Some simple ways to restore immersion in WoW

[worsthitmanNa]

(IN VANILLA) Invisibility left you unable to see others, Ferals could stealth but did lackluster DPS (Although their off-healing was very impressive), and they did NOT have Pounce. Ferals were supposed to imitate Rogues (as was their hybrid spec), but they did not have the control, openers, nor damage that Rogues did. Druids were probably the only class in the game that could trump Rogues in mobility, but that made sense. Leather wearing classes should be wearing light armor so they can move unencumbered. Tigers should be able to run faster than a fit two-legged Rogue. Shadow Priest did great damage but still less damage than a Warlock did and had no pet. Shadow Priests could offheal, though, but at a price. Shifting in/out of shadowform was costly and something that you didn't want to do, which is why Shadow Priest had such good damage for a hybrid.

(NOW) Warriors and Hunters have something similar to Evasion (I don't even know what the name of that swirling blades infinite-parry thing Warriors have). DK's have AMS which is almost a super powered CloS and on a MUCH shorter cooldown. Warriors have Shield Wall which is much better than combat readiness, DK's have IBF. Druids have Barkskin/Frenzied Regen+Survival Instincts. Etc. Shadow Priests and Ferals can both Vanish now. Feint and Sap are hardly enough flavor tools to make Rogue exceptionally different from other classes. All a Rogue can do for mobility is Sprint and/or Shadowstep/BoS. Warriors can charge, intercept, heroic leap, and probably some other BS I'm forgetting to mention.

The biggest thing Rogue has going for it right now is Smoke bomb, that is the only thing that it has that no other class even remotely has any form of.

They should have honestly kept going with the ROLE PLAYING GAME theme. Everyone can basically ignore armor now, making it pointless. Everyone has a similar ability of another class, and everyone does similar damage. If you wanted to be a hybrid, you should have expected to do less damage than a pure but have been required to off heal in a pinch. (THAT HURTS DPS OMGAWD!) But what if you could run dungeons with three hybrids and two pures, completely eradicating the need for a healer? What if the healer could only push out so many heals (Unlike now, where they can top off a tank in two GCD's from almost no health at all), that the tank would keep dipping lower and lower, and 5-6 seconds of offheals would be required to push the tank back up to 'reset' the fight? THAT to ME is a great concept that died off long ago.

Classes should all have their 'job', and specs shouldn't determine that. Specs should determine what flavor you are choosing. Having Paladins essentially be three totally different entities from each other was not how it used to be. A Holy Paladin could tank very well pre-50, a Ret Paladin could burst heal for 30~ seconds almost as good as a Holy Paladin could. Each Rogue class played differently, but had their own 'flavor'.

I am NOT saying Vanilla was perfect. It wasn't, at all. Warriors were the only tank, Prot paladins would run out of Mana way too fast with no real way of getting it back quickly, Rogues were TOO powerful, Warriors were an unstoppable force of nature, 40-man raids made things impossible, Rep grinding was far too painful, etc.

Having to wear resist gear is immersive. Having all classes completely different from one another logically based on their theme is immersive. Having to travel across the world to get to your 225+ trainer was immersive. I'm not even sure how I can word it without sounding lame, but I really hope I got the point across :/

Shield wall isn't better then combat readiness every time you get hit their is a chance it will refresh you get more survivability out of combat readiness. Cloak removes all magic effects and anti magic shell only prevents there application and also breaks on damage which is finally an issue in mist. Frenzied regen is garbage in mist maybe it's good as a guardian but for every other spec it sucks. Shadow Priest pets are on a cool down and only last a couple seconds warlock's pets are permanent. Rogues are the only class whose cc is undispellable even thou blizzard gave everyone more tools they are different in their own way. I think that kind of makes them unique. Ferals can't vanish anymore and even when they could it didn't remove hunters mark or ignore damage that broke them out of stealth for 4 seconds. Rogues can only ignore armor after an opener warriors need cs to be up. Dks and rets ignore it because of their spell damage and cast have never been effected by armor mitigation. Warlocks, mages, and rogues are all topping meter on world of logs. I think hunters are the only ones suffering.

Hybrids are only healing in dungeons but not in raids unless its an emergency and hybrid healing is what makes challenge modes fun. Some are doable without a single healer.

[ringpriest]

How do non-warlocks see the warlock only 5.2 green fire quest?

2+ expansions worth of locks begging for green fire before finally getting a questline (which by all accounts is pretty good) for it, doesn't exactly contradict the point that Blizz hates doing class-exclusive content.

---------- Post added 2013-05-15 at 12:33 AM ----------

How to get immersion back:

1) Read the freaking quest texts! So many people cry about the lack of story while questing. There is plenty of story, but not if you don't read it!
2) Stop reading the forums. Nothing breaks immersion as reading all the crying and whining about subscriber loss and how WoW is dying.
3) Stop using Wowhead and alternatives. How can you be immersed if you look up every other quest and where you can find the mob?
4) Stop using questhelpers and guides. Immersion while only following an arrow and clicking 'accept'? No.
5) Put some effort into making friends, instead of crying about how LFR/LFD killed everything. If you need other people to immerse yourself in WoW (which, let's face it, has nothing to do with eachother), go find those people. Did you ever say more then 'hi' in a dungeon?

The game doesn't have to change to get the immersion 'back', it was never gone. The people have to change.

In other words, "stop being a human being". Your advice is the equivalent of telling smokers or alcoholics, "What's wrong with you, just quit!" Or telling an obese person, "just eat better and exercise!" Let me flip around what you just did. Here's how Blizzard can easily fix the immersion issue:

1) Write better quests. They're just a page or two a text and stuff. Doing quests is easy!
2) Have better official forums. Running a forum well, in a way that enhances immersion in the game would be simple to do!
3) Make content dynamic instead of static. Just move a few things around and it won't get stale and feel the same. How hard can that be?
4) Take quest-helpers and dungeon journals out of the game. Quit marking everything on the map.
5) Put some effort into making players actually need each other again. Limit LFR/LFD to realms. (If there aren't enough people on a realm to support LFR/LFD, then merge realms already.) Vanilla content encouraged socialization, surely Blizz hasn't forgotten how they made the game in the first place?