Complete Class Rework

[sephrinx]

Neither of these poll options are a good choice.

They do need to rework most classes/specs, as they're all awful to play right now. I have not found a single enjoyable class or spec, and the ones I used to love (holy pally, destro lock, frost mage, Sub rogue, ele shaman/moonkin) all feel like absolute shit.

There is too much RNG and homogenization between all classes. They all should be reworked.

[cerebro]

We literally just got class reworks heading into BFA. Every spec other than enhancement and shadow got their reworks. Were they complete reworks? No, but they were reworks none the less. Eventually Shadow got their rework in 8.1.5, but unfortunately the floor gave way under enhance and they didn't get jack shit this entire expansion. Sucks because I decided to main a shaman in BFA and my main focus was Enhancement. While I don't mind the rotation, my main became stale because I was doing the same rotation since Legion.

I feel most classes were in a good place @ patch 7.3 .. then it all got gutted to shit with the removal of artifacts. I can't think of a single thing that changed about my rotation from Legion to BFA other than less options.(BDK)

[infinitemeridian]

I'm leveling as enhance now and...what's wrong with this spec? It's fast, fun, and does a crap ton of damage. I've got a nice defensive in Astral Shift, tons of mobility with Ghost Wolf + Spirit Wolf + Feral Lunge + Spirit Walk, I can pull stuff from far away, aoe stun, tons of cleave damage, etc.

SS feels amazing to press too. I think it's one of the most fluid specs in the game - and Ele is fun too. Not quite as good as Legion, but it's surely way better than it was at the beginning of the expac.

[Absintheminded]

If by revamp you mean DKs can revert back to closer to Wrath, then yeah. If by revamp you mean further dumbing down and moving complexity to temporary abilities and systems, then fuck no.

[CiccioBello]

Not all classes / specs need a rework or an overhaul but some need a more careful look and evaluation on how they work because it is clear that some of them were born really wrong in this expansion and it would be really embarrassing to get to SL with some identical specs to BFA.
Honestly specs like enhaShaman, arcaneMage, mmHunter, armsWarrior, affLock (aoe damage), subRogue this to name the most problematic, do not need a total rework but a more accurate and sensible review both at a basic level and at the level of talents.
And when I mean a rework I mean like the one that happened at the FuryWarrior going from Legion to BFA and not like the one that happened at the EnahShaman in 8.1 which in the end translated into a miserable tuning of some talents considered dead despite the buff.

[matrix123mko]

I mean I'll advocate for class reworks until Arcane becomes fun.

It was in Legion.

[Eurhetemec]

BfA has improved absolutely nothing when it comes to class design (over Legion). It's abysmal. The problem is the gameplay, it's too repetitive and too similar and too unfun - at least for me. In Legion I had 11 max level classes because I really enjoyed playing them. In BfA I have 5 and gameplay-wise I hate 3 of them. BfA for me is the absolute low of class design and class fun since end of WotLK. I think I even enjoyed Cataclysm classes more (at least my Paladin and Priest).

It really has, but you're not comparing like with like. You're comparing end-of-Legion, or at least mid-Legion characters with BfA ones (and I dunno if you still play or gave up ages ago). At the start of Legion, and until everyone got their artifacts up to a pretty good level, the gameplay was much worse than BfA. It's unarguably an improvement over that. The issue remains, though, the lack of artifacts and their abilities/procs. They have actually added a few more in over time (particularly as talents, ugh), but it's pretty gradual. As someone who played the beginning of both expansions heavily, it's not even a question that BfA was an improvement. But yeah, 7.3 vs 8.3, sure, Legion is ahead, but only because of artifacts and legendaries. Take them out, and it's waaaaaaay behind. So I think SL will need to continue re-adding stuff which got pushed into being artifact abilities/procs, and add new abilities.

Re: MoP/WoD, I still wonder what you specifically want to go back to - I'm not demanding an answer, but I've heard this before and it always seems a bit mysterious to me. I only played MoP a little, but I was there for most of WoD, and I don't at all remember thinking "SWEET CLASS GAMEPLAY MAN!!!" on any of my mains and their various specs (Druid, DK, Paladin). Indeed on Druid I remember thinking "Wow, these specs are borderline unplayable trash..." especially both DPS specs. YMMV of course but...

[LordVargK]

It really has, but you're not comparing like with like. You're comparing end-of-Legion, or at least mid-Legion characters with BfA ones (and I dunno if you still play or gave up ages ago). At the start of Legion, and until everyone got their artifacts up to a pretty good level, the gameplay was much worse than BfA. It's unarguably an improvement over that. The issue remains, though, the lack of artifacts and their abilities/procs. They have actually added a few more in over time (particularly as talents, ugh), but it's pretty gradual. As someone who played the beginning of both expansions heavily, it's not even a question that BfA was an improvement. But yeah, 7.3 vs 8.3, sure, Legion is ahead, but only because of artifacts and legendaries. Take them out, and it's waaaaaaay behind. So I think SL will need to continue re-adding stuff which got pushed into being artifact abilities/procs, and add new abilities.

Re: MoP/WoD, I still wonder what you specifically want to go back to - I'm not demanding an answer, but I've heard this before and it always seems a bit mysterious to me. I only played MoP a little, but I was there for most of WoD, and I don't at all remember thinking "SWEET CLASS GAMEPLAY MAN!!!" on any of my mains and their various specs (Druid, DK, Paladin). Indeed on Druid I remember thinking "Wow, these specs are borderline unplayable trash..." especially both DPS specs. YMMV of course but...

You are of course right in saying that Legion was as trash as BfA without Artifacts and Legendaries. But, BUT, instead of learning from that and not locking classes behind grinding and randomness, Blizz removed everything that was fun at the end of Legion and replaced it with an even worse grinding system. If Legion's classes were a 3/10 at the beginning and 9/10 at the end, then BfA's were a 4/10 at the beginning and 5/10 at the end. Sure, "better" at the start, but still not good.

To your WoD experience: WoD was the first expansion where nothing new was added and instead the pruning began. So it was class wise more of a "MoP-light". And especially to your druid experience: WoD was the expansion snapshotting got removed. Which made all DoT-based classes less interesting to play. And both DPS specs of the druid are DoT based (okay, feral still kinda had snapshotting, but in a half assed way if i remember correctly. It was weird).

[Pakheth]

I know it was becoming a problem that each expansion classes would usually receive new abilities, which lasted up until MoP, but to be honest I really miss that feeling of logging in on expansion day/prepatch and see new abilities. Ever since WoD when the pruning started and with Legion/BfA the reworks started I have found myself losing more and more interest in class design. Because it fucking sucks!
The reworks have always gone in the opposite direction of what I want, making specs less fun to play each time.

WW monk is now much duller than it was in Legion. BM hunter is just absolutely boring af ever since Legion.
I could go on but that's not what this is about.

So I actually want a rework with Shadowlands even if I am usually not a fan of reworks.

- - - Updated - - -

If by revamp you mean DKs can revert back to closer to Wrath, then yeah. If by revamp you mean further dumbing down and moving complexity to temporary abilities and systems, then fuck no.

This, and add MoP BM hunter, heck all the hunter specs, to the list.

[Eurhetemec]

You are of course right in saying that Legion was as trash as BfA without Artifacts and Legendaries. But, BUT, instead of learning from that and not locking classes behind grinding and randomness, Blizz removed everything that was fun at the end of Legion and replaced it with an even worse grinding system. If Legion's classes were a 3/10 at the beginning and 9/10 at the end, then BfA's were a 4/10 at the beginning and 5/10 at the end. Sure, "better" at the start, but still not good.

I feel like you're somewhat exaggerating the difference, and so class/spec-specific and even personal-taste specific that maybe no-one can ever really agree here.

For me, on the classes I'm playing, looking just at their moment-to-moment gameplay (I admit BfA is more boring than Legion in a larger scope) it's more like, Legion went from 4 to 8.5, but it was all fake gain because it was almost all the artifact becoming awesome and your Legendaries finally coming in and so on. Whereas BfA went from like, 5 to 7.5, and yeah that's lower, but it's a real gain, for the most part, because it's minor, repeated class-design revisions and so on, rather than stupid Azerite and Essences. I expect SL may well start at a 7, but if it goes up to a 9, I think we'll all be happy.

I'm not saying I'm definitely right. I appreciate where you're coming from, but I think the current design needs to be iterated on, rather than wholesale revised. For most specs. There are always a subset that need a lot more doing to them (like Prot and Ret Pallies - Holy seems in a pretty good place).

To your WoD experience: WoD was the first expansion where nothing new was added and instead the pruning began. So it was class wise more of a "MoP-light". And especially to your druid experience: WoD was the expansion snapshotting got removed. Which made all DoT-based classes less interesting to play. And both DPS specs of the druid are DoT based (okay, feral still kinda had snapshotting, but in a half assed way if i remember correctly. It was weird).

I actually, kill me if you want to, think snapshotting had to go. Yes it made things less "interesting", but it also made those specs less hideously complex and less messy and full of shit that's not actually tracked properly in-game.

The trouble with the Druid DPS specs was that they were needlessly fiddly and not in a fun, engaging way, just in tedious, tiring way. And Bear was just kind of shit. And Resto, maybe it was effective, I can't remember, but it sure as fuck wasn't fun. At least in BfA Resto is kinda fun, the DPS specs are, well, maybe not super-exciting, but playable, and Bear is a really very solid tank (I've heard people say it feels like it's "missing something", and fair enough but no-one can say what it is). Likewise DK seems, well, about as fun as it ever was (for better or worse). Paladin aside from Holy is um, not great, and I really hope they fix that instead of doubling down on it and keeping it how it is. Just redesign Ret one last time already guys!

What I will say is I don't play clothies, and it's entirely possible being a Warlock/Priest/Mage sucks balls in BfA and didn't in previous expansions.

[dreamdaddy]

I really like Guardian Druid, what do you feel it's missing, specifically?

A few things:
- The baseline rotation is a bit too simple, abilities have little interplay, and the kit leaves little room for making plays
Abilities build rage and rage is used for a maintenance buff or extra damage; compare with VDH or BDK where pain/runic power fund the impactful abilities. What's the most impactful ability for Guardian? Nothing feels as good as setting up and hitting a big Spirit Bomb or building to an impactful Bonestorm for a big pull in M+. You just spam mange/thrash/swipe, press frenzied regen/barkskin/survival instincts when you need them.

- Rage of the Sleeper was a great CD that increased your damage, survivability, and self-sustain and it felt awful losing it.
Incarnation is nice but it competes with the talent that makes the rotation tolerable.

- Without Galactic Guardian, the only difference in your rotation are Gore procs; it should really be baseline.
Legion had some cool gameplay - I had a blast doing M+ with Galactic Guardian, the moonfire shoulders, and the cape that granted 30% healing from arcane/nature damage.

[LordVargK]

I feel like you're somewhat exaggerating the difference, and so class/spec-specific and even personal-taste specific that maybe no-one can ever really agree here.

For me, on the classes I'm playing, looking just at their moment-to-moment gameplay (I admit BfA is more boring than Legion in a larger scope) it's more like, Legion went from 4 to 8.5, but it was all fake gain because it was almost all the artifact becoming awesome and your Legendaries finally coming in and so on. Whereas BfA went from like, 5 to 7.5, and yeah that's lower, but it's a real gain, for the most part, because it's minor, repeated class-design revisions and so on, rather than stupid Azerite and Essences. I expect SL may well start at a 7, but if it goes up to a 9, I think we'll all be happy.

My 9/10 might be an outlier experience. It's based on Affliction, which just sucks atm. Destru was about equally fun in Legion as in BfA and Demo is much better in BfA than in Legion (where it was non-existant tbh). But Blood DK as well as holy priest are less fun now. My judgement is also mostly based on m+ and in that regard Legion was better. So it may not be soley the classes's fault. That said, I don't think it's fair to disregard borrowed power systems. Because they just are an influence on you gameplay, even if the go away the next expansion. And in that regard Legion was vastly superior (I'm talking 7.3 vs 8.3 now). Having an Offspec is punished in BfA, due to the Azerite system and the respec cost for it. Why even have this? Why does Blizz not let me optimize my gear based on the content I'm facing? I can't possibly find a good explanation for that. That makes a class as a whole less fun, because you have to specialize in one spec, rather than utilize your whole class like you could prior.

I'm not saying I'm definitely right. I appreciate where you're coming from, but I think the current design needs to be iterated on, rather than wholesale revised. For most specs. There are always a subset that need a lot more doing to them (like Prot and Ret Pallies - Holy seems in a pretty good place).

Yes. 100 times Yes. And they should have done that with Legion coming into BfA already. Legion was flawed but could be worked upon. But they did not do that at all. They made the same mistakes and they made them somewhat worse, even if the base classes got marginally better. And that's my biggest gripe with BfA: Many of it's mistakes were already made in Legion and Blizz is too ignorant to learn. BfA had so much potential and it was all wasted. I really really hope that this time Blizz really revisits what went well in BfA, what was liked and what not. They can't really affort to start at Zero again like they did in BfA.

I actually, kill me if you want to, think snapshotting had to go. Yes it made things less "interesting", but it also made those specs less hideously complex and less messy and full of shit that's not actually tracked properly in-game.

Sure, it made balancing harder. But it also raised the mastery level you could achieve while playing your class. Former motto was "easy to learn, hard to master". Now it's more like "easy to learn, easy to master". And i for one like complex specs in the game. Now DoT-based specs are kinda... unnecessary. DoT's are a pretty lame mechanic and you have to add something to that to make it interesting. Shadow for example has it's voidform, which is controversial but interesting. But what do Boomkins, Afflis or ferals have? Okay, feral still HAS some form of snapshotting, but that just shows that without something extra DoT-classes are just boring.
Also talking about ingame limitations: I don't watch Preach often, but one video got me hooked (because I like dice ). In that video he makes a connection between the game lagging/stuttering and the removal of snapshotting. To break it down: BfA added so many procs/random effects that have to be calculated every tick for dozents of players and DoT's on multiple mobs that the servers just don't keep up. And I have to agree: The performance of BfA is serverly worse than other Expansions.

The trouble with the Druid DPS specs was that they were needlessly fiddly and not in a fun, engaging way, just in tedious, tiring way. And Bear was just kind of shit. And Resto, maybe it was effective, I can't remember, but it sure as fuck wasn't fun. At least in BfA Resto is kinda fun, the DPS specs are, well, maybe not super-exciting, but playable, and Bear is a really very solid tank (I've heard people say it feels like it's "missing something", and fair enough but no-one can say what it is). Likewise DK seems, well, about as fun as it ever was (for better or worse). Paladin aside from Holy is um, not great, and I really hope they fix that instead of doubling down on it and keeping it how it is. Just redesign Ret one last time already guys!

What I will say is I don't play clothies, and it's entirely possible being a Warlock/Priest/Mage sucks balls in BfA and didn't in previous expansions.

I mean, one can't argue taste. I for one like casters and even though WL are top DPS once more, I don't like them in BfA. I'm sure there are specs that are fun right now (many healers seem pretty good), but I like DPSing more than healing or tanking. And for a DPS and especially casters BfA feels subpar to me.

[HateTrain]

Bad poll choices. I want an in depth evaluation of each class/spec every expansion, and IF a revamp is needed, it gets it. If it seems to be working, it gets left alone. If it just needs a tune up, it gets it. I realize that would open up a whole can of worms with "WHY YOU NO FIX ENH SHAM, YOU FIX PROT WARR???!" but frankly Id' rather see that than all specs/classes being left alone because of "revamp is not an expac feature" reasons.

[Kaesebrezen]

We literally just got class reworks heading into BFA. Every spec other than enhancement and shadow got their reworks. Were they complete reworks? No, but they were reworks none the less. Eventually Shadow got their rework in 8.1.5, but unfortunately the floor gave way under enhance and they didn't get jack shit this entire expansion. Sucks because I decided to main a shaman in BFA and my main focus was Enhancement. While I don't mind the rotation, my main became stale because I was doing the same rotation since Legion.

The majority of specs didn't get a rework going into BfA. Fury was a spec with significant changes, balance had some decent changes... The list doesn't really get longer then this.

Further, there was no Shadowpriest rework in 8.1 aside of massively overtuning the numbers. If you classify that as a rework...

[iosdeveloper]

I totally agree with you, OP!
Class changes are a main selling point for me, it's exciting to figure out new rotations, new interactions etc.
In BfA we were figuring out how to manage without our legendaries, which felt different

[shoegazing]

I've played a Subtlety Rogue, which the inept clueless scumbag designers completely ruined in Legion with their idiotic, wasteful, and desctructive overhaul that ruined an all time masterpiece of a spec.

Now we need a fucking overhaul to fix the last stupid overhaul that never should have happened in the first place because the spec was literally perfect in every way prior to Legion's utter garbage.

[keygy]

they need to pull back the mm design on BFA its awful and horrible.

and dont understand why the people like to play the same spec with same design every expansion, the fun is to discover new changes on the new gameplay that let the game stay refresh.

[mojojojo202]

You are of course right in saying that Legion was as trash as BfA without Artifacts and Legendaries. But, BUT, instead of learning from that and not locking classes behind grinding and randomness, Blizz removed everything that was fun at the end of Legion and replaced it with an even worse grinding system. If Legion's classes were a 3/10 at the beginning and 9/10 at the end, then BfA's were a 4/10 at the beginning and 5/10 at the end. Sure, "better" at the start, but still not good.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on BfA (pretty much from the start, which is why I have barely played the game for more than a couple of weeks at a time). Everything is just basically Legion but worse. Like they looked at how Legion was going and made absolutely everything turn they possibly could of made. Its kind of impressive really.

- - - Updated - - -

Also talking about ingame limitations: I don't watch Preach often, but one video got me hooked (because I like dice ). In that video he makes a connection between the game lagging/stuttering and the removal of snapshotting. To break it down: BfA added so many procs/random effects that have to be calculated every tick for dozents of players and DoT's on multiple mobs that the servers just don't keep up. And I have to agree: The performance of BfA is serverly worse than other Expansions.

God, I desperately hope snap shooting doesn't come back. It was just an annoying and frustrating system that pretty much always felt punishing if you weren't an absolute top player.

[Northy]

A major class rework every xpac would be seriously annoying and hard to do.
Just work on those that are in a weird/bad spot. No need to overhaul what is working

Nothing is working.

[trapmaster]

Right now I'm hoping the next class revamp they do is turning one of the rogue specs into a ranged spec.

Like some Ninja throwing star specs?