I generally don’t beta test much. I don’t like spoilers, and I try my best to have “trust in the system/process,” as someone who doesn’t play very ambitiously. Like, literally, any game mode I’m likely to enjoy is one that is not over the single button assistant’s head. I’m very laid back and chill and don’t aim high in this game.
I do have a LOT of characters, so the issues I take up for are things like heirlooms (covered in another thread) and since I do want to add a dedicated “devourer’s devourer” to my warband in Midnight, I did recently log into the beta to check something to that end. In doing so I took a moment to skim the Devourer Demon Hunter feedback thread started by the devs, and what I came away with worries me.
Look, the devourer spec is available from level 10. It needs to be able to solo quest, with welcoming levels of approachability, at all levels. Devourer is the first new glass cannon “caster” without a tank pet or spammable heal button (left over from a healing spec) since the inception of the game. I don’t think I should have to post to implore the devs to respect that they’re creating essentially a mage spec 20+ years in and to let it play the core vehicle of storytelling in WoW without issue or discomfort, but what I am seeing repeated over and over in feedback is that they do, in fact, need to be asked again and again to please do just that.
“Kiting” is not an answer. This isn’t EverQuest with vast expanses of target-free space for druids to throw on snare/DoT spells and run in a broad figure-8 without getting adds. Add handling is the measure of open world solo/quest capability in WoW, and it’s sounding to me like Devourer has none. That cannot stand. “Everyone is a melee” while questing if they don’t have a tank pet. You’re gonna stand still and trade shots because if you don’t have a tank pet or a heal button, you don’t want adds. That’s just how the game works while leveling and possessing variable levels of power on the way up.
Finally, the idea of creating a spec “not intended” to be a questing spec because they have other specs as options or perhaps because group content exists is an unacceptable angle if that’s even being considered. Yes, tanks (vengeance among them), warlocks and hunters have an advantage while questing that no one else gets. I’m not asking for that for devourers. I’m asking that the thought not enter the process that “they can just queue” or “they can just go vengeance spec for questing.” Those are dead ends.
Everyone logs on alone. The storytelling of WoW is a solo game, potentially until it enters a raid or instance, but it spends the majority of that time outside, alone. Every spec needs to be able to quest, effectively, whether other classes are better at it or not, but the consideration of “I should be able to do this without pulling my hair out” should always be respected. I’m not asking for Devourer to be able to handle heroic open world content easily, that ship has sailed and there is a soloability disparity in WoW that will never go away. I’m asking that we not intentionally create a new spec at the bottom end of that paradigm. Let people lean into this one spec that literally recolors all of its abilities to fit the concept with pride, and let that spec have respect for their solo time just completing quests.
Everyone logs on alone. Please let Devourers exist alone, for questing, if they choose, and don’t just throw up a “they can queue” or “they can go vengeance for leveling” idea and let it stand. It’s sounding like Devourers “aren’t a questing spec,” and that’s concerning. I mean heaven forbid they participate in Prey.
Thank you for reading.