Bring the player not the class

[AceofH]

They've mentioned that they've dropped that ideology because it lead to a great deal of class homogenization. Their goal now is to give each class an area where they shine, and obvious weaknesses, so you can seek out specific roles for your team.

I do a lot of M+, so, as an example, there are some affixes that prefer some classes. Demon Hunters are generally considered great because of their massive AoE damage and decent single target. However there are weeks where you need burst, single target, or the ability to hold back AoE, which is where Demon Hunter lags behind. Bolstering comes to mind. Lots of dungeons with pulls where there are a bunch of weaker mobs around a big mob. Demon Hunters can basically do no damage during those pulls since most of their damage is also cleave/AoE.

Then they should return to the days of old. Bring back buffs and truly diverse utility.
Not everyone needs to be able to aoe.
Make decursing/dispelling/cleansing a thing again.
Make interrupting on a boss fight a possibility again.

They need to actually unhomogenize classes. Look back to burning crusade and how classes were designed.

[dakalro]

It used to be that a player was a class, even spec.
Modern WoW assumes players can switch specs and class at the drop of a dime

Except Ion keeps on adding obstacles to keeping the specs on an even playing field - Azerite outer ring and Azerite respecs. Legion and BFA were the worst expansions to play multiple specs so far.

[Kralljin]

Then they should return to the days of old. Bring back buffs and truly diverse utility.
Not everyone needs to be able to aoe.
Make decursing/dispelling/cleansing a thing again.
Make interrupting on a boss fight a possibility again.

They need to actually unhomogenize classes. Look back to burning crusade and how classes were designed.

The problem isn't that those situations no longer exist, the problem is that too many classes can do it.

Interrupts are a great example, if you want to go back to BC regarding that, then Guardian / Feral Druids don't have an interrupt, Ret / Prot Pallies no longer have an interrupt, Hunter has no interrupt.

Point in fact, you need to remove abilities to "unhomogenize" classes, which however feeds into the problem of pruning.

[KaPe]

They need to actually unhomogenize classes. Look back to burning crusade and how classes were designed.

Look at Burning Crusade and how we had 3 less classes and 5 more raid spots at the highest difficulty. You can't give everyone something that's "needed", it's a massive headache for those who don't have army of alts/horde of willing recruits with "proper" specs. It's already strange that there aren't any scroll to replicate +%dmg taken debuffs, adding any more of that stuff would be even worse.

[AceofH]

The problem isn't that those situations no longer exist, the problem is that too many classes can do it.

Interrupts are a great example, if you want to go back to BC regarding that, then Guardian / Feral Druids don't have an interrupt, Ret / Prot Pallies no longer have an interrupt, Hunter has no interrupt.

Point in fact, you need to remove abilities to "unhomogenize" classes, which however feeds into the problem of pruning.

Interrupts was a bad choice because I forgot everyone has one these days because we never use them.

But what about cleansing/dispells/decursing.
Besides that was just some spitballing. Honestly with the exception of retribution dps I think burning crusade was perfect for design. You wanted everything in a raid. Yeah you might only have 1 enhance but so what? In a raid with only 25 slots and 9 classes with 27 specs how many did you think you were getting?

[chooi]

I agree this would fix the utility ''bring the spec'' problem, but in order to fix the ''bring the player'' part, the rotations need to have more depth than they do now because there needs to be a clear difference between someone who plays his class right and someone who plays it ''ok'', aswell as classes being able to do everything rather than some specific things A LOT better than others, and i think MoP had a good balance of that.

Wait wut? Where did this suddenly come from? "Bring the player" is still intact or we would not see tremendous differences between players of same spec and comparable gear at same boss. This is obviously not even including cheesed/padded parses.

OP was complaining about class-specific utility being required for certain encounters. Suddenly that turned towards "but I can't parse high with class X on boss Y"´which is also wrong because you have spec-specific parses. So if Affliction is terrible on boss Y in comparison to other specs then all Affliction WLs will be terrible at that fight but you can still be the highest parsing Affliction WL. You just need a willing raid to help you out on farm content. You would have to massively homogenize and streamline all specs across the board to have ultimate balance on every fight. But if we go in that territory we could just get rid of all classes/specs and introduce four new classes: Tank, Healer, Melee DPS and Ranged DPS.

[AceofH]

Look at Burning Crusade and how we had 3 less classes and 5 more raid spots at the highest difficulty. You can't give everyone something that's "needed", it's a massive headache for those who don't have army of alts/horde of willing recruits with "proper" specs. It's already strange that there aren't any scroll to replicate +%dmg taken debuffs, adding any more of that stuff would be even worse.

In burning crusade the only problems you pretty much wanted 1 of every hybrid dps spec (except ret. And mages But I already said that should be fixed), and you fleshed it out from there. It was a great system imho. You brought
everything.

[Kralljin]

But what about cleansing/dispells/decursing.

Offensive dispels exist, see Mythic Zul, same goes for defensive dispels.

Remaining debuffs such as poison / curse / disease exist in M+ to a certain degree.

Besides that was just some spitballing. Honestly with the exception of retribution dps I think burning crusade was perfect for design. You wanted everything in a raid. Yeah you might only have 1 enhance but so what? In a raid with only 25 slots and 9 classes with 27 specs how many did you think you were getting?

The problem in my opinion is rather that Blizzard has reduced a lot of classes down to their raw gameplay.

If you are like an Ele in BC, people still liked to invite you because you had Totem of Wrath, you were thrown into a group of casters which then had their Bloodlust,Manaspring and Wrath of Air totem to top things off.
Was inviting another Warlock overall better? Likely, but there was a case to be made in Ele's favour.

Now it's like this:
Ele vs. Mage
Who does more ST damage? Mage
Who has more mobility? Mage
Who has an immunity? Mage
Brings Bloodlust? Both

Are there any relevant points in favour of Ele?
No, no surprise why people take the Mage if they are objectively better in almost any regard.

[Alphatorg]

That's kinda what Blizzard been hinting at.
Or how do you explain Warlocks on G'huun?

Shaman has Tremor, which is rather unique, problem is that in raiding it's like black paper, there is no use for it.

Some classes/specs sometimes being mandatory on some encounters don't equate every class/spec having the right to be mandatory all the time. Aside from that I think it's most likely that the extend to which warlocks are/were necessary on Ghuun was not intended, as the quick nerfs to orb duty show.

[Deleted]

In mythic, though frustrating I understand the need for class over player.

But on lower difficulties I don't understand why they put in mechanics which are a pain to deal with unless you have 1 specific class. And even easier if you have multiple of that class. Seems stupid to need class stacking on HC difficulty.

Was the same in antorus, I remember aggramar HC being a pain to pug unless someone brought a DK then suddenly he was easy.

[Alphatorg]

The problem in my opinion is rather that Blizzard has reduced a lot of classes down to their raw gameplay.

If you are like an Ele in BC, people still liked to invite you because you had Totem of Wrath, you were thrown into a group of casters which then had their Bloodlust,Manaspring and Wrath of Air totem to top things off.
Was inviting another Warlock overall better? Likely, but there was a case to be made in Ele's favour.

Now it's like this:
Ele vs. Mage
Who does more ST damage? Mage
Who has more mobility? Mage
Who has an immunity? Mage
Brings Bloodlust? Both

Are there any relevant points in favour of Ele?
No, no surprise why people take the Mage if they are objectively better in almost any regard.

Does anyone dispute that Ele Shamans are in a very bad place right now? It's why they are getting a rework. Aside from that you can probably count the number of good players who play and guilds who look for Ele Shamans on one hand, they would have to be fairly overpowered to see a significant amount of them at the top end, even if Blizzard manage to fix their issues.

[AceofH]

Offensive dispels exist, see Mythic Zul, same goes for defensive dispels.

Remaining debuffs such as poison / curse / disease exist in M+ to a certain degree.



The problem in my opinion is rather that Blizzard has reduced a lot of classes down to their raw gameplay.

If you are like an Ele in BC, people still liked to invite you because you had Totem of Wrath, you were thrown into a group of casters which then had their Bloodlust,Manaspring and Wrath of Air totem to top things off.
Was inviting another Warlock overall better? Likely, but there was a case to be made in Ele's favour.

Now it's like this:
Ele vs. Mage
Who does more ST damage? Mage
Who has more mobility? Mage
Who has an immunity? Mage
Brings Bloodlust? Both

Are there any relevant points in favour of Ele?
No, no surprise why people take the Mage if they are objectively better in almost any regard.

i'm just saying, we need to get away from designing classes and fights in a way that "Stack this class for this fight and stack that class for that fight" is seen as the way to go. screw that.

[Kralljin]

Some classes/specs sometimes being mandatory on some encounters don't equate every class/spec having the right to be mandatory all the time.

Of course, however, you cannot raise the argument "Class X has Y, so they're fine" while Class A,B and C also have Y.
At its core, you need only one Mage / Hunter / Shaman for Bloodlust, if you already have a Mage, you don't need a Shaman / Hunter for Bloodlust.

Same is true for dispels.

And Blizzard has handed out debuffs to Monks and DH that basically make them mandatory, which they cannot possibly justify via class fantasy because debuffs were made up just for BfA.
The DH debuff even reuses the Spell-ID from Curse of Elements.

So yeah, not every class / spec can be mandatory in every situation, on the other hand, Blizzard just picked two classes and made them mandatory for [reasons].

Aside from that I think it's most likely that the extend to which warlocks are/were necessary on Ghuun was not intended, as the quick nerfs to orb duty show.

Not that wrong, however the Encounter design fucked up there on a monumental basis to not catch that during testing.

Does anyone dispute that Ele Shamans are in a very bad place right now? It's why they are getting a rework.

When?
And don't say 8.1 now, adding two new talents that kinda suck and a few QoL changes aren't a rework.

i'm just saying, we need to get away from designing classes and fights in a way that "Stack this class for this fight and stack that class for that fight" is seen as the way to go. screw that.

Depending on the Encounter, that is the fuckup from the Encounter design team.
Even Sub Rogues on Zul could have been prevented if they had put some mechanics in there that force people to AoE' those Crawgs down ASAP.
Not that i think a spec should be able to leverage that much ST dps out of AoE, but that is another story.

Something like G'huun is just the Encounter design teams fault, same goes for the stuff we saw in ToS.
You could make an argument that Rogues are overall OP, but the primary fault in ToS was the Encounter design, Rogue stacking was just the solution to a retarded issue.

[AceofH]

Of course, however, you cannot raise the argument "Class X has Y, so they're fine" while Class A,B and C also have Y.
At its core, you need only one Mage / Hunter / Shaman for Bloodlust, if you already have a Mage, you don't need a Shaman / Hunter for Bloodlust.

Same is true for dispels.

And Blizzard has handed out debuffs to Monks and DH that basically make them mandatory, which they cannot possibly justify via class fantasy because debuffs were made up just for BfA.
The DH debuff even reuses the Spell-ID from Curse of Elements.

So yeah, not every class / spec can be mandatory in every situation, on the other hand, Blizzard just picked two classes and made them mandatory for [reasons].



Not that wrong, however the Encounter design fucked up there on a monumental basis to not catch that during testing.

yeah not a fan of how blizzard said they are bringing back buffs and debuffs and then brings back a total of like 5 and gives them 5 classes one each.
congrats you just made mages, warriors, priests, monks and DH mandatory. that's great in theory but maybe you should finish the job and make it so everyone brings a buff or debuff or etc.

[Krunsh]

It used to be that a player was a class, even spec.
Modern WoW assumes players can switch specs and class at the drop of a dime

right. what spec and class you played used to be your identity. you had a pedigree. Oh shit it's that fury warrior. or omg i got so and so the r sham coming so we're golden.

[Deleted]

This seemed to be the stance of Blizzard a while back. Why do I find myself searching for a second priest and DK for Heroic Zul? Why is it so much easier with 2 warlocks and solo runners on G'huun?

Now I am sure these fights are possible with a less ideal setup but not having the two priests on Zul just makes it so much harder that, at least for us, it seems you NEED to have them. Thing is we unfortunately only have 1 priest on progression raids and need to be lucky and get a pug every week. This all seems against the "bring the player, not the class" mantra..

well, might then as well remove "class" stuff and everyone have same spells then with different colour to represent "class". HC is not even hard. Get a shaman.

- - - Updated - - -

yeah not a fan of how blizzard said they are bringing back buffs and debuffs and then brings back a total of like 5 and gives them 5 classes one each.
congrats you just made mages, warriors, priests, monks and DH mandatory. that's great in theory but maybe you should finish the job and make it so everyone brings a buff or debuff or etc.

there are scrolls for Int/AP/Stam on scrolls. We are progressing GHuun mythic now and we did not have a DH entire tier, so I don't see how mandatory that is..

[Surreality]

"Bring the player not the class" was a terrible idea to begin with. It's the reason for the removal of classes from their niche. Homogenization of the classes has been completely pointless and futile for well over a decade now.

[unbound]

This seemed to be the stance of Blizzard a while back. Why do I find myself searching for a second priest and DK for Heroic Zul? Why is it so much easier with 2 warlocks and solo runners on G'huun?

Now I am sure these fights are possible with a less ideal setup but not having the two priests on Zul just makes it so much harder that, at least for us, it seems you NEED to have them. Thing is we unfortunately only have 1 priest on progression raids and need to be lucky and get a pug every week. This all seems against the "bring the player, not the class" mantra..

TBH, that mantra, like every other simplistic black and white concept, was stupid from the very beginning. Blizz slowly learned this in the intervening years.

The problem right now is that, consistent with how they address most issues, they swung the pendulum way too far in the other direction. Some of the designs in BfA dungeons and the raid are so narrowly focused on specific skills that they forgot to allow for alternatives. The difference between, say, the original BC Moroes fight and G'huun isn't that you actually need priests back then (I ran it many times sans priests), just that they made it a bit easier. There were a myriad of other ways to contain or kite in that fight (as mentioned, I did it many times with far less than optimal groups)...whereas G'huun makes it substantially more punishing sans warlocks and solo runners.

And, considering how the rest of the expansion behaves, it really does look like the interns were responsible for many key elements of the designs.

[Alphatorg]

Of course, however, you cannot raise the argument "Class X has Y, so they're fine" while Class A,B and C also have Y.
At its core, you need only one Mage / Hunter / Shaman for Bloodlust, if you already have a Mage, you don't need a Shaman / Hunter for Bloodlust.

Same is true for dispels.

And Blizzard has handed out debuffs to Monks and DH that basically make them mandatory, which they cannot possibly justify via class fantasy because debuffs were made up just for BfA.
The DH debuff even reuses the Spell-ID from Curse of Elements.

So yeah, not every class / spec can be mandatory in every situation, on the other hand, Blizzard just picked two classes and made them mandatory for [reasons].

All I'm saying that Shamans have a bunch of potentially very useful utility. Most of the mandatory stuff is pointless in reality anyway, since the vast majority of guilds will always have one mage or priest in their lineup anyway, purely based on class population.

I think DH and Monk raid buffs are an attempt to enforce melee lineup diversity and keep guilds from just stacking rogues and warriors on their rosters.

When?
And don't say 8.1 now, adding two new talents that kinda suck and a few QoL changes aren't a rework.

It's probably as much as you can expect mid-expansion.

[Kralljin]

All I'm saying that Shamans have a bunch of potentially very useful utility. Most of the mandatory stuff is pointless in reality anyway, since the vast majority of guilds will always have one mage or priest in their lineup anyway, purely based on class population.

The problem is that said "very useful utility" is not as useful if it's already brought by another class.
You even say it yourself, a lot of raids have one Mage, thus Bloodlust is already out of the window, dispel too due Priest.

I think DH and Monk raid buffs are an attempt to enforce melee lineup diversity and keep guilds from just stacking rogues and warriors on their rosters.

DH and WW were already popular in Legion.
The Melee specs that are barely used are SV,Feral and Enhance, might throw in Ret in there as well.

It's probably as much as you can expect mid-expansion.

Waiting half an expansion until your class is finished is outright pathetic, especially if the devs outright acknowledge before release that something is not done.

Especially if there is only one big raid to come after Battle of Dazar'alor, as most expansions turned out to be three tiered raids and 8.1 is the second tier.