9.0 General Discussion

[Craaazyyy]

I wouldn't say many, there's a few out there that are wonky, but most just need an ability or two to round it out.

Out of classes I play regularly, the only spec that I can think of that needs some huge help is MM honestly.

classes definitely need more than a couple of abilities back.. and many existing abilities need a remake as well. Classes right now are like 15% of what they should be. And that 15% number is pretty generous. Class design is at it's worst point ever

[Onikaroshi]

classes definitely need more than a couple of abilities back.. and many existing abilities need a remake as well. Classes right now are like 15% of what they should be. And that 15% number is pretty generous. Class design is at it's worst point ever

In your opinion, I think many of them play great. BM Hunter for example feels fine to me and Ret would be great with a few abilities returned. Fire mage is great rotation wise, as is frost, enh shamn could use a little help but ele is pretty good. Etc.

Mind you this all about feels to play, not numbers.

Class design is far from it's worst point ever, that was the classic/tbc era

[Caerule]

Jeez people. I look away for a few hours and there's 14 new pages. Got me excited that something might actually be happening.

Ah well. I guess I'm the only one not feeling the hype. But then, I'm working on pictures I'd like to be done before Alpha is out.

Still, chill out folks. Wait and see if a Q&A submission thread opens on Monday. If not, good odds it won't be next week either.

[FlubberPuddy]

Some people will always think classes suck, there's a large portion of players who are happy with their classes currently.

All they're doing is unpruning some abilities, they're not going to go all legion on the classes.

They're also making some existing talents baseline for some classes (like Paladin Auras and Hammer of Wrath) therefore certain talents (or in the case of Holy pally an entire row) will have to get changed with something else.

[Alanar]

I have no horse in this race but you could argue it does the opposite since we can just jump into the death realm and have a chat with all our old buddies.

I hope the game will explain these situations well so we dont end up with alot of questions, sure keeping it vague yet partly explained will let players speculate etc. At some point tho it will get annoying. I dont think coming back to certain characters is a bad thing. We are talking about characters such keal'thas and Uther. One of them was butchered in bc which many people disliked.
Its not like we are ressing or helping every character who died so far..

[razorpax]

They're also making some existing talents baseline for some classes (like Paladin Auras and Hammer of Wrath) therefore certain talents (or in the case of Holy pally an entire row) will have to get changed with something else.

i want to see the replacements

right now i hate how much of my characters damage regardless of class and spec is tied to an rng proc

give me frost but every 4th ice lance triggers fingers or something instead of rng
give me something similar to the WW style where you only have like 1 proc and the rest is controlled
more destro supremacy less ele overload

[matrix123mko]

That is still faction war themed. It just slightly shifted from the villain being eachother, to the villain being Garrosh.
It is honestly the perfect system for a faction war themed expansion.
You start with regular faction war, then you find a scapegoat, then you kill the scapegoat. Problem solved.

It could still be a faction war themed final boss if BfA ended the same, you would just need to adequately explain what N'zoth has to do with faction war. An easier out would be Sylvanas again, or forces of death. Both of those could be said to be the "villain" of a faction war expansion.

Please, no. This story is horrible and I hope I will not see it ever again.

[Dracullus]

I don't get people wanting loooong pre-patch for SL. 1-2 week for adapting to class changes + 3 weeks for Scourge invasion and some intro story should be enough. Longer pre-patch would only make hype fall flat and fuck with people that want to get BfA stuff that goes away.

I would like leveling changes coming in 8.3.5 though (similar to scaling in 7.3.5), but looks like that ship has sailed.

[ercarp]

Jeez people. I look away for a few hours and there's 14 new pages. Got me excited that something might actually be happening.

I wouldn't count on anything happening over the weekend so I'm putting my hype on hold until next week. And if next week turns out to be a dud as well, I'll just go do something else I guess.

[Revamp Man]

In your opinion, I think many of them play great. BM Hunter for example feels fine to me and Ret would be great with a few abilities returned. Fire mage is great rotation wise, as is frost, enh shamn could use a little help but ele is pretty good. Etc.

Mind you this all about feels to play, not numbers.

Class design is far from it's worst point ever, that was the classic/tbc era

I think frost and most classes that play like it where they require a random Prock need to be reworked to have a button that will guarantee a proc on the next one

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I don't get people wanting loooong pre-patch for SL. 1-2 week for adapting to class changes + 3 weeks for Scourge invasion and some intro story should be enough. Longer pre-patch would only make hype fall flat and fuck with people that want to get BfA stuff that goes away.

I would like leveling changes coming in 8.3.5 though (similar to scaling in 7.3.5), but looks like that ship has sailed.

Personally it’s because with the leveling change it brings a huge reason to level four heritage armor because the speed will be much quicker plus you can slowly ramp up the undead invasion

[ercarp]

I did some relatively unscientific calculations and came up with the following dates for Shadowlands.

Alpha: March 3, 2020
Beta: Aug 21, 2020
Pre-patch: Nov 5, 2020
Release: Dec 8, 2020

Legion had a much longer Alpha phase (171 days) so I'm assuming Shadowlands will follow suit.

[Dracullus]

I did some relatively unscientific calculations and came up with the following dates for Shadowlands.

Alpha: March 3, 2020
Beta: Aug 21, 2020
Pre-patch: Nov 5, 2020
Release: Dec 8, 2020

Legion had a much longer Alpha phase (171 days) so I'm assuming Shadowlands will follow suit.

First we will have datamineable Alpha build. If it's next week, then actual Alpha will launch around mid-March.

[Nahrees]

I think frost and most classes that play like it where they require a random Prock need to be reworked to have a button that will guarantee a proc on the next one

WoW depends on procs for combat to be less streamlined. It wouldn't be bad to have some sort of ability/passive that gives the proc buff, but at a certain point, it becomes too set in stone. Then again, I am thinking of an extreme version in which the entire rotation is macro'd into a single button AKA BM Hunter from BC.

more destro supremacy less ele overload

Elemental Overload is too iconic to Elemental for them to change it to be more of a random % damage increase on each cast. It generally accomplishes the same thing, but one is more visually appealing. I know they gave it out to everyone with Multistrike in WoD, but its been part of Shaman since BC.

[Niwes]

There is absolutely nothing in Alpha that is going to change anyone's minds about the expansion save for MAYBE some plotlines being revealed to the wider audience (like Tyrande or Sylvanas's fate).

Everyone has already made up their mind on the expansion. Nothing will change their opinions. People don't change their minds on things these days because it's widely believed now that personal opinions on things are important convictions that must not be swayed.

Shadowlands is unexciting filler goddamnit and NOTHING can change that short of Blizzard paying them to play the game.

SEE: absolutely nobody ever saying "I thought MOP was kungfu panda bullshit but I changed my mind!"

i think my english is not good enough to fully get the message of the sarcasm. but i liked MoP. was a good expansion. and i said that till day 1. i dont need a WoD to change my oppinions about things i like, by setting down the offset. and i liked WoD also for the raiding. but i not liked Legion that much many ppl do. so, no clue...

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Nah, I'll gleefully watch as the classes I play are loaded back with abilities are used to play with. That and all the datamining of the actual zones and how they look, plus the armor sets. SL is gonna be hype.

exactly this mentality will leave you disappointed imo when you realize they put back unchanged some few tooling spells and call it a day. if you hope for „my classes will be good, challenging and diverse again“ i think you will be disappointed.

SL not looks like an expansion to me, in what they invest huge time and money and do things the high quality way. Espacially with classes. Look: When someone will told you „we are not gonna doing big class overhauls at all, but we bring back some tools“ a year or more before alpha, are you really sure classes will SHINE then ? i dont think so.

[Edward Wu]

Please stop with the December release date predictions. Blizzard will literally never do this. They will never release an expansion so close to mandatory holidays for their employees.

November is the absolute latest the expansion launches.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I did some relatively unscientific calculations and came up with the following dates for Shadowlands.

Alpha: March 3, 2020
Beta: Aug 21, 2020
Pre-patch: Nov 5, 2020
Release: Dec 8, 2020

Legion had a much longer Alpha phase (171 days) so I'm assuming Shadowlands will follow suit.

I find it hard to believe it will go for THAT long, all that testing from March to december.

[Edward Wu]

Alpha will launch in March, Beta will likely launch April/May, and pre-patch will release in August, lasting 2 months. Expansion launch will occur in October.

7 months of testing is very nice and larger than the BfA testing period, if I recall.

[Nahrees]

SL not looks like an expansion to me, in what they invest huge time and money and do things the high quality way. Espacially with classes. Look: When someone will told you „we are not gonna doing big class overhauls at all, but we bring back some tools“ a year or more before alpha, are you really sure classes will SHINE then ? i dont think so.

There's plenty that old tools will do to change classes. Think of Mage's Alter Time and the sort. They're giving Warriors Shattering Throw back as another DPS window. Being unrealistically over-hyped for Shadowlands is the fault that most people want BfA to be over with. I'm hyped to see what a new world is going to look like, what the story brings, and the raids are usually really good.

[Asphyx22]

I am honestly surprised they are making us wait till March for anything. Feels like the longest wait for an alpha in a long time.

This thread is going nuts in anticipation haha.

[Caerule]

I am honestly surprised they are making us wait till March for anything. Feels like the longest wait for an alpha in a long time.

This thread is going nuts in anticipation haha.

Heh, yeah. Though, if it means they're returning to a "It's done when it's done" principle, rather than an Activision "Rush it out the door for a quick-but-disappointing buck short-term" this could be a good thing.

I suppose there yet being hype in this community is not terrible either. Things can get so negative. Some folks seem to get a real rush of endorphins out of it. The hype is silly, of course. But people's excitement to see more WoW is relatively positive too. (And yes, I am aware some folks will spin this as "Dude, it's because the current stuff sucks so much!")