Which classes & specs do you think looks good and bad?

[RobertMugabe]

I am happy with Monk Brewmaster and Mistweaver but windwalker could use something to help with down time when all my main abilities are on cool down.

You have enough downtime with WW that you need some extra mechanic? You're playing the spec wrong then :P

[TigTone]

You have enough downtime with WW that you need some extra mechanic? You're playing the spec wrong then :P

Tiger palm is just so boring

[RobertMugabe]

Tiger palm is just so boring

What are you specifically struggling with? Do you mean Downtime = Alternating Kick and Tiger Palm?

I don't really have this issue by taking Chi Burst, Fist of the White Tiger and Whirling Dragon Punch as my talents. This way I barely experience this type of stuff and playing WW like that is pretty fun and somewhat challenging too. If your timing is perfect then the gameplay should stay fun IMO.

BTT I think that the changes to WW are promising tho, since we're getting some stuff baseline, such as Expel Harm. Personally I wish that both WDP and Fist were baseline and instead we get more talent choices.

[Saltysquidoon]

BTT I think that the changes to WW are promising tho, since we're getting some stuff baseline, such as Expel Harm. Personally I wish that both WDP and Fist were baseline and instead we get more talent choices.

I would say WW needs another big CD to since ToK isn't really supposed to be used for dps in raid or group content.
Hit combo should probably be removed too, given it is literally 'this is your mastery'.

[RobertMugabe]

I would say WW needs another big CD to since ToK isn't really supposed to be used for dps in raid or group content.
Hit combo should probably be removed too, given it is literally 'this is your mastery'.

tbh we know that they do well intend us to use karma as a dps cd in raids.

However, in SL we'll get Xuen baseline as well Fort. Brew as a defensive. But yeah I agree we should get at least 1 more offensive cd.

[Alcsaar]

Nothing in SL in regards to classes is blowing my mind - but I'm not surprised by this. Blizzard was clear at Blizzcon that they weren't doing major class changes they were just re adding old skills and not really fixing the inherent core problems some specs are experiencing.

Plus the fact that they're so obviously far behind on development for how close we are to the expansion supposedly launching.

[TigTone]

What are you specifically struggling with? Do you mean Downtime = Alternating Kick and Tiger Palm?

I don't really have this issue by taking Chi Burst, Fist of the White Tiger and Whirling Dragon Punch as my talents. This way I barely experience this type of stuff and playing WW like that is pretty fun and somewhat challenging too. If your timing is perfect then the gameplay should stay fun IMO.

BTT I think that the changes to WW are promising tho, since we're getting some stuff baseline, such as Expel Harm. Personally I wish that both WDP and Fist were baseline and instead we get more talent choices.

I am running the same build, I’m just being anal about it.

I main as mistweaver so the issue may just be my stats don’t match up well for windwalker.

[Haywire5714]

All you have to do to make spriests fun and involved to play is to take mechanics that existed previously and add them back in.
Imagine what spriest would be like if it had:

Void Form
Mind Flay/Sear Insanity from WoD
Divine Insight from MoP (instant mindblast procs)
Devouring Plague
And mana management with VT if you wanna get kinky.

Combine all of those together and make Devouring Plague + MF-Insanity interact with void form in some way and you have a really fun class.

And it doesn't even require that many buttons, all you need is VT, SWP, DP, MB, MF, MS, Void form and Void bolt

[Soon-TM]

Going by what I've seen in YT, my three favourite classes are not in a good spot, except Ret.

Mage

• Frost: unplayable. It's downright broken atm, and certainly not in the fun sense.
• Arcane: boring. The whole "mana management" thing is NOT fun, and for a supposedly bursty spec, you will be doing no damage for ~4 seconds in a row, while you activate your cooldowns.
• Fire: basically the same as in BfA, but without the OP gimmicks like Lucid Dreams or Blaster Master, it feels really dull.

Priest

• Disc: looks really good, with some of its most glaring weaknesses addressed with cool stuff like Schism + Mind Blast or direct healing on dome.
• Holy: same weaksauce than in BfA. Still crap mobility, awful survability, and heavily cooldown dependant. Holy needs to have Feather baseline if it's going to be ever used outside of raids.
• Shadow: good lord, what a mess is this. Blizzard should really bite the bullet, and make Voidform much less important, perhaps turning it into a good ol'DPS cooldown This is another spec that will seldom see any usage outside of raid content, and it's going to be eaten alive in PvP by any melee DPS with half a brain.

Also Destro locks seem to be getting hit the hardest with the removal of BfA rental systems. Affliction is basically the same whack-a-mole spec it has always been... And cannot comment about Demo.

Overall, looks like the scarcity of rDPS will only get worse in SL. Outside of the usual suspects (*cough* Feral *cough*), all melee seem to be getting lots of new, USEFUL toys, while ranged is stuck with half of their talent points making the spec barely playable.

[Yarou]

I main fury in BFA and reading the changes in Alpha SL i feel warrior will be more pruned than unpruned (and most of the classes for the moment).

First all random classic talents that blizz added to all classes got no sense in fury. U wont use slam in any situation for example.

Second they removed carnage, one of the best fury talents, and decrease the haste u got in enrage from +25% to +15% adding that we will start with rly low stats, fury in 9.0 will be very annoysing to play because we will be more outraged than enraged spamming the fucking whirlwind in single fights.

3rd removing all azerite traits will be rly unsatisfactory to use bloodthirst with no CSHB. Only be worthy to use when we're not enraged tryng to tick the 30% chances of be enraged. Also removing unbridled ferocity makes the spec more clunky and slower

4th the new talents are rly boring and with low synergy with the other skills, i see blizz didnt work a shit for this alpha:
a) Fervor of Battle: sad talent, a copy of the arms talents that have no sense in fury spec.
b) Wrecking Ball: another no sense talents. Blizz didnt get that whilwind isnt a reliable source of damage, the idea of whirlwind is to make other skills cleave, so improve our shitty cds or the other dmg skills but dont improve the shitty dmg of whilrwind that deals like 3-4% of overall dmg in dungeons and even less in single target fights.
c)Onslaugh: The only decent new talent imo, but also have a big problem. The go to talents with onslaught will also be siegebreaker that makes the rotation more slower and rigid (the opposite of the fury rotation) adding we will need years to reach enrage...
d)Frothing Berserker: They made this talent even worse than bfa. No sense that u need 100 rage to use this talents for only a shitty 10% haste for only 6 sec. I didnt do the maths but i think is even a lose dps to use this talent than to ignore it.
e) Fresh Meat: Shitty talent with no work beside it.

Pd I forgot bloodthirst healing is also nerfed

- - - Updated - - -

In general i got the same feeling with this alpha and with bfa 8.0. We will have a 9.0 patch with most classes being unplayable and waiting for tiers and legendaries to make classes more playable as they did with the improve of azerite (adding new bis traits and one more circle) and essences. But i'm rly sad noticing that blizz keeps their lazy work after this trash expansion and being one of the few pay per play companies

[Saltysquidoon]

Overall, looks like the scarcity of rDPS will only get worse in SL. Outside of the usual suspects (*cough* Feral *cough*), all melee seem to be getting lots of new, USEFUL toys, while ranged is stuck with half of their talent points making the spec barely playable.

I don't think that's necessarily true, I mean the conversation directly above your post is talking about how baked on WW talents are. Also, have you seen the rogue talent trees?

I main fury in BFA and reading the changes in Alpha SL i feel warrior will be more pruned than unpruned (and most of the classes for the moment).

First all random classic talents that blizz added to all classes got no sense in fury. U wont use slam in any situation for example.

You aren't supposed to use slam. Slam is like corruption for destro and demo locks or primal strikes for enhancement (or really any shaman), they exist so people on the internet can hype up the 'unpruning' as a major feature without blizzard having to do any work.

[Yarou]

I don't think that's necessarily true, I mean the conversation directly above your post is talking about how baked on WW talents are. Also, have you seen the rogue talent trees?


You aren't supposed to use slam. Slam is like corruption for destro and demo locks or primal strikes for enhancement (or really any shaman), they exist so people on the internet can hype up the 'unpruning' as a major feature without blizzard having to do any work.

Yes totally agreed, also mage get some random stuff that wont ever use they did a lazy work seeing the success of classic

[Gaidax]

Also Destro locks seem to be getting hit the hardest with the removal of BfA rental systems. Affliction is basically the same whack-a-mole spec it has always been... And cannot comment about Demo.

Affliction will likely be more than fine - they get some nice buffs in what they were lacking and as a whole last several years Affliction was never bad, so I don't see reason why they should be now.

Destruction will again be a weak sauce spec at the beginning progressively becoming more powerful as we get more toys and systems. It's par the course there too. It will be propped somewhat by the Covenant abilities, Kyrian looks pretty strong and I wonder if Decimation Bolt will work with F&B, that too can be a surprising source of power, alongside with Decimation -> Havoc.

As a whole I expect ranged to be fine. In raids they still will be the best option for any sort of complex encounter. All 3 pure ranged classes are bound to have at least one spec that will be good.

As for M+, AoE caps will help ranged a lot, because melee usually are the ones with busted AoE mowing shit down and this will put a chill pill on that.

Melee will still be better M+ generally, but I hope the gap with get closer there.

[shadowlandsx]

Truthfully all those alpha testers are not starting at max level no covenant abilities no souldbinds no legendaries.. so I think until we get in game ,, we really don't know. .the only thing I am staying away from is the elemental shaman.. other than that its anyone guess .

[Marxman]

Shaman looks to be getting a lot of positive changes. Bringing back some utility, getting rid of the awful resource system, and making them more similar to older iterations sounds good to me.

Hunter seems to continue to be unchanged from the Legion re-design, which basically ruined the class imo. BM is "fine" (read: not great, not terrible). MM is getting some positive changes, but is still the red-headed clunky stepchild of the 3... and Survival is still going to be a dead spec, because no one in their right mind would play a melee spec on a ranged class unless it brings something wholly unique... which Survival doesn't and never has.

[Mozu]

Neither Outlaw or Arcane have had much done to them which saddens me

Outlaw got the best change imo: RtB rightfully murdered and buried.

[Ludvig]

MM hunter looks somewhat better but I loathe rapid fire, it feels antithetical to a marksman. I'll probably give it a try anyway. I wish the old bombardment-multi shot would return. It was mindless but it was goddamn fun. But blizzard is allegedly happy with the state of the specs when >97% play BM hunter in PvE.

Enhancement shaman looks much better, but they could get rid of rockbiter. They should give flame shock spread with lava lash back also, some synergy with abilities is something modern wow seems to lack other than just the "builder/spender" crap. Fire nova would be... lit but the quadratic scaling made it too strong I think. Maybe linear scaling and we could have it again.

Haven't really looked at elemental, but I agree with the comments they made.

Feral druids... no comment. With all of the unpruning talk, I thought we could get mangle(cat) back and savage roar baseline, but nope. Literally nothing has changed except bloodfangs which is a talent lol. Hard pass.

Don't really care about the rest.

They really need to make these crappy systems go away or only make them give flat damage buffs to your spells/give you more of a certain stat. No arbitrary random damage numbers coming from nowhere. Your class should be complete as it is. Then again, I haven't looked at the systems this time so maybe it will be that way. How classes feel in pre-patch will determine whether or not I'll play.

[Swnem]

I don't know why people say Ret is good. It is clearly worse than on live currently.

Enjoy inquisition+seraphim+wings popping... 3 GCDs of buffs.
With traits becoming talents, you can't get free divine storm+higher art of war proc chance, you got to choose one. Same with crusade and sanctified wrath. Without the extra wings duration, it's a dead talent.

So, much slower spec in yerms of HP generation, but you get hammer of wrath and consecration baseline (its gonna be great with moving targets). Yaaay! Damage scaling is gonna be crap, but hey... nostalgia am i right?! Le sigh.
Youtubers don't know what they are talking about.
They play a class for a couple of hours, with no perspective on where it came from nor how they compare to live, except on the ones they main.

But, as usual, blizz's plan for class design is to not make them functional without some BS trait or legendary system bolted on.

[Gaidax]

OK, Necrolords with Destruction/Affliction look pretty damn strong. Decimating Bolt bonus stacks insanely well with Drain Soul for affliction and F&B for Destruction. I bet they will nerf it 100% because in both cases it does ridonculous damage.

[Harbour]

At this point its not better than BFA. Blizzard fixed some stuff and made other stuff worse.
Also, i hate feedback from yotubers who play 36+ specs 1-2 hours each and then have a nerve to talk about what is good and what is bad. Like stfu, Preach, you know shit outside a balance druid. You dont come and tell that Retribution is great after you spent couple hours on some 53 level toon. Its not.