Being able to play many different classes and have each one become a whole new experience is what kept people hooked in earlier versions of WoW. I played BfA religiously for the first 2 months and after that I got bored because every class is so similar that getting 120 and geared on a shaman feels the same as doing it on a Druid.
Leveling should be part of the experience in this game. I actually loved the zone scaling changes but the class design makes leveling a complete slog and lower level PvP/dungeons/raids are just an after thought.
WoW is one of those games that has a landmine of content and I love the story and it has so much potential it’s baffling the people in charge can seem so out of touch sometimes. I’ll be playing Classic wow and am looking forward to the class design that started this game long ago.
Agreed, but if class design were good almost everything else could be brushed aside. Class design IS core game mechanics. It’s the one thing that cannot be bad in a video game. Everything else can suck, but if the core mechanics are right, the game will work on some level.
Not just class design. BFA came loaded with a lot of unintended bad things.
Removal of master loot.
GCD change.
Those two there are enormous. The magnitude of those changes cannot be underestimated. For example did you like farming old raids? Were things off the GCD instrumental to your rotation feeling fluid? Well sorry you got screwed.
All the new stuff like warfronts and island expos are snore fests.
And of course pathfinder is really hated.
Note: All of these things took more effort to get rid of than to leave the hell alone. That’s the ironic part and why the Actiblizz hate is misapplied.
MoP was amazing, I had fun playing every spec there was.
I’m not sure if it’s just me but I feel like DH was a mistake, outside of legion they feel so out of place, they did a better Job integrating Dk’s and Monks with their expansion.
I think the classes are still different, but some things are weird.
cloth wearers are pretty durable especially mages. They can take ALOT compared to when they were more glass cannons
all melee classes are pretty durible
all classes pretty much have a self heal and cc break
you don’t really feel a difference in attack speeds with two hands vs dual weapons
leather and plate are essentially the same, especially with druids and DH’s
Those are just some of what I noticed comming back in Legion.
But in Legion class design around the artifacts was actually pretty good. Each class had their own identity and offered somthing different to the table. Yeah every xpac has the few sad class’s, (feral, shammys) etc. But if to be honest if they were geared and knew the class they were pretty good.
That’s just my two cents, there’s time to fix this with the 7.2 change.
I think you hit part of it on the head. One thing I noticed as a pvper, is that a great part of the journey in pvp was spending hours trying to increase your own play style.
Building counter builds to classes, combining professions, talents and glyphs with a partner to create unique combinations.
Such things have been removed as glyphs and professions are no longer present, and the overall designs of classes have become simple, cutting the individual journey.
You think EVERYONE who stopped playing since the release of BfA stopped because of class design? That’s like saying everyone who drinks water can swim.
TL:DR Legion ruined class design and it’s important to me to have pre-Legion class design back - ideally MoP for most classes minus colossus smash for fury warriors and the wrath version of DK where every spec could dw/2h and tank or dps.
Class design was so much better prior to Legion. It’s one of my biggest issues with WoW. Specs feel so dissimilar from each other even within the same class it makes me wonder why I can’t have fury warrior and frost dk on the same toon. Frost DK doesn’t feel like a DK without army of the dead for example. I don’t want 36 classes, I want 12 classes with an average of 3 specs each with larger class toolkits. Every DK should have army of the dead for example; my frost DK doesn’t feel like a DK without it.
Weapon choice is very important to me, at least cosmetically. For the most part, I want xmog to any weapon type that your spec could ever effectively previously use (2h frost especially, but also 2h enh shaman, dw blood/unholy, 2h ww monk, etc.). Fury warrior is the exception where part of being a berserker is not having to care which melee weapon I use (1h or 2h, just pick 2 and swing them around). SMF needs to be restored as it was prior to Legion.
When I think frost DK I think glacier = slow and hard-hitting = 2h weapon. Nothing Blizz says will change that. I always felt like frost should be a 2h spec. It feels wrong to play my DK because he can’t effectively use a 2h weapon as frost - it’s been 1.5 xpacs and that has not changed. I cannot get used to dw, I miss playing my DK, but it’s really hard to play him without a 2h weapon as frost. I cannot stand unholy, but I’ve always enjoyed frost (minus Breath of Sindragosa), and it needs to be using a 2h weapon (at least cosmetically). Sorry if it’s a bit of a tangent, but it’s extremely important to me because I want to enjoy playing my frost DK like I used to.
Glyphs have the potential to fix a lot of the major class problems. If they brought back glyphs with a good overhaul, and made fun, class specific abilities modeled after our artifacts, they could do wonders with it.
Yeah I pull in Island xpad’s all the time. Put up the shield , run around on a mount. Orb, blizzard proc, frost nova, ice lance proc, ice lance proc, blizzard proc blink to other side. Then repeat lol.
If I run into an oopsie. I only have to sit in my blizz with the ice barrier, since killing things heals me. (azorite trait)
I’ve noticed I have alot of ways to mitigate/avoid dmg.