My Only Concern for BfA: Lack of class changes

[Hashcrypt]

One of the most exciting aspects of a new expac for me is the updates to classes, new talents, spells, etc. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Which is why BfA is a bit worrisome to me. The Deb's explicitly stated that they won't be adding many new spells or abilities to the game, so the allure of classes being reworked or reimagined is basically dead. This kills a lot of hype for me personally.

More importantly though is thr fate of our artifact traits. If we're not getting any new abilities and we're losing all of our weapon traits, most if not all classes will have absolutely no depth to them. I know that a few classes have had weapon traits or their artifact ability woven into the base kit or talents in some capacity, but this seems to be a poor substitute.

My concerns were further validated when I watched Towliee's Blizzcon stream. He played a prot pally and a guardian Druid during his allotted time. He went through both specs spellbooks and talents...and they were exactly the same as Legion's. He just used the exact same spec he's been using for the past year + on his toons from a new xpac. That is just mind blowing to me. Are we really going to be playing the same damn specs over he span of four years between Legion and BfA?

On a personal note I play an Assassination Rogue, and from what I've researched two of our main rotation altering abilities is tied to our artifact weapon, Kingsbane and Surge of Toxins, and both are completely MIA atm. If these traits don't appear elsewhere then Sin now has just abysmally dull gameplay and I'll most certainly look elsewhere in BfA.

This brings me to the only savings grace to all this and that is the Azerite system. Basically all of the classes gameplay depth depends on the three armor pieces well be powering up through the Heart of Azeroth. If no new spells or reworks are planned then that means most of the important traits from our weapon will have to be found within this gear. This doesn't sound too appealing to me either since we'll simply be grinding through BfA just to maybe get to where our classes are today.

Other than above I'm pretty excited about BfA. I like all the systems they've announced and i can't wait to play it. But my biggest fear is that I'm basically already playing BfA in terms of class gameplay but will potentially be watered down. I'm hoping Blizz has tons of unannounced class changes that they be rolling out on the coming months along with a 120 talent row and lots of new and fun traits found within the Azerite armor pieces.

Hopefully Blizz proves all of my concerns invalid!

[ro9ue]

They've said in the past one of the biggest reasons why people leave the game is because of massive changes to their main character's class. I suspect they are at least happy internally with how each spec is and the goal going forward is to just tweak them slightly, maybe bake a few good abilities in we get from the expansion-specific progression like artifact traits.

However, that's bad news for people if this latest iteration of your class is your least favorite. For me I always liked hunters and rogues, but their design in Legion is total garbage imo. Guess that means I'm done with them for now?

[Loeve]

I think most classes in Legion are boring so I hope they add something and mix it up abit.

[Eon Drache]

Some specs have been completely screwed up because of the sweeping class changes that we get. Look at Retribution Paladins. It is the worst (Playstyle wise) that the spec has ever been for a majority of players. And it is performing badly. The developers have had no idea how to change the main problem with Retribution despite saying they had plans for it, Crusade. Without sweeping changes maybe we can get a better balance.

[Erolian]

Wish they had decided to not make sweeping changes after MoP instead of now. I actually liked pretty much any class I played back then and now its like something is just missing all the time. They went a little too hard on removing abilities across the board in the last couple of expansions. These days though? Please make sweeping changes on the off chance I don't hate some of your classes

[Athaldor]

In my opinion the Statement can be understand as some sort of a "we won't do reworks like survival hunter and we are quite satisfied with most classes", but that doesn't exclude some changes for bad performing specs, e.g. ret. I think devs are skilled enough to read Player Feedback/statistics from WCL and do the right decisions.

[Deleted]

I would be more worried if they announced large class changes. Ever since the end of MoP their class design has been a fucking disaster. Before that I used to be excited about the new abilities my class gets. Since WoD I've been scared of which ability my class will LOSE next.
They removed every interesting class mechanic and simplified all the specs.

[Einsz]

BfA so far just looks like DLC bigger patch not expansion, lack of class changes is the biggest mistake as currently legion has one of the most boring designs together with classic and wod

[Yanwu]

It has been said that there will be new abilities added. Some classes will receive abilities provided by the current legendary weapons.

What has also been said is there won't be any SWEEPING changes. This means they aren't going to make a Rogue spec into a ranged spec (like they did with Survival Hunters) or they aren't going to add a new resource system (like Shadow Priests). But that they will add some talents, tweak some talents, add a few abilities here and there. This is a good thing. It means you don't have to completely relearn your class and you can just build upon what will be new.

[Swalload]

OP

I also liked seeing the changes to classes from one xpack to the next but Legion took a shit on this. I used to play Survival and Enhancement a lot, but in Legion these 2 specs became fucking lame, performance aside, the playstyles are nowhere near as good as they were before. Some classes did get better, DK for exemple, but still. I'd like to see some minor tweaks to classes that got shit on, I don't think a massive rework is needed except for Survival that needs to go back to what it was.

[rootbeerboy]

I think balancing is gonna be terrible without artifacts.. specs won't feel right after having all these artifact traits. I think they should rework a lot of classes.

[Enkrypt]

Thanks Green Jesus for NO class changes.

That isn't something we need for each expansion. They've screwed up so many good, working classes for "reasons". Leave it alone if it works.

[Arainie]

Change for the sake of change is neither good nor progressive. I much prefer that they stop chopping and changing things that obviously work and already attracts player, we picked our mains back in the days for a reason but now it feels like a playstyle coin toss for every single tier, at least as a priest.

I've played my priest since BC and I've almost seen more rotation/ability changes in Legion than I did from BC to WoD which says a lot. Every spec has changed playstyle for every tier so far, but hopefully T21 is an exception to the rule.

[Deleted]

I actually agree with OP. One of the main reasons I do not play WoW nowadays is I just got bored of the classes. I do not enjoy the classes and gameplay associated to them now, so I was hoping for some massive overhauls of atleast some of them. Well... we will wait and see, but...

Eh...

[Deleted]

The only class change they need is a complete revert to MoP, and then go from there.

[MabusGaming]

They haven't gone around doing the class changes yet lol.

Lore literally said on his stream they didn't do anything major yet because they didn't want people to spend all their time at Blizzcon trying to relearn their classes (they had a 20 minute time limit).

Wait until later next year.

[Eurhetemec]

The only class change they need is a complete revert to MoP, and then go from there.

This meme needs to die in a fire. Preferably one started by Nomi.

MoP had a handful of great spec designs, a bunch of a mediocre or questionable ones, and several completely shit ones. Rose-tinting that and claiming it was "all great" is just fucking silly. It also had a spectacular number of semi-useless abilities.

[EternalBany]

They've said in the past one of the biggest reasons why people leave the game is because of massive changes to their main character's class. I suspect they are at least happy internally with how each spec is and the goal going forward is to just tweak them slightly, maybe bake a few good abilities in we get from the expansion-specific progression like artifact traits.

However, that's bad news for people if this latest iteration of your class is your least favorite. For me I always liked hunters and rogues, but their design in Legion is total garbage imo. Guess that means I'm done with them for now?

exactly this
i play ret pala and bm hunter
i deslike them in legion

What do i do? reroll?
hardly, most likely try it and quit

[Enkrypt]

Change for the sake of change is neither good nor progressive. I much prefer that they stop chopping and changing things that obviously work and already attracts player, we picked our mains back in the days for a reason but now it feels like a playstyle coin toss for every single tier, at least as a priest.

I've played my priest since BC and I've almost seen more rotation/ability changes in Legion than I did from BC to WoD which says a lot. Every spec has changed playstyle for every tier so far, but hopefully T21 is an exception to the rule.

This is exactly how I feel.

Subtlety Rogue at the end of WoD was so much fun. Rewarding the better and better you played. But they shit on that. All over it. Legion is the one expansion where I struggled to find something I was comfortable playing for the remainder of the content.

[Eurhetemec]

exactly this
i play ret pala and bm hunter
i deslike them in legion

What do i do? reroll?
hardly, most likely try it and quit

Do you see how that cuts both ways, though?

I like Blood DK and Vengeance DH in Legion.

If they made big changes to either, they might well end up making them un-fun/rubbish.

So if they changed them for the sake of changing them, I'd be pretty pissed-off.

I have a question for everyone though:

What specs, exactly, do YOU think need serious re-works/go-overs for BfA?

Personally I would say it seems to be:

All three specs of Hunter, but SV and MM most of all
Outlaw Rogue
Ret Pally

Anything else?