Does anyone enjoy how their specs play? How do they compare to the past with better class/spec design?
Just an example, I dabbled in mophunter and mm felt different to what it is now. Damage wasn’t so mongo, playing comps like ret/hunt in 2s required clean setups, but it was strong in a way that made sense. no1 died in the first few seconds, you simply had to work for the win, and it was rewarding.
And I’m sure some1 else can chime in for previous iterations of MM, as well as Sub Rogue from WotLK, etc., please and thanks.
i think enhance is infinitely more fun than the legion/bfa versions, but i’m desperately missing a lot of the old stuff i used to have when it was this cooldown-based style of gameplay
it feels like they kinda went halfway to a reversion and then just sorta gave up, and then forgot to modernize it to keep up to date with their philosophy changes
Rogue in wotlk was a different beast compared to just about every other iteration of rogue. Even tbc. And Tbc has it’s own special place in my heart.
Wotlk rogue, Assassination or Subtlety, were both really exciting glass cannons. Something I think important to mention when talking about wotlk and class design is that only 3 or 4 classes had real-proper offensive dps cooldowns. The rest were really niche. Like one time use your next spell is instant cast, or your next ability has a guaranteed crit chance. So when I say glass cannon I don’t mean rogues would pop off and global someone while risking being globald. People popped defensives to respond to control and lived through kiting and micro play outside of them.
A few key differences with wrath rogue would be ToTT, Stun DR’s, energy & combo points (non uinversal.) no stealth protection (no subterfuge, vanish was literally just a forced restealth, anything and everything could negate it from providing stealth properly, including non-damaging spells like a mage’s counterspell.) finisher variety. (deadly throw as a ranged physical snare for ex.) having access to prep, glyphed sprint, blind gave +combat which is actually a massive difference, but yeah just a bunch of small things that contribute to how differently rogue felt to play.
I think what I miss most about wotlk rogue is how dynamic the interactions were between classes. Like having the awareness / reaction speed to immune an ele shamans nuke. Being able to zerg down the enemy priest in a RP mirror by vanishing the defensive blind. Those things were fun, but more interesting to me now in hindsight, is how classes relied on one another. Rogues played often with priests due to the importance of Shields to protect our fragile stealth. Interaction between classes like feign death and sap. Or warrior and intervene, or retal. or bladestorm and dismantle. classes had diverse and unique toolkits that really felt like it was part of some logical, cohesive world.
Rogue was definitely the “I’ve got a tool for that.” class. Something for any and every situation. And a reality that misuse or poor timing would immediately punish you.
Do you miss meta? It felt dynamic and you were a legitimate threat on your own merit, not reliant on your pets or buggy ai for big dam. I remember queuing ww/mw in 2s vs demo/hpal and it was an absolute nightmare on both ends, we had to play like scurrying rats against it. And yet in spite of that it was actually fun.
Havoc overall feels good, we’re just severely lacking in the defensive department.
The nerfs that happened to this spec were 100% justified imo, however it would have been nice if they gave us something that made up for the defensive losses that doesn’t come from borrowed power.
I didn’t play DH much at all BFA but I know despite what people say, DH was hella busted, and I think where we are now is a good spot to actually balance the spec properly and possibly make it more interesting than it used to be.
EDIT: I should note that I’m probably going to switch to my DK or Shaman if I don’t see any good changes for DH soon.
I started playing Boomy in legion prepatch. I like it much more now, except for the starfall/mastery change regarding starfall. I miss maximizing my AP generation for MAX starfalls and farming dam in bgs and m+. But other than that 1 change I think it plays better now.
I haven’t gotten my enhance 60 yet but I played it for most of the prepatch and the more I get used to it the more I like the new style over the Stormstrike hotkey smash simulator. It feels very… involved now, even if maybe a hair clunky
I skipped on WotLK so this was very insightful, thank you.
I do miss class interaction. I used to love queuing mw/dk just because both specs were absolute livelords so we could leave each other for long periods of time and nothing really overlapped. This obviously pales in comparison to RMX synergy but mop did come later, after all.
I’d be curious to experience the WotLK design philosophy. WotLK and MoP seems to be different sides of the same beloved coin. On one side, you have less homogenisation, more niches, certain specs bringing something unique to the table. On the other side, every1 had everything in MoP, but that’s also what made it so fun.
Can you really say MM plays better now than what it used to? Sub Rogue? What about WW’s uninspired mastery change in Legion and being less intuitive w/o TEB?
Can’t speak Monks as I’m only familiar with their healing spec and I don’t think it’s had many changes.
As far as sub goes, it feels like the spec it’s supposed to be. It’s bursty, in and out quick, reminds me a bit of TBC rogue , maybe even a bit more fast paced. I have to be honest though, I only played sub rogue for a couple of hours each recent xpac and switched right back to assassin because it was just hands down better, so all I can say is “sub feels better to play”.
The only real comment I can give is on Priest which has had spells return as well as allowing for spells across multiple specs, which they got rid of in BFA. Hybrid specs feel like true hybrids again because we have access to spells across multiple specs again. This is also very true for Druid , although they are a bit squishy rn in pvp.
I haven’t gotten to play MM Hunter, but I am a hunter fan and have watched several videos on their overhaul. MM is the best it’s been in years, looks fun to play, nice lovely burst. Just look at the leaderboards to see most hunters agree.
I’ve beaten the horse to death on MW changes enough. But as for WW, they underwent an overhaul in Legion.
TEB is now a PvP talent that interacts with armor. Compare that to mop/wod walker where TEB stacked on Chi consumption, increasing your dmg/healing done by % based on your mastery. They lost a lot of other niche spells. The spec is nearly as barebones as MW, it only happens to dish out dam now in a big dam meta, but otherwise plays like crap.