removing fox/amp magic was less about not liking those abilities than about not wanting raids to class stack, especially hunters (I dunno if anybody stacked mages for more amps, but three hunters for fox was definitely a thing)
I guess they figure by adding more stuff like that they can make it less of an issue? hard to say at this point
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I'm really excited about the concept of Druids having an entire talent row dedicated to the idea of "Okay, you're [THIS SPEC] right? Well if you choose this talent, you'll get all the kit for [THIS OTHER SPEC]. You might not be as 100% powerful as [THIS OTHER SPEC] but you can definitely contribute with its skillset."
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Bringing back the old point of druids is a good idea.
It is a good example, though, of what they are trying to do. Basically let you be as complicated as you want, which seems to including allowing the option to be closer to the pre-specialization era where you used to have all the skills just many of them were useless. Except they can tune them to be less useless when they are talents.
So ultimately what is their logic for their stance on flying? The ONLY reason we ever got is that it trivializes questing/exploring the world initially. Well they entirely solved that by adding the requirements they did in WoD with Pathfinder. Sooooooooooo what's their problem with flying now? Why can't I "do everything" and then fly in 7.0? I will never, ever use the group finder to 'move into normal raiding,' but if I had to do a real raid to earn flying I sure as shit would.
My excitement for the expansion is barely half of what it could be because of this one braindead decision that they still can't explain. Ask on reddit and you just get downvoted and no one even bothers to tell you why they agree with Blizzard. MMOC has nothing but misinformed (surprise surprise) people who think people like me have a problem with earning flying over buying it and can't even answer the right question about opinions on timing. I'm going to make my $15 a net loss to Blizzard somehow. I doubt most toxic player actions are against the ToS. Design the game how you want, but fucking communicate honestly. Have a spine.
Edit: I don't think my sarcasm came across well in my 'cause intentional player toxicity' comment. Obviously I'm not going to poison the game I play all the time.
Kryhs on
+1
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
it seems they've been communicating reasonably honestly
i'm assuming that they have content planned in the works that will be ruined by flying
Tanaan would have sucked as a zone if you could fly in it from the word go
0
HalfmexI mock your value systemYou also appear foolish in the eyes of othersRegistered Userregular
From the looks of it thus far they appear to be leaning towards doing what they did in WoD with regards to flying, the question is how long will they drag it out? They'd be foolish to wait until the very last content patch as they did this time, but it certainly won't be achievable in 7.0. They've said so far that (if I read correctly) they're planning on another two tiers of raiding content, so they may very well wait until at least that second raid content patch to release it. I agree that it's silly, but we'll see how it goes. As always, if enough people make enough noise, they'll change it.
it seems they've been communicating reasonably honestly
i'm assuming that they have content planned in the works that will be ruined by flying
Tanaan would have sucked as a zone if you could fly in it from the word go
So lock each patched in zone behind it's own achievement or never add it at all like Thundering/Timeless. The achievement option would be better but either of those are better than what we're getting. I agree completely that the first experience in a zone should be sans flying. I have always agreed with that.
Kryhs on
+1
drunkenpandarenSlapping all the goblin hamIn the top laneRegistered Userregular
I have missed the days of being level 11 on a hunter, dialing everyone so I can Spam my Wing Clip and jump around them like a silly person until they are dead.
This is really all I want to do on a hunter. Forever.
Origin: HaxtonWasHere
Steam: pandas_gota_gun
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Disc changes look interesting. As is, it makes them a very interesting raid healer and they might need something of a 'super atonement' to place on tanks for 5-mans, but it'd be awesome if Blizz could get that playstyle to work.
Mythic cross realm is confirmed as something that's not happening for new raids, and may or may not ever happen for future raids.
I think they meant more that they're going to stay the course with unlocking Mythic. Mythic Cross-realm will continue to happen but only after the content is relevant. The only exception might be the 6.2.3 patch because Mythic HFC is going to be "relevant" for quite a while... :whistle:
I wish they would just unlock Mythic a week or so after the world first but I get their argument that this denies people fighting for second, third, or even 500th place an "even playing field". It also dilutes beating "Mythic first" on your server.
So ultimately what is their logic for their stance on flying? The ONLY reason we ever got is that it trivializes questing/exploring the world initially. Well they entirely solved that by adding the requirements they did in WoD with Pathfinder. Sooooooooooo what's their problem with flying now? Why can't I "do everything" and then fly in 7.0? I will never, ever use the group finder to 'move into normal raiding,' but if I had to do a real raid to earn flying I sure as shit would.
My excitement for the expansion is barely half of what it could be because of this one braindead decision that they still can't explain. Ask on reddit and you just get downvoted and no one even bothers to tell you why they agree with Blizzard. MMOC has nothing but misinformed (surprise surprise) people who think people like me have a problem with earning flying over buying it and can't even answer the right question about opinions on timing. I'm going to make my $15 a net loss to Blizzard somehow. I doubt most toxic player actions are against the ToS. Design the game how you want, but fucking communicate honestly. Have a spine.
Edit: I don't think my sarcasm came across well in my 'cause intentional player toxicity' comment. Obviously I'm not going to poison the game I play all the time.
For me, flying is one of the biggest mistakes WoW ever made. The world is what is magical to me about World of Warcraft. The shared world populated by other people. Flying takes people out of the world. It reduces interaction with the world, and with the other people in it. I came back to WoW with Warlords largely because of the lack of flying, and it was great. Of course, flying was never the only culprit in the deadening of the shared world atmosphere, and Garrisons only exacerbated the game's long-running transformation into Instances of Warcraft.
If I had my way, flying mounts would be removed from the game completely and for good. Of course that's totally impractical at this point, but it seems to me that not having flying enabled in new expansion zones for the first couple of patches is an acceptable compromise even if it's unlikely to be anyone's ideal situation.
I haven't gotten a chance to read through the Engineering discussion, and the feed was all fucked up during Blizzcon (anything on the main stage stream didn't have sound and was laggy; at least the whole second day it was this way). My bigger issue is why do we have to have such major class rebuilds, like we have the past three expansions?
All that redesign throws out any and all balancing changes that were made, meaning more work for everyone, every time. I mean I get it; some abilities need changing after every expansion, but this seems to have turned into throwing the baby out with the bathwater every two years.
Like I said in the first paragraph, I haven't read the Engineering recap yet, so don't respond with, "did you even read the recap?" because my response will be "No. MMO Champ is blocked at work."
I think a lot of these class changes tie in with the artifact weapons and trying to define the class/roles more. The artifact weapons appear to change the spec playstyles to some degree and they're also trying to make each spec of a class play differently.
It seems like they want to get each spec of a class playing differently rather than having 2-3 rogue specs all play similarly and that's what caused the massive redesign this time. The changes all look promising and a lot of their discussion seemed tied into making the class playstyle fit the mythos of that particular class within the Warcraft universe.
They might be making these changes to come more into line with the fast playstyle that is the DemonHunter. Playing a demon hunter was like playing a character to wildstar to me, the movement, the abilitiy speed, they types of abilities each had their own way of just auto targetting what I was attacking. Sure it was the demo version that I played, but it still felt really good and might actually bring me back to playing this. (I reinstalled).
I think it has less to do with engineering, and more to do with bringing all existing classes up to the same caliber of design (eg: rogues are a poor man's monk)
I haven't gotten a chance to read through the Engineering discussion, and the feed was all fucked up during Blizzcon (anything on the main stage stream didn't have sound and was laggy; at least the whole second day it was this way). My bigger issue is why do we have to have such major class rebuilds, like we have the past three expansions?
All that redesign throws out any and all balancing changes that were made, meaning more work for everyone, every time. I mean I get it; some abilities need changing after every expansion, but this seems to have turned into throwing the baby out with the bathwater every two years.
Like I said in the first paragraph, I haven't read the Engineering recap yet, so don't respond with, "did you even read the recap?" because my response will be "No. MMO Champ is blocked at work."
I think they're happening because they feel like the changes need to happen. I think they're right. Spec dps balance work is important, but it's more important that the specs are actually both viable in end game content and fun to play. Some specs are perfectly fine as they are right now (they mentioned frost mages in particular) and aren't going to see large changes, but others have serious problems.
In the panel they covered the exact "small adjustments over time VS complete reworks" question specifically, and their response was that they make smaller adjustments all the time through hotfixes and minor patches and that small changes just can't fix the kinds of problems that some of the specs like boomkin have. They said that they limit major class changes to expansions primarily but will release class changes with major patches if they absolutely need them.
0
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
I think it has less to do with engineering, and more to do with bringing all existing classes up to the same caliber of design (eg: rogues are a poor man's monk)
I played both, I felt like monk was a poor man's rogue. Rogues were tons of fun in WOD.
I noticed that for awhile now, expansions have always been an excuse to re-imagine all the classes. They usually don't do it on an extreme case every time and every class, but enough to make it feel like you are coming back to a bunch of new ways to play the game. This is really what always got me to come back to WoW. No matter how old it is, how much I don't like the way they handle content, etc etc, there is one thing Blizz does better than anyone in the industry and likely always will. They make the most entertaining classes I have ever seen. And honestly, theorycrafting and getting to put my hand at different classes in ANY game, mostly MMOs, is my favorite part of gaming and for the most part RPGs in general.
So the fact they seem to be taking the whole "expansion means rejiggered classes" up to eleven this time, is making me honestly be interested again. I really don't need to be blowing money on WoW again, so I would kill to just get into the beta. But if not I might just sub to level a few new chars, get to end game and fiddle with a few dungeons on some classes while pvping then call it a day after a few months like I did this last time. I wish I had done this for Pandaria too though, because that expansion sounded like the apex of their complicated and intense class design that I loved (and got dialed WAY back for WOD).
The priest preview was much less exciting because they really only remade like 1.5 of the specs. The new resource idea for shadow is ok, but they failed to adress the major issues with shadow which was the boring as sin rotations which were hit WAY too hard with the pruning of WoD. Holy sounds epic though, and Disc sounds like it will be a new experience but their descriptions of shields still being a large amount of damage absorbtion and being able to remove the debuff with a CD sounds... questionable toward their goal.
So does it bother anyone else that they change some spec/class playstyles every two years? DK seems to be the prime example of this. I believe this is the third(?) major gameplay overhaul given to Boomies since Wrath.
The alternate example would probably be Enhancement Shaman; which iirc hasn't seen a major playstyle overhaul since roughly BC. I believe the only change was with regards to how Stormstrike charges accumulate.
I like it because it means that while some classes may have a goofy iteration where things feel wrong, there's at least a chance of an overhaul in the future.
Personally, I think their concept of "core Fantasy" had some problems, because older class concepts were fairly generic (warrior, rogue, priest) and got edged out of what made their Fantasy appealing by more concrete classes later. This could be their chance to say 'okay, rogues as a vaguely ninja concept wasn't cutting it, let's recast them as stealth-obsessed fiends and highwaymen' or 'every class is also a warrior, let's make the literal warrior into more of a gladiator/weapon's master'
So does it bother anyone else that they change some spec/class playstyles every two years? DK seems to be the prime example of this. I believe this is the third(?) major gameplay overhaul given to Boomies since Wrath.
The alternate example would probably be Enhancement Shaman; which iirc hasn't seen a major playstyle overhaul since roughly BC. I believe the only change was with regards to how Stormstrike charges accumulate.
Not in the least. I love it when they rework classes because it gives me new and fresh take on something that I've already played to death.
+3
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
The rehauling of specs is likely what brings so many people back, like how I just described about me.
I guess for people who yearn for consistancy it sucks. I cannot imagine ever playing the same class for 10 years let alone if it barely changed every 2.
Insert that Colbert image macro gif "GIVE IT TO MEEEEE" here in regards to the Disc changes.
Want it now. It's the spec I've always wanted, even going back to Vanilla when I was the psychotic lone Disc priest in our progression raid. AKA: "the caster DPS's best friend due to PI."
Having a Mage raid leader probably explains how I got my hands on all that T2.5. <_< You want this damage buff, don't you?
PMAvers on
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Most of the rumored mage changes so far are stuff that I've sat around and thought "man, wouldn't it be great IF..." so I am very pleased with them if said rumors are true.
So all this Blizzcon news is good! And I mean that sincerely.
BUT, 6.2.3. They announced the end of the PvP season happening "soon" like a week ago, and they usually like deploying a new season and a new patch at the same time. That will probably happen here too, right?
So ultimately what is their logic for their stance on flying? The ONLY reason we ever got is that it trivializes questing/exploring the world initially. Well they entirely solved that by adding the requirements they did in WoD with Pathfinder. Sooooooooooo what's their problem with flying now? Why can't I "do everything" and then fly in 7.0? I will never, ever use the group finder to 'move into normal raiding,' but if I had to do a real raid to earn flying I sure as shit would.
My excitement for the expansion is barely half of what it could be because of this one braindead decision that they still can't explain. Ask on reddit and you just get downvoted and no one even bothers to tell you why they agree with Blizzard. MMOC has nothing but misinformed (surprise surprise) people who think people like me have a problem with earning flying over buying it and can't even answer the right question about opinions on timing. I'm going to make my $15 a net loss to Blizzard somehow. I doubt most toxic player actions are against the ToS. Design the game how you want, but fucking communicate honestly. Have a spine.
Edit: I don't think my sarcasm came across well in my 'cause intentional player toxicity' comment. Obviously I'm not going to poison the game I play all the time.
For me, flying is one of the biggest mistakes WoW ever made. The world is what is magical to me about World of Warcraft. The shared world populated by other people. Flying takes people out of the world. It reduces interaction with the world, and with the other people in it. I came back to WoW with Warlords largely because of the lack of flying, and it was great. Of course, flying was never the only culprit in the deadening of the shared world atmosphere, and Garrisons only exacerbated the game's long-running transformation into Instances of Warcraft.
If I had my way, flying mounts would be removed from the game completely and for good. Of course that's totally impractical at this point, but it seems to me that not having flying enabled in new expansion zones for the first couple of patches is an acceptable compromise even if it's unlikely to be anyone's ideal situation.
When I quest I log into a character on one of the lowest pop servers, invite the character I'm questing on with some help and then phase over to the low pop zone and see nobody. I will not stop doing this and it has an actual affect on the people you see rather than them simply being above you. Guess ideally it'd be removed too?
I have played WoD far more after being able to fly than I did at launch, which is probably damn good for their business continuity and the only reason they do it that way at this point in the game's life.
I'm really excited for these class reworks since I'm thinking about switching away from Brewmaster Monk back to something dps-y with legion. Brewmaster has been made less fun every single patch since they've been introduced, and I miss when it was a really engaging, interesting spec.
So either maybe they rework it back into something fun and I put up with my boring looking artifact, or I can find a new fun spec among the reworked classes since I've played everything else before.
A dark part of me wants to play survival because mongoose bite raptor strike and lacerate(!!) are back and that's hilarious.
@Knight_ I'm having almost the same reaction that you are to Brewmaster. It has gotten progressively less fun and the really lame looking artifact doesn't help. I enjoy tanking too much to give it up, but am considering a Druid or DK to tank instead of Brewmaster.
Flying is what makes bullshit like archaeology tolerable.
Counterpoint: Archaeology wouldn't have been designed to be as intolerable it is if it weren't for the fact it came in at the same time they made flying happen worldwide. Note that up until WoD there were no Archaeology zones in no-fly areas.
Flying is what makes bullshit like archaeology tolerable.
Counterpoint: Archaeology wouldn't have been designed to be as intolerable it is if it weren't for the fact it came in at the same time they made flying happen worldwide. Note that up until WoD there were no Archaeology zones in no-fly areas.
This is just conjecture, because there's every possibility that Archaeology would have been the exact same even if flying hadn't been introduced. It wasn't much different from the standard gathering professions, just with the locations you could gather from clearly defined.
And yet when they put archaeology into no-fly areas in Draenor their positioning was beyond stupid, especially the sites which encompassed the whole mountain with no easy way to traverse between dig points.
So does it bother anyone else that they change some spec/class playstyles every two years? DK seems to be the prime example of this. I believe this is the third(?) major gameplay overhaul given to Boomies since Wrath.
The alternate example would probably be Enhancement Shaman; which iirc hasn't seen a major playstyle overhaul since roughly BC. I believe the only change was with regards to how Stormstrike charges accumulate.
It is part of what ended up driving me away from the game. My bear tank went from being very fun to play to not fun at all (plus the number didn't really work) due to the design simplification they did in WoD. Supposedly, things improved later on but they also made major changes to the monk part way through WoD as well. I don't mind balance change, but when they make major changes to how classes play that don't improve how fun it is to play the class, don't really affect the class balance and are just different for the sake of being different, it erodes my trust that the developers know what they are doing.
I did enjoy most of the changes that happened in MoP though, so I'm not against changes. They just need to be changes that don't reduce the enjoyment/fun of playing a class (balance/tuning issues aside). It is very obvious if you play a class for any length of time when the developers haven't spent the appropriate amount of time on a class. A great example would be changing swipe for bears to be on a cooldown and reduced threat at the final patch before Cataclysm came out. It meant that bears were no longer able to hold threat in groups and that leveling a bear tank was a miserable experience, since Thrash was added at level 87. Actually, pretty much everything below maximum level has been an afterthought for a while and certain class/specs are non-viable while leveling up or would be if the content was at all challenging.
Flying is what makes bullshit like archaeology tolerable.
Counterpoint: Archaeology wouldn't have been designed to be as intolerable it is if it weren't for the fact it came in at the same time they made flying happen worldwide. Note that up until WoD there were no Archaeology zones in no-fly areas.
This is just conjecture, because there's every possibility that Archaeology would have been the exact same even if flying hadn't been introduced. It wasn't much different from the standard gathering professions, just with the locations you could gather from clearly defined.
Do you honestly think that they would have designed Archaeology exactly the same--they wouldn't have done a single thing different--if flying didn't exist? Do you think they'd still design a profession that is basically impossible to level while you level up since the gathering areas are zones apart, randomized, and get further apart from each other the higher you level? Do you think anyone in their right mind would go "once you finish collecting from this area in Stranglethorn Vale, the next closest one can end up being in the Wetlands" if they didn't finish with "which is okay because you can fly straight there now that flying is enabled in Azeroth."
And yet when they put archaeology into no-fly areas in Draenor their positioning was beyond stupid, especially the sites which encompassed the whole mountain with no easy way to traverse between dig points.
Their shittiness at designing archaeology sites for a no-fly zone just proves how much the design relies on flying.
I'm really excited for these class reworks since I'm thinking about switching away from Brewmaster Monk back to something dps-y with legion. Brewmaster has been made less fun every single patch since they've been introduced, and I miss when it was a really engaging, interesting spec.
So either maybe they rework it back into something fun and I put up with my boring looking artifact, or I can find a new fun spec among the reworked classes since I've played everything else before.
A dark part of me wants to play survival because mongoose bite raptor strike and lacerate(!!) are back and that's hilarious.
Tell me about it. The 6.2 changes killed my interest to play Brewmaster. Shuffle is next to pointless now, it's stupid.
Most of the rumored mage changes so far are stuff that I've sat around and thought "man, wouldn't it be great IF..." so I am very pleased with them if said rumors are true.
Don't know what the rumored changes are, but the official preview is up, and here are the Cliff's notes.
Arcane:
-New Mastery: Savant: Increases maximum mana by 20% (+ Mastery) and damage bonus of arcane charges by 10% (+ Mastery)
Fire:
-Can no longer work towards a Hot Streak proc while Hot Streak is already active.
-Inferno blast no longer spreads Ignite. Ignite spreads itself every time it ticks.
-Inferno blast is no longer on the GCD and can be cast while casting other spells
-Combustion now increases crit chance by 100% and gives you mastery equal to your crit rating for 10s.
Frost:
-Frostfire Bolt is no longer part of the rotation
-Brain Freeze gives Frost bolt a 10% chance to reset the CD of Frost Orb
I don't know why, but I'm surprised every Blizzcon that no one in the Q&A gets up there and says something to the effect of: "When will you guys stop kidding yourselves about expansion timelines and just resign us to the fact that every final raid tier will last at least a year?"
Is there some sort of question filtering before people get in line, ala radio shows?
I would guess that if you pay money and put up with the crowds to get into Blizzcon you're already so hype for everything there that you're not the kind of person that would waste a chance to ask a question just to be shit.
Posts
I guess they figure by adding more stuff like that they can make it less of an issue? hard to say at this point
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
It is a good example, though, of what they are trying to do. Basically let you be as complicated as you want, which seems to including allowing the option to be closer to the pre-specialization era where you used to have all the skills just many of them were useless. Except they can tune them to be less useless when they are talents.
My excitement for the expansion is barely half of what it could be because of this one braindead decision that they still can't explain. Ask on reddit and you just get downvoted and no one even bothers to tell you why they agree with Blizzard. MMOC has nothing but misinformed (surprise surprise) people who think people like me have a problem with earning flying over buying it and can't even answer the right question about opinions on timing. I'm going to make my $15 a net loss to Blizzard somehow. I doubt most toxic player actions are against the ToS. Design the game how you want, but fucking communicate honestly. Have a spine.
Edit: I don't think my sarcasm came across well in my 'cause intentional player toxicity' comment. Obviously I'm not going to poison the game I play all the time.
i'm assuming that they have content planned in the works that will be ruined by flying
Tanaan would have sucked as a zone if you could fly in it from the word go
So lock each patched in zone behind it's own achievement or never add it at all like Thundering/Timeless. The achievement option would be better but either of those are better than what we're getting. I agree completely that the first experience in a zone should be sans flying. I have always agreed with that.
This is really all I want to do on a hunter. Forever.
Steam: pandas_gota_gun
I think they meant more that they're going to stay the course with unlocking Mythic. Mythic Cross-realm will continue to happen but only after the content is relevant. The only exception might be the 6.2.3 patch because Mythic HFC is going to be "relevant" for quite a while... :whistle:
I wish they would just unlock Mythic a week or so after the world first but I get their argument that this denies people fighting for second, third, or even 500th place an "even playing field". It also dilutes beating "Mythic first" on your server.
For me, flying is one of the biggest mistakes WoW ever made. The world is what is magical to me about World of Warcraft. The shared world populated by other people. Flying takes people out of the world. It reduces interaction with the world, and with the other people in it. I came back to WoW with Warlords largely because of the lack of flying, and it was great. Of course, flying was never the only culprit in the deadening of the shared world atmosphere, and Garrisons only exacerbated the game's long-running transformation into Instances of Warcraft.
If I had my way, flying mounts would be removed from the game completely and for good. Of course that's totally impractical at this point, but it seems to me that not having flying enabled in new expansion zones for the first couple of patches is an acceptable compromise even if it's unlikely to be anyone's ideal situation.
All that redesign throws out any and all balancing changes that were made, meaning more work for everyone, every time. I mean I get it; some abilities need changing after every expansion, but this seems to have turned into throwing the baby out with the bathwater every two years.
Like I said in the first paragraph, I haven't read the Engineering recap yet, so don't respond with, "did you even read the recap?" because my response will be "No. MMO Champ is blocked at work."
It seems like they want to get each spec of a class playing differently rather than having 2-3 rogue specs all play similarly and that's what caused the massive redesign this time. The changes all look promising and a lot of their discussion seemed tied into making the class playstyle fit the mythos of that particular class within the Warcraft universe.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
I think they're happening because they feel like the changes need to happen. I think they're right. Spec dps balance work is important, but it's more important that the specs are actually both viable in end game content and fun to play. Some specs are perfectly fine as they are right now (they mentioned frost mages in particular) and aren't going to see large changes, but others have serious problems.
In the panel they covered the exact "small adjustments over time VS complete reworks" question specifically, and their response was that they make smaller adjustments all the time through hotfixes and minor patches and that small changes just can't fix the kinds of problems that some of the specs like boomkin have. They said that they limit major class changes to expansions primarily but will release class changes with major patches if they absolutely need them.
I played both, I felt like monk was a poor man's rogue. Rogues were tons of fun in WOD.
I noticed that for awhile now, expansions have always been an excuse to re-imagine all the classes. They usually don't do it on an extreme case every time and every class, but enough to make it feel like you are coming back to a bunch of new ways to play the game. This is really what always got me to come back to WoW. No matter how old it is, how much I don't like the way they handle content, etc etc, there is one thing Blizz does better than anyone in the industry and likely always will. They make the most entertaining classes I have ever seen. And honestly, theorycrafting and getting to put my hand at different classes in ANY game, mostly MMOs, is my favorite part of gaming and for the most part RPGs in general.
So the fact they seem to be taking the whole "expansion means rejiggered classes" up to eleven this time, is making me honestly be interested again. I really don't need to be blowing money on WoW again, so I would kill to just get into the beta. But if not I might just sub to level a few new chars, get to end game and fiddle with a few dungeons on some classes while pvping then call it a day after a few months like I did this last time. I wish I had done this for Pandaria too though, because that expansion sounded like the apex of their complicated and intense class design that I loved (and got dialed WAY back for WOD).
The priest preview was much less exciting because they really only remade like 1.5 of the specs. The new resource idea for shadow is ok, but they failed to adress the major issues with shadow which was the boring as sin rotations which were hit WAY too hard with the pruning of WoD. Holy sounds epic though, and Disc sounds like it will be a new experience but their descriptions of shields still being a large amount of damage absorbtion and being able to remove the debuff with a CD sounds... questionable toward their goal.
The alternate example would probably be Enhancement Shaman; which iirc hasn't seen a major playstyle overhaul since roughly BC. I believe the only change was with regards to how Stormstrike charges accumulate.
Personally, I think their concept of "core Fantasy" had some problems, because older class concepts were fairly generic (warrior, rogue, priest) and got edged out of what made their Fantasy appealing by more concrete classes later. This could be their chance to say 'okay, rogues as a vaguely ninja concept wasn't cutting it, let's recast them as stealth-obsessed fiends and highwaymen' or 'every class is also a warrior, let's make the literal warrior into more of a gladiator/weapon's master'
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
Not in the least. I love it when they rework classes because it gives me new and fresh take on something that I've already played to death.
I guess for people who yearn for consistancy it sucks. I cannot imagine ever playing the same class for 10 years let alone if it barely changed every 2.
Want it now. It's the spec I've always wanted, even going back to Vanilla when I was the psychotic lone Disc priest in our progression raid. AKA: "the caster DPS's best friend due to PI."
Having a Mage raid leader probably explains how I got my hands on all that T2.5. <_< You want this damage buff, don't you?
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
BUT, 6.2.3. They announced the end of the PvP season happening "soon" like a week ago, and they usually like deploying a new season and a new patch at the same time. That will probably happen here too, right?
When I quest I log into a character on one of the lowest pop servers, invite the character I'm questing on with some help and then phase over to the low pop zone and see nobody. I will not stop doing this and it has an actual affect on the people you see rather than them simply being above you. Guess ideally it'd be removed too?
I have played WoD far more after being able to fly than I did at launch, which is probably damn good for their business continuity and the only reason they do it that way at this point in the game's life.
So either maybe they rework it back into something fun and I put up with my boring looking artifact, or I can find a new fun spec among the reworked classes since I've played everything else before.
A dark part of me wants to play survival because mongoose bite raptor strike and lacerate(!!) are back and that's hilarious.
Counterpoint: Archaeology wouldn't have been designed to be as intolerable it is if it weren't for the fact it came in at the same time they made flying happen worldwide. Note that up until WoD there were no Archaeology zones in no-fly areas.
This is just conjecture, because there's every possibility that Archaeology would have been the exact same even if flying hadn't been introduced. It wasn't much different from the standard gathering professions, just with the locations you could gather from clearly defined.
It is part of what ended up driving me away from the game. My bear tank went from being very fun to play to not fun at all (plus the number didn't really work) due to the design simplification they did in WoD. Supposedly, things improved later on but they also made major changes to the monk part way through WoD as well. I don't mind balance change, but when they make major changes to how classes play that don't improve how fun it is to play the class, don't really affect the class balance and are just different for the sake of being different, it erodes my trust that the developers know what they are doing.
I did enjoy most of the changes that happened in MoP though, so I'm not against changes. They just need to be changes that don't reduce the enjoyment/fun of playing a class (balance/tuning issues aside). It is very obvious if you play a class for any length of time when the developers haven't spent the appropriate amount of time on a class. A great example would be changing swipe for bears to be on a cooldown and reduced threat at the final patch before Cataclysm came out. It meant that bears were no longer able to hold threat in groups and that leveling a bear tank was a miserable experience, since Thrash was added at level 87. Actually, pretty much everything below maximum level has been an afterthought for a while and certain class/specs are non-viable while leveling up or would be if the content was at all challenging.
Their shittiness at designing archaeology sites for a no-fly zone just proves how much the design relies on flying.
Tell me about it. The 6.2 changes killed my interest to play Brewmaster. Shuffle is next to pointless now, it's stupid.
Don't know what the rumored changes are, but the official preview is up, and here are the Cliff's notes.
-New Mastery: Savant: Increases maximum mana by 20% (+ Mastery) and damage bonus of arcane charges by 10% (+ Mastery)
Fire:
-Can no longer work towards a Hot Streak proc while Hot Streak is already active.
-Inferno blast no longer spreads Ignite. Ignite spreads itself every time it ticks.
-Inferno blast is no longer on the GCD and can be cast while casting other spells
-Combustion now increases crit chance by 100% and gives you mastery equal to your crit rating for 10s.
Frost:
-Frostfire Bolt is no longer part of the rotation
-Brain Freeze gives Frost bolt a 10% chance to reset the CD of Frost Orb
Yes, that's pretty much it.
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Is there some sort of question filtering before people get in line, ala radio shows?