Anyone NOT that hyped for 'return to class'?

[Nephys]

How long did you play WoW? This needs some context, If you haven't played before the era of Cataclysm I can understand you being skeptical of the idea of "Class" as you've never truly known what a class is, but rather a spec with a few doodads shared among the class. Go to classic, that alone will teach you what a CLASS truly is, not a spec. And hopefully Shadowlands will do a good job at returning class identity.

To me, as someone playing 15 years It feels shit to know I've had over 50 abilities and then am restricted to 15 per spec and the other 5 were removed. It felt like my class was butchered, standardized and according to analytics and data alone, was streamlined, not due to player feedback or criticism.

I play since classic and I never liked to cast fire spells as a frost mage, in fact one of the changes I liked the most recently was the fact that every mage spec got its own "armor" spell instead of all mages casting frost armor. I also hated frostfire bolt with all my strength, I'm so glad we got rid of it.
I don't think the amount of abilities that a class has makes it good or bad, class design of Legion was nice and it didn't have 50 abilities

[Kralljin]

However, Totems are designed for much more slow paced gameplay than what Retail has become. I am worried about how good totems will feel will be in say M+...

They will feel bad.
And M+ isn't going anywhere.

If you look at the "Covenant racial abilities", they'll presumably even adjust more content / abilities based on M+, because all four abilities have "M+ skip" written all over it.

My suggestion? Slow down Retail combat too. Why can't fighting quest mobs be an actual challenge in Retail too?

Remember when Blizzard wanted to slow down combat by putting things back onto the GCD? Oh yeah, people are still on about that.

It's not going to happen, because it would be rather weird if a single mob in the outdoor world poses a "threat" yet actual dungeon content still follows the "just AoE it" philosophy.

[Advent]

I really am happy we are getting Totems back as Shaman.

However, Totems are designed for much more slow paced gameplay than what Retail has become. I am worried about how good totems will feel will be in say M+...

In Classic I can happily put down 2-3 totems every single mob I fight because it's worth the investment, but in Retail, killing a mob will die so fast I can't spend 3 GCDs on totems... I wonder how they intend to solve this. My suggestion? Slow down Retail combat too. Why can't fighting quest mobs be an actual challenge in Retail too?

This would suck. Have you played FFXIV? Imagine bringing combat that feels as sluggish as that to wow. Remember when Blizzard decided to slow down the pace of the game by adding a couple dozen spells/abilities to the GCD? Remember how furious people were, and still are? Imagine that on an even more massive scale.

[donuthoe]

Nothing special coming back, wish they brought back artifact spells even if most were AOE

[Archmage Xaxxas]

How long did you play WoW? This needs some context, If you haven't played before the era of Cataclysm I can understand you being skeptical of the idea of "Class" as you've never truly known what a class is, but rather a spec with a few doodads shared among the class. Go to classic, that alone will teach you what a CLASS truly is, not a spec. And hopefully Shadowlands will do a good job at returning class identity.

To me, as someone playing 15 years It feels shit to know I've had over 50 abilities and then am restricted to 15 per spec and the other 5 were removed. It felt like my class was butchered, standardized and according to analytics and data alone, was streamlined, not due to player feedback or criticism.

This kind of made me realize just how much I gave into the spec-identity starting back at Cata, not realizing it because I only had Wrath under my belt at that point, not enough of a taste of what Classes are like. But thanks for the reminder. Playing Classic definitely reminded me of my starting days that way.

[Lane]

You are also complaining about having CURSES ffs. Did you ever use Tongues on a Healer? Curse of Exhaustion on a fleeing target/Flag Carrier? Weakness on a Melee bashing your Healer's Face, and enabling him to live with an inch of HP instead of dying?

Amplify Curse + Curse of Exhaustion used to be one of my favorite things to do. I used to use just about every warlock spell in some capacity. I'm excited to see the return of a lot of those abilities.

Ret played pretty well in MoP, and it had Holy Power. It even had Inquisition and was still okay. The problem isn't the Holy Power, but rather Blizzard's insistence that Ret needs downtime in its rotation. Combine that with the low levels of secondary stats in BfA, especially Haste, and a system that felt fine back then feels like ass now.

I haven't played ret in BfA, but in Legion I felt like I rarely got to use Divine Storm. I would rather have a flat cooldown with no holy power requirement.

I really am happy we are getting Totems back as Shaman.

However, Totems are designed for much more slow paced gameplay than what Retail has become. I am worried about how good totems will feel will be in say M+...

In Classic I can happily put down 2-3 totems every single mob I fight because it's worth the investment, but in Retail, killing a mob will die so fast I can't spend 3 GCDs on totems... I wonder how they intend to solve this. My suggestion? Slow down Retail combat too. Why can't fighting quest mobs be an actual challenge in Retail too?

I assume they'd bring back Totem Mastery that let you drop all 4 at once.

[derpkitteh]

Yet, an Arcane Mage is still better at Arcane Magic than a Frost Mage is, even if both specs could use all of the spells of the other.

for a mage, frost magic is arcane. mages do not use actual elemental magic, it's a copy formed by arcane magic.

bending of frost and fire are arcane schools of magic.

an archmage is an absolute master of every single school of arcane magic. even a specialist in specific arcane, frost, or fire does not surpass the archmage. it's khadgar vs. a pyromancer, right? the pyromancer is the top in the singular study of arcane manipulation of fire, but khadgar is an archmage and can destroy bridges with meteors.

khadgar's combination of fire, frost, and arcane orbs to form that super bomb to blow up the dam in the wod intro is the perfect example.

[Darkeon]

All classes (most?) had differentials in gameplay, based on specc, before to the "SPECC IDENTITY-PATCH!". It'll be like that now. It'll be fine. You'll be fine.

Only thing that is happening is that you'll be getting an expansion feature based on the 're-addition' of abilities that you already had in the past but will now get super hyped and happy to get them back.

SUMMON TONS OF UNDEAD SOLDIERS TO FIGHT AT YOUR SIDE!
CONTROL YOUR ANIMAL COMPANION DIRECTLY AND SCARE YOUR FRIENDS!
Et al.

[Blackrunner01]

It doesn't mean anything. Adding a couple of shared abilities won't make a fire mage into not a fire mage or a frost mage into a not frost mage.

I think it's good, but seeing it as "a return to class over spec" is looking is a severe over exaggeration.

The WotLK - MoP DK was the definition of a class which was the sum of its specs, and that could get really tedious at times. Swapping from Frost to Unholy and having literally 4 abilites change was not my cup of tea. Even though I liked the class overall it had major drawbacks that it had so little diversity.

Pic related: https://i.imgur.com/qGaAH1j.png

[Skildar]

I'm not that hyped because as of now we know nothing of what those changes are ^^

[nexellent]

For me, there's two sides of this:

The good side where stuff like Alter Time comes back, as in an ability that provided the player with added value on the meters, gave off a sense of mastering your class and was not used by most mages (or was not even keybound). Or stuff like Eyes of the Beast, which is purely cosmetic and just fun, had no reason to be removed and its removal only substracted from playing a Hunter.

The bad side where they just bloat our spellbooks with useless crap like fireball for a Frost mage. It's just useless and will not be used. I do not want it to be available. Fire Blast for Arcane is okay because it gives you something to do when running and need to fill a global for instance.

Bottomline for me is, only give back what would make sense in some scenario. Do not bloat.

so what because you dont see yourself using a spell nobody should be able to use it?

[Aeula]

The game was overall better when hybrid classes paid the tax. That’s a fact. Wasn’t better for hybrids but the entire point of hybrid is jack of all trades but master of none

The day hybrid classes started topping meters was a sad day in wow history.

The game was shite and it’s a big reason why I don’t bother playing Classic. I would rather they keep our healing capabilities gutted to their current state than lose DPS for their sake.

[mojojojo202]

I played from Classic, from day 1 my druid was feral, he was my main till the start of wrath and I didn't play any other spec with him till Dragon Soul. My priest, who was my main after druid was disc from when she hit level 10 in early Wrath all the way to WoD, didn't play any other spec, leveled as disc, raided as disc, pvp'd as disc.

The idea spec identity didn't exist before Cata is nonsense.

[SirCowdog]

My only concern with "Class before spec" is that it smacks of hype with no substance. Great....I mean...they're giving us back things we used to have. That's not actually ADDING to the game. And while it might be a good thing to go back to a better formula for classes, it comes at the expense of a new class, or other systems which normally justify paying the price of an expansion.

It's not necessarily that I disapprove of this change. But I'm very skeptical about it until we start seeing something more concrete the closer we get to the actual launch.

[Marrilaife]

The game was shite and it’s a big reason why I don’t bother playing Classic. I would rather they keep our healing capabilities gutted to their current state than lose DPS for their sake.

Yeah, I don't want another expansion where Paladins and Shamans are only invited to raids as healers.

I would actually wish to go back to MOP where hybrid classes like spriests, ele shamans and boomkins brought powerful raid cooldowns for being hybrid classes instead of having vanilla-esque "bring 1 of x hybrid class for a buff then stack the raid with mages / warlocks / rogues".

I also preferred WOD's buff-tetris with hunters playing the wild card, where every buff was covered by 2-3 different classes, instead of situations like now "oh don't have a dh? 5% less damage for your raid", don't even know why classes like dhs and monks need to have this "special something" meanwhile druids didn't get mark of the wild back and shamans / paladins lost majority of their totems / blessings.

Shamans were unique for Bloodlust, then it was added to mages and hunters, then also substituted with drums. Meanwhile every time you need shroud / gateway for a strat, rogue / warlock is a must. Hybrid classes are probably more unwanted than in Classic where they serve as buff bots. How sad.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I have seen some outlaw rogue posts that are less than enthusiastic about poisons returning. I'm pretty sure there are Shamans who feel the same way about totems. Afterall, its one more GCD for them to press.

But what do I know, I don't play those classes.

Damn, where did you get that avatar?

[Niwes]

to be honest: i heard a lot of undefined promises from Ion. and i do not trust Blizz as a gaming studio any longer. i bet Blizz will end up with these things like in the last few years: „class identity“ is way more another term for „make develoment, balancing and maintaining easier“.

look at WoD. they told us that long that they just wanna pair 2 utility spells into one, that they wanna clear bars up, but do not alter rotations etc. in the end they heavily pruned rotations and core spells.

i CAN see a good made class with base abilities and good talenting, like in the older days. but what i SEE is a company that will use this stuff to make 6-7 of 12 abilities in all 3 specs the same, add some fluff per spec, make it easy maintaining, streamline it and call it a day. in the end they will AGAIN do much more of this stuff for THEM than for us.

thats cost effective development. put in least possible effort (while xpac is running) to get out most possible profit. „class identity“ is just another marketing phrase to have something pseudo new, or a so called feature, but in reality it offers easier class handling for blizz.

[Byleth]

It sounds like you don't enjoy the game anymore OP. I think it's a good call for you not to play it.

[dcc626]

It sounds like you don't enjoy the game anymore OP. I think it's a good call for you not to play it.

it leaves a lot of extra time to play armchair game designer and be salty on the forums too. i agree.

[Osmeric]

This feels like Blizzard knowing they're screwing up, but not understanding how, and just taking forum noise at face value instead.