I'm maining a class.. not a spec.

[Eurhetemec]

I mostly gave up on Legion after first patch, so you’re probably right. But before that the catch up for legendaries was non existent and ap catch up was slow. IMO Legion legendaries was the worst system in the history of wow.

Maybe you shouldn't have included Legion in the list then lol? Just saying!

Legion started off appalling, like APPALLING OMG. And then it improved so much on this, that most people basically forgot it ever was appalling in the later patches. The AP catch was massive and rapid. The availability of legendaries steadily improved from "shite" to "okay I guess" to "just buy the one you want with this new currency" over the expansion. It did undeniably start out fucking horrible though.

It's an expansion where catch-up went from nothing (and was also really alt-unfriendly, because of the way it worked), to excellent.

In Cata, there was a valor point cap too, right? So I ran them for valor after the gear. I don’t remember feeling like the rep requirements were at all onerous, and I definitely got a lot of valor gear.

As I recall, the cap was pretty low. However it worked out, it was largely worthless for me to run more than a couple of Heroics a week whilst raiding (which I usually did to help people or complete achievements). Also the pricing on the gear meant it was a very slow way to get geared IIRC.

[cparle87]

If this is true why do they make less raids now than they did in the past when lfr did not exist.

You mean in BC and Wrath when they made 3 dungeons and a raid or 4 dungeons all basically looking the same using the same resources? Or Wrath with a rehashed Naxx, 2 raids in the same room, adding another boss to the same raid each tier? Or in Cata where every every raid was a recycled location that they'd already made a dungeon for and the half tier that wouldn't have been a copy/paste (the water half of firelands) was cut? Easy to make more raids when you can just copy/paste your art assets then add new mobs.

By comparison was Mogu'shan Vaults a copy of three other mogu dungeons we'd already done? Was HoF a copy of three other mantid dungeons? Etc etc? See. The moment they had LFR and would look at the bean counters and say "This stuff is work making" we got raids with unique appearances, longer raids, more bosses, etc.

[epigramx]

I'm pretty sure the reason they nerf off-specs is that it would make multi-role classes extremely powerful. Then again they also nerf the multi-role classes in various ways making them annoying. E.g. try to compare a monk's DPS to the swiss army knife and massive damage of a mage and you realize those off specs are just crap even if they didn't nerf them by prioritizing the main spec.

[Thundering]

You mean in BC and Wrath when they made 3 dungeons and a raid or 4 dungeons all basically looking the same using the same resources? Or Wrath with a rehashed Naxx, 2 raids in the same room, adding another boss to the same raid each tier? Or in Cata where every every raid was a recycled location that they'd already made a dungeon for and the half tier that wouldn't have been a copy/paste (the water half of firelands) was cut? Easy to make more raids when you can just copy/paste your art assets then add new mobs.

By comparison was Mogu'shan Vaults a copy of three other mogu dungeons we'd already done? Was HoF a copy of three other mantid dungeons? Etc etc? See. The moment they had LFR and would look at the bean counters and say "This stuff is work making" we got raids with unique appearances, longer raids, more bosses, etc.

lol
https://gamingsf.wordpress.com/2015/...ons-and-raids/

[cparle87]

lol
https://gamingsf.wordpress.com/2015/...ons-and-raids/

Thank you for proving you didn't read my post. Yeah, BC and Wrath had a ton of dungeons, but they were all the same. Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Magtheridon, same. All of Serpentshrine, same. All of TK, same. All of Auchindoun, same. They could've easily made 3 separate wings of Freehold or Atal'dazar or Waycrest Manor with almost no cost increase just by doing what they did back then. On the raiding perspective we had rehashed Naxx and ToC one room same as a dungeon in Wrath. Cata we had another Blackrock raid, nothing new; a wind raid, same art assets as the dungeon; half of the Firelands tier was cut and it used same assets as Molten Front. And Dragon Soul was a copy paste of an existing dungeon.

Then look at MoP. First tier was three completely unique raids with nothing else like it. Second tier huge and completely unique.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

I'm maining a spec, not a class. When I play warrior I have zero interest in playing Arms or Prot. The same goes for almost every class I play.

[Kaver]

I'm maining a spec.

An that's completely fine. The purpose of this thread was definitely not to say that people shouldn't main specs. Everyone has their own preferences and should play the game as they want.

The problem for me is when they "punish" people for playing multiple specs. For example, when I play a Rogue I should be able (in my opinion) to utilize all the specs without having to pay a huge price.

[sephrinx]

For real dude. I'm a PALADIN. Not a "Kyrian Retribution Paladin" - no, I am a Paladin.

I can't wait for the expansion with out all this garbage in it.

[exsanguinate]

For real dude. I'm a PALADIN. Not a "Kyrian Retribution Paladin" - no, I am a Paladin.

I can't wait for the expansion with out all this garbage in it.

Agree. Every system added with shadowlands is absolute garbage.

[Aphrel]

blizzard keep punishing players for playing more than one spec. I guess tanks and healers will be even more rare to find in m+ in shadowlands...

[ymirsson]

Don't care what you call it, it all sucks, whether you call farming a reputation for 3 weeks "time gating" or "grinding"... it's just nonsense shit content.

Yeah, i was so happy to play in classic to get to the time when we didn't have to. When we were free to change specs like underwear. Every week if need be!

[oblakoff]

I honestly don't understand the people that want more homogenization of specs. Aren't the classes as a whole homogenized enough? WoW is the only MMO that comes close to have 36 distinct playstyles and yes it requires a bit of grinding. What is wrong with specs becoming mini-classes?
Remember when back in vanilla you had to grind gold just to respec? Tedious and clunky process and very, very expensive, especially if you wanted to play both PvP and PvE. If you are lucky enough to play a class that is somewhat good in both or even in one of them.

But this is a MMO after all. If your definition of "fun" is instant gratification there are plenty of games that fill that playstyle - go play MOBA or a FPS.

[Sting]

This makes me and all the older players laugh, changing specs these days is nothing compared to what we used to go through.

You're out of your mind. Having to grind a different gear set, picking different covenants, other legendary powers are WAY worse than going back to a trainer and throwing some gold at it. Signed, day 1 player.

[Tiwack]

They want the game to be as addictive as possible and for players to play all day every day. If you can't keep up, gramps, you're merely not trying hard enough, lol. It's why classic is so popular and why old players get more and more rare in retail.

[LordVargK]

You're out of your mind. Having to grind a different gear set, picking different covenants, other legendary powers are WAY worse than going back to a trainer and throwing some gold at it. Signed, day 1 player.

I mean, to be fair, there was a time where your tier sets were spec specific. And items did not change stats based on your current spec. Nowadays you have to farm new trinkets and weapons. That's it for gear. Sure, I agree that Azerite, artifacts, legiondaries, essences, etc, etc are a massive pain in the ass. But the "going to the trainer" you remember was only possible in WoD. WoD did not require you to farm different gear anymore. And MoP gave you class specific tier sets (as opposed to spec specific).
Before that you had to have a gear set for each spec, which was moderately difficult for DPS classes, but pretty hard for hybrids.

The thing is, in past expansions you did not need an offspec. Because mythic plus was not a thing. In a raid you often had only one, maybe sometimes two roles for certain bosses. But generally you had your raid spec and the spec you did outdoor content with, which also did not really matter most of the time.

And for PvP you had PvP equipment (or your raid equipment, depending on expansion). But that's it. Mythic plus is the only reason you really need more than one role. And for hybrid classes switching specs got easier, while for DPS classes switching got harder.

[Thundering]

Thank you for proving you didn't read my post. Yeah, BC and Wrath had a ton of dungeons, but they were all the same. Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Magtheridon, same. All of Serpentshrine, same. All of TK, same. All of Auchindoun, same. They could've easily made 3 separate wings of Freehold or Atal'dazar or Waycrest Manor with almost no cost increase just by doing what they did back then. On the raiding perspective we had rehashed Naxx and ToC one room same as a dungeon in Wrath. Cata we had another Blackrock raid, nothing new; a wind raid, same art assets as the dungeon; half of the Firelands tier was cut and it used same assets as Molten Front. And Dragon Soul was a copy paste of an existing dungeon.

Then look at MoP. First tier was three completely unique raids with nothing else like it. Second tier huge and completely unique.

Thank you for not caring about facts, but anyway they are less similar than the bs mythic spam of today.

[IceMan1763]

I don't understand this. You think we played classes in the past? I'm pretty sure that despite the absence of borrowed power systems, we were locked into specific specs. Granted the reason for that in the past was class design. Then again, when Ret became a playing spec in Wotlk, I was a Retribution paladin, not a paladin.

I'm beginning to feel that our choices should be more permanent as opposed to the versatility we have today that lets us adapt to anything and anyone.

Switching to and maintaining more than one spec was not unusual at least through Cata. Didn't play MOP or whatever the xpac after was called very much so can't speak to those. Played the first few months of Legion and can 100% confirm it didn't just kill playing alts or maining a class and maintaining more than one spec, it brought that playstyle out in the middle of the town square in front of everyone and subjected it to a firing squad.

At this point I just have a hard time believing Blizz is eschewing the MAU driven strategy of game and system design. I'm on the fence of even playing Shadowlands at all right now. BFA I think was their worst Xpac. I think I lasted the first month and haven't logged into WOW since. Maybe it's better just to keep that streak going.

[cparle87]

Thank you for not caring about facts, but anyway they are less similar than the bs mythic spam of today.

What does people spamming M+ have to do with the variety of dungeons in the past compared to now? You could easily take something like Waycrest Manner, break it up into four wings, add some more hallways and a few more bosses, and make it four dungeons. That's what they did in the early days to save money. Scarlet Monastery, Auchindoun, Hellfire Citadel, etc. It's easy to say old xpacs had more dungeons when it's that easy. Repeat that for other hubs, like Atal'dazar, and you can easily proclaim that BFA has more dungeons than any other xpac. Doesn't mean that they're good dungeons. I love how Blizz stops cheaply copy/pasting to make multiple dungeons and people complain that the number of dungeons went down.

[Daronokk]

When I pick I class I don't do it because of only one spec. I want to play all aspects of that class without being "punished" in terms of performance.

Just because you can now change your spec doesn't mean the game is based around that. Picking a spec and sticking with is normal.

I actually like that different specs feel and play different, especially since talent trees are gone.

[Saltysquidoon]

Just because you can now change your spec doesn't mean the game is based around that. Picking a spec and sticking with is normal.

I see someone has never played a tank or healer in their life.