Comparing 'Specs' from Vanilla to Legion

[therealstegblob]

What in the literal fuck. First of all, format that garbage dump of a post a little better. Second of all, your big source is some outdated, broken website that doesn't even list sub numbers?? All I see are total unit sales, absolutely no mention of subscriptions at all. Where are you getting the sub numbers from?

And for the record, is this website accurate? Is it only counting unit sales and not pre-sales? Collector's additions? What information is this busted, buggy, broken website going off of?

And who gives a fuck what a subscriber is??????? How is this even an argument? So what if someone is subbed but doesn't play. It's still a subscriber.

At this point I'm tempted to just ignore you because you're either impossibly insane or an actual troll. I'm giving you one chance to give some kind of valid evidence of what you are claiming. I'm not even necessarily saying you're for-sure wrong or whatever, but you're speaking a lot of huge claims ("LFD killed subs so bad they didn't even really publish them, they basically lied about it!" and "Chilton more or less lied about sub numbers/player activity!") and so far your 'proof' is some completely busted website that looks about as trustworthy as dirt.

[Vineri]

And who gives a fuck what a subscriber is??????? How is this even an argument? So what if someone is subbed but doesn't play. It's still a subscriber.

<SNIP>

I'm not even necessarily saying you're for-sure wrong or whatever, but you're speaking a lot of huge claims ("LFD killed subs so bad they didn't even really publish them, they basically lied about it!" and "Chilton more or less lied about sub numbers/player activity!")

Current Subscribers might care.

I'm not what your argument even is, other than you would like to poop on the very game that made Legions possible. Multiple negative threads in a day or 2.

Current players with dead servers may disagree with your stance.

TRUE statements.

Color coded for clarity. You've been making a lot of anti-Vanilla posts recently. I understand it's not a game for everyone. If it is something you feel you won't enjoy, there is a new WoW expansion coming out later this year. I think you'll like it. Try for beta. Please.

[Alidfe]

Every single spec WORKED in vanilla raiding

With a very, very loose definition of worked, I suppose you could argue that. In such broad strokes though the concept of balance stops even really existing.

the point is

that in vanilla class had priority over spec

whereas in legion spec has priority over class

in terms of design

To an extent. I think it's more accurate to generally say that Vanilla's design philosophy was that trap options weren't a bad thing and that there was a stronger emphasis on the player doing their own research.

In modern WoW when a spec is bad it's generally considered to be a design failure on Blizzard's part. In Vanilla it was a much more common sentiment to instead blame the player for not studying up ahead of time: It's your own fault for not realizing that paladins are healers and buffbots and the image of a crusader with a giant weapon is just a marketing spin you fell for. That kind of thing.

[therealstegblob]

Current Subscribers might care.

I'm not what your argument even is, other than you would like to poop on the very game that made Legions possible. Multiple negative threads in a day or 2.

Current players with dead servers may disagree with your stance.

TRUE statements.

Color coded for clarity. You've been making a lot of anti-Vanilla posts recently. I understand it's not a game for everyone. If it is something you feel you won't enjoy, there is a new WoW expansion coming out later this year. I think you'll like it. Try for beta. Please.

First of all, this is another outright unreadable fucking post. Second of all, even if you can stand to read it, it makes no valid points; especially not in supporting your previous post. Third of all, I have made no anti-Vanilla posts recently (but good job going through my post history, as if that has anything to do with this argument?). I have made posts that are anti-pure Vanilla Classic servers, as 'pure vanilla no changes' will provide warped and incredibly shallow experiences due to reasons I've already defended adequately in other threads.

In conclusion, you've blatantly fucking lied about everything you've said so far (the sub number 'cover up', the drop in subs with LFD, Chilton's claim being erroneous).

I have seen some especially not-very-bright people on the internet but you are giving me some serious meat sweats right now. Ignored. Ignored hard.

[Vineri]

you've blatantly fucking lied about everything you've said so far (the sub number 'cover up', the drop in subs with LFD, Chilton's claim being erroneous).

Good sir or madam, if you are naive enough to believe press reports over Quarterly earnings reports, then the joke is on you.

If Chilton's outlandish statements were true, they would be available for all investors to hear during the quarterly call. But they were not, now were they?

Current investors appreciate the press all the same for driving their stocks, via unproven assertations. Inaccurate press statements can be corrected (whoops!). Inaccurate Earnings call data cannot (jail).

[Gaidax]

Good sir or madam, if you are naive enough to believe press reports over Quarterly earnings reports, then the joke is on you.

If Chilton's outlandish statements were true, they would be available for all investors to hear during the quarterly call. But they were not, now were they?

Current investors appreciate the press all the same for driving their stocks, via unproven assertations. Inaccurate press statements can be corrected (whoops!). Inaccurate Earnings call data cannot (jail).

You are that kind of poster I despise, what the fuck whatever you said now has remotely anything to do with the thread in question?

I have literally no idea why you keep posting this completely unrelated bullshit spiked with your assumptions which you wish to spin as a truth.

What this even has to do with bloody vanilla or so called "specs" there?

[chiddie]

It all depends on what you mean by viable, optimal in a raiding scenario or merely useable, if it's garbage in PvE but fantastic in PvP, is it viable then?
Every single spec WORKED in vanilla raiding, except for Prot paladins maybe, not having a taunt simply meant there were some fights you functionally couldn't do.

But besides that... feral druids could tank and DPS, warriors/rogues did it much better, but it could be done, and in PvP feral was perfectly fine, maybe even OP in 1vs1, oomkins could dps, mages and warlocks did it better, but again... it could be done, and again in PvP oomkins were perfectly fine, against any class that had no self healing they were monsters at kiting, healing and slowly wearing them down.
Prot paladins were FANTASTIC 5 man tanks, especially in the endgame when you were rushing through dungeons, having a good paladin tank was SWEET, you could finally AoE to your hearts content, and their solo AoE farming was kinda crazy, as for Retribution, again a dedicated melee dps could do it better, but no vanilla bosses were tuned for min maxing dps, so like feral and oomkin, the dps didn't really matter, it was fine.
Then we have Shamans, elemental, like oomkin, have mana problems in long fights, but with proper consumables can deal with it and like the other dps hybrids, end up in the lower middle of the pack, and in PvP, elemental was kinda terrifying, their burst was kinda mental, and enhancement? Same deal again, meh dps, but brought good buffs for a melee group, just stick him on nightfall duty and it would be kinda hard to argue that he was a "wasted raid spot", and we all remember how messed up a good enhancement shaman could be in PvP.
So who's left of the "unviable" specs? Shadow priests? Beasts in PvP and after the ZG patch, a critical part of the ranged dps team, not to mention how fantastic they were on Loatheb, one of the hardest fights in Vanilla.

All of these hybrids... sure, they werent topping any meters in long raid fights, but the gulf between "viable" and "optimal" is huge.

IMO, "unviable specs", were simply not a thing in vanilla, they all had their place, their strengths, and their weaknesses, meassuring viability by a raid damage meter is a silly way to go about things.

Sorry, I stopped at the part in which you say bears could tank, but I’m sure the following part is interesting either.

[Vineri]

What this even has to do with bloody vanilla or so called "specs" there?

What does most comments here, including yours, have to do with specs?

It's like Blizzard's evolution of specs actually. Goes all over the place. Lands somewhere, then flies away again to go someplace else. Mostly because someone has bizarre or inaccurate data someone asserts to stir things up. Blizzard has a history of this.

I'm not a huge fan of that which causes them to start flying. I'm rather keep them grounded. Better?

[Battlebeard]

The speccs of vanilla had a lot of flaws and many speccs were indeed non-viable in the sense that they had no chance at competing with other speccs, even though they could be used in questing or something.

This was bad, but it had it's charm, as the game was new. Speccs have developed, for good and for bad over the years. However, it will be fun to go back to the old days, to re-live how it was. The game was new before and people weren't as good at the game. It will be fun to see the current pros of the game to try to make a non-viable specc actually viable, and to see if their 13 years of hardcore gameplay will make a difference.

Either way, these servers are a nostalgia trip, nothing more, nothing less, and that should not be underrated. We (the purists as we are called, lol) want the bad things too, to give an authentic gameplay experience, and even though it might turn out a disaster compared to todays game, it's still original, and thats the important thing.

[Bullerick]

I liked that better from a roleplay perspective. Ele shaman and Enha shaman are both shaman, they can both do what shaman do, but ele shaman is only "slightly" better than enha shaman at ranged combat and enha shaman is the same with melee. But if an ele shaman wanted to club down some enemies here and there, he could.

The fact that hunters are both melee and ranged was an incredibly fun type of gameplay as well. I guess I like the idea of hybrid classes.

[digichi]

I think they have learned a lot, naturally, in 13 years of working over the same game. I think some devs (like pardo) really approached the game by valuing the roleplaying-aspect first (even if they knew they had to make sacrfices for gameplay... i dont think they liked how many sacrifices they had to end up making.) Players basically took hold of the game and molded it, and even though 'technically' you could say that class/spec x y z was 'viable', it doesn't mean it was fun. Devs can argue 'well, you're not playing it as we wanted you to. See, play it like this, this is fun!' but you can't really control every player, they're just gonna enjoy it or not. Ppl wanted more buttons to press, to have some rotation, to have some class flavour, their own 'moment in the sun'.


Thats why ive said it time and time again, TBC was like the pinnacle of fun in WoW for me. A lot of class/specs were fun, and actually useful/unique.

I will say though- a fun thing about vanilla WoW is that, when effectively a lot of specs are 'bad', it creates this weird self-balancing thing. You might not be the 2 shot mage, or stunlock rogue.. but you can play that auto-attack paladin and 1v1 a feral druid. It will be awkward and a long fight (until someone runs out of mana), but there's something nice about that simplicity in vanilla WoW too.

[Deleted]

A final note: During vanilla, when somebody IRL asked what class you play, you answered "Warrior", or "Shaman", or "Priest" or whatever you were playing. Today? "Shadow priest", "Survival Hunter", "Affliction Lock".

Before anyone blasts me, I'm not arguing for or against class changes, just trying to prove a point and start a discussion!

That makes no sense. Specs were divided by gear, unlike now where mainstat changes when you respec. Talking about respec, you couldn't even respec on the fly or change a talent, you had to respec entirely at a trainer for quite bit of gold.

If you were a tank, you told people you played a protection warrior, because fury was just as viable.

These days you play X class but got gear for every spec pretty much - Obviously some specs function significantly better with certain stats, but it's still doable nontheless.

[ringpriest]

That makes no sense. Specs were divided by gear, unlike now where mainstat changes when you respec. Talking about respec, you couldn't even respec on the fly or change a talent, you had to respec entirely at a trainer for quite bit of gold.

If you were a tank, you told people you played a protection warrior, because fury was just as viable.

These days you play X class but got gear for every spec pretty much - Obviously some specs function significantly better with certain stats, but it's still doable nontheless.

What I recall from "back then" was that your class was less important than your ability to do your job in the group - if your hunter or mage or rogue couldn't cc while pulling adequate (didn't really have to be that high) dps; people were not very concerned about how you had spent your talent points, but as to whether or not you could do the job. If your dps pulled pats, or aggro (and worse, then feigned and sent mobs straight to the healer), if you sent mobs fleeing in terror across the instance at the first sign of trouble, then it didn't matter what you'd spec'd, likewise if you ended up drinking more than the healer.

"I've got a decent shield and I'm over-leveled for this place, my other toon is also a MT so I know what I'm doing" (and then demonstrating that over the course of a few pulls) was a lot more important than exactly where those talent points went. Likewise being able to keep the group alive as a healer > spec or how often you had to drink, as long as you were upfront about it. "I've got a decent heal set, and will probably need to drink every pull or two, and I've got enough pots to get through boss fights" was a perfectly good and honest answer, unless someone was worried about time (or for a few specific dungeons).

Oh, and your ability as a decent player mattered too; insults and ninja-loots got you not just kicked, but blacklisted by the server; so would unteachable rank stupidity or trolling by repeatedly pulling mobs as dps, getting lost away from the group, or refusing to play your toon even a little appropriately (insisting on melee as a mage, or ranged as rogue) - I sometimes feel that these people were the ones Blizzard ended up catering to, and then trying to mitigate the damage from, until the whole game was a bland, empty, flavor-less high-sugar mess.

[Charge me Doctor]

A final note: During vanilla, when somebody IRL asked what class you play, you answered "Warrior", or "Shaman", or "Priest" or whatever you were playing. Today? "Shadow priest", "Survival Hunter", "Affliction Lock".

I still say that i play mage, dunno about you

[Alkizon]

I liked that better from a roleplay perspective. Ele shaman and Enha shaman are both shaman, they can both do what shaman do, but ele shaman is only "slightly" better than enha shaman at ranged combat and enha shaman is the same with melee. But if an ele shaman wanted to club down some enemies here and there, he could.

The fact that hunters are both melee and ranged was an incredibly fun type of gameplay as well. I guess I like the idea of hybrid classes.

Yes, really true. Both for class fantasy and for centralization on class. Specialization, as a separate concept from build, began to farmed in MoP/Сata (it still wasn't felt much during expansions, since there was no spec centralization in ideology/design, it just appeared as interface restriction) - this is artificial concept: class is important (fantasy), build is important (RPG), gameplay is important (balance as degree of utility, and not as requirement for equalization, and to equal degree as outside and inside it), theoretical/logical rationale is important (it's about 3rd bonus slot for weapons that was removed), "separate" specialization is irrelevant. In many ways this is main part of basic requirements in achieving balance-fun. More information here from friends.

Or Frostfire, or PoM-Pyro, or any of many other builds - yes, yes, all builds were not "viable" (or even playable) in endgame raiding, which most of the playerbase didn't do; this is something I think the discussion here is mostly missing - Blizzard isn't making this for you, the savvy and committed gamer - they're making this for the millions of casuals who had a good time, never took it that seriously, gave them a ton of money, and quit sometime around Wrath because Blizz had taken their massively successful social mmo rpg and turned it into... something else. That's a niche that still isn't filled today; it will be interesting to see if Blizz tries to build some sort of Facebook plugin or the like to Classic when they (eventually) re-release.

Also true, but not just this.

I think they have learned a lot, naturally, in 13 years of working over the same game. I think some devs (like pardo) really approached the game by valuing the roleplaying-aspect first (even if they knew they had to make sacrfices for gameplay... i dont think they liked how many sacrifices they had to end up making.) Players basically took hold of the game and molded it, and even though 'technically' you could say that class/spec x y z was 'viable', it doesn't mean it was fun. Devs can argue 'well, you're not playing it as we wanted you to. See, play it like this, this is fun!' but you can't really control every player, they're just gonna enjoy it or not. Ppl wanted more buttons to press, to have some rotation, to have some class flavour, their own 'moment in the sun'.


Thats why ive said it time and time again, TBC was like the pinnacle of fun in WoW for me. A lot of class/specs were fun, and actually useful/unique.

I will say though- a fun thing about vanilla WoW is that, when effectively a lot of specs are 'bad', it creates this weird self-balancing thing. You might not be the 2 shot mage, or stunlock rogue.. but you can play that auto-attack paladin and 1v1 a feral druid. It will be awkward and a long fight (until someone runs out of mana), but there's something nice about that simplicity in vanilla WoW too.

And this is also true, especially in regards to "gameplay dictatorship". The only thing, I liked better WotLK trees, imo they were wider and better balanced (hunters' trees and fantasy for example). But this is subjective and therefore I won't insist on my rightfulness. Still, for example: I didn't like fact that they introduced Honor Among Thieves-talent at 1st branch, while similar property (combat points crit-generation) was one of main distinctive features of 3rd branch.

That makes no sense. Specs were divided by gear, unlike now where mainstat changes when you respec. Talking about respec, you couldn't even respec on the fly or change a talent, you had to respec entirely at a trainer for quite bit of gold.

If you were a tank, you told people you played a protection warrior, because fury was just as viable.

These days you play X class but got gear for every spec pretty much - Obviously some specs function significantly better with certain stats, but it's still doable nontheless.

And this is also true ("dictatorship"-link from previous paragraph is also relevant here), since main mechanism for regulating game mechanics were basic characteristics and secondary parameters (2nd received much weighty place in two next expansions after Classic (didn't conflict with design and game world fantasy, but added more subtle tuning for RPG-customization), until (Cataclysm?) Blizzard suddenly decided to begin to cut RPG component)- this was the main system of balance adjustment, but not artificial bindings that doesn't consistent with game world fantasy. This is also the highest priority sensor for any of "proposed changes" in the game, it shouldn't be violated. This argument should win any debate:
1) conflicts - no, change in this form isn't necessary;
2) doesn't (has theoretical foundation in game universe) - yes, we can try.

I still say that i play mage, dunno about you

Yet you have to specify specialization, because set of available abilities is almost fully not the same (but should almost coincide to make it "class", and the same story with any of it)... unlike "classical approach".
- edited for not been offensive
Class has ceased to be game concept, now new class is spec. Any class member previously possessed almost whole set of distinctive and functional capabilities characteristic of this class, whereas now it's not possible to call such stuff. Here link (I already hid it under word "fantasy" in previous parts).

----------------------------

First of all I like your references, I wish more people were as passionate about an argument as you!

But... What is this word salad above? Also, pro tip - Ending a sentence with "you can't challenge this" is a good way to lose an argument before it even starts.

It was meant that your "class" now doesn't speak about your abilities (abilities = opportunities) for me it's obvious, but I'll note "to exclude unnecessary categoricalness" (corrected), thx.

"Yet these days you do have to specify your specialization, because of the differences between the specs being far greater than it's ever been (obviously a frost mage, and fire mage are two completely different creatures). In some ways the specs still resemble the class fantasy they're based on, but the the class fantasy was much more clear and distinct in Vanilla, a Mage was a Mage."

Yes, exactly, much of this. Sorry english is not my primary. It's as overflow of material in head and you spit everything out. Then you edit it all, than even more and still some stuff continues to look like mess.

Yes, just like in any other expansion with number of viable specs >1.

Spec is not a class, you have to be quite delusional to think so, because specs exist inside of a class, they are not independent entities.

~1/2 abilities - not relevant, same way I could say that about any classes (not specs) been "same class" with same (for ex. CC) abilities. What about stuff that warlock says in that link? - no class, just spec.

Also from here:

There are effectively 36 distinct classes.

Finally! It was officially recognized (exactly this wording)

[Byleth]

Yet you have to specify specialization, because set of available abilities is almost fully not the same (but should almost coincide to make it "class", and the same story with any of it)... unlike the "classical approach", you can't challenge this.

First of all I like your references, I wish more people were as passionate about an argument as you!

But... What is this word salad above? Also, pro tip - Ending a sentence with "you can't challenge this" is a good way to lose an argument before it even starts.

- - - Updated - - -

Word salad above - could you quote specifically?

I mean, I can try... But it's very hard to understand. What I think you're trying to say in that last sentence is...

"Yet these days you do have to specify your specialization, because of the differences between the specs being far greater than it's ever been (obviously a frost mage, and fire mage are two completely different creatures). In some ways the specs still resemble the class fantasy they're based on, but the the class fantasy was much more clear and distinct in Vanilla, a Mage was a Mage."

[Charge me Doctor]

Yet you have to specify specialization, because set of available abilities is almost fully not the same (but should almost coincide to make it "class", and the same story with any of it)... unlike the "classical approach".
[I]- edited for not been offensive
Class has ceased to be game concept, now new class is spec. Any class member previously possessed almost whole set of distinctive and functional capabilities characteristic of this class, whereas now it's not possible to call such stuff.

Yes, just like in any other expansion with number of viable specs >1.

Spec is not a class, you have to be quite delusional to think so, because specs exist inside of a class, they are not independent entities.

[Soon-TM]

Spec is not a class

Current devs are working really hard to prove it wrong. Fire and Frost mages, for instance, had a lot more in common in Vanilla than they do now. Same, actually moreso, with Ele/Enh shamans, or Holy/Ret pallies, etc.

[Charge me Doctor]

Current devs are working really hard to prove it wrong. Fire and Frost mages, for instance, had a lot more in common in Vanilla than they do now. Same, actually moreso, with Ele/Enh shamans, or Holy/Ret pallies, etc.

How so? I as a mage am still able to pick between fire, frost and arcane. I'm not locked into one of these and have to level another character. Specs are not classes

[Soon-TM]

How so? I as a mage am still able to pick between fire, frost and arcane. I'm not locked into one of these and have to level another character. Specs are not classes

You are unable to use, e.g. frost spells as arcane (except frost nova), that's what I mean. In Vanilla you could; not as efficiently as a frost mage ofc, but you could nonetheless. Now you just can't - for all intents and purposes, frost mage could be another class, with a few utility spells in common.