at the cost of losing other class abilities! That's not an improvement of the situation.

Acknowledging or apologizing for screwing up doesn't mean jack shit if you KEEP DOING IT. This is a universal concept. At some point Blizzard needs to stop making the same mistakes, and continuing to point that out is not just "whining". Trying to redirect the fault and glaze over the shortcomings of Blizzard by painting legitimate criticism as "whining" is bullshit.

[ShiyoKozuki]

Which has absolutely nothing to do with design and it not being right, which is the entire topic of this thread.

I mean why is it acceptable to people that they can expansion after expansion not do what they should be doing in alpha/beta?

Alpha/beta is literally just for marketing. No real testing gets done,

[RobertoCarlos]

Legendaries are gone, but baked into talents at the cost of losing other class abilities! That's not an improvement of the situation.

Acknowledging or apologizing for screwing up doesn't mean jack shit if you KEEP DOING IT. This is a universal concept. At some point Blizzard needs to stop making the same mistakes, and continuing to point that out is not just "whining". Trying to redirect the fault and glaze over the shortcomings of Blizzard by painting legitimate criticism as "whining" is bullshit.

I agree with you but it worked out pretty well for fire and frost mage. Their talents are quite interesting now with some of the legendaries. Shame its not the same for all specs/classes

[SoulSoBreezy]

Legendaries are gone, but baked into talents at the cost of losing other class abilities! That's not an improvement of the situation.

Acknowledging or apologizing for screwing up doesn't mean jack shit if you KEEP DOING IT. This is a universal concept. At some point Blizzard needs to stop making the same mistakes, and continuing to point that out is not just "whining". Trying to redirect the fault and glaze over the shortcomings of Blizzard by painting legitimate criticism as "whining" is bullshit.

I don't believe they'll stop (screwing up) until they're done patching the game.

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I'd rather take them at their underlying meaning.
Which is that you know Blizzard are shit developers and they have not once in 14 years been able to get it even close to "right". But you'll give them a pass and play it anyway.

No, I mean what I say, otherwise I'd type that.
I'll leave this thread; clearly there's no discussion to be had. Your comments clearly indicate you enjoy twisting words like you're talking to yourself, as opposed to understanding how other critics/players react.

[SirCowdog]

I don't believe they'll stop (screwing up) until they're done patching the game.

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And when will that be? Never, until the game is retired or enough players stop paying them for sub-standard quality.

And most definitely not by customers rolling over and ignoring or accepting it.

[Anaphaze]

its almost like people expect quality products from a company worth billions

But why? Why would you expect something they have NEVER been able to pull off? Either they're too lazy, or mmo development is too hard, and it doesn't matter which one. They CAN NOT meet this expectation, so why do people assume every single expansion that they will, and are again let down when they don't?

Fool me once, shame you on. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 7 times????

This should just be something people expect from blizzard at this point. There will ALWAYS be a few classes that aren't finished in beta, and get revamps in the .1 (sometimes even the .2) patches. It will usually be the same classes (ele/enh shaman, spriest, ret, ect.) This is just WoW. If you truly honestly get this bent out of shape over something they've been doing the same way for over 10 years, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, it sucks that some classes will get reworked midway through in an expansion. But the bitching every expansion about how terrible it is is just a waste of time. There are bigger issues with BFA that need to be addressed.