Most classes feel the same

[Schmilblick]

Dunno, it really depends on what you play. Gameplay wise (ignoring numbers) DH for example got worse yet again

Well, nothing really changed for Devastation.

[Stardrift]

You need to remember your not seeing the finished class with covenant ability or soulbinds or legendaries. On top of that it depends on the class
For example aff lock is a lot different but destro is mostly the same but the necrolord ability adds some cool game play and different builds for locks mostly destro.

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I don’t understand this, I have played this game Since 2 weeks after launch and the biggest change I noticed is WeakAura and other addons like it. automating class gameplay and boss mechanics that should be fun and interesting being boring because you can make a weakaura to do it for you.

If you dint think a destro, demo, and affliction lock or Frost, Unholy and blood DK feels like different specs then idk what to tell you, sounds like burnout to me.

The denial is overwhelming.

[Schmilblick]

The denial is overwhelming.

For real here.

[Splenda]

They really should have just kept artifacts in the game and made it so Azeroth empowered our existing artifacts with azerite, giving us new models in the process. They still haven't been able to make up for their loss, and I doubt what they are giving us in SL will make up for it either.

I feel like when they implement a system like this, and "borrowed" powers are very fun or central to the spec, they should be made baseline, instead of disappearing and changing them again in the next expansion with MORE systems and borrowed powers. Universally. For every class.

[Spacewalrus2010]

For the most part I felt classes were fine. Situations like BFA shadow priest or Legion's survival hunter is when I want a rework of any kind.

I feel like when they implement a system like this, and "borrowed" powers are very fun or central to the spec, they should be made baseline, instead of disappearing and changing them again in the next expansion with MORE systems and borrowed powers. Universally. For every class.

And at what point should they stop adding them baseline? I assume you don't want a 100 or so abilities to keybind someday in the future.

[Splenda]

For the most part I felt classes were fine. Situations like BFA shadow priest or Legion's survival hunter is when I want a rework of any kind.




And at what point should they stop adding them baseline? I assume you don't want a 100 or so abilities to keybind someday in the future.

Legion added one ability per spec. It was mostly passives. You could add new abilities by expanding talent choices (add a fourth column or I don't know, remove talents no one takes). You can add modular effects instead of new abilities (effects that change existing abilities). You can add effects that slightly alter gameplay in a specific style of content like we have had all the way up until Legion with tier sets. There are options.

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I think that they should in general stop redesigning specs and instead slowly improve upon them. Remove poor talents. Create multiple viable playstyles per spec. And keep and integrate new additions. Making a significant effort in development and design time only to throw it away for the next expac makes NO sense.

I agree with Nymnrod largely- take the best of what they are creating, make it baseline... and stop adding borrowed powers/new systems.

Take what works, improve upon it. Take what everyone hates... redesign it.

What does the S.Priest community think of the changes?

[Kalisandra]

Bring back mana management! Why even bother having mana for classes/speccs that just instantly regenerate it. As a Warlock I always loved having life tap, and figuring out when it was necessary to use and when to not.

And as a healer I hated Warlocks and their Life Tap.

I especially hated the ones that would stand round while I was drinking between pulls, and then hit Life Tap a few times just before the next pull because they couldn't be bothered drinking or even hitting the thing before I drank. When it comes down to it, Life Tap is simply a way to convert healer mana into Warlock DPS, and is thus the same thing as standing in fire that second or two longer to finish a cast and expecting the healers to keep you up.

Now, in isolation the idea is quite fun, burning health to do damage, then draining enemy life to bring your health back up, and so on. However, in group play it just comes down to "Warlocks increase the healers' workload". If nothing else it means that on healing intensive mythic progression fights Warlocks would tend to be benched (unless they are outrageously strong).

[Kalisandra]

That graph pretty clearly shows subs going down across MoP lol.

There is 1 quarter where it went up very marginally, and right back down. And ended way below where it started.

You are really bad at reading graphs, mate. What there was is a big jump in the pre-patch, then a drop (but not to where numbers would've been if they'd followed the Cataclysm slide downwards) that stops mid-expac and is even reversed a little. Then there's the drop in the long end-expansion phase though it trended back up before the pre-patch hit even, followed by the rise for the WoD pre-patch and an incredibly fast fall again in WoD to lower than where it was before the pre-patch.

Overall, from pre-patch to end MoP's drop is about 2 million, compared to Cata's ~3 million. Oh, and Cata lost that over a smaller time period.

[Saltysquidoon]

Not every spec needs a rework every expansion some specs are in a largely good place. Most specs, however, do need more attention then they got and it clear blizzard is trying to paste over the cracks with borrowed power.

Finally, there are obvious specs that need major work they didn't get. Survival and Sub spring immediately to mind, why for example is survival's three main 'high lights' bombs, traps and moongoose bite all talents? A survival hunter without talents is just a bad melee version of old bm.

Now, in isolation the idea is quite fun, burning health to do damage, then draining enemy life to bring your health back up, and so on. However, in group play it just comes down to "Warlocks increase the healers' workload". If nothing else it means that on healing intensive mythic progression fights Warlocks would tend to be benched (unless they are outrageously strong).

That's kinda the point of the spell, it's a greedy, reckless short cut. It also worked better when the game was slower and healers weren't expected to keep everyone topped of 24/7 because it also imported an element of risk to both the lock and the raid. People were unlikely to be happy if you were tanking the floor every pull on prog from over tapping to get the big dick deeps.

Lifetap (and mana management) don't really work in the game anymore because it's so fast-paced and over relies on people being topped off for one-shot mechanics. Like most removed things people who want it don't understand why it wouldn't work the way they remember and are simply being OLD GUD NU BAD.

[Kalisandra]

Well that is an RP concept that could be kept through better design though. What if life tap did not consume health but instead added a wound that would tick and make you immune to all healing other than Drain Life and Healthstone? With some build in affliction that let you maximize Drain life damage by increase its damage done while Life Tapped.
Really, if you want to design around a concept, you can.

It would be interesting to do that. Alternatively, soul shards could be gained entirely by Drain Soul, and slowly spent on everything else. Or hell, just make Warlocks only regenerate mana outside combat, and inside combat they have to mana drain. It'd cause howls from a lot of modern PvPers, but Locks and Priests burning mana was a thing in PvP once upon a time.

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That's kinda the point of the spell, it's a greedy, reckless short cut. It also worked better when the game was slower and healers weren't expected to keep everyone topped of 24/7 because it also imported an element of risk to both the lock and the raid. People were unlikely to be happy if you were tanking the floor every pull on prog from over tapping to get the big dick deeps.

Lifetap (and mana management) don't really work in the game anymore because it's so fast-paced and over relies on people being topped off for one-shot mechanics. Like most removed things people who want it don't understand why it wouldn't work the way they remember and are simply being OLD GUD NU BAD.

I rather liked the older, slower healing model, but it's dead, dead, dead in this modern game, where a hard casted 1 GCD heal feels slow and is likely to be sniped.

[Spacewalrus2010]

Legion added one ability per spec. It was mostly passives. You could add new abilities by expanding talent choices (add a fourth column or I don't know, remove talents no one takes). You can add modular effects instead of new abilities (effects that change existing abilities).

If we were to keep passives, they would create a separate issue regarding game performance, so I'll leave that as it is, unless you'd want me to explain.

Expanding talent choices could only go so far. They already have difficulty balance the three options we have in each row.

Modular effects, sounds interesting. Do you mean like how condemn for warriors replaces execute?

You can add effects that slightly alter gameplay in a specific style of content like we have had all the way up until Legion with tier sets. There are options.

Tier effects are borrowed power though. Aren't they?

I agree with Nymnrod largely- take the best of what they are creating, make it baseline... and stop adding borrowed powers/new systems.

Take what works, improve upon it. Take what everyone hates... redesign it.

I am slightly confused by the wording. Are you suggesting that they don't introduce new systems and simply refine what didn't work the previous expansion?

[Ange]

Using BDK as an example, if you think about it, they literally just did what people suspected was happening: take stuff away just to add it back later and call it something. OP kinda has a point.

I know a lot of blood tanks transitioning to other tanks with ease, but the other way around is not that common in my experience. Reactive tanking or just spam block tanks are not really that demanding to play perfect, blood was never that forgiving.

I get why blizzard is trying so hard with blood to make it more approachable, but overbuffing easier tank specs and creating content with those tanks in mind does not help.

This way the changes felt allways like taking things away without any compensation, as an allready more demanding tank spec.

I think the pruning was not the issue, the negligence of the class itself lead to very negative player experience in the last expansions. Things like the M+ blood nerfs for one of the worst raid tanks was a first in my experience in WoW, because at least you could allways trust blizzards RAID-first balance approach.

I am giving up, was allways 50:50 dual speccing, went to 25:75 in BfA after the shitshow start and I might just let the offspec die in shadowlands.

[Gaidax]

All this "borrowed power" talk is just a bunch of nonsense. We always had expansion tied boosts and changes that remained there. This all is just another tier set, trinket or special gear piece we already had in past.

I, personally, don't care much for this and I do enjoy the clear benefit of not getting specs bloated over the course of few expansions with a mix of stuff that turns into toxic swamp like it did in Cataclysm.

[Lex Icon]

All this "borrowed power" talk is just a bunch of nonsense. We always had expansion tied boosts and changes that remained there. This all is just another tier set, trinket or special gear piece we already had in past.

I, personally, don't care much for this and I do enjoy the clear benefit of not getting specs bloated over the course of few expansions with a mix of stuff that turns into toxic swamp like it did in Cataclysm.

these powers from the past wasn't available to everyone and are barely comparable. raiders had their stuff and pvpers their stuff and everyone else had nothing.
so trying to argue that they where just as impactul when most people probably had no idea about them is weird.

[Gaidax]

these powers from the past wasn't available to everyone and are barely comparable. raiders had their stuff and pvpers their stuff and everyone else had nothing.
so trying to argue that they where just as impactul when most people probably had no idea about them is weird.

It's literally same shit proper - they were available to everyone who is supposedly so bothered about this now.

It so much does not matter - so you have a new set of powers and gear for next 2 years and then you will have another one for 2 years after that and so on - in reality, this does not matter for shit - it is a long term thing, 2 years is not a small time.

[Lex Icon]

It's literally same shit proper - they were available to everyone who is supposedly so bothered about this now.

It so much does not matter - so you have a new set of powers and gear for next 2 years and then you will have another one for 2 years after that and so on - in reality, this does not matter for shit - it is a long term thing, 2 years is not a small time.

eh classes are pretty much designed to rely on them now.. previously it was just a bonus some had access to.

[Utrrabbit]

You lost me right at the start. MW Monk plays like a braindead green holy priest. It has an awful mastery that doesn't interact with the majority of the spec's spells and is nowhere near the height of its gameplay that it had in MoP and WoD. Stop chatting shit.

Anyone saying MW plays well is probably a terrible player honestly.

Or I literally tops every single healer they have ever raided with. Most if not 90% of players who play mw in bfa are bad. Extremely bad.

MW is super fun. When you can top healing meters and do between 20 to 30k dps

[Schmilblick]

Not every spec needs a rework .

As I said, not every spec need an overhaul, but you know, some small reworks like Spriest one keep the gameplay fresh without altering it too much.

[Schmilblick]

Or I literally tops every single healer they have ever raided with. Most if not 90% of players who play mw in bfa are bad. Extremely bad.

MW is super fun. When you can top healing meters and do between 20 to 30k dps

I never healed in WOW, maybe it's time to try it

[Alkizon]

Spacewalrus2010
Tier effects are borrowed power though. Aren't they?

Not exactly. They performed function of "PvP vs PvE" perks (they personally modeled their areas of influence, but without devaluing class fantasy) and were "carrot" for more difficult area of content (they polished certain class mechanics to update/make more viable of development directions; didn't change, but supplemented (like enchants), increased efficiency of particular chosen ability/talent). Don' t forget about linearity of progress and content delivery, raids were last stage, which means they were more demanding of "balancing utility" of participants in them, therefore sets in them were quite reasonable and useful phenomenon. But it wasn't something universally each-available and each-obligatory, only privilege and distinctive feature, many players make it without them by operating only with "bare" characteristics and their own classes'/talents' capabilities. They didn't require manipulation within class/talents, these are items that acted on principle of "changed clothes in 1 click and everything is fine", which means they didn't create special systems of prohibition/restriction. And due to fact that changes in system's structure were insignificant, there was no point in switching off them every expansion, therefore they continued to work.

random take: more lock&load procs for surv hunters - it didn't change mechanics and even efficiency didn't grow much if used incorrectly, but if used correctly, there is slight increase, which makes "support player" (this is WoD's bonus if wowhead isn't lying, so no killing shot, recent changes have already greatly weakened their outcome) more useful in raid as dd

In other words, they completely obeyed system's hierarchy of RPG customization and designate/supplemented progress direction, and therefore didn't cause same problems. This doesn't mean that everything was perfect, but deviations were within acceptable level.

So, there are similarities, but there are also many differences.