I think that it would be very interesting to be able to sit down and ask specific questions about different classes to the men who facilitated what classes got what spells back in the original version of the game we love.
I have seen guides and videos for Warlock tanking with Hellfire for trash in dungeons, and their 10% chance to stun is pretty potent on fire spells. I also know that Warlocks were used for a few fights throughout time; the most well known is the Twin Emperors in Ahn’Qiraj. They are extremely tanky and very versatile with the amount of tools at their disposal. They had been meme’d on for years for having the most buttons in the game. Warlocks were originally the caster that could stand in the center of battle and mock the melee, forcing them to flee at their prowess on the battlefield. The true Battle-Mage of the time.
So, lets get to the question:
Did you guys have plans for Warlocks to be actual tanks outside of a select few caster boss fights? With things like your Voidwalker being able to swap with you for stacks or just strictly being a 30% damage soaker, and mail levels of armor (remember, Enhance was supposed to be a mail tank as it was intended to play all 3 roles like Paladins). Also the very high threat (3x crit, searing pain higher crit chance and extra threat generation) with no way to get rid of it. Warlocks had everything needed short of a pure taunt to be viable (remember: viable does not necessarily mean optimal). You also have to keep in mind that the Voidwalker Sacrifice was a 1900 absorb shield, something VERY strong in Vanilla WoW. Most tanks early on had maybe 4-6k hp I think. You have to remember that it also took 3 globals to resummon and reapply Soul Link to your Voidwalker (instant cast summon spell from Demonology tree), so I would see this as only to stop yourself from dying.
If they made warlock pets scale with gear and gave Voidwalker and Warlocks direct taunts, they could’ve easily taken the slot of 2 tanks for 1 if played properly and with the right gear. But, they can’t do it until just about farm content and can’t do it in MC and BWL because of fire resistances in their iterations in Classic. In MoP, they tried to revive the style of gameplay but it ended up just being a niche for PvP for the majority of players (I remember Running Nameplate Cleave in 5.0 in 2s, BM Demo).
What do you guys think of this specific question, and what questions would you ask for your classes?
Moot point. Many of us already know how the classes worked back then and will still work when it relaunches. There is nothing new to be gleaned from the devs about classic class design. Warriors were the only viable tanks. Holy priests were the most coveted healers. Shamans would sometimes kill people with back to back windfury procs in a matter of seconds. Hunter and warlock pet threat was virtually non-existent. Aimed Shot delayed Auto-Shot. Warlocks had to carry bags full of soul shards and could only summon people one at a time. People had to CC mobs on pull.
Well, I could ask about hunter lacerate, or warlock fire stones…
but instead I’ll ask Exactly what are Enhancement shaman supposed to be good at?
It’s not the best leveling spec (post 40 at least) and it’s the bottom tier of both PvP and PvE overall. Despite those things it was also significantly NERFED in something like 1.10 or 1.11 (Windfury’s attack power bonus gets cut in half)
Literally the only reason anyone would want to play one is because it’s occasionally fun to watch the slot machine roll triple 7s on a guy’s face in pvp…
It may be a bit too late to ask questions now, since they’re just finishing up on the last few classes, but Countdown to Classic’s Kevin Jordan interviews might be of interest.
There is a podcast called Countdown to Classic that covers a lot of interesting stuff about the classes.
What I’ve gleaned from the various interviews is it was very important to them that each class felt very unique and brought something the others didn’t. Not sure if it is sad or ironic that the game evolved in the opposite direction.
They had three very elite Everquest raiders on the design team that had a lot to do with what the classes do as far as their PVE roles. Jeff Kaplan and Alex Afrasiabi have both talked about how they imagined what every class is doing at any part of an encounter and they put in mechanics for those classes to do more than just tank, heal or dps.
People mention the countdown to classic interview. I was just thinking to myself while reading, that I’ve heard atleast 3 class based interviews over the years. It’s funny to hear devs from the same teams having varying opinions. Some felt satisfied that they did all the could for classes with the time they had. I remember one dev saying there’s somet things he’s have done differently in hind sight, like giving prot Pally a taunt, or making balance Druids a bit more mana efficient. I get it, we all have things we would have done differently looking back.
I don’t think I’d have any questions, just because they’ve all been asked and answered. I think they did a great job personally.
How much of it was actually carefully planned out and how much it was just some guy saying hey this sounds cool after coming back from an extended lunch with drinks.
Literally all of your information is biased and wrong. Feral Druids are actually really good third tanks and dungeon tanks (btw, your Google and Private Server meta knowledge doesn’t teach you the use of more than 2 tanks does it?). Prot Paladins are VERY good dungeon tanks as their AoE is insane, and they are also very strong on farm content trash as they can do damage equal to like 40% of your raid’s damage, YOUR FORTY MAN RAID’S, AoE DPS on trash in things like the suppression room in BWL. Their only downfall is no taunt. Warrior AoE is VERY bad, and Thunderfury barely supplements it. Also, Disc actually has been doing a lot of work that people don’t give credit. Holy Paladins are also arguably way better healers as they heal at comparable levels and their crit heals are FREE. Resto Shamans are also considerably better than Priests on fights with immense AoE damage as Chain Heal is relatively cheap and can be spammed. Also, Enhance was hard to deal with because of Frost Shock (high damage perma slow) and Earth Shock (high damage 6 second CD kick), though yes "Win"fury was a part of it. Some group comps with decent gear (not even full raid gear) can AoE down very large groups of mobs without any CC at all. Please open your mind and try to learn, not be so close minded and ill-informed.
Except a lot of mechanic and internal issues exist within all private servers. I know those youtubers everyone fawns over even made content showing people that.
Literally nothing from a private server is a viable form of knowledge, it is the equivalent of saying someone with an Associate’s knows as much as someone with a PhD in their respective field.
Please open your mind to the madness you spew, if someone can recreate it on classic this summer then we will know for sure but otherwise we have empirical evidence in the form of the data, forums, old archives, and numerous other things saying otherwise.
Actually, there was a meta revealed during the Demo that people on Private Servers are going VERY strong and VERY fast just using Earth Shock on cooldown for damage. Enhance is very strong in 1v1 situations, and even was meme’d on for being the best 1vx class for a long time during Classic without gigantic "Win"fury procs. Firestones though, they wanted us to have the option to be fire spell casters too, but the scaling all around was just severely worse than shadow spells as well as the first 2 raids having too much fire resist. For the on-hit damage, I think that my theory of “Warlock Tank” was actually going to be a thing that they just didn’t finish.
The best example is the Twin Emperor’s being specifically designed for Warlock tanking, and Nefarian giving different mechanics for every class. As well as Garr having so many small mobs that explode when killed, while knowing that most people would probably opt for Warrior tanks that can’t really AoE very well.
I would have personally tried to figure out how to increase the cap on debuff slots before launch, as 8 and 16 were ever only there due to technical limitations. I think I heard somewhere that they were going to add Unstable Affliction to the bottom of Aff but that they just couldn’t have the debuff slots for it and they already gave Aff an extra DoT anyways. I also would’ve personally kept in Crusader Strike, rather than removing both main rotational abilities for Ret
The madness I spew, lmao? Okay dude. Warlocks have as much armor as a bear tank, reduced casting pushback, increased threat and increased crit chance + crit damage (crits give a LOT of threat), and can still use tank rings trinkets and enchants. 10% stun chance on every hit from fire spells while doing AoE fire damage is pretty nutty in of itself, remember theres really no DR in PvE.
Sure it’s not going to be 100% accurate, but there’s still ways to do it. You can still get plenty of defense and 30% damage reduction passively with as much armor as a tank (not Warrior of course) is still very strong. Of course, a Warrior or Bear tank would be better - but that’s why its “viable” and NOT “optimal.” I never claimed myself that Private Server data is completely accurate and absolute; don’t give me that better than you attitude.
I wasn’t aware warlocks could reach the 16,500 armor cap for 75% armor reduction and warlock tanking legit only works due to the fact the damage received was all magical during the phase they tanked. I also wasn’t aware armor reduced magical damage.
The post literally states mail not plate. What is your problem? You aren’t even reading, you are just screeching like a monkey. Of course armor does not reduce magical damage, resistances have a chance to not take any and Shadow Ward absorbs shadow damage.
