I think it's also always possible that points in a leak might have just been misunderstood by the leaker.
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Honestly, the fact that for two of those classes the single spec is healer. Outdoor content exists. If a healer is somehow tuned to have enough damage and control to play in the world without it being painful, they will simply be meta for every season.
Which was dumb, as people were using something as basic as GOOD BAD instead of an expansion that has fewer resources dedicated to it. Legion and BFA are both big. This is the first expansion AFAIK that was planned to be small and it points to all the terrible dev problems in Blizz over the past few years: there’s no way they planned for the end of the Arthas story to be in a WoD-tier expansion.
Also the mists thing is funny because Mists was far less work than Cata. It just was good.
Microclasses make a lot of sense tbh, but I think “Microclasses” is bad framing. They’re just 1-spec classes; like if DH didn’t come with Vengeance and was just DPS. I don’t feel like people would’ve complained that much.
They’re not going to call them micro classes, they’ll just be classes. I think it makes sense from the POV of “they want to give people more flavors to play (Dragons, Tinkers, Music, Time Healer) without forcing extra roles into classes they don’t feel need them.”
It’s also an incredible selling point if they phone SL in to advertise 4 fucking classes* with DF.
It’s like, imagine they had 4 ideas but not a cohesive singular class idea with them all together.
And it gives them opportunity to iterate down the line if it strikes them (DPS Dragon Knight, DPS Chronomancer, etc.) but I think as far as leaks, this one continues to feel exactly like the kind of all-in attempt to win everyone back I would expect. It covers a lot of bases, is light on systems and is full of cool sounding stuff.
One thing I'd wonder is if Cross-faction instanced play could allow them to make single spec classes for archetypes that are very distinct but also extremely race specific. Could Night Elves get a Priestess of the Moon (archery & arcane/holy magic)? Trolls get a Shadow Hunter? A Forsaken Apothecary?
Don’t forget that there’s good money that most people only play one spec on classes at a time. So it would be no different.
I don't disagree. It's just the popular perception of that time.
To multiple above:
I'm not against a single spec class at all. I just think people misunderstand just how much goes into the base of a class vs. one spec. Four one spec classes require more effort than one class with four specs by several orders of magnitude. ESPECIALLY the amount to put into something like Minstrel with new weapons. You think new casting animations were an ordeal? To the point where Warlocks weren't ready for a bit? You think DHs didn't have enough glaive models? Hooo boy.
Also, Holy Paladins already do more than enough damage to solo just fine. Imagining a healer that’s designed as only a healer class won’t have some strong solo capability is just silly.
In fact, they could even give them an early talent to sacrifice some healing for DPS capability. (And allow them to queue as DPS, like Gladiator)
That kind of thing would work just fine.
War Mode is hardly balanced content and they’re going to be much more concerned about competitive mode balancing anyway. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Besides we don’t know what the existing classes will get yet either.
I like the idea of class skins. But I think ultimately it is far to problematic. Blizzard changes classes in new xpacs quite aggressively. Spells and talents disappear. It would require quite some effort to reskin full classes into different things because really, 1:1 reskins of abilities are not that easy. And class skins would mean they have to do that for both the class and its reskins.