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!