It it possible for class balance and class uniqueness to coexist ?

[Jibjub]

We don't need class balance. We need:

1) Systems that don't reward quickness, efficiency, and the road most traveled.

2) Systems that don't actively discourage social aspects of the game and personal reputation/accountability.

3) A community that isn't full of garbo idiots.

[Felmourn]

I think the question to ask is what does balance mean to you? Are you saying balance in terms of dps/heals/threat? All classes should be able to perform at x%,y%, and z%?
Are you saying each class should be able to have homogenized abilities? X class should be able to 1v1 classes A-Z and vice versa?

I think balance sounded easier when they pruned abilities, which might be the case, but you have to be strict with what each ability does and for how much. I think a wider range of options helps with balance. Do you decide to spec in speed? More DPS, but not as much damage? Or do you spec for that spell that takes as long as a spirit bomb to charge, but if you land it game over for the other player?

I can't say for certain, but I believe if they go back from the ground up and design specs as having strengths and weaknesses then maybe it'll be easier to balance? Ex. Frost is the actual Ice glass canon spec. Slow to cast, but hits hard as mf. Fire spec is fast and wild like fire, but maybe not as much damage per hit? Arcane depends on a player resources and management in order to survive and beat a glass canon or a flurry spell flinger?

Just my 2¢opper and thoughts. I'm not a designer, programmer, or anything. Just a casual player who enjoyed variety and understands nothing can be equal.

[Spazlord]

Homogenization of classes is the mistake. It's a rock paper scissors game, not rock rock rock.

People complain about pruning these days, but you were all given everything back in LK. Everything. Every class has hard CC, interrupt, stun, AOE, etc... Back in the day you had nothing. A few classes could interrupt. A few classes could stun. A few had hard CC. Basically nobody could AOE or even cleave well. If you wanted a particular combination of skills you brought a particular combination of classes. Everyone in a raid or a dungeon or PVP had a unique set of tools and a unique job.

And then we had "bring the player not the class" which sounds nice on paper but now you have to balance everything exactly or there's always a couple classes that can AOE a bit better than the rest, or whatever, and DPS balance, which is difficult to do, is now the most important issue.

You need to be pruned, hard. Half the classes should not be able to interrupt, or stun, or CC, so the classes that can actually bring something useful. Then there's room for a few more flavor spells 'cause you bars aren't full of the same spells everyone else has.

[FelPlague]

wow used to be about fantasy and not about ability. how times change

Yes, it was, until everyone cried that the game was unbalanced and it got ruined.

[spleen1015]

I don't think there needs to be balance in the sense that every class needs a CC or Battle Rez. I think there should be balance in the sense that every class should have something that makes them wanted. They should make it so that every class/spec has something that is useful. My memory may be bad but I don't remember there being any classes that were frowned upon like Elemental Shaman are now back in BC/WotLK days.

I loved being a mana battery when playing a Shadow Priest in BC. The best part about a game like this is the uniqueness of the classes. That was Blizzard's first mistake with the evolution of WoW, removing the distinct nature of the classes.

[Zogarth]

I am gonna talk from a perspective of PVP, but I do feel like every class has too much of everything. I mainly think DH's are the biggest sinner. They have stuns (aoe and single depending on talents), sap effect, insane mobility, great damage, strong defensive cooldowns, good self healing, only class that can reliably see stealth, double jump, best glide ability (matters a lot on certain maps). Adding to that they even have other unique mechanics like mana rift, and the only viable tank for the longest time, and you are required to have one, or you are screwed in certain matches.

Other things that are more interesting is healers. Hpala were (still kinda is) the worst healers pure numbers-wise, and yet you saw one in nearly every group out there. Not because of the healing, but because of the great utility they added, that made them unique (something that Blizzard removed a lot of...). You also had to consider that paladins are quite tanky with rather strong defensives, and the best mana-wise in the game, and they were strong, and still is. This, among a lot of other things, meant that most healers (except shamans and Hpriest), added some kind of value that made them viable, despite some obviously doing higher numbers than others.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Warlock is the only class with healthstone, summoning and gateway. Of all the classes it has to be the worst one to use as an example of not bringing anything unique.

Counter-argument, as a heroic raider, gateway on G'Huun is the first time I can remember that feeling of "I'm bringing something unique that makes this raid better". Admittedly I've only played since the tail-end of MoP, but 2 expansions is a long time to not feel like you bring anything unique. Yes healthstones and summoning are unique, but they don't feel impactful. Summoning is pure convenience, and you don't get to see the healthstones being used. It's not like a Death Grip which is so frequently so useful and visually impactful.

[Soon-TM]

Even if DPS was perfectly identical and such, people would still flock to the classes with better movement, survival, or other useful utilities. As long as those exist, ultimate balance is unattainable, especially in a world where M+ exists, which requires entirely different tools then raiding.

It ultimately boils down to the MUD (mobility, utility, damage) triangle so prevalent in MOBAs; the more you have of one of those elements, the less you have from the other two. Blizzard made.the great mistake of homogenizing damage without homogenizing the.other two.

[Velerios]

The big issue about WoW is that it does have the holy trinity: Heal - Tank - DPS. In BC we actually had another class, the Supporter. And yes, it was Shadow Priest. Not really high on DPS, but as Mana Battery it did had a huge effect in raids. Even with lower dps player had fun with it, and it was a pretty desired class.

Sadly this disappeared later. And that's the big issue of WoW and that there's simply no other way between tank-heal-dps. If you want to have some class uniqueness, then we need actually a fourth role. A supporter, thats specialized in something unique. Because inside the trinity, it's simply not possible to be unique; because if you don't do dps, then you simply don't do dps.

Can this all be balanced: maybe not, but since you could actually add specs to exisiting classes, and they could be switched into; as long as you don't hinder players to switch specs (like the crap called azerite armor), then would it really matter? Balancing them should naturally still happen. But simply leave classes something unique.

But this would require completely new effects, something that didn't happen since a LONG LONG time.

Naturally for PvP this would be far more chaotic, but i don't care about PvP at all.

Also: something pretty bad was the dumbing down of game mechanics. While some should simply rot in hell and are good that they are removed; they were just removed and not replaced.

A good thing removed was for example: WEAPON SKILL. This crap, at least as it was, was maybe one of the best things ever happened to WoW. Sorry, but this was simply total a failure. Having to skill up a weapon, OK, totally understandable. What wasn't understandable was the rate to skill it up: WoW, you have a new weapon: Now you need to skill it up. Easy until you were at 270, then the grind begin. Kill more and more, nice, you are at 298. Then you kill around 100 enemies, still at 298; another 100, still 298, after 500 more, 299. Your friend, also at 298 actually kills 10 mobs, congratulation, you are at 300. The only thing that should really never see the light of the day again.

Don't misunderstand me; weapon skill and even spell mastery should still exist, but with a clear goal in mind. Don't care if you need to kill 10.000 things that give honor to level up a spec and maybe a possibility to increase the base strength of a spell with more uses of it; but the randomness of the old weapon mastery was the thing i hated the most.

Something really bad was the removal of Spirit: first it was dumbed down, removing all possibilities to simply use more spirit-gear rather than output, limiting healers choice to either do more healing OR having more spirit to have simply more mana or balancing between both of them. The gear either had spirit or had not. Some gear didn't had spirit at all anymore. Then they removed it completely, making mana either simply not usable or still somehow important, but with no way to change how you want to play it out.

And it was replaced with nothing. Later we got finally some new mechanics, multistrike and versatility. One pretty boring one and one good one. Naturally the boring one stayed.

And since then nothing. Gear gets so much dumbed down, that a uniqueness simply does not exist anymore.

Some text does maybe not fit into this title, but it's late, and i wanted to rant a bit against the dumbing down of classes, and only go the safe route since WoD. A new core mechanic would be much much more exiting that this azerite-crap. Something that stays after an xpack, and not disappear after this.
Something i totally never understood: they make here the mistake, in Hearthstone the mistake; every expansion needs something unique, and it's not allowed to stay after the xpack. Glyphs were a great example of adding class uniqueness and something that stayed for a while, sadly got later removed because of pruning.

In the end: is it possible yes, is it possible with blizzard, not adding something fundamental different: surely NOT. And i personally don't believe that blizzard will change here anything: for class uniqueness they would need to go away from pruning, but then when not every class has only around 6 specs, how you want to bring wow on MOBILE! (ok, bad joke; still diablo on mobile was also an april fool's joke 2014). So the only thing leaving is class balance; and not even this is something they managed to fix. Either is it simply not balanced or the class itself has major flaws and the only thing they managed are bandaids (like shadow priest, need a rework, get a hotfix).

tl.dr: Possible yes, but not with blizzard right now.

[Naiattavain]

Yes, it was, until everyone cried that the game was unbalanced and it got ruined.

the classes have been fucked over since day one of the game in 2003. the balance should be skill based and not stat based. thus individual skill of your class is rewarding depending on how well you could outsmart the opponent. to bad blizz has their heads up the asses and make the game stat based and gear based.

[Alvito]

On a class to class base, maybe. Spec to spec, no way. There are too many things to do in the game to make each class let alone each spec balanced in a 1 to 1 setting. You can keep things close enough so the gap between the best and the worst isn't huge and also make it so certain classes have good options in all or most settings. When things get really bad is when you see things like we have over the last 2 years where locks or rogues have 2 or 3 of the top spec choices. If it was only 1 fight maybe it isn't a big deal when it is a repeating theme there is an issue. Things like the overwhelming strengths and little downside to affliction locks for the last year of Legion is a good example of balancing errors too.

[Trend]

Not everyone has a CC. I don't, as a DK.

My DK has CC abilities. You should ask for a refund.

In an case, as far as the OP, differences between classes is the reason for imbalance. People are unrealistic in wanting classes to be different but balanced.

[FelPlague]

the classes have been fucked over since day one of the game in 2003. the balance should be skill based and not stat based. thus individual skill of your class is rewarding depending on how well you could outsmart the opponent. to bad blizz has their heads up the asses and make the game stat based and gear based.

So you want an MMORPG that has no gear, no stats?
uh wut?

[Stickiler]

So you want an MMORPG that has no gear, no stats?
uh wut?

He probably thinks he's more skilled than other people, and it's "only gear" that's holding him back from being the best.

[Chrno]

Its a crazy thought to most people, but I think that classes where more balanced in Vanilla and TBC where classes where most unique. In vanilla and TBC you wanted a verity of classes in the group/raid, every class had something they excelled at and there was a reason they where desired to have in the group or raid. You didnt see raids "class stacking" pug raid groups would actively look for people that played classes they didnt already have in the raid. Classes where very unique and I think that brings balance to the classes. Sure not everyone does the same DPS, not everyone does the same AOE dps, not all the healing classes have a AOE heal and not every tank spec can tank every boss but in TBC when every tank spec was able to get raid quality gear you wanted at least one of every tank.

I think balance is best done with uniqueness in a rock, paper, scissors game kind of way.

Sure now a days all the dps classes do almost the same dps, all the healers have AOE healing abilities and can all heal about the and you can take any tank you want to any fight because they all perform about the same. And now a days Blizzard is able to "tweek the numbers" to bring dps up or down, increase or decrease tank mitigation and get the "balance very well" but Method still brings the tanks, dps and healers that they can perform the best with even if that class performs 1% better then the next. And everybody just imitates what Method does so if Method isnt doing cutting edge Mythic raiding or M+20s with your class or spec all of a sudden the community says that X class isnt "viable" or all of raiding or M+.

The idea that Blizzard will somehow ever get the game to a point where all 36 class/specs will do everything equal is flawed and is bad for the game IMO. Class uniqueness is very important in a RPG and current WoW is lacking it.

My fingers are crossed Classic gets released as close to how it was in Vanilla. If that happens Classic will save WoW.

good story, except that class stacking happend allot in the early days...

in construction we have a saying:
- Even is uneven ..... referring to when you line out certain building materials/components it's bound to backfire because all it does is put emphesis om the spot where to 2 sufaces connect...

Same goes for balance. Balance has been allot better ever since WotLK but since blizz is striving perfect balance the few classes that fall behind will be noticed.
A system with more class uniqueness might be less balanced but prob would've gotten more slack from the community.

pardon my english

[Jester Joe]

Counter-argument, as a heroic raider, gateway on G'Huun is the first time I can remember that feeling of "I'm bringing something unique that makes this raid better". Admittedly I've only played since the tail-end of MoP, but 2 expansions is a long time to not feel like you bring anything unique. Yes healthstones and summoning are unique, but they don't feel impactful. Summoning is pure convenience, and you don't get to see the healthstones being used. It's not like a Death Grip which is so frequently so useful and visually impactful.

That would be because the first raid set in MoP made sure to kill warlock gate.
It was a must have for the first two bosses of HoF due to the mechanics it let you skip.

[Deleted]

Its a crazy thought to most people, but I think that classes where more balanced in Vanilla and TBC where classes where most unique. In vanilla and TBC you wanted a verity of classes in the group/raid, every class had something they excelled at and there was a reason they where desired to have in the group or raid. You didnt see raids "class stacking"

I mean this is simply not true.

[McFuu]

Even if DPS was perfectly identical and such, people would still flock to the classes with better movement, survival, or other useful utilities. As long as those exist, ultimate balance is unattainable, especially in a world where M+ exists, which requires entirely different tools then raiding.

I don't think this is really true. Rogues are pretty low population even though they bring multiple CCs, multiple stuns/blinds, 15 sec interupt, best dps survivability in the game, a self heal, cheat death, all while consistently being high tier dps.

[ashblond]

yes, and blizzard shall stop to add more classes!

It is meaningless to add more classes if they are not unique.

[temptet10n]

It's not easy to balance that, and then every time someone is near the bottom