Complete Class Rework

[cerebro]

Every single expansion that has come out had me hyped big time, all the way up to Legion. Bfa, I did not even play launch and I have been trying to think why I didn't much care for Bfa. Was it lack of content i cared for, am i burned out of the game? I think I figured out why I had zero hype for BFA and why I feel the same way torwards Shadowlands. Every expansion there was a major overhaul of class design, new abilities.. some old gone etc. I hated some changes and loved others. It kept the game interesting tho and if you were not 100% satisfied with your rotation you had the new expansion to change it up some. Maybe some classes were not fundamentally changed, but the ones I played have. I have been playing a DK at this point since Wrath and im tired of spamming marrow rend, blood boil and death strike.

How do you guys feel about the constant revamp of classes every expansions. How that has stopped in the last 2 expansions and going into the same stale rotations into another expansion?

[Mirishka]

Blizz has said that Shadowlands will not see a revamp of the classes on the level that we saw in Legion and BFA, just some unpruning and a bit of 'all specs have this ability again'.

In general I enjoyed the spec revamps, except when they removed talents or spells I liked. I still haven't forgiven Blizz for getting rid of Heroic Strike/Cleave for prot warriors.

[Onikaroshi]

Most of the specs don't need more than some cleaning up.

But dammit, give me back ranged survival in some way.

[Shakzor]

A major class rework every xpac would be seriously annoying and hard to do.
Just work on those that are in a weird/bad spot. No need to overhaul what is working

[Kralljin]

I don't need major overhauls, but in my opinion, there needs to be an overhaul that actually brings some class fantasy back to classes.
"Unpruning" some highly niche abilities just won't do it.

Blizzard always loves to talk about their concept of strengths and weaknesses, but always falls short on actually delivering onto that, even in theory.

[Eurhetemec]

How do you guys feel about the constant revamp of classes every expansions. How that has stopped in the last 2 expansions and going into the same stale rotations into another expansion?

Blizzard did tons of player research on this. They found, quite conclusively, they said, that large-scale reworks of classes, especially rework after rework, put off far more people than it turned on. Returning players who return to find their spec plays completely differently, and have rebuild their bars entirely, and often learn entirely new approaches to how they play, very often just stop playing.

I get that you're the opposite, that for you, massive re-works of your classes, which inevitably change the feel of them massively, and make people who liked a spec before dislike it and vice-versa, are awesome, and presumably you either always adapt, or just change classes if a spec is "ruined" for you, but you're in a minority. The vast majority of players, according to Blizzard's research, don't like that.

On top of the fact that it drives away returning players is the issue that it's a massive amount of work, as several other posters have pointed out, and on top of that, doing this CREATES tons of imbalance, because the more you change, the more risk there is of imbalance coming in, and huge overhauls have so much change that they guarantee it.

So basically you're saying you want:

A) Returning players to be driven away.

B) The gameplay team to engage in massive effort unnecessarily rejigging everything every two years.

C) Tons and tons of extra bonus imbalance ON TOP of whatever normally is there at the start of every expansion.

I mean, okay, I guess that's a thing you want but it's pretty weird.

In general I enjoyed the spec revamps, except when they removed talents or spells I liked. I still haven't forgiven Blizz for getting rid of Heroic Strike/Cleave for prot warriors.

Honestly they should just rename and re-icon Revenge to Cleave (and make the swoosh green, I guess). That's basically what it is, at this point. They could call the thing that makes it free "Revenge" and just list it in your passives.

But dammit, give me back ranged survival in some way.

You'll have to fight me if it means losing melee Survival. Ranged Survival was always the dustbin for whatever odds and ends Hunter had laying around, and never had a cohesive theme or feel prior to becoming melee-oriented, whereas Beast and Marks were always pretty clear. Whenever people ask for "ranged Survival back" they always mean an entirely different expansion's wildly different version of Survival, too. If you stuck everyone who wanted ranged Survival back in a room together, not only would there be very few people (and most of them would be people who had never main'd Hunters, or not for long), but they'd never, ever, in a million years be able to agree on what "ranged Survival" actually entailed beyond "more traps".

I don't need major overhauls, but in my opinion, there needs to be an overhaul that actually brings some class fantasy back to classes.

What does that actually MEAN though? It's such a vague statement, and so easy to make, but essentially unquantifiable. It's not a SMART goal, that's bloody sure. I think Class Order Halls did more for "class fantasy" than any abilities ever have. If anything I'd want to see them taken to the next level, rather than just fiddling with abilities.

[Mirishka]

Honestly they should just rename and re-icon Revenge to Cleave (and make the swoosh green, I guess). That's basically what it is, at this point. They could call the thing that makes it free "Revenge" and just list it in your passives.

I would 100% be on board with this.

[Onikaroshi]

You'll have to fight me if it means losing melee Survival. Ranged Survival was always the dustbin for whatever odds and ends Hunter had laying around, and never had a cohesive theme or feel prior to becoming melee-oriented, whereas Beast and Marks were always pretty clear. Whenever people ask for "ranged Survival back" they always mean an entirely different expansion's wildly different version of Survival, too. If you stuck everyone who wanted ranged Survival back in a room together, not only would there be very few people (and most of them would be people who had never main'd Hunters, or not for long), but they'd never, ever, in a million years be able to agree on what "ranged Survival" actually entailed beyond "more traps".

Survival didn't change a lot between Wrath and WoD, abilities were added and removed sure, but things that made survival survival were explosive shot, lock and load, black arrow, serpent spread, etc.

That said I'd rather see a 4th spec then the removal of melee.

[Eurhetemec]

I would 100% be on board with this.

Along the same lines, why is Devastate not just called Heroic Strike? Given Revenge (Cleave in our scheme) exists as a Rage dump, I don't think Prot Warriors really need another DPS rage dump (YMMV), but the term Heroic Strike is, as far as I know, not used by any Warrior spec, and it's absolutely an iconic Warrior ability, so why not just rename and re-icon boring old Devastate (most misleadingly named ability ever?) to Heroic Strike?

[SynDethroc]

Biggest change I could ask for would be allowing Survival Hunters to dual wield

[Kithelle]

They better fix some shit, they promised fixes for Enhancement and Shadow for example and in the end all they did was buff their numbers,

[matrix123mko]

Good that they promised unprunning this time. We just need to hope it will be big and well thought.

[ozusteapot]

Most of the specs don't need more than some cleaning up.

But dammit, give me back ranged survival in some way.

Yes, please.

[Kralljin]

It's such a vague statement, and so easy to make, but essentially unquantifiable.

It absolutely isn't, you just have to put some aspect relevant to the gameplay behind it.

Take the melee branch for example.
Classes like Warriors, DK or Paladin should be the tanky but slow guys, regardless of specs.
They should have more HP than any other Melee, more Armor (or rather, Armor should be more relevant in both PvE and PvP) but as a trade off be less mobile.

Rogues are quite frankly tankier than any of those classes in PvE, because they have the same HP, alongside tools such as Feint, CoS and cheat death + armor matters jackshit in this game outside of the tank role.
Maybe Rogues also shouldn't be able to dish huge amounts of AoE damage, because a sneaky class should rather focus on ST damage than excel during huge AoE pulls.

Same goes for DH, they're super fast, super tanky and bring more support tools (Chaos Touch & Darkness) to a raid than a Shaman or Paladin...because reasons.

Maybe healing classes such as Priest, Shaman or Monk shouldn't have damage reducing CD's on their hybrid specs, but rather self healing CD's (because they have a healing spec, after all).
Play some random bg's and take a look at the healing done of non Healing specs, you'll find Warlocks, Dk's and so forth, but something like SP or Enhance won't be among the "top" nonhealers.

Maybe a class / spec that is famously known as glasscannon shouldn't have the same HP, a decent absorb on a 30sec cd, an Immunity and cheat death proc.
A spec that has this sort of defensive tools isn't just a glasscannon anymore.

You know, take some very simple, straight forward RPG elements and put them back into those classes.
Think about where a class should be strong and weak based on the fantasy that this class represents.

[spalernTJ]

I like the redesigns in legion with the whole flavor stuff being the core theme behind them. That being said, right now, I just wish all classes and specs felt finished without the need of borrowed powers. There's so many specs that feel really clunky, boring and weird to play to me. Feral druid and shadow priest coming to mind. While I don't see a need for complete overhauls or redesigns, I do wish to see something done to make all specs feel finished as a baseline. Shadow Word: Void is the best example I can pull out. Without it, shadow priest feels horrible to play because of the way CDs line up - Specifically mind and void blast. It's the same issue with Lava burst and Elemental shamans, without the extra charge talent, doesn't it feel awful when you get your resets one-two seconds before it's ready?

[Unholyground]

Most of the specs don't need more than some cleaning up.

But dammit, give me back ranged survival in some way.

I like melee too much so they wont

[Onikaroshi]

I like melee too much so they wont

Dammit, it's all your fault!

[Eurhetemec]

It absolutely isn't, you just have to put some aspect relevant to the gameplay behind it.

Your statement was totally vague. It had no detail.

Take the melee branch for example.
Classes like Warriors, DK or Paladin should be the tanky but slow guys, regardless of specs.
They should have more HP than any other Melee, more Armor (or rather, Armor should be more relevant in both PvE and PvP) but as a trade off be less mobile.

Have you ever played WoW? It seems like you haven't.

This is literally NEVER, in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF WOW, been true for Warriors. You're asking for a totally unbalance-able design that shits on how Warriors have been designed for the ENTIRE HISTORY OF WOW. They've literally always been a highly mobile class, and have only become more mobile over time.

Also, presumably you're talking about DPS specs? So how does this work for tanks and healers? And you want to make DKs LESS mobile than they already are? Jesus mate.

Rogues are quite frankly tankier than any of those classes in PvE, because they have the same HP, alongside tools such as Feint, CoS and cheat death + armor matters jackshit in this game outside of the tank role. Maybe Rogues also shouldn't be able to dish huge amounts of AoE damage, because a sneaky class should rather focus on ST damage rather than excel during huge AoE pulls.

A Rogue is tankier than a Prot Warrior? What? And you want all three Rogue specs to suck balls on AOE? Really?

Same goes for DH, they're super fast and super tanky and bring more support tools (Chaos Touch & Darkness) to a raid than a Shaman or Paladin...because reasons.

Now you're just shitting on a class, without discussing class fantasy at all. Get back on topic.

Maybe healing classes such as Priest, Shaman or Monk shouldn't have damage reducing CD's on their hybrid specs, but rather self healing CD's (because they have a healing spec, after all).

Wow, you really don't play WoW do you? This is astonishing.

Play some random bg's and take a look at the healing done of non Healing specs, you'll find Warlocks, Dk's and so forth, but something like SP or Enhance won't be among the "top" nonhealers.

And...? Do you even know why that is? A self-heal CD every minute or whatever isn't going to change that.

Maybe a class / spec that is famously known as glasscannon shouldn't have the same HP, a decent absorb on a 30sec cd, an Immunity and cheat death proc. A spec that has this sort of defensive tools isn't just a glasscannon anymore.

What are you even talking about? This again sounds like you're shitting on a class, but not offering any actual suggestions.

You know, take some very simple, straight forward RPG elements and put them back into those classes.

So your idea of RPG elements appears to be:

A) Totally change Warriors so they play completely differently, nerf DK movement speed (ROFL) and what, ditch Pally Horse for Pallies?

B) Angry ranting about Rogues and DHes with no viable suggestions for either.

C) Changing damage reduction CDs to self-heal CDs, which serve an entirely different purpose, because DKs and Warlocks do too much healing on the BG scoreboard?

I mean, good job proving my point completely.

[Kralljin]

They've literally always been a highly mobile class, and have only become more mobile over time.

Warrior mobility has been generally more middle of the pack, barring Legion Fury / Legion legendaries.

And you want to make DKs LESS mobile than they already are?

I didn't say DK's are super mobile (nor implied it), so you are pulling things out your ass here.

A Rogue is tankier than a Prot Warrior? What? And you want all three Rogue specs to suck balls on AOE? Really?

Do you even read my post? Did i say anything about Prot Warrior? The point is that Dps Warriors aren't tanky despite actually having a tank spec.

Now you're just shitting on a class, without discussing class fantasy at all. Get back on topic.

And then where's this supposed weakness of the DH class?

And...? Do you even know why that is? A self-heal CD every minute or whatever isn't going to change that.

Perhaps give them stronger selfhealing tools in general...?

What are you even talking about? This again sounds like you're shitting on a class, but not offering any actual suggestions.

If you really need that class / spec spelled out for you, maybe you're not the one who plays WoW.

A) Totally change Warriors so they play completely differently, nerf DK movement speed (ROFL) and what, ditch Pally Horse for Pallies?

Haven't lost a word about removing their mobility.
Wraith walk (or Death's advance) alongside the Pally horse are mainly a result because Blizzard has completely powercrept mobility since MoP and thus DK and Pally needed something to even remotely compete.

B) Angry ranting about Rogues and DHes with no viable suggestions for either.

Maybe you should glance over your own post before you talk about "angry rants", because it seems like my post has obviously pushed your buttons.

[Eurhetemec]

Maybe you should glance over your own post before you talk about "angry rants", because it seems like my post has obviously pushed your buttons.

Dude, you claimed you'd explain how to bring back "class fantasy".

Instead you said all Plate classes needed nerfed mobility, and then whinged about Rogues and DHes a bit. I didn't promise anything! So it's still on you mate. You're proving my point completely - people who talk about "class fantasy" and abilities are generally just being vague and have no actual clear idea of what they want.

As for "I didn't say nerf DK mobility", well you said:

Take the melee branch for example.
Classes like Warriors, DK or Paladin should be the tanky but slow guys, regardless of specs.
They should have more HP than any other Melee, more Armor (or rather, Armor should be more relevant in both PvE and PvP) but as a trade off be less mobile.

That suggests you want their mobility nerfed and HP raised. Given Warriors have high mobility, and Pallies and DKs relatively low, it's weird as hell to include the latter two in needing to be "less mobile".

Anyway, thanks for the entirely PvP-focused rant with no discussion of class fantasy beyond "Nerf Plate mobility, buff Plate HP!".