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

[MalfLFT]

That only ever applied to the more casual difficulties of the game. The more difficult parts of the game required you to min/max like you're seeing in the higher keys of Mythic+ or Mythic raiding.

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Enhance Shaman, Elemental Shaman and Shadow Priest really are in the dumpster regardless of what people want to believe. There's no reason to ever take them to anything right now. Can you complete the content with these classes? Of course.

Lol, first of All, All 3 you mention Are good in pvp and enh and shadow is fking great Even. For pve i did 2 high Keys yesterday, an 11 and a 13, in both i had an enh shaman(not the same One) and both fucked up the meters, while bringing a good amount of utility. If you think that shamans Are shit dps then you either suck, dont play One, or just buy too much into the rumors. You Are wrong, malfadin-EU sylvanas btw if you wanna check the runs on Io

[Jibjub]

First of all, since when is doing LFR succeeding at the game? You're talking about a crowd who thinks wow is a single player game, who avoid anything that is even remotely challenging. These people don't understand what type of game they are playing or what's going on around them. When you just smash your head onto the keyboard until you get epics class balance doesn't matter.

Secondly what do guilds have to do with class balancing? It's still the same classes, the same mechanics and the same game, Shadow Priest DPS or Prot Warrior survivability doesn't get buffed through friendship and love. The content that relies most on guilds, mythic raiding, actually suffers more/most with class balance, not less.

First - this a huge pool of players that have been removed from smaller guilds to recruit and do regular raiding. I was a guild leader of a small guild through the inception of LFD and LFR. believe me. It had HUGE Impacts. Games are complex ecosystems... they must be observed as a whole and not as individual systems that have no impact on each other. You are also over-generalizing players who choose to primarily raid in LFR. A path of least resistance was introduced and that path did not require any social interaction ... that is devastating to guilds.

Second - its a side effect. Unless a spec is just downright broken (head and shoulders worse than everything else) then you can succeed with any class. But you need a strong community that respects players as more than just numbers. You need a strong guild. We do not have a strong community. We do not have strong guilds. Ever since Wrath, we have a go-go-go community.

Third - Your last sentence proves me right. The devaluing of the guild by devaluing the social fabric of the game has also made class balance not as important. It effects everything in the game, even design philosophies. Once the Guild was no longer a necessity to "succeed" then there isn't much need to have great class balance, from the devs perspective.

[Kynario]

Still better than Vanilla...

Where it's: don't bring the player, don't bring the class, but bring the SPEC.

[AngryTenko]

Rogues are better in both PvE and PvP than almost every single other Melee.

What are Rogues bad at? They have it all.

Good ST, good cleave, decent AoE. Good defensives, good self heals. They can cheese mechanics. They have immunities. They bring stuns, slows. They bring group utility.




Why would you bring an Ele Shaman over a Mage/Warlock? You woudn't.

They are the only pure melee dps class in the game. With no option of speccing tank/heals/ranged, rogues very well should be the best melee class or no one would ever choose them for anything.

[Cracked]

It was never a thing.

[owbu]

Blizzard tried to make the classes so similar to each other that you can hardly distinguish them from each other and it had about 0 effect on player behaviour.
They still picked one combo that worked and declared everything else not viable. Its some primal human instinct that blizzard has no control over.
So they decided that if players bring the class anyways, wether that has any basis in reality or not, they might as well make classes interesting again.

[Alphatorg]

First - this a huge pool of players that have been removed from smaller guilds to recruit and do regular raiding. I was a guild leader of a small guild through the inception of LFD and LFR. believe me. It had HUGE Impacts. Games are complex ecosystems... they must be observed as a whole and not as individual systems that have no impact on each other. You are also over-generalizing players who choose to primarily raid in LFR. A path of least resistance was introduced and that path did not require any social interaction ... that is devastating to guilds.

You're arguing as if LFR and other raid difficulties are equal. But they aren't. LFR is something else entirely from regular raids, it's less effort for less reward and a lesser experience. There are still plenty of incentives for people to join a guild and socialize (numerous whine thread on MMO-C on M+ groups alone show this), if they don't do it it's because of their personality, not because LFD or LFR brain washed them, infact I reckon most of these solo players were toxic materials in guilds anyway, who sooner or later quit or got kicked, because of their egoistic ways.

I still don't see what this has to do with class balance though.

Second - its a side effect. Unless a spec is just downright broken (head and shoulders worse than everything else) then you can succeed with any class. But you need a strong community that respects players as more than just numbers. You need a strong guild. We do not have a strong community. We do not have strong guilds. Ever since Wrath, we have a go-go-go community.

Third - Your last sentence proves me right. The devaluing of the guild by devaluing the social fabric of the game has also made class balance not as important. It effects everything in the game, even design philosophies. Once the Guild was no longer a necessity to "succeed" then there isn't much need to have great class balance, from the devs perspective.

If anything the devaluation of guilds makes classe balance matter more, because in the absence of social factors the criteria that are applied to invite people to groups are solely focused on numbers, when selecting from a pool of random strangers you just look for the guy who promises you the best output.

[meowfurion]

Try being a feral. The gear you need is locked away behind M+ runs. You can't go on the runs because you don't have the gear you need and get declined. You get declined because feral and low gearscore. No matter how well you play your class, you'll never 'look' like you're doing amazing DPS because classes with one button can top meters with their ridiculous AOE abilities (looking at DH and Mages). Nobody bothers to check single target.

So you get declined, declined, declined. Even in your guild that wants ilvl 360 or better to do whatever run. And around and around you go.

I had hope that the buffs would help for my spec, but they haven't. The damage has already been socially done. There's no coming back from it.

[Jibjub]

You're arguing as if LFR and other raid difficulties are equal. But they aren't. LFR is something else entirely from regular raids, it's less effort for less reward and a lesser experience. There are still plenty of incentives for people to join a guild and socialize (numerous whine thread on MMO-C on M+ groups alone show this), if they don't do it it's because of their personality, not because LFD or LFR brain washed them, infact I reckon most of these solo players were toxic materials in guilds anyway, who sooner or later quit or got kicked, because of their egoistic ways.

I still don't see what this has to do with class balance though.

I think you are grossly overestimating the average player.

It doesn't have much to do with class balance on its own. It has to do with 2 things: Player Mentality and Design Philosophy, both of which help create the situation described in the OP. Like I said, it's a delicate ecosystem. Most things have a larger impact on the whole, especially over longer periods of time. When guilds are the CORE social unit in an MMO, then balance seems less important. You take "the player" and not "the class" because symbiosis is achieved (unless a class is COMPLETELY borked -- we often times over-dramatize and misuse the word "viable"). They player NEEDS the guild to succeed and the Guild benefits from loyal, trusted players to achieve consistent success as well. The more systems that are put in place that compromise this relationship (and LFD/LFR are just two of many over the years), these relationships break down. I will take a shadow priest with less DPS because we have been raiding together for 6 years. We will make it work and we will enjoy success together. I will not take a shadow priest DPS if you are nothing more than a commodity and I can find a class that brings more to the raid. When you do not support the social aspect of game with EVERY SINGLE system, then this is the only result.

I can tell you for a fact, running a successful guild has only gotten harder over the years because players no longer /need/ guilds--a deliberate design decision made by Blizzard.

If anything the devaluation of guilds makes classe balance matter more, because in the absence of social factors the criteria that are applied to invite people to groups are solely focused on numbers, when selecting from a pool of random strangers you just look for the guy who promises you the best output.

I agree. It matters more to the minority of players (ironically, those who valued the stronger social structure). But it doesn't matter to Blizzard and a majority of players. Why? Because you can just hop into LFR to "see the content." Blizzard devs have already been quoted on record saying that LFR is the only reason they spend resources on raids anymore (since such a low population usually raid otherwise). Blizzard would say, "unless you are competing for world firsts (which we do not design around), any class is viable. Find a group of friends and you will succeed! (Or join LFR)" And the community says, "Don't waste my times if you can't hit these numbers. Go join LFR if you want to play XX Class." There is a disconnect between the two. And the main culprit, in my opinion, is the destruction of the Guild.

[Loveliest]

I think they did mention they wanted to go back to 'bring the class not the player'.
It's the first time I'm actually a bit annoyed but the design of some things - and mostly, how much harder some encounters can be without a specific class. DK tank at Zek'voz. Warlock & monk at G'huun. Rogue in Tol Dagor. Not sure, it's never annoyed me before but now it does.

[dayne87]

"Bring the player not the class" is still around, at least for MOST content. Yes, when you get into Mythic+ or Mythic raiding it might be less prevalent, but if you compare Classic or even BC with retail you'll see that homogenization is still around to some extent.

Back in Classic there was one Main Tank (Warriors). Paladins or Druids could maybe tank in lower level dungeons but at 60 they were generally only healers or sub-par DPS. Over the expansions Blizz has largely removed the hybrid tax and made every spec VIABLE (for 99% of content), which is actually why I am starting to not look forward to Classic coming back.

Anyway, aside from player-selected high end content (anything with Mythic in the name), every spec is viable for the roles they have and the game is better for it.

[Irian]

"Bring the player, not the class" is and always has been the dumbest thing you could possibly say in an MMORPG. It's that destructive developer mindset that led to these nauseatingly homogenized class designs that revolve around "you have an aoe filler, a single target filler, some big hits on short CDs and an offensive CD" crap we have now.

The sooner "Bring the player, not the class" dies the game will be better off. Put the onus on Blizzard to design a game where the classes are all desired in some way, which they haven't because the current class design team is incompetent.

[Tortuga234]

Mention a singel class(not specc) Class, that is actually not viable? Thats right, you cannot. For that matter, unless you are cutting edge every single specc is viable.

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Anyone who played back then knows, I will not waste my time finding the MoP class kits but its just factually true, if you have a hard time believing it, look it up. Every single class had some sort of buble, +2 mobility spells, +2 heals(even wars and shit) and the list goes on and on.

Shadow Priest. My mythic raiding guild rofled at me so hard when i suggested to switch from disc cuz 6 healers on an encounter is too much.
I have 1k rio still get declined as dps role to a key higher than 5.

Feral druid. Prot war. MM hunter. Shaman.

And im sorry specc is important.
I have only one dps specc. I do not want to be a healer. I don't, the gameplay isn't for me. I want to play a priest, though. And I am not viable.

[darklogrus]

Im sure its sharing the same space in the back of the drawer along with, "We want players to equip their new gear and forget about it, We don't want people to have to rely on 3rd party sites to figure out which item is better." As with many other once used reasoning.

[TOM_RUS]

At least classes were fun when "Bring the player not the class" was a thing.

[Loveliest]

Playing fotm classes may be the thing to do when doing really high keys like +17's and so on but the problem is people copy the top pushers and only pick certain classes when doing +11's and 12's.

That's because if a class is good enough to push for a 17, it's gonna be better at an 11 or 12 than one who isn't.

[Ealyssa]

Jesus, There is still not a single class that is unviable.

Good luck finding PUGs for MM+ when playing protwarrior or shadow priest...

And yes, I know a few god players have some achievement with prot warrior. But that's the outlier, not the norm. People will follow the norm.

And to answer the topic. What I find extremly stupid is that while Blizzard advocate that "Bring the player not the classe went to far, you sometime should need to bring the class", they at the same time bring freaking buff scrolls back into the game...

-Warriors are "not good" for MM+ ?
-Yes but they bring AP buff. Oh wait, don't care about warriors I can buy the AP buff from the AH

Like what the actual fuck were they thinking ?

[Loveliest]

Not gonna read through seven pages, so apologies if this has been said.

The real culprit here is cross-realm tech (LFD and LFR), which has devalued the Guild. Once a player no longer needs a Guild to succeed, then the ultimate side-effect is that players become commodities. They are numbers to fill a roster. There is no symbiosis between player and guild. The guild is the fundamental core of an MMO. Once that has been made superfluous, no other social structures can remain standing.

LFD and LFR might be great for the game. They might have kept subs up. Who knows. But they did destroy the social fabric of the game. And you can't eat your cake and have it too.

I like your post and somewhat agree with it. Only LFD and LFR are for the very low end players, while the talk here is about 'viability' in high end M+ and Mythic raids. Mythic raids, for example, are still tied to your realm and pretty much to your guild.

[Aleksej89]

"Bring the player not the class" could work if blizzard wasn't absolutely incompetent at balancing and lazy with class design.
If every class had unique and semi-unique utility and overall capability/mobility that was at least roughly balanced the vast majority of the raids would not mind taking whoever is up for the job.

Yea the top 5% of guilds would only stack the most OP (nothing new) but the vast majority would pay less attention to the class picks and more to how good/fun the player is.
It goes without saying that designs such as Elemental (completely lacking mobility and having awful self defense and no truly useful unique utility) should never exist in any game environment.

But blizzard put lobotomized monkeys in charge of class design and balancing for BFA hence frankly no concept will work properly.

[Deleted]

Yeah, the return of buffs was dumb. It makes classes mandatory.

But some of the devs are just thick sometimes. I don't know why they felt the need to incur on the same mistakes again.

Only way to solve this is to give everyone a buff or remove them. Funnily enough, these are situations we already went through. Not sure what they hope to achieve by repeating these mistakes. Just remove buffs/debuffs or spread them around. This can't work any other way.