In observing the reactions to the disc priest nerfs, and in looking forward to 8.3, shadowlands, and the arrival of the one-to-five player content, I keep coming back to the same line of thinking:
Have blizzard just abandoned the idea of any kind of parity in respect of the players who are invested in “overworld unfriendly” classes?
I started BFA with my “horde main” being what I called at the time an “invincipline priest.” As a soloing player, discipline had one weakness: they couldn’t really AOE to save their lives, but the “vampiric” nature of atonement allowed them to evevtually whittle down an overworld overpull one target at a time.
That... got “fixed,” and “Invincipline” is no more. I then changed horde mains and the horde story was experienced by a tank character from then on.
And that’s basically been the trend since legion: the overworld game belongs to tanks and pet classes, so that’s where my time has gone and is going with all this solo-friendly content on the horizon. Like it or not (and to say I like it would be a massive understatement, it’s saved the game for me), the future of WoW is that of a main thoroughfare that’s soloable or self-enabled via LFX Queues. Sadly the downside of that refreshing ownership of one’s time is that the mages, priests and most shaman of the world are just... screwed?
My question boils down to this: do the classes not... as intended for soloing deserve some degree of support in the face of horrific visions and torghast, or is the “to” in “one to five” meant to be the answer there? Is it enough that everyone *can* bring friends when hunters, warlocks and most tanks won’t have to? Is the answer “don’t play this class if you want to play alone” acceptable? I mean, that’s basically how I’ve adapted, but I look at my alt-bench of priests and mages and I can’t help but think they deserve better.
PS: Please realize that all the “it’s a an MMO, you should need me to gate your access to content” doesn’t really belong here. I certainly acknowledge that there are viable and supported avenues of multiplayer progression that do and should always exist, but you cannot deny that the core of the game in this modern MMO is and should be aimed at the individual on their own time paying their own subscription. Multiplayer avenues are valid and important, but I’m not talking about that experience here except to ask if the group-scalable content’s answer for some classes might be “bring a friend,” and if that’s fair in the context of how other classes can viably enjoy the same content.
Thank you for reading.