So which classes/specs are actually in acceptable state?

[Morae]

I would like to point out that I don't have SL beta. My infomation comes from the forums and youtube reviews, etc.

With that said, I feel like many classes are saying they are broken and a mess. Havoc DH, Ret pallies, Feral Druids that I can immediately remember. Did they already fix shadow priests? Have enhancement shaman fixed yet for SL since to my undertandin they have been quite bad in bfa?

The point being, I can remember lots of things being bad in bfa. Many specs being really unfun messes in SL beta? I'm not saying they all area since I can remember some being said to be really good. Yet, many seem to not be.

Is this truly the case? Are there more properly well made classes/specs or is the opposite more true? Is there truly a problem or is it just few specs that are very loud and are the ones I remember?

[Exkrementor]

Its Legion to BFA all over again. Like 3 specs got an actual rework and the rest plays like BFA classes without all the azerite/corrution/essences stuff. Balance, Shadow and Enhancement got a rework, the rest is basically the same with 1-3 talent changes.

[Morae]

Also, should have pointed out, that I'm unsubbed atm. I completed everything I wanted from BFA months ago and saw no reason to stay subbed. I inteded to come back on prepatch.

Motivation for this thread was to have general idea of classes I could try. Mained havoc dh since legion start, but I'm reading that havoc is pretty much a mess right now.

I'd like to see what my options are based on people's opinion of what even work.

[RamGuy]

As one who has been playing Havoc Demon Hunter since the Legion BETA I don't find Havoc to be a mess in the Shadowlands BETA or the PTR. I feel people are tossing around the term "broken class" way too often and too easily.

I feel like Havoc is pretty much in the same state as it has always been. To me, it has always felt like Havoc is Blizzards attempt to have a more modern class that is more casual friendly. It's supposed to look cool, it's supposed to provide you with great utility in terms of movement and overall quality of life improvements when compared to other classes when you are traversing the game world out of combat.

Just like in the Battle of Azeroth BETA and launch Havoc feels like a rather lacklustre class and spec when it comes to complexity. This is a result of how casual-friendly the spec has always been. There isn't much complexity here and we have never really had much complexity since the very beginning. There are cool animations so you look cool, but the fact that you don't really have much to really think about or consider when doing rotations make it's very easy to learn, play and master but for many, it will feel boring after a while.

Shadowlands does seem to make any difference. It feels almost the exact same as it did when Battle for Azeroth launched. When you take away "borrowed power" as people like to call it. In Legion, we got it through the Artefact Weapon System and somewhat through the Legendary System. In Battle for Azeroth, we got it through Heart of Azeroth / Azerite System, Azerite Essecenses and Corruption System. When you take out these systems you are pretty much left with the most barebones spec and class in the entire game.

I don't find this to be a bad thing. It's been like this since the very beginning and I like this. As one who don't have the time and motivation to invest much time and effort into the game I love having such a casual-friendly and extremely easy to learn, understand and master spec like Havoc. The fact that the spec provides you with so much added quality of life improvements outside of combat due to Glide, Fel Rush, Double Jump etc is also great.

The problem is that each and every time a new expansion comes around you go from the end of the previous expansion where you would normally have this thick layer of "borrowed power" smeared all over your character. Once the pre-patch hits all of this is ripped away and quite honestly I feel like no other class gets as affected by this as Demon Hunters. As the core spec is so barebones when it comes to the complexity the additional systems that get layered atop during expansions become such a huge part of your Havoc Demon Hunter's rotation, class identity and complexity. So as soon it's gone you are left feeling o-yeah this is how Havoc really is without all these additional systems sprinkled on top of it.


Shadowlands is nothing different. The only problem with Shadowlands is how Blizzard is trying to re-balance Demon Hunters. It seems like Blizzard no longer wants the most casual-friendly, easy to learn and easy to master class and spec in the game to also be one of the most competitive specs in the game. These rather excessive reductions to overall AoE damage, leech/self-sustain and demonic/time spent in demon form might end up feeling rather rough as we have grown accustomed to pretty much be killing machines in AoE content and next to impossible to kill/get killed.

But I don't think Blizzard is done with tuning the numbers so hopefully, this will get better before Shadowlands releases. I don't understand how people feel like Havoc is a broken spec. The complexity is pretty much the same at it has always been. The biggest question is how hard the AoE reductions and leech reductions will end up being at release. If Blizzard is going to excessive here it might become a problem. A lot of people might argue that such an easy spec to both learn and master shouldn't have such great AoE, shouldn't have such a great self-sustain and whatnot. But at the same time, if Blizzard reduced Havoc to become a mediocre spec due to its lack of complexity then they pretty much remove its whole point of existing if you ask me.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Chances are that if you didnt enjoy a spec in BfA, you won’t in SL.

My opinion might be sullied by the high latency I experience on the Beta though, but to me the only changes seem to be some abilities unpruned across the specs I disliked throughout BFA...

[Azerate]

As per usual, every class is completely broken and unplayable, because there's always something someone won't like.

And then, again as per usual, everyone will be playing those classes and it will be perfectly fine

[enigma77]

Frost Mage is op

[Accendor]

Also, should have pointed out, that I'm unsubbed atm. I completed everything I wanted from BFA months ago and saw no reason to stay subbed. I inteded to come back on prepatch.

Motivation for this thread was to have general idea of classes I could try. Mained havoc dh since legion start, but I'm reading that havoc is pretty much a mess right now.

I'd like to see what my options are based on people's opinion of what even work.

Yes, havoc is the perfect definition of a broken class. You suffer from the target restrictions as everybody else and in addition to that your demonic window is now so short, that you can one fit one blade dance less in than before and also less Chaos strikes.
All new talents fail to be viable, because they fight with talents that should be baseline (e.g. as soon as you skill something else than First Blood, you remove Blade Dance from your rotation. Skilling Demon Blades at the same time literally leaves you with a 1 button rotation with eye beam every 30sec)
Besides that, half the talent tree is build around Momentum, a playstyle that is dead since legion and that they do not want to bring back, yet the talents are still there.

The spec is in dire need of a rework, but as a bandaid, First Blood baseline would do a lot.

[Nyel]

You can test out all the class changes on the PTR for free

Which doesn't mean anything because the pre-patch classes inevitably will suck due to missing Covenants, Soulbinds / Conduits and Legendaries.

[Gasparde]

90% of the specs are exactly as they are on live right now - minus azerites, minus essences, minus corruptions.... but hey, at least you'll get a random synergy-less 2min CD and random legendary with little to no effect after 3 weeks.

Nothing's changed, shit's just slower and all the borrowed power is gone - so enjoy your BM while it lasts because it's gonna play like fucking ass when you lose your 500% crit, haste and all your procs and it's back to watching your focus bar crawl up for 40% or the fight. Same for y'all Destros who'll now go back to 2s cast time CBs every 20s instead of rapid firing 0.5s ones every other GCD. It's gonna feel just as fucking horrible as the transition from Legion to BFA, maybe even worse because fucking corruptions lol.

[dcc626]

90% of the specs are exactly as they are on live right now - minus azerites, minus essences, minus corruptions.... but hey, at least you'll get a random synergy-less 2min CD and random legendary with little to no effect after 3 weeks.

Nothing's changed, shit's just slower and all the borrowed power is gone - so enjoy your BM while it lasts because it's gonna play like fucking ass when you lose your 500% crit, haste and all your procs and it's back to watching your focus bar crawl up for 40% or the fight. Same for y'all Destros who'll now go back to 2s cast time CBs every 20s instead of rapid firing 0.5s ones every other GCD. It's gonna feel just as fucking horrible as the transition from Legion to BFA, maybe even worse because fucking corruptions lol.

so, guessing you've logged a lot of hours on the beta huh? cause you sound like an expert. truly.

[exochaft]

Which doesn't mean anything because the pre-patch classes inevitably will suck due to missing Covenants, Soulbinds / Conduits and Legendaries.

Doesn't help most of my beta chars still have bugged out soulbinds and conduit nodes I can't activate.

Anyways, can't really do a damage comparison because numbers pass hasn't been completed yet. Mechanically, that's something we can talk about.

To be fair, I will say there's only a handful of classes I play test on the beta, half because of my personal interest, half because I don't have time to devote to 36 specs. That being said, my general view from what I've tested is there's a handful of specs that feel good to play, and many could be called functional but has some design issues where things don't make sense or don't flow well. Then there's specs that barely have had any changes, which could be a good or bad thing.

For example, shadow priests feel so good to play right now. It's one of those classes where it may not end up being the top DPS spec, but you might not care because it feels good to play. The ravamp has done wonders for the spec.

Functional but not quite fluid, I would say Moonkin is a prime example of this. It's received a revamp as well, and several iterations of Eclipse on the beta... but players are mixed at best about how it feels. I'll generalize and say if you hated BfA fluidity, you love eclipse... but if you liked BfA fluidity, you'll hate eclipse. Beyond that, there's many aspects of the spec/toolkit/legendaries that just don't make sense or run counter to each other. Most recent eclipse change helped somewhat, but there quite a bit of interactions that either don't exist or clash with other systems. But hey, Starfall does damage now, so yay!

Example of a spec that barely got any changes is Guardian. The baseline toolkit was stripped back in Legion because of all the abilities/passives that the Legion artifact and legendaries provided, and the baseline toolkit is almost unchanged on the beta. Bears got Berserk back, so they have a DPS cooldown again like they've had for ages prior to Legion, but they've lost having Typhoon+Vortex capability. In fact, aside from the addition of class spells (which you can even use while tanking), Berserk is the only thing bear got back. All the same issues and weaknesses from BfA are still there. It feels like Blizz is trying to make bears feel complete via legendary items... but not only are the legendary effects general a weak version of the Legion artifact passives/abilities, but also you have access to only one when we used to have access to multiple versions. At this point, if there isn't some changes in the next beta build, bears might actually be a net negative compared to even BfA bears in many respects.

Well, I don't want to make this a really long post, because I could talk about a bunch of other specs. However, the point is this: some specs feel good and complete, a lot feel like they're in progress, some don't feel like they got touched at all.

*edit* - Slight addition that I meant to add: when it comes to covenants and what they add to classes/specs, it's a mixed bag. Some specs/classes have multiple options, which is great! Some... not so much right now. Still a lot of tuning that should happen.

[Aggrophobic]

I would like to point out that I don't have SL beta. My infomation comes from the forums and youtube reviews, etc.

With that said, I feel like many classes are saying they are broken and a mess. Havoc DH, Ret pallies, Feral Druids that I can immediately remember. Did they already fix shadow priests? Have enhancement shaman fixed yet for SL since to my undertandin they have been quite bad in bfa?

The point being, I can remember lots of things being bad in bfa. Many specs being really unfun messes in SL beta? I'm not saying they all area since I can remember some being said to be really good. Yet, many seem to not be.

Is this truly the case? Are there more properly well made classes/specs or is the opposite more true? Is there truly a problem or is it just few specs that are very loud and are the ones I remember?

Ret is ok in PvE though. Might have a some GCD issues and the other 2 specs paladin has are better but it's still playable and fun (in PvE).
Feral is ok as well. It got very few changes but it's not bad, just not as OP as say DH or rogue used to be.
DH is nerfed but still has a good toolkit, just not a super OP one that fits every situation like before. It's in no way broken though.

Shadow is preatty great after the rework and while enhanc shamans numbers might be a tad low and they still suffer from no survivability they are really fun to play after their rework.

The specs are for the most part rather ok and some really good this time around. The covenants will be an issue though, for pretty much every class. The fact that you can't respec them will make you feel rather worthless in some situation (unless you play a warlock, warlocks always feel like gods!)

[kranur]

Aren't azerites, essences and corruptions mostly passive shit with little to no impact on the actual gameplay?

Played a few minutes on ptr ... havoc feels exactly the same to play but with less damage.

Affliction felt cool, similar to how it was in wotlk.

PTR doesnt require a sub does it?

[Shedaar]

I think we should receive some more class changes (Monk?) this week, so maybe it will turn out for better (fingers crossed)
I don't think there is any class on the beta that I would consider "complete" as a whole other than fury warrior (and even they deal with some issues)?

Really curious what you guys think about the current class state

And I am talking about mechanics only, not numbers.
For one - I am terrified. In BFA the classes haven't been enjoyable for me at all, sadly, and that caused me to drop the game, since the class/spec is the window which through I view and explore the game.

[Gasparde]

so, guessing you've logged a lot of hours on the beta huh? cause you sound like an expert. truly.

I actually have, and I forgot how god awfully slow my BM hunter felt before/during Uldir times. I haven't checked if the numbers are exactly what we had back then, but it certainly feels like we're back to 10-20% of idle time. Same with my Moonkin, I haven't particularly missed hardcasting 10% Starfires for days.

[Boricha]

Havoc DH is nerfed in SL, but still very strong. The demonic nerf will be offset by stacking haste (which looks to be the best stat). Blade Dance was capped at 5 targets, but there's a new talent called Unbound Chaos that is currently very OP uncapped AoE (replaces Trail of Ruin).

Other classes that seem both fun and strong to me are warlock, DK, and sub rogue.

[Bisque]

Also, should have pointed out, that I'm unsubbed atm. I completed everything I wanted from BFA months ago and saw no reason to stay subbed. I inteded to come back on prepatch.

Motivation for this thread was to have general idea of classes I could try. Mained havoc dh since legion start, but I'm reading that havoc is pretty much a mess right now.

I'd like to see what my options are based on people's opinion of what even work.

I believe you can still log onto PTR even if your sub is not current. Now granted because there are no covenants, no soul binds etc... it kind of feels like your "half-testing" the class but at least it is something.

[razorpax]

apparently not having a complete overhaul means your spec is broken....just use the ptr

you dont even need a sub

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

They all are. You may not like them all, but that doesn't mean that its "unacceptable" and blizzard needs to change it to fit your interests.