If Ion’s message and team direction regarding class vs spec means that they’ll be rolling back role restrictions - THEN THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
It’s very refreshing to hear this (if true/accurate). Not feeling so confined and punished when being asked or wanting to play another spec will definitely make me want to play more.
I understand the continued need to farm specific trinkets for healing, dps’ing, and tanking. I understand the value of using different consumables for each role. But when the tier/azerite gear is restricted and players have to pay gold just to be decent if they switched roles - it just felt horrible. Made me miss the Legion tier bonuses that swapped when you changed specs.
Looking forward to seeing more flexibility and support when trying to play a different spec to keep my group/team/raid/friends moving forward in game content.
It’s nice to hear they finally get that class identity is more important than spec identity. And it shows they really have been listening. I’m glad they decided to go into more than just 8.2 and talk about philosophies in the video.
Ion spoke a lot about Class Design in his video. I am not sure the current development team can take those words and back them up with Action. They have proven this is more difficult than it seems. If they actually move away from this whole idea of Pruning Abilities every expansion, it will be a big benefit to the game.
Hopefully, they have some concrete changes they can show at Blizzcon and actually have a discussion on Class Development. A discussion that has really been needed for many years.
Fair point - personally though, I don’t care much about the abilities; I care about the role restrictions within a class.
The change in direction of thinking players pick a RESTO Shaman vs. picking a SHAMAN is what I appreciate the most.
It has always sucked seeing players that are willing to help out the greater good by taking on a healing/tanking role having to pay out of pocket just to be decent at that role- using gear they’ve already gotten to drop.
Legion tier bonuses were amazing in this regard. Specialization will still be favored and rewarded due to trinkets, secondary stats, weapons, consumables, and time/experience/skill - but these seem more natural and less punishing than the current way role restrictions play out.
Gear really isn’t a problem. Being a druid, I’ve carried up to six complete sets of gear in the past depending on role. Today, it is nothing to switch gear. Abilities are more important when needed to switch roles in the middle of combat when you cannot change specs.
The Druid Affinity talents are one the worst examples of tying you to a specific spec. All of those abilities should be baseline and available to all four specs.
Yeah but that costs bag space - plus the time to farm all 6 of those sets.
It’s a lot less punishing if you need less bag space and can use your “tier/azerite” pieces for each role without having to pay gold to switch to something your group/raid needs for a particular encounter.
Azerite Armor is really a moot point. You can’t change armor in the middle of a battle to begin with. Azerite Armor is also going away permanently before any class changes like this are made.
Changing things up in the middle of combat and being able to pick up some slack are where Class abilities will help you shine. You cannot do this now regardless of switching armor or anything else. Changing Armor and Specs is “Spec Identity” not “Class Identity.”
The whole idea is to carry more than 1 helm/chest/shoulder piece. The fact they made it so you could swap traits at all was them being nice about switching roles.
That seems to conflict with things they’ve said in the past - specifically in relation to having to carry tons of gear around. We already have to do it with trinkets, secondary stat gear, weapons, and consumables.
Having to carry less of the tier gear would be nice.
This is true - but I think the OP is referring to changing from a dps to healer because a boss needs an extra healer.
Or a group of 5 people that want to play the game on a non-raid night (all of which usually raid as dps) - where 2 people need to go healer/tank. They draw straws to see who will do those roles and then the losers have to pay just to change their traits. Sucked in Uldir - sucks even worse in BoD with the added ring.
If I wanted to change roles in Vanilla, I had to change all of my gear. I carried full sets for each spec plus a PVP set.
If I want to change roles today, I have to change all of my gear for Balance and Resto and 50% of my gear for Guardian. I carry gear for each spec I wish to play. Including Azerite Armor.
That aspect of the game has never changed. Especially with the shift from Primary stats to Secondary stats in priority.
This won’t change in the future and has very little to do with class identity.
What I’m referring to already existed, back in Legion. It was great.
I’m hoping they bring that aspect back to the game/“tier” gear. Was really nice having one less layer of RNG that wasn’t punishing when someone was willing to fill a role that was needed for an M+ or raid.
They changed things I think in wod where when you swapped specs your stats would change, like intellect to strength. Which I also hope they bring back.
Just because YOU do not have a problem with carrying around sets of gear for each spec, does not mean everyone wants to. I know I don’t. I don’t need or want 4 sets of gear taking space in my bags.
Why go backwards when we have went forward and should continue to do so.
I totally disagree with you. And this does not affect class identity at all. It actually would encourage more spec swapping which would make people learn what there whole class has to offer instead of a certain spec.
Maybe some movement on this in 9.0, but not for a long while yet. I think saying this at the same time 8.2 launching is a nod that they didn’t get it right in this patch, which really there is no excuse for. These problems are not something they “suddenly became aware of” - these criticisms were loud from the community for a long time
This still happens with gear. Doesn’t change secondaries though. It isn’t that I don’t have a problem with carrying multiple sets of gear, it is that is has been a requirement since the game launched. They have never really moved away from it though they say that is their intention.
Class Identity isn’t about the gear you wear though. It is about your baseline abilities and roles you can fulfill. Gear is just a tool on top of those.
Yes but the way they have been going since Legion, they are tying specific abilities/passives to gear. And I really wish they would stop doing it.
Gear used to be a tool that made our base spells work better. Now the gear is where we get our added spells (essenses) /passives. I know tier gear use to change up the style of your play. Which was fun. But it just worked with the spells you already had.
Make the class/spec have all they need to succeed.
They DID move away from it from Legion into BfA. Tier set bonuses used to switch automatically when changing specs. In BfA they started charging us to have our traits switch from our “tier” gear.
You’re right - it’s not about the gear you wear; it’s about all the roles you can fulfill. Punishing players for trying to fill various roles when needed has always boggled my mind - especially when there’s so many different kinds of content in the game now (in particular when compared to classic).
It would be great to be able to only need one set of gear but even in prior expansions if you played multiple specs, you needed multiple sets of gear. I just don’t see that changing due to the fact that it would cut down on the time played and that’s just not Blizz’s business model.