only class i really play a lot is warrior, and the only thing i see bad from them is arms having deep wounds mastery again
it’s not that it’s bad it’s just i don’t want most of my damage as an angry man wielding a big stick to be from a passive bleed
Sub Rogue
All of Priest
Paladin Holy/Ret
Feral Druid
Havoc DH
All of Warlock
All of Monks
It doesn’t look promising at all. And I would say it’s more the attitude they have towards class design than anything else.
They continue to throw darts in the dark hoping for bullseye after 15 years of doing this. Changes for the sake of changes.
Borrowed power isn’t the answer. Meaningful stats are. Improved Mastery effects are. There’s no problem with having dozens abilities if you balance them and nurture multiple ways to play a single spec so you either don’t feel you have to use all the abilities or that you can only play a certain way.
By improving stats, you could have (For example) a fire Mage who stacks Crit go into his talents to spec for GPyro, or a Fire Mage that Stacks Haste spec for FrostfireBolt, or a very improved Mastery on DoTs to spec into Living Bomb with multiple fire dots that all build into massive damage (like a Affliction warlock would.)
I haven’t seen a single sign of the dev team understanding and or relating at all with what the players wants.
Ya I hate the arms mastery. Should be about big hits, not some wonky bleed mechanic.
One new ability at the new cap every expansion is HARDLY infinite. That is all people have asked. An actual reward for leveling.
If they can’t manage to add a new ability every 3 years what’s even the point…
Thank you! I never understood that. Yes Arms has bleeds where fury doesn’t (and I don’t even agree it should be like that) but Arms “slower” play should about the truck hits, not the bleeds.
Double damage proc on Overpower and Mortal Strike. Added crit for x time to improved Colossal and things like that. Free application of hamstring per crit hit?
We’ve already agreed that temporary power in some capacity is something of a necessity so I’m not entirely sure what the issue is.
Temporary power is 100% not needed and is horrible for class design.
The game was fine for 13 years without temp power. Even going into WoD I had many free keybind slots open and Blizzard still decided to prune classes.
The lie feed to the community is “Classes started becoming too complicated and we had too many abilities” and the fact that people believe this baffles me to this day. Rotations even in MoP were very simple and even top PvP and PvE players had some empty spots on their action bar.
It’s true that classes had too much utility and were homogenized but stripping the classes down to their bare bones and then “re-imaging” them as they did in Legion had nothing to do with fixing the issue of utility and homogenization Blizzard simply wanted to make the game more simple and that’s the truth.
Blizzard has been moving in the direction of the Asian MMO market for a long time now and it’s really clear to see that. I’m not saying that any of this is a bad thing either, it’s all subjective. WoW now resembles Asian MMOs more than it ever has and with SL it will keep moving in that direction.
I don’t blame Blizzard, the game from an NA and EU perspective seems to be on its last legs but in Asian people are not only happily playing WoW they also spend an UNREAL amount of money on games, different culture and all that.
Well it doesn’t look like they are overhauling any specs, so yes some classes still look awful. It seems like Blizzard designed classes/specs in Legion around the Artifact Weapon. I’m not sure which genius that works there thought the classes would perform relatively the same without Artifact Weapons. Make classes balanced around temporary power, take all that power from them and for some reason the classes aren’t good, hmm who would’ve guessed? 
A bunch of specs need attention and without that I think that those classes will still continue to be bland. A few that I think need some major help are:
I think the specs that need it the most are definitely Spriest, HPriest, and MM, but I still think the other ones I listed can use some love.
Because eyes of the beast for hunters is gonna save hunters lmao…
They maybe unprunned 2 spells per class that are useful Lmaoo
Un-pruning is an awesome start, but it does not address some key issues with classes. For example, people have been complaining about Shadow Priest since it was changed in Legion. Just because we get flash heal back doesn’t make the spec any better to play. MM Hunter is another one I can think of as with Holy Priest. Getting a few spells back is nice, but some specs need major love or will still continue to feel lackluster and clunky.
One of the things i wanted most was just re-removed on alpha, which killed my excitement for changes.
A lot of us would just be happy if they just repaired the damage they did during WoD, Legion, and BfA. But they aren’t even doing that.
What unpruning? I get a weaker version of a talent I already have, but lose Typhoon and Swiftmend. I’m getting pruned AGAIN in Shadowlands. That makes it the 4th expansion in a row.
I’m happy for you if you’re coming into Shadowlands smelling like a rose, but not everyone is so fortunate.
They’re going out of their way to ignore Guardian feedback. They have plenty of things to say to Resto, Balance, and Feral, but not ONE PEEP to Guardian or addressing any of Guardian’s concerns. And this is following the 1200-post Guardian thread in BfA beta, which they completely ignored and never responded to. So Blizzard is already coming at us with a horrendous track record, which they’ve done NOTHING to improve on in Shadowlands.
You barely play your main at a competent level. What do you care about “useful”? The fact of the matter is that they are listening to feedback and changing things on Alpha based on said feedback, including how classes literally play, which is something they haven’t done for two expansions now.
Show me the SPriest complaints. Show me the Holy Priest complaints. Holy Priests have been throughput monsters for quite a few tiers now. Shadow Priest has been among the top DPS since, at the very least, Emerald Nightmare.
It’s just you
I’m hyped
Throughput =/= fun. Regardless of potency, people have complained about Spriest Voidform playstyle since Legion started. As an avid Spriest player, I spend a lot of times on the class forums and it’s mostly complaints, not just QQ posts. SL Alpha does not look promising for us either with the lack of changes.
Here is a very well written post by Spriests who have access to Alpha. This outlines many good talking points about the issues with the class so far in Shadowlands.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-priest-class-changes/490697/3?u=c%C3%A2rlo-sargeras
I totally agree with this. Its not a rule that it has to keep being added. Focus on bringing other new fun stuff. As universally loathed as warfronts and islands have been, at least they were attempts at new kinds of content. Same for scenarios. They just didnt work out.
Maybe they just need to stick with what works for each expansion and stop trying to reinvent the wheel? New continent, new dungeons and raids, 10 more levels and new bad guy on the front of the box? Id actually be okay with that. But I know others constantly need more more more.
These temporary powers are like “dress-up” powers: nigh-naked Barbie gets her wardrobe revamped every expac.
How about the powers we earn back are what was pruned from previous expacs, essentially modifications to existing abilities? Eg, iirc, in Legion Soul Cleave absorbed 5 fragments, not 2. Why can’t we get stuff like that back? It can be permanent w/o concern over button build-up.
Yes they may have been fun to play before azerite gear but that was not the point.
Try playing BfA content while it is current with out azerite gear and let us know how fun it is. Go into Shadowlands when it launches reach the level to pick a covenant then don’t so you don’t get the abilities then tell us it how fun it is.
What one has done in the past is only relevant to that content it doesn’t mean it holds true for the current or future situations.
What unpruning? That is laughably foolish to say. They’ve unpruned nearly every spec in the game. Literally every spec, except possibly Guardians, is coming into Shadowlands with a better playstyle than when BFA or Legion launched as it stands right this second. If you think otherwise, you’re being intentionally obtuse.
Their track record with Guardians is sketchy, at best, and I’m not saying that you should expect the best as a Guardian right now. However, as a whole, they absolutely are listening to feedback regarding classes, playstyles and everything else. Which is why classes are being significantly changed STILL. Which is why key features of the expansion(Like Torgast/Covenants) are still being changed significantly. To brush it off as “Well, they aren’t listening to Guardians so they are overall as bad as they were in BFA/Legion!” is just blatantly wrong.
People hated playing a Priest with Rogue combat points too. There will always be a playstyle that was preferable to one person but not another when it comes to classes that have undergone several different playstyle iterations throughout their existence. Having just read the OP of what you linked, several of the issues can be fixed with a tuning pass(SW:D, Power Infusion and Mind Blast CD). The first Void Bolt issue can be minimized with proper positioning and the second issue is less of an issue after you inevitably get more Haste. It can also be fixed by making Mind Flay’s channel a second longer.
Possibly? There’s no “possibly” about it. Not only are they nerfing our CC and self-healing, they’re even nerfing Pulverize, a talent that’s already so bad almost nobody ever takes it.
If you want to help, please do.
Here’s how to help. Every time you say “blizzard is listening” or “every class/spec is better in shadowlands”, do this instead:
There definitely will be people on both sides of the fence: those who didn’t like old Shadow and those that did. But as someone who has played Shadow Priest since Cataclysm, Voidform is undoubtedly more disliked than any other iteration of Shadow as a spec.
As it stands right now in Alpha, Voidform provides no active benefit besides access to Voidbolt and some stacking haste. Whereas Legion artifact passives further highlighted the potency of Voidform. BFA used Chorus of Insanity to stress staying in Voidform, and right now Shadowlands has none of those benefits.
At this point I don’t think I can change your viewpoint on how you see certain classes and specs, even coming from people who have played said spec for upwards of a decade. It’s all good in the end, people who like the class will play it and those who don’t will suffer through, play something else, or most likely quit.