After reading the forums for most classes regarding 10.2; I had a few thoughts and wonder what others think. Yes, this a trip down memory lane for a primary resto shaman, but it is still relevant to so many who are frustrated by the lack of Blizzards understanding of how nerfs and significant class changes kill the desire to play.
Blizzard has very low commitment to classes and why we play them. We still have many, many players who have played for over 10 years. We picked our class based on what we saw walking around and experiencing the world. Resto Shamans were known for being able to use a single CD to put all four totems down, healing rain, chain heal. We have switched from no elemental, to fire and then to earth elemental over the years. However, Rocky for years was just what Resto’s had when the tank went down and you had .05% left to go and you could occasionally still get the boss down. So much fun. Now in 10.2 we go back to no chain heal and using primordial wave, the least favorite covenant power. The reason we loved chain harvest -it was a chain heal that healed and did damage at the same time. The reason we loved vesper totem? Because it was a totem we could put down since blizzard has been killing useful totems since BFA. Now we can’t really take Rocky cause the talent trees are too tight. I think blizzards view every expansion as a reset and every player is new. You just love the new evoker class that takes away one of the three DPS dungeon slot that were already to hard to get.
I feel this is the same for Holy Paladins. You picked the class when you heard this healer got to go in melee and wack the living hell out of stuff. You had your insta-cast heals that just kept the rhythm going. So in 10.2 HP are supposed to stop and hard cast? If I wanted to do that I would have picked a priest.
This was also done in the past to frost mages who lost water elemental to lonely winter. Yes you could play without lonely winter, but no one wants to go into a raid dungeon knowing you’re not doing your best. Frost mages have been about freezing everyone in place, getting that occasional elite iced block all the while your trusty water elemental firing away.
I think this is same for many classes, maybe not all, but I sure don’t see many Warlock’s walking around with big blue anymore.
Blizzard doesn’t understand that negatives are never a win. There are so many nerfs when they are not necessary. Nerfs leave everyone mad and feeling like it’s never going to get better. For resto shaman we complained about not having strong enough heals to save peeps when things got tough, and our lack luster total HPS. So 10.2 answer is to force Primordial wave build. You have three lines of buffs: increase healing wave healing surge,30%, etc. Then five lines of nerfs! You could have just said we are increasing healing wave and healing surge by 15% and then walked away . IMHO, the response would have been better received:. 'it’s not perfect but at least we are not getting nerfed". The last nerf to Holy Pally, when they were just getting to have fun in dungeons, was just awful. Cleary, there is an issue of healers not wanting to heal. So all other healers should have been buffed.
The class sets are not well thought out. Go through the forums and see what people are saying and experiencing in PTR. How many winners vs losers? Just feels like blizzard builds expansions by reviewing spreadsheets , top streamers, and dollar signs. Does blizzard even have a group of players for each class/spec to get feedback? Doesn’t feel like it.
Oh well, my times up. Of course I love the game, and there is no substitute. But it could be oh so much better…
