Ok, so, Class Designs

[Shakana]

Balance Druid: Make dots a part of something. Right now we apply two dots that only does damage.. In WoD and before we had procs, in legion it empowered our starfall. Now nothing, boring.

I was hoping a druid balance would talk more about the spec. I played always feral and atm it's gaining dust. Thank you kind sir Going to add.

[PaladinBash]

All Ret needs baseline for a new expansion is Holy Power gone and either Divine Purpose/divine storm proc trait and you have a good starting point. Holy Power is terrible and they only left it in for Ret out of spite and everyone knows it. So many things like those free spender procs, the explosion during wings trait, the HP refund essence and the fact that the only good talents anyone cares about are ones that generate HP (thus making them mandatory and boring) all can be binned and replaced with literally anything if Holy Power is abolished. The spec will never move on or change or grow in any functional way while that awful shit remains.

Yeah yeah if you have enough gear, if you take all of those mandatory HP-generation talents, if you have enough of the right traits that give free spenders/spenders explode, if you take Inquisition which is itself a farce of a talent then yeah, you have a fun and smooth enough playstyle- something you would have right away without very specific combinations of talents, traits, essences and gear choices right off the bat and you need to remember at the start of whatever comes after BFA, you will NOT have traits, essences or good gear and talents that are mandatory get nerfed for Ret (or removed altogether). I cannot stress just how ridiculous it is that all of the best talents, traits, essences and gear 'choices' are to overcome the clunky and annoying nature of Holy Power and just how fundamentally bad and annoying it is to play with. Is it hard to get around? Is it engaging? No, it's just fucking bad. It's just a mechanic you eventually outgear and pretty much ignore altogether. It isn't even a fun and smooth combo mechanic like WW or a fast-paced and engaging build/spend system like Enhance or Fury. Fury, honestly, is peak build/spend mongoloid design and it's amazing for that. Ret just has some awfully slow and unpleasant design forced onto it that you HAVE to spec to get around and HAVE to use certain traits/essences to ultimately outgear and ignore entirely. If you could just play the spec without that alone, it would be good. If you could play it without it and THEN have whatever fun talents/gear choices etc on top, it would actually be a good fucking spec.

Also add to this a wish for seals, auras and blessings that are the core element of paladin gameplay for years and while boring are no more boring than the current bullshit excuse for a spec that Ret is.

[shade3891]

Quivers for Hunters please!

+ # fire damage
+ # nature damage over time
+ # physical damage to all enemy in the line of fire
+ Attack speed
+ Leech

No ammo, just the cosmetic and a cool effect.

[F Rm]

Hunter on retail use focus. They replaced mana for focus.

Indeed they do. This was actually one of the best changes the class has seen over the years.

Mana as a resource for a class that mostly focus on physical damage + pets + venoms/poisons and certain gadgets...it makes no sense whatsoever.

[Shakana]

Indeed they do. This was actually one of the best changes the class has seen over the years.

Mana as a resource for a class that mostly focus on physical damage + pets + venoms/poisons and certain gadgets...it makes no sense whatsoever.

Yep i remember asking myself many times the same question, why mana? Finally changed to focus and it's amazing when you can keep focus in control, cause in MM i felt many times it spends too fast

- - - Updated - - -

All Ret needs baseline for a new expansion is Holy Power gone and either Divine Purpose/divine storm proc trait and you have a good starting point. Holy Power is terrible and they only left it in for Ret out of spite and everyone knows it. So many things like those free spender procs, the explosion during wings trait, the HP refund essence and the fact that the only good talents anyone cares about are ones that generate HP (thus making them mandatory and boring) all can be binned and replaced with literally anything if Holy Power is abolished. The spec will never move on or change or grow in any functional way while that awful shit remains.

Yeah yeah if you have enough gear, if you take all of those mandatory HP-generation talents, if you have enough of the right traits that give free spenders/spenders explode, if you take Inquisition which is itself a farce of a talent then yeah, you have a fun and smooth enough playstyle- something you would have right away without very specific combinations of talents, traits, essences and gear choices right off the bat and you need to remember at the start of whatever comes after BFA, you will NOT have traits, essences or good gear and talents that are mandatory get nerfed for Ret (or removed altogether). I cannot stress just how ridiculous it is that all of the best talents, traits, essences and gear 'choices' are to overcome the clunky and annoying nature of Holy Power and just how fundamentally bad and annoying it is to play with. Is it hard to get around? Is it engaging? No, it's just fucking bad. It's just a mechanic you eventually outgear and pretty much ignore altogether. It isn't even a fun and smooth combo mechanic like WW or a fast-paced and engaging build/spend system like Enhance or Fury. Fury, honestly, is peak build/spend mongoloid design and it's amazing for that. Ret just has some awfully slow and unpleasant design forced onto it that you HAVE to spec to get around and HAVE to use certain traits/essences to ultimately outgear and ignore entirely. If you could just play the spec without that alone, it would be good. If you could play it without it and THEN have whatever fun talents/gear choices etc on top, it would actually be a good fucking spec.

Also add to this a wish for seals, auras and blessings that are the core element of paladin gameplay for years and while boring are no more boring than the current bullshit excuse for a spec that Ret is.

Totally added holy power removal already and having blessings/auras/seals back. I think everytime i think about a paladin, that's what i think about always, the seals, auras and blessings and how to swing in light out of a paladin. I never played one besides hitting level 15 because i found it's not my playstyle, and i don't know how it feels for a paladin having holy power or blessings, auras and seals, but totally is a class identity using them, even for a person that never played one, recognizes that this is something that gives the class some identity. Otherwise feels more like a warrior with golden wings.

[F Rm]

Yep i remember asking myself many times the same question, why mana? Finally changed to focus and it's amazing when you can keep focus in control, cause in MM i felt many times it spends too fast

Mana was most likely added to us as a type of "band-aid"-fix very late in the Beta of Vanilla.

The devs actually intended for the class to have Focus as a resource, from the beginning.

You can watch this video from the Blizzcon panel back in..2005, where they comment on the development of the Hunter class and how they had to let go of Focus as a resource. For the time being…most likely because they did not have the time to vastly redesign how it worked.

The talk about the Hunter class starts at 8:17 into the video.



I can see why they had trouble getting it to work properly. OR I should say, getting it to a state that would be considered fun and satisfying while playing.

The redesigned version of Focus as a resource that we got in Cataclysm, was muuch better. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but they worked it out, eventually.
It also made much more sense for the class, when compared to Mana.

[xZerocidex]

Will never understand why people want ammo back, is it fun to be useless if you forget to buy more? Hunters literally fire magical arrows and such, is it hard to believe every projectile isn't a little bit magical? Traps magically appear out of nowhere, should they be bought too?

The only thing that's magical is Arcane Shot, personally I'd rather see that gone too.

[Kithelle]

The only thing that's magical is Arcane Shot, personally I'd rather see that gone too.

So arrows raining down from the sky isn't magical? Shooting half a dozen different arrows in different directions in front of you isn't magic? Even more once you get away from vanilla that looks pretty magic to me.

[Th3Scourge]

Two words:

Talent Trees




I play a class, not a spec. Right now we have 36 classes. Classic has reminded me of why it was fun to customize your character to be more effective through talent choices.

Having the complete toolkit that your class is capable of as baseline is far more engaging than mysteriously forgetting how to cast a fireball by selecting one spec over another.

Also, bring back DK presences and Warrior stances

[sproket]

Two words:

Talent Trees




I play a class, not a spec. Right now we have 36 classes. Classic has reminded me of why it was fun to customize your character to be more effective through talent choices.

Having the complete toolkit that your class is capable of as baseline is far more engaging than mysteriously forgetting how to cast a fireball by selecting one spec over another.

This is the single best suggestion from this thread.

[kek280]

Snapshotting back.

[Pugfugly]

"Build/Spend spam is not a fun playstyle."

This x1000. It has become the standard. BORING when everyone works the same.

[Shakana]

Two words:

Talent Trees




I play a class, not a spec. Right now we have 36 classes. Classic has reminded me of why it was fun to customize your character to be more effective through talent choices.

You're probably the one person besides me that thinks this. ahaha Hi5

Having the complete toolkit that your class is capable of as baseline is far more engaging than mysteriously forgetting how to cast a fireball by selecting one spec over another.

I talked this on other thread. Totally agree with it. Got bashed by saying it. No one ever said they agreed. I guess many people love their specific specs.

Also, bring back DK presences and Warrior stances

Warrior stances is add, not sure if i add DK's presences yet, need to give it a check.
I never played warrior during stances era, so i have literally no idea how it felt. Dk's on other hand, i can tell that i loved them with presences as i loved them in Legion too (not so much in BfA atm).

- - - Updated - - -

"Build/Spend spam is not a fun playstyle."

This x1000. It has become the standard. BORING when everyone works the same.

As a main DH atm, i totally agree with this. Our class is around building and spending all the time, and for us it feels more stagnating than other classes, cause we don't have much abilities compared to other classes. My fingers starts hurting from having to press Demon's bite and Annihilation/Chaos strike on a raiding day. I feel like not even having much fun raiding cause the way we all do damage by building and spending makes us get tired of damaging the bosses and all. I mean obviously we have to build and then spend but it's like every milisecond. It's not fun.

- - - Updated - - -

Snapshotting back.

This is the first time i'm hearing this term (on my thread, more people said it). I might have seen it but i didn't know it had a name for it.

So i just finally had to read what is it about:

In game terms, snapshotting is when an effect takes a "picture" of your stats at a given moment. For instance, DoTs used to snapshot the stats of the caster when they were cast, meaning that for its whole duration, the DoT's damage would be as if the caster still had those stats. This meant it was advantageous to cast or refresh these kinds of abilities during temporary buffs like Bloodlust or potions.

I know that between Warlords and Legion a lot of formerly snapshotted effects were moved to live updating off the player's stats. There may still be some snapshot effects depending on your class, I'm not sure.

Is this it? Sorry my ignorance but sometimes i'm not really inside of all the terms.

- - - Updated - - -

Mana was most likely added to us as a type of "band-aid"-fix very late in the Beta of Vanilla.

The devs actually intended for the class to have Focus as a resource, from the beginning.

You can watch this video from the Blizzcon panel back in..2005, where they comment on the development of the Hunter class and how they had to let go of Focus as a resource. For the time being…most likely because they did not have the time to vastly redesign how it worked.

The talk about the Hunter class starts at 8:17 into the video.



I can see why they had trouble getting it to work properly. OR I should say, getting it to a state that would be considered fun and satisfying while playing.

The redesigned version of Focus as a resource that we got in Cataclysm, was muuch better. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but they worked it out, eventually.
It also made much more sense for the class, when compared to Mana.

Thank you for this piece of "Blizzard lore", actually didn't know that. Saw the video, quite nice the feeling that Blizzard actually explained why they did it and how they changed it. 10/10

(They also talked about Necromancer not making into the game, that i always asked myself why necromancer didn't come to wow, since they existed and i love necromancer. So this gave me a bit more knowledge thanks to you.)

[Costa]

Warriors don't need Glad Stance that shit was stupid, but i agree that for them access to everything again but under the 3 different stances.

The straight up way to fix this game is to bring back the massive talent trees in which that is how you spec your character into what you want, you baseline have access to the majority of your spells with the talent tree system how you get improved "x" spell and become that spec'd. That way you can be a PoM Pyro mage who can still cast blizzard or you can a Frost mage who can still cast arcane explosion etc etc.

The way the had the design for Classic and improved on it all the way up until Cata was fine but then they just went a bit "easy" mode with how they addressed everything and it went way to far to the point we have now. Just revert it back to the indepth talent trees which makes you feel every level that you "got something" with a talent point even if it was just a 1% buff to Fireball damage lol, still feels like something. That way when we are leveling up in a next expansion we get 10 new talent points and fair few new improved talents or straight up new talents for expansions per class. Also that way you are also doing "less" works for yourselves as Developers as you don't need to make "36 classes" balanced/extra spells you just add new talents for 3 trees per class.

TLDR - Copy the Classic talent tree system which is a perfect baseline to start again with and improve off of the big talent trees and improved spell ranks when level, you can still make it automated swap the right ranks onto bars like you did in one of the expansions but this is where you need to start.

If they do not do this with talent trees or something as extreme as this i will really have a hard time buying the next expansion and probably will quit unless i have the urge to get to 60 on Classic and wait for TBC to return.

[Shakana]

Warriors don't need Glad Stance that shit was stupid, but i agree that for them access to everything again but under the 3 different stances.

The straight up way to fix this game is to bring back the massive talent trees in which that is how you spec your character into what you want, you baseline have access to the majority of your spells with the talent tree system how you get improved "x" spell and become that spec'd. That way you can be a PoM Pyro mage who can still cast blizzard or you can a Frost mage who can still cast arcane explosion etc etc.

The way the had the design for Classic and improved on it all the way up until Cata was fine but then they just went a bit "easy" mode with how they addressed everything and it went way to far to the point we have now. Just revert it back to the indepth talent trees which makes you feel every level that you "got something" with a talent point even if it was just a 1% buff to Fireball damage lol, still feels like something. That way when we are leveling up in a next expansion we get 10 new talent points and fair few new improved talents or straight up new talents for expansions per class. Also that way you are also doing "less" works for yourselves as Developers as you don't need to make "36 classes" balanced/extra spells you just add new talents for 3 trees per class.

TLDR - Copy the Classic talent tree system which is a perfect baseline to start again with and improve off of the big talent trees and improved spell ranks when level, you can still make it automated swap the right ranks onto bars like you did in one of the expansions but this is where you need to start.

If they do not do this with talent trees or something as extreme as this i will really have a hard time buying the next expansion and probably will quit unless i have the urge to get to 60 on Classic and wait for TBC to return.

i'm almost sheeding a tear (not being sarcastic), cause i have talked about classes having access to everything and people have always take a turn on me saying to me that i have the worse ideas ever and that is one of them, cause it would be a cluster f*** of abilities.I see more people starting to agree with me and that makes me actually feel less retarded. Classic wasn't the only tree talents era, it was also on other expansions up to cataclysm and stopped at MoP. When MoP came out. As i didn't play MoP or WoD, i came back in Legion and yes i liked it better but i have felt empty with specific specs, made me feel like my rogue, my dk, my mage, my warlock had now to choose only one thing when i liked them better back then that i could use certain abilities from other specs and wasn't available anymore as glyphs as well stopped existing and started only being cosmetic. I don't mind them being cosmetic too, but i mean was a radical change for someone that didn't play like this.
So, this being said, i liked WoTLK tree talents the most, classic ain't bad on that as it's the original but also because i played more in that time and most of the classes and i could experience talent trees on a positive feedback, for example, i remember being a DK i could put each presence i wanted, even could put unholy presence when i was on mostly on blood spec (which was before the dps spec that is now frost), Blood boil was our aoe, and all that. Unholy presence would give attack speed and all.

[Irian]

Warlock Metamorphosis back in my biggest one. Hell, change it to a demonic transformation if you don't want to call it meta anymore. It's more the gameplay that I miss than the name of the ability, just something cool that gives me more mobility and a badass cooldown with more of a burst focus for demonology.
Also, bring back Dark Apotheosis, coolest idea in a long time. It doesn't have to be strong, I just liked having it.

The only other one that comes to mind for me is that I'd like DK weapon and role versatility to come back in some way, shape or form, and the talk from Ion recently about returning specs to being alterations of your class rather than complete fundamental overhauls would be a nice place to start. It'd be as simple as having a tanking presence vs a DPS presence, similar to stances. I miss stuff like unholy DW, blood DPS and frost tanking, even if some of them weren't particularly good. It was just fun to have a class that could be so versatile depending on their build, it feels like WoW as a whole lost a really unique class when they deviated away from this.

[Shakana]

Warlock Metamorphosis back in my biggest one. Hell, change it to a demonic transformation if you don't want to call it meta anymore. It's more the gameplay that I miss than the name of the ability, just something cool that gives me more mobility and a badass cooldown with more of a burst focus for demonology.

I feel warlocks have lost a lot to other classes, but metamorphosis existing demon hunters, i think it should have been removed because you're suppose to work with demons, not being one. You're a demon master. DH's have a demon within. But indeed i feel sorry that warlocks had to give up one of the most coolest thing they had that it was metamorphosis. It was really cool and i loved it. As i love DH's too. So i'm split.

Even tho, if you read what i add on the list on DH's part saying that warlock has such a cool meta and it's removed and you'll not see it anymore and could be add on DH as a cosmetic aspect with glyphs you can see i think it's a waste. That was me adding it. It could also be some cosmetic thing for warlock instead. It's really sad that such a cool good looking and epic meta is just gone forever.

Also, bring back Dark Apotheosis, coolest idea in a long time. It doesn't have to be strong, I just liked having it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HribuKA2gFo

Bringing you some memories.

The only other one that comes to mind for me is that I'd like DK weapon and role versatility to come back in some way, shape or form, and the talk from Ion recently about returning specs to being alterations of your class rather than complete fundamental overhauls would be a nice place to start. It'd be as simple as having a tanking presence vs a DPS presence, similar to stances. I miss stuff like unholy DW, blood DPS and frost tanking, even if some of them weren't particularly good. It was just fun to have a class that could be so versatile depending on their build, it feels like WoW as a whole lost a really unique class when they deviated away from this.

I talk about Ion as well in this sense, i think it's one of the things i like on Ion, it's how specs work there.
You're from the time that frost was tank <3 i had a blast on DK that time. Frost regardless is my favorite spec no matter if it's tank or dps, i just love frost so much.
Classes being versatile will always come across my mind. Unfortunately i don't think anytime soon or maybe never they will bring stuff how it was, but one can enjoy that, right?

[Costa]

i'm almost sheeding a tear (not being sarcastic), cause i have talked about classes having access to everything and people have always take a turn on me saying to me that i have the worse ideas ever and that is one of them, cause it would be a cluster f*** of abilities.I see more people starting to agree with me and that makes me actually feel less retarded. Classic wasn't the only tree talents era, it was also on other expansions up to cataclysm and stopped at MoP. When MoP came out. As i didn't play MoP or WoD, i came back in Legion and yes i liked it better but i have felt empty with specific specs, made me feel like my rogue, my dk, my mage, my warlock had now to choose only one thing when i liked them better back then that i could use certain abilities from other specs and wasn't available anymore as glyphs as well stopped existing and started only being cosmetic. I don't mind them being cosmetic too, but i mean was a radical change for someone that didn't play like this.
So, this being said, i liked WoTLK tree talents the most, classic ain't bad on that as it's the original but also because i played more in that time and most of the classes and i could experience talent trees on a positive feedback, for example, i remember being a DK i could put each presence i wanted, even could put unholy presence when i was on mostly on blood spec (which was before the dps spec that is now frost), Blood boil was our aoe, and all that. Unholy presence would give attack speed and all.

As i put when explaining my process, it made no sense for them to straight up remove it and split classes up to what they have now. It requires double if not triple the amount of work to make each spec more interesting than if they gave everyone access to everything but 3 big talent trees to spec into what you want to spec into. So yeah i am with you and some others, please if there is one change to do, change this, bring back something like this, make talent trees like this. Yes there is always going to be a max dps spec and play like this, but outside a raid environment people can still do things differently and experiment.

On a sidenote, i also was quite baffled at the changes to DK when stances just went and you had to spec into each one, so stupid!

[F Rm]

Thank you for this piece of "Blizzard lore", actually didn't know that. Saw the video, quite nice the feeling that Blizzard actually explained why they did it and how they changed it. 10/10

(They also talked about Necromancer not making into the game, that i always asked myself why necromancer didn't come to wow, since they existed and i love necromancer. So this gave me a bit more knowledge thanks to you.)

No problem!

Ofc that was a long time ago. And we all know how the devs like to change their minds on certain things.

While on other...more sought after ones, less so.

Though I'm still keeping my hopes up for that 4th hunter spec in the style of the old SV, as it was a much liked playstyle that was taken away from us.

I mean, we are currently able to play Classic/Vanilla once again. Something many thought of to be beyond unreasonable just an expansion or so ago.

[Shakana]

As i put when explaining my process, it made no sense for them to straight up remove it and split classes up to what they have now. It requires double if not triple the amount of work to make each spec more interesting than if they gave everyone access to everything but 3 big talent trees to spec into what you want to spec into. So yeah i am with you and some others, please if there is one change to do, change this, bring back something like this, make talent trees like this. Yes there is always going to be a max dps spec and play like this, but outside a raid environment people can still do things differently and experiment.

On a sidenote, i also was quite baffled at the changes to DK when stances just went and you had to spec into each one, so stupid!

It requires double if not triple the amount of work to make each spec more interesting than if they gave everyone access to everything but 3 big talent trees to spec into what you want to spec into

This. That's why they have so much unbalanced specs that sometimes can't even be playable. They are trying to balance as the other user said around 30+ classes. Because when they balance a class they are not trying to only balance a class but their respective specs, which makes it seems almost like it's 3 classes each spec.

Imagine you adding tier sets + bonus from azerites + essences with taking this into acount, how stupidly hard it is to balance all that:
1- Frost Mage, 2- Fire Mage, 3- Arcane mage. 4-Unholy DK, 5-Frost DK, 6-Blood DK, 7-Arms Warrior, 8-Protection Warrior, 9-Fury Warrior, 10-Demonology Warlock, 11-Destruction Warlock, 12-Affliction Warlock, 13-Feral druid 14-Guardian Druid, 15-Restoration Druid, 16-Balance Druid. 17-Monk Windwalker, 18-Monk Mistweaver, 19-Monk Brewmaster, 20Hunter Marksmanship, 21-Hunter Beast Mastery, 22- Hunter Survival, 23-Paladin Protection, 24- Paladin Retribution, 25-Paladin Holy, 26-Priest Holy, 27-Priest Disc, 28-Priest Shadow, 29-Demon Hunter Vengeance, 30-Demon Hunter Havoc, 31-Rogue Outlaw, 32-Rogue Assassination, 33-Rogue Subtlety, 34- Shaman Elemental, 35- Shaman Enhancement, 36- Shaman Restoration.

HOW can you keep doing CONSTANT updates and hotfixes to 36 SPECS? This will never be balanced, it's unrealistic. That's why blizzard has instead making classes to play similar to each other, so they can focus a bit more on classes but they haven't been doing a good job regardless. I mean i don't blame them. Look at how much they need to focus? Also having tier sets is basically same thing as azerite traits but azerite traits are just worse imo.