Anyone NOT that hyped for 'return to class'?

[Soon-TM]

no, because I to am a Mage main, since TBC, and hate the fact that I don't have access to Blizzard as Fire. Flamestrike as my "sole AoE" is garbage.

I still remember those Hyjal raids, when my Arcane Mage cast Flamestrike, then Blizzard on those waves of trash, slowing any astray adds with Slow/Cone of Cold/r1 frostbolt. That really made you feel like a MAGE, instead of the idiot savant of the latest iterations of WoW.

[Kalisandra]

Secondly, your main complaint seem to just be "REEE THE PROC RATES AND CD'S FELT BAD", that's just the nature of procs and CD's, not something inherently bad.
WotLK Ret in T10 was literally only procs and CD's and people loved that.

Part of the reason people loved it was that with the DS proc from the T10 set, and plate still meaning something back then, you could leap into a pile of ICC trash, pop wings, go nuts, and kill a pack without needing a tank or even that much healing. It felt powerful, and aside from Fury Warriors (who did need healers to do it) there wasn't really anyone else who could do that, so it also felt special. It was only trash undead, but who cares? That was what Paladins were supposed to be doing to undead. Class fantasy, right there.

These days we don't have the tools to do that, with DS being the only reliable AoE and being a spender, the undead stun being on a long CD and frontal arc only, and so on.

Yeah, I'm sure every rogue universally loved that Combat stopped existing and that Subtlety changed into whatever the fuck it became that wasn't even viable for 9/10th's out of the expansion and still isn't.

Combat becoming Outlaw and being re-themed I thought was okay. It had ups and downs, just like any spec. Sub, though - it's like after years of Assassination and Sub being different they forgot how to do that, and now Sub is a bad Assassination spec that does shadow damage. I always loved Sub (I was also always terrible at playing it in serious content, but it was still a fun spec), but these days my Rogue is Assassination, because it's boring but it works.

[Alkizon]

Cata was the first time I managed to level a Rogue, and I went Sub all the way. It was great, and I miss it. I seem to recall MoP's Sub being okay, but Cata was the best. I used to farm dragonscales in the Highlands with my Rogue in Cata - Shadowstep, Ambush, Backstab, skin, repeat.

I would say that it became much less player's skill demanding during this period, even I used it for PvP without looking at some "difficulties" in the past... but this doesn't mean that it was best iteration. More affordable - yes, better - not sure

[Kalisandra]

pd about shadow,i don like that shadow use light shields,this break his spec fantasy.he must use shadow magic shields...

That's easy - Shadow builds on the basic Priest toolkit, and thus turns PW: Shield into a shadow shield that does something extra, like (for example) reflects some of the damage absorbed back onto the attacker.

[slime]

Rogues can never feel like rogues again because they added DHs.

[tankbug]

I'm a speccer, and I don't see a real need for class-branches to return to a common pool of various skills. I liked that they made them more distinct, that you can tune your character to the class fantasy you have in your head. If I make a bear druid, I don't see why I should have solar/lunar skills as part of my main abilities. If I make a fury warrior, I don't see how I would find a lot of defensive skills necessary for my character to fit the fantasy.

It seems to me that the reason for this is not to make classes to feel more like the fantasy archetypes, but rather to make the classes feel more like they did back in classic, because Blizzard are starting to give into the nostalgia-longing of the hardcore fans. I think they did Legion right, with a few exceptions in certain specs, and this seems like a step back, or at least a stagnation.

[Kalisandra]

I don't care all that much. My prot paladin feels plenty paladin-y. Sure, I no longer have my auras but it's not a big deal. Pretty sure every paladin spec can heal and use hands so don't think there will be much change (aside from bringing back auras). I mean maybe seals were something, but I never cared much for them - they kept nerfing and buffing till only one was usable anyhow.

I'd like Righteous Fury to be a thing again. It let Ret emergency off-tank (and occasionally caused hilarity in raids when some Ret forgot to turn it off), allowed some interesting tactics involving Holy Pallies building AoE threat using it, and meant Port off-tanks could reduce their threat output while still doing full DPS if they needed to. And while Prot might still feel like it's related to Holy and Ret, Ret really doesn't feel like it has much in common with Prot right now - Ret's pretty squishy, lacks utility, can't off-tank, off-healing is very limited...

[Gungnir]

Part of the reason people loved it was that with the DS proc from the T10 set, and plate still meaning something back then, you could leap into a pile of ICC trash, pop wings, go nuts, and kill a pack without needing a tank or even that much healing. It felt powerful, and aside from Fury Warriors (who did need healers to do it) there wasn't really anyone else who could do that, so it also felt special. It was only trash undead, but who cares? That was what Paladins were supposed to be doing to undead. Class fantasy, right there.

These days we don't have the tools to do that, with DS being the only reliable AoE and being a spender, the undead stun being on a long CD and frontal arc only, and so on.

The reason why people loved it is because it was a proc on top of a cooldown focused class.
Enhancement in Legion had plenty of situations where it would feel powerful, even topping the charts on a fair few fights.

Again, your issue with Enhancement seems more the fact that proc rates and the power of them were tuned incorrectly rather than the actual design, as there were plenty of other specs that functionally worked the same way with being builder-spender with a proc thrown in.

Combat becoming Outlaw and being re-themed I thought was okay. It had ups and downs, just like any spec. Sub, though - it's like after years of Assassination and Sub being different they forgot how to do that, and now Sub is a bad Assassination spec that does shadow damage. I always loved Sub (I was also always terrible at playing it in serious content, but it was still a fun spec), but these days my Rogue is Assassination, because it's boring but it works.

Sure, you might've liked it, a lot of people including myself after being a rogue player for years did not however.
Sub was also my favourite rogue spec and as you say, it's absolutely horrendous nowadays and has been since the revamp and the focus on spec identity.

This is also what I've been trying to tell people is that being overly focused on spec identity and making everything as unique as possible often doesn't end up well, as you sacrifice a lot of what the overall class feels like in search of getting a snowflake spec.

[Kalisandra]

While I don't think that'll happen, I do miss my 2h Frost DK a LOT.

So do I. I love my 2-hander plate specs. Ret's been my main since BC, aside from a bit in mid-Legion where my Shaman was, but I loved 2-H Frost (I tried levelling a DK several times and just got bored until I went 2-H Frost), and it always disappoints me when Arms (inevitably, it seems) drops back in the mid-late period of expansions and becomes 'PvP only'. I like my big hits, thanks.

That's something I'd like to see with Warriors - a lot of what were Arms-only short CDs seem to have become for Fury as well, and I think that Arms has suffered as a result (and possibly Fury too, but I don't know enough about Fury to say).

[Aleksej89]

I loved the overall class design in MOP and even in Cataclysm.
Classes had an awesome arsenal of abilities and there was always something you can do to help your teammates with (besides the usual dps rotation).

The BFA style of classes are really boring because most specs are barely 1/3 of what they were in MOP.

[Gungnir]

So do I. I love my 2-hander plate specs. Ret's been my main since BC, aside from a bit in mid-Legion where my Shaman was, but I loved 2-H Frost (I tried levelling a DK several times and just got bored until I went 2-H Frost), and it always disappoints me when Arms (inevitably, it seems) drops back in the mid-late period of expansions and becomes 'PvP only'. I like my big hits, thanks.

That's something I'd like to see with Warriors - a lot of what were Arms-only short CDs seem to have become for Fury as well, and I think that Arms has suffered as a result (and possibly Fury too, but I don't know enough about Fury to say).

Warriors always shared cooldowns though, ever since the introduction of the class back in Vanilla in the form of Recklessness.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, they've just muddled the concepts of what an Arms warrior is or should be in regards to how it plays, to the point where it now feels like ass to play.

I always kept two to three characters as my 'mains' since every expansion before Legion was a lot more alt friendly, Ret was one of them up until MoP as I hate Holy Power as a mechanic. Never could get rid of the clunky feeling of it.

[Kalisandra]

Enhancement in Legion had plenty of situations where it would feel powerful, even topping the charts on a fair few fights.

Again, your issue with Enhancement seems more the fact that proc rates and the power of them were tuned incorrectly rather than the actual design, as there were plenty of other specs that functionally worked the same way with being builder-spender with a proc thrown in.

I don't think I've said anything about Enhancement in this (or any other) thread. I've barely played Enhance since LK. My Shaman alt hit level cap first in LK, I tried Enhance, found it felt too much like Ret (my main), switched to Elemental (and Resto when needed for our raids), and never really tried Enhance again. I loved Resto healing from LK to WoD, and it's still my favourite healer (possibly because it's changed the least) despite all those lovely CDs losing their power or going away.

Sure, you might've liked it, a lot of people including myself after being a rogue player for years did not however.

Fair enough. It's certainly true I had nothing invested in Combat, as it was a spec I tried a couple of times and had set up solely for the odd instance I ran on my Rogue (because I sucked bad at Sub in instanced content), but not one I ever felt anything for.

[Soon-TM]

Why not both?

Allow each spec to feel unique (Legion and BFA) while also allowing the class as a whole to remain...a class.

You still get the 36 sub-classes that are the specs, but then each of the actual classes are still whole and complete.

Everybody wins.

That would be completely fine and dandy if they hadn't torn all classes a new one (particularly in 7.0) to build their !@#$ty "spec identity" first.

[Kalisandra]

Warriors always shared cooldowns though, ever since the introduction of the class back in Vanilla in the form of Recklessness.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, they've just muddled the concepts of what an Arms warrior is or should be in regards to how it plays, to the point where it now feels like ass to play.

I was thinking of Bladestorm. Also, Arms having Whirlwind - ISTR it was Fury-only, so Fury had great AoE, but Arms had Cleave and Sweeping Blows, and so had great cleave, and with Bladestorm+Sweeping Blows had amazing AoE on a longer CD (until that combo was nerfed because BS+Sweeping+Shadowmourne made for too many battleground tears).

I always kept two to three characters as my 'mains' since every expansion before Legion was a lot more alt friendly, Ret was one of them up until MoP as I hate Holy Power as a mechanic. Never could get rid of the clunky feeling of it.

I'm okay with it. When it only charged to three Holy Power it wasn't great, but at least in MoP the spec played pretty fast. I hate the WoD-onwards design with unavoidable holes in the rotation. MoP, where the problem was fitting everything in, making getting your priorities right very important, was much more fun. Also, the payoff was better then - none of the builders hit terribly hard, but TV hit like a truck. Now several of the builders hit semi-hard (but Crusader Strike hits like a wet noodle and is only useful for the HoPo charge), and so TV doesn't hit super-hard and isn't very exciting.

One thing I do miss from LK - Holy Shield. A nice little damage absorption buff, apply-able to ourselves or others. These days everyone can get one from their necklace, of course.

[Syegfryed]

i am yes, i for one like to have 12 classes not 36 wannabe classes, that shit is hard to balance and alays some specs get better things, better dps, better skills, better gameplay, fuck that.

[Dadwen]

Class then Spec is how it should be, you're a mage and you learn the basic' then you go into a specialization, seems kinda stupid you'd forget the basics. and nothing wrong with button's you don't use if the dam things worry you don't put then on your bar's, the worry about "rotation" min-maxing is one of the worse things to happen to this game, it's was marketed as a RPGMMO not a MOBA (RPG IMO means there are spells for fun and for situations not just min maxing a raid.)

[Gungnir]

I don't think I've said anything about Enhancement in this (or any other) thread. I've barely played Enhance since LK. My Shaman alt hit level cap first in LK, I tried Enhance, found it felt too much like Ret (my main), switched to Elemental (and Resto when needed for our raids), and never really tried Enhance again. I loved Resto healing from LK to WoD, and it's still my favourite healer (possibly because it's changed the least) despite all those lovely CDs losing their power or going away.

Ah apologies, must've been someone else I was discussing with earlier then.

Fair enough. It's certainly true I had nothing invested in Combat, as it was a spec I tried a couple of times and had set up solely for the odd instance I ran on my Rogue (because I sucked bad at Sub in instanced content), but not one I ever felt anything for.

I was mainly Sub and it was my favourite, but Combat wasn't far behind.
I never really got around to liking Assassination, always felt odd to play for me as all of your damage was just loaded into poisons.

I was thinking of Bladestorm. Also, Arms having Whirlwind - ISTR it was Fury-only, so Fury had great AoE, but Arms had Cleave and Sweeping Blows, and so had great cleave, and with Bladestorm+Sweeping Blows had amazing AoE on a longer CD (until that combo was nerfed because BS+Sweeping+Shadowmourne made for too many battleground tears).

Bladestorm became a talent thanks to the new talent system so there's not much to do about that.
Arms also had Whirlwind for a long time and was a crowd favourite even back then. I've always felt that Whirlwind is something that both Arms and Fury should have, and even load more damage into than it has.
Nothing really says 'warrior' more than large sweeping arcs of massive damage, which is also why I really enjoyed WotLK-era Fury since you could get some massive Whirlwind crits come ICC-gear.

I'm okay with it. When it only charged to three Holy Power it wasn't great, but at least in MoP the spec played pretty fast. I hate the WoD-onwards design with unavoidable holes in the rotation. MoP, where the problem was fitting everything in, making getting your priorities right very important, was much more fun. Also, the payoff was better then - none of the builders hit terribly hard, but TV hit like a truck. Now several of the builders hit semi-hard (but Crusader Strike hits like a wet noodle and is only useful for the HoPo charge), and so TV doesn't hit super-hard and isn't very exciting.

One thing I do miss from LK - Holy Shield. A nice little damage absorption buff, apply-able to ourselves or others. These days everyone can get one from their necklace, of course.

Ret is basically just a shell of what it was. I likely would've enjoyed the MoP version more if it didn't have that atrocious twirly TV animation that just pissed me off everytime I saw it.

[deviantcultist]

and you first tell me how Forsaken can use the light...
...and then we'll talk about how these VEs appeared in general, and what devs smoked for this (correct answer: most likely money). And they have repeatedly changed that crap in "spec" description, there even was nothing like that at all before, only description of class and your freedom in choosing build, so... besides, you're still reading me wrong, I’m still not "happy" with anything, it’s still completely incomprehensible who and how they listened. There is little information, I can't be happy until have enough of it to say something certain.

You don't give me Legion links, because we already laughed enough when discussing "lore" idiocy behind its "Class-Halls" - with such differentiation (also race), their functioning couldn't be at least somehow logical, nonsense, there’s no fantasy here and there, just bright flashy words for selling stuff.

ps. And no, I don't speak for any community, only from standpoint of system's functioning.

<<BACK

For the Forsaken, they've stated in a more than one blue post as to how it is painful for them to utilize the Light. The Void Elves were awkwardly added, yet they no less provide the exclusive Void race fantasy. Ironically, I did complain about how being a Blood Elf Shadow Priest felt out of place with the Blood Elves being an arrogant/sassy race. Now Void Elves fill niches that Blood Elves couldn't and...of course being Alliance only adds some cash for Blizz.

I'm not going to further judge 9.0 as they basically have disclosed nothing essential so far. However, if they are to diminish the fact that a Shadow Priest is a "class of it's own" due to class>spec they want to go for, many people will be infuriated. By many, I am referring to the majority of Shadowpriest who are exclusively playing Shadow and never heal.

[Katchii]

Will depend on how they do it, but I have no issues with all specs getting access to pretty iconic class abilities while still retaining their individual play styles.

I never understood why a Frost mage all of a sudden forgot how to cast a fireball and things like that. I doubt any of it will be all that game changing, but it will add some flavor that's been missing a while.

Playing Classic as a Druid, where I could DPS, Heal or Tank regardless of my spec...I could just do it better when I specialized in one over the other, felt really good. I hope some of that feeling and flavor comes back. If it has to come at the expense of the hybrid tax again though, fuck that.

[Shadowsgrace]

I still remember those Hyjal raids, when my Arcane Mage cast Flamestrike, then Blizzard on those waves of trash, slowing any astray adds with Slow/Cone of Cold/r1 frostbolt. That really made you feel like a MAGE, instead of the idiot savant of the latest iterations of WoW.

Exactly, I mean I got their idea of "Spec Identity", but imo they tipped the scales too much to the "pure spec" side of the spectrum.