Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Hypester]

It's interesting since we had the same vibe about BFA. The impression was it was low effort comparative to Legion or Mists and the "pattern" of good installment -> bad installment was intact.
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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.

[Zankai27]

That leak continues to make a lot of sense from a moving parts POV, but god, the freakin' micro classes are so outlandish.

Like, I want it, it's a dope fucking leak, it would mean a huge hail Mary similar to Legion to make up for disappointment, but good lord it's hard to believe.

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.

[Fahrad Wagner]

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.

Except if they tune it to be only healer or DPS in a PVP / PVE environment, only allowing the offensive utilitary spells for questing

[Nymrohd]

Honestly the single spec classes would be a huge selling point to me. It would mean we can finally get some of the weirder more out there class concepts because they wont have to force them into a watered down version of the concept.

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?

[Hypester]

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.

[Fahrad Wagner]

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?

They all sound more like class skins to me than actual individual one-spec classes, but eh, anything could happen. I don't think they'd bloat the classes tab like they did the races one though

[Vakir]

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.

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.

[Nymrohd]

Except if they tune it to be only healer or DPS in a PVP / PVE environment, only allowing the offensive utilitary spells for questing

? So the spells will just stop working in instanced content like War Mode or something? That does not sound fun.

[Zankai27]

Except if they tune it to be only healer or DPS in a PVP / PVE environment, only allowing the offensive utilitary spells for questing

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.

? So the spells will just stop working in instanced content like War Mode or something? That does not sound fun.

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.

[Fahrad Wagner]

? So the spells will just stop working in instanced content like War Mode or something? That does not sound fun.

Only the offensive spells yes, or they go for the Holy Paladins way

[Hypester]

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.

BFA and SL both had no new class animations, so that’s 4 years to work on it. And they even added musical animations in both those expansions.

[Nymrohd]

They all sound more like class skins to me than actual individual one-spec classes, but eh, anything could happen. I don't think they'd bloat the classes tab like they did the races one though

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.

[Fahrad Wagner]

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.

Not all abilities need a rework to make it work, only some essential ones And they could do it gradually, like they did for race customisation options

[Nymrohd]

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.

Yeah the Minstrel would need so many unique models and new animations it'd be insane. For a class with a single healer spec that has no actual support in lore.

[Raetary]

Except if they tune it to be only healer or DPS in a PVP / PVE environment, only allowing the offensive utilitary spells for questing

Eh... a better idea would be to add outdoor content specific buffs instead.
Like, while in a healing spec you get a 'You deal 20% more damage to NPCs' buff while outdoors or something, which is removed once you enter an instance.

[Nymrohd]

Not all abilities need a rework to make it work, only some essential ones And they could do it gradually, like they did for race customisation options

So wait, I reskin to a Necromancer but some of my abilities are still fel and demons? I can only stay in my chosen skin if I pick specific talents and spells?

[Hypester]

Yeah the Minstrel would need so many unique models and new animations it'd be insane. For a class with a single healer spec that has no actual support in lore.

People still think lore matters for selling points after Vulpera?

[Fahrad Wagner]

Eh... a better idea would be to add content specific tuning instead.
Like, while in a healing spec you get a 'You deal 20% more damage to NPCs' buff while outdoors or something, which is removed once you enter an instance.

That could work too if tuned properly! Although that might make the class a little too OP in uninstanced content

So wait, I reskin to a Necromancer but some of my abilities are still fel and demons? I can only stay in my chosen skin if I pick specific talents and spells?

Think about it like the mage polymorph: you keep the basic spell, and you gain variants of it which are cosmetic only. OFC for Necromancers you'd have to dive deeper and make pets undead instead of demons and such, but they could still be easily implementable options

[Nymrohd]

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 play a paladin. Sure you can level as holy. It does enough damage. It's still too slow. Many level as prot because the ST might be crap but you never die and if the area allows rounding up your targets to AoE them you can actually push better numbers than most dps can (mostly because they would not even survive that number of mobs). Holy doesn't have any comparable advantage. If you mess up you can still stay alive but it will take you far too long to get out of the mess.
You could do it with a stance and/or talent.

[Zankai27]

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.

You’re absolutely right, but based on the leak, this (and the class skins) IS the new class content.

They put together a new class with the first new weapon type ever, and 36 unique artifacts with 6 skins each with recolors for Legion on top of everything else.

If we aren’t doing something that intensive this time and they put all their art and time into the new classes and class skins, I can see it. It’s also always possible they try to get instruments to work and they get relegated to a visual feature of some of the skills rather than an actual weapon.

This definitely is an incredible amount of effort, but they’ve hardly iterated on classes that aren’t Demonology Warlocks in two expansions, so they’ve gotta have something brewing and this would absolutely make headlines they want.