What ever happened to "Bring the player not the class"

[StayTuned]

he clearly QQ'd about dps dh's, not tanks derp, but if you wanna be all petty you can scroll up abit theres another

I'm just pointing it out. I don't really have a problem with all of this.... There are bigger issues in this game

[Exkrementor]

Thankfully they gave some underrepresented classes some nice utility. Mages for example can now buff every caster in the raid for 10%. Nobody would ever take a mage if not for that buff. Shamans on the other hand got nothing but they are always so good that they have pretty much a safe raidslot.

[Tantypops]

As an ele shaman main since TBC days, maybe I should remind that "Bring the Player not the Class" became the new paradigm because classes brough numerous dps utilities besides their damage. It was eventually like this: for our 25 man raid, we need 1 enh, 1 feral for the melee group, 1 ele, 1 moonkin, 1 sp for the warlocks, another sp for the healers, and as many shamans as you can fit to roll the party-wide BL. "Pure" damage classes of the days rioted and got what they wished, everyone does similar dps while bringing limited raid-wide buffs. Was it in MoP that we had the "8/8 Group Buffs active" icon on our buffs list?

We have another dynamic now, if you want to do anything close to bleeding edge content, you will reroll and you will enjoy it. While we used to make fun of "FotM" rerollers, it is expected by the devs too even if they are scared to admit it.

[Enrif]

"bring the player not the class" should be the better way, but how it was implemented was what people complained about. Homogenization is bad.

All Classes/Specs should be viable and every one should have its pro's and con's and only the player behind it should make them overcome those con's and even shine better in the pro's.
But thats a balancing nightmare.

With 12classes/36 Specs it's hard to do. And if we look how different those are it's even harder. Homogenization is the cheap way out, but the wrong way.

If you play class X you as the player should never be punished for playing that class. If you are punished, the game devs made bad decisions and need to fix them. Or create opportunities in content design. Affixes in M+ could be great to encourage some classes/Specs, while being detrimental to others. But those Affixes(or something like ti) would have to spread to others content as well.

[Tantypops]

Thankfully they gave some underrepresented classes some nice utility. Mages for example can now buff every caster in the raid for 10%. Nobody would ever take a mage if not for that buff. Shamans on the other hand got nothing but they are always so good that they have pretty much a safe raidslot.

Please admit that this is either bait or sarcasm, shamans being required because they are "so good" was _never_ a thing.

[Thelyron]

Is really some spec non viable? Sub-optimal? Sure..Not Viable?
(x) Doubt

Elemental Shamans and Shadow Priests are absolute gutter tier garbage.

[ceall]

so basically people are forced to play something they dont like over something they enjoy just to be viable? I thought games were supposed to be fun. If literally no one will group with you because you enjoy Prot Warrior or Shaman then whats the point of even playing? Im having trouble finding a reason to log in every day because I main Shadow Priest, Shaman, and enjoy PvP with my DK. All of those are shit right now. So why should I be forced to play something else I dont enjoy? Obviously someone is going to come along and think they are cool and reply "No one is forcing you to play something else" Well actually they are. if I cant get groups based on the classes I enjoy playing then YES I am being forced to play something else. I mean I dont really enjoy sitting in Boralus all day long spamming group requests just to get denied based on my class.

I saw SP becoming trash tier in alpha, that's why I switched to havoc for bfa after being SP from wrath til legion (yes, I've endured the crazy shit that wod was).

Still waiting for the 8.1 rework to come on the ptr to even start thinking about going back to my first main ever. I don't have high hopes though.

[Rotted]

Only slightly related,

But hats off to the discs who play Mythic +. I heal as a disc in our guild raids, I avg 14k hps without breaking a sweat but on healing intense fights I've had 20-24k down on the data at the end of it.

I can't even heal a friken +2 as disc

- - - Updated - - -

I saw SP becoming trash tier in alpha, that's why I switched to havoc for bfa after being SP from wrath til legion (yes, I've endured the crazy shit that wod was).

Still waiting for the 8.1 rework to come on the ptr to even start thinking about going back to my first main ever. I don't have high hopes though.

Playing shadow as my main.

If you're only doing Hc, it isn't that big of a issue. We have two of us in the team, the other guy pushes for top dps quite often and I come in around 4-6th. We have had a flat 20% buff to a few abilities and I believe mind flay and mind sear had something last week. But on the grape vine it sounds like we're getting so much needed TLC for 8.1 and the current changes have just been place holder to keep us semi relevant (RIP Elemental shamans)

[willemh]

You can easily farm 10's with any class setup, anything above that is only important for really serious M+ pushers, and doesnt influence gear etc. at all.

From really serious M+ pushers it's not too much to ask to form a proper setup, based on whatever works best at a given time and maybe reroll 1-2 times per expansion.

And once again, if you can't get into pugs, make your own groups, it's as simple as that. List your key, find people, run your M+, if those people turn out to be nice players add them to your friendlist so you can invite them again. Profit.

[Noxina]

I said Marksman, not Surv. BM is ez and good, thats well known.

Rsham got nerfed in PVP, Enh is like unholy dk.

"Enh is like unholy dk." wat? How? wat? Both DK specs are trash tier in PvP right now, because you can simply just blow them up instantly. Enh got healing, a wall and amazing damage.

UH DK representation above 2.4k 3v3: 0.4%
Enh Sham representation above 2.4k 3v3: 5.44%

https://thelootdistrict.com/pvpstats...v3&rating=2400

[Cov]

I "bring the player, not the class" since the beginning of the game. good thing about it, that I basically still play in the same guild since vanilla. And I know I can play with the same guys in a month, in a year and maybe in 5 years. The best thing about m+ is that I can have interesting fight and good evenings with them. Maybe "a number" is different from another team, that is looking for the ideal class comb. But to be honest, my gaming experience is not defined by the number on the key, but on how well we play together in order to reach a common goal.

Guardian druid here who is proud of the last 11 in time. Would the key be higher when I rerolled a blood dk? Maybe. The amount of effort I put into the game and the amount of cooperation with the other 4 team members would be the same as we also would play some m+ where the timer is closed. So in that sense the satisfaction I get from it, would also be the same.

[Aeula]

Blizzard 180'd on it and gave us the current era of class design instead.

You can see how it's working out.

[Torrasque]

I prefer "Bring the player, not the class." Skill should be the highest value of a player, period. Along side that, you should be able to bring your friends regardless of their class. This is a social game, forcing people into cookie-cutter class segmented groups is not only against the social aspects of this game, but also forces friends of the same class to not play with each other or force them to play different classes in order to group together effectively.

[Trumpcat]

The concept is gone along with Ghostcrawler and I couldn't be happier. Playing the same class with different cosmetics is not fun.

[marulol]

I think we can all agree that dh is op. Their toolkit is just too good for dungeon play. Burst aoe on a short CD, immunity, aoe stun, purge, able to kite, darkness. It's actually insane how good they are at everything right now.

[exochaft]

"bring the player not the class" should be the better way, but how it was implemented was what people complained about. Homogenization is bad.

All Classes/Specs should be viable and every one should have its pro's and con's and only the player behind it should make them overcome those con's and even shine better in the pro's.
But thats a balancing nightmare.

With 12classes/36 Specs it's hard to do. And if we look how different those are it's even harder. Homogenization is the cheap way out, but the wrong way.

If you play class X you as the player should never be punished for playing that class. If you are punished, the game devs made bad decisions and need to fix them. Or create opportunities in content design. Affixes in M+ could be great to encourage some classes/Specs, while being detrimental to others. But those Affixes(or something like ti) would have to spread to others content as well.

That's the thing, you can have non-homogenized classes/specs and still have "Bring the player, not the class", it's just really hard to do with the amount of classes and specs. I think that's the great lie, that homogenization is the only way to achieve that stated goal... it's certainly the easiest way to achieve it, but not the only way. On the other side of things, non-homogenization can lead to some very bad imbalance, because then you are forced to compare apples to oranges to pineapples to spinach to whatever.

Here's my problem: when a class/spec is always too good in most situations or almost always has the right package for the job. Another way of stating this issue is that there are not enough cons or downsides that matter to a class/spec. When you start running into classes/specs like this, you feel like you're playing the game incorrectly or making things unnecessarily hard on yourself. There's a fine line between 'viable' and 'desirable', and I worry sometimes that Blizz defines 'viable' as performing well in one specific instances versus a more balanced approach. I say this because over all the years I've played this game, I see some of the same design mistakes made over and over (admitted by the devs themselves) yet it takes making that mistake multiple times to learn from it, assuming anything has been learned at all.

[Holofernes]

as a fire mage in my todays 10 run i had to struggle hard to beat the prot warrior on dmg done overall. the resto shaman did his job well. its only for the reallllly top stuff where u nead ideal classes to push the limits, for random blobs that only do a +10 weekly every sane setup is fine.

[OokOok]

so basically people are forced to play something they dont like over something they enjoy just to be viable? I thought games were supposed to be fun. If literally no one will group with you because you enjoy Prot Warrior or Shaman then whats the point of even playing? Im having trouble finding a reason to log in every day because I main Shadow Priest, Shaman, and enjoy PvP with my DK. All of those are shit right now. So why should I be forced to play something else I dont enjoy? Obviously someone is going to come along and think they are cool and reply "No one is forcing you to play something else" Well actually they are. if I cant get groups based on the classes I enjoy playing then YES I am being forced to play something else. I mean I dont really enjoy sitting in Boralus all day long spamming group requests just to get denied based on my class.

Your name is lilly, you get denied based on your gender, not your class darlin

[kamuimac]

Looking over the high Mythic+ comps it its literally the same thing every single run. For every comp it seems like Blood DK, Havoc, Sin are 100% mandatory. For Healers Disc or MW is mandatory. So this leaves no room for any other tanks of healers at all. The final DPS spot seems to be a tossup between Frost or Boomkin with the random Lock or Hunter making an appearance every now and then. Seems like Shamans, Paladins, and Warriors arent allowed at all. So is it just me or did Blizzard recently prune like 20 specs out of the game? Where is the fun and creativity if people literally run the same thing over and over and over again.

it died.

some time ago blizzard admited it was a mistake thus they dont do anything to counter stuff like people bringing 6 rogues to zul .

they dont care anymore.

[klaps_05]

im not talking about Method type guilds. People not even doing cutting edge Mythic kills are starting to adopt the idea that classes are shit just because Method didnt use them.

Its just meta - this exists in all competitive games. people whine there are fotm classes, blizzard makes nearly all classes the same, people whine every class is the same, blizzard buffs some classes, vicious circle.

the blizzard meta for both pve and pvp is that it IS bring the player not the class. However, as a player you are expected to be able to master ANY spec. Greatest example of this is 3v3 - before each player was known for playing 1 spec and being the best at it. Nowadays if a healer isnt playing every heal class in arena he is way behind. Same goes for pve, raid stacking, m+, etc.