Has Class Design Moved In a Positive Direction Since WoD?

[Wildberry]

So, I think it's pretty clear at this point that WoD was a time when Blizzard tried to reinvent the wheel, especially regarding Class Design.

While there were pretty big shifts in class design from, say, WotLK to Cataclysm, there is, generally speaking, more continuity between the pre-WoD expansions and post-WoD expansions.

WoD really marked a new level of class design. Pruning happened. Since then, we've seen them continue to remove abilities while slapping on un-compelling band-aids like Legendaries, Artifacts/Azerite, etc. Things that served to patch over the gaps of classes and complete them, rather than accent them.

So I'm kind of curious, which type of class design do you guys prefer? Pre-WoD (Classic-MoP) or Post-WoD (WoD-BfA)?

And please, detail in the comments which expansions you thought your class(es) were best in. For me it's:
Warrior:
Fury-MoP
Arms-MoP
Prot-N/A

Death Knight:
Frost-WotLK 3.1
Unholy-WotLK 3.3
Blood-WotLK 3.1

Demon Hunter:
Havoc-Legion (lol)
Vengeance-N/A

[WowIsDead64]

Blizzards' goal - to allow new players play this game without 3rd party guides. And let's be honest. Back in old days talents and rotations weren't so obvious, that we were able to pick them without any guidance. Some classes were overcomplicated, i.e. had too many buttons to pick from, such as some PVP-related abilities, that aren't needed in PVE. And Blizzard have accomplished this goal. Bad thing: making mechanics easier to understand and nerfing them - are two completely different things. For example: 1) When BM Hunter's tanking pet loses AOE aggro - it's nerf. 2) When WW Monk loses his healing tea - it's nerf.

[HordeFanboy]

I wish I could play my full arp wotlk warrior once again

Currently we have class butchering not designing

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I prefer my classs (pally hunter) more now then I ever did from cata-wod. Both felt really good in tbc and wrath but with cata hunters were gutted and started there move into focus which I was not a fan of. Pallys also had a stupid combo point system which made them feel horrible. Between hunters losing ammo mana and other flavour things and Pallys being butchered with holy power I dropped my two Preferred classes picking them up again every expan before puting them down because they felt bad.

With legion hunters got better with the theme changes making sv its own distinct thing and giving mm marks, Pallys also got way better with prot and holy losing holy power finally getting rid of the stupd Combo points. Bfa has again improved on both of you ask me with Pallys having the changes to consecration making prot feel better, losing the judgment window which helps ret even though it’s stil plagued by combo points, and holy getting minor changes. Hunters have also been slightly improved with sv being made less clunky and mm being changed up again even though i liked the marks.

[Deleted]

@WowIsDead64 why remove fun abilities if you just want to trim down the rotations? Those weren't part of the rotation to begin with. Also the pruning in WoD was done to have space for new abilities instead we got even more pruning and a new interface that gives me a strong console/MOBA vibe with its default settings.

Hopefully 8.1 will change some of these things but I don't really expect it. As my main is a shadow priest my expectations are pretty low in regards to sensible class design.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Blizzards' goal - to allow new players play this game without 3rd party guides. And let's be honest. Back in old days talents and rotations weren't so obvious, that we were able to pick them without any guidance. Some classes were overcomplicated, i.e. had too many buttons to pick from, such as some PVP-related abilities, that aren't needed in PVE. And Blizzard have accomplished this goal. Bad thing: making mechanics easier to understand and nerfing them - are two completely different things. For example: 1) When BM Hunter's tanking pet loses AOE aggro - it's nerf. 2) When WW Monk loses his healing tea - it's nerf.

I don't agree with this. Instead of taking buttons away, they should have pushed for learning. Trying out your abilities on trash and in dungeons isn't bad thing. That way you can sync your playstyle to whatever is funnest or most efficient or high damage or whatever.

Why did they need to remove so many buttons? How did that fix anything? Surely some classes had WAY TOO MUCH. But I don't think all did.

[digichi]

Hmm, I think I enjoyed when ferals still had mangle and the option of shred behind a target... when bear tanks had the stackable dot ability (lacerate I think) and we didn't play like a paladin keeping active mitigation up, but rather could use a lot of our rage straight up on offense like maul, mangle was our big hitter and generated a LOT of rage, renzied regen was on a much longer cd for emergencies only and siphoned all of your rage, and we didn't have to juggle defensives like ironfur nonstop (which reminds me of sotr and paladino's. Which isn't bad for paladins, but I like some fundamental changes in classes.)

I find it hard to pinpoint, but a commonality I've found between a lot of classes is just waiting for cooldowns to feel cool, rather than having that one hard hitting ability that really defined a class and you knew would REALLY blow mobs up when you saw it coming (lava burst, chaos bolt, divine storm). There's nothing wrong with some specs being more CD dependant, but it's very saturated at the moment. I remember in wotlk at some point, after or during ulduar, rogues and their envenom spec with the poisons felt pretty good as well. You kept up your buff, your bleed on the target, and mixed in your REALLY hard hitter. I think it was the most finishers you had to play with in my memory, but it worked well and felt different to a satisfying point. Applying poisons in general/making them was fun imo too.

[Mafic]

99% of raid azerite traits are identical to leveling azerite traits. Three expansions of pruning and this is what WoW has become aka zero progression system.

[Deleted]

Class design peaked in Wrath, it's really as simple as that.

[WowIsDead64]

I don't agree with this. Instead of taking buttons away, they should have pushed for learning. Trying out your abilities on trash and in dungeons isn't bad thing. That way you can sync your playstyle to whatever is funnest or most efficient or high damage or whatever.

Why did they need to remove so many buttons? How did that fix anything? Surely some classes had WAY TOO MUCH. But I don't think all did.

I would put excessive buttons to three categories:
1) Extra rotation buttons, players need to pick from. In most cases players just can't make their own choice, as such choice requires large amount of testing, theorycrafting and even simulation.
2) Extra utility buttons, that are situational, but players always want to bind them, cuz there is no time to rebind them every time, they're needed. This causes button bloat.
3) This is old problem, but we should list it here too: buttons from other specs, that aren't intended to be used by all specs, but players don't know it and try to use everything, they have. Also causes button bloat.

And in most cases players were relying on 3rd party guides to sort things out. I'm very experienced player - I have been playing this game since Vanilla. And even I had to read some 3rd party guides at start of every xpack. Blizzard wanted their game to provide all necessary information to successfully play it. And since Legion I don't need to do it, so they've accomplished this goal.

Problem is - some classes were already perfect back in WOD. Paladins for example. And further pruning only made this classes worse - more bland and boring. For example putting instant heals on CD back in Legion - was plain nerf of Paladins survivability, that has always been iconic feature of this class.