It would be nice if there were more (literally any) presence or clarity to changes in class direction on the class forums. Why is there no comments from class designers? Has a blizzard employee ever talked to anyone through class forums? I understand your job is not PR and responding to frustrated people is not something you’d ever look forward to but I’m pretty sure more players would feel at ease if you talked to them on a class based level rather than a wow in general level. It’s great to see the positive changes to the game in general, the QoL changes etc. We all want dragonflight to succeed. But what makes this game worth playing is the characters/classes we invest our thousands of hours on. I quit the game for a couple months because you killed my favorite spec Outlaw rogue and it made me frustrated back in season 2. I hit all +20s timed before 9.1.5 when you uncapped almost every spec, that was the last time I was invited to a high key. I essentially was told to switch class or be forced to go sub. So I quit. I probably wouldn’t have quit if there was reasoning behind the decision, or literally any comment as to why. Then yesterday I see a flat +4% buff to abilities… LOL what the F is that supposed to do? That doesn’t fix anything people complain about. This can also go for BM hunt, feral, enhancement etc. If the classes are getting complete reworks or something in 10.0, why not just tell us that’s why? Or if you wanna say “not all can be king forever”, then fine, but can you just let us know?
There’s only one of them and he has a lot more important things to do than listen to people complain about their favorite spec not being on top
People aren’t asking to be on top, only asking to be relevant and competitive with other specs
Occasionally they’ll venture their, but rarely. Usually get better results on the PTR forums.
Reading through your post it looks like the issue is that people only invite the meta specs to groups.
That’s not something that is fixable by Blizzard. There will always be specs that are on top.
Not since the “Bus Shock Incident”
I mean I guess having an intro post and a later “we haven’t forgot you post” is better than just the intro post
Yes please get the class designer on a video to tell us why he butchered every class and spec so bad over the years, I would really like to have known the design philosophy that went on between MoP-BFA.
How did they make classes and overall game play feel so much worse and why did they think it was a good idea?
I agree, we need to hear something from the class designers. I know people love to complain about Shadowlands and BFA classes, but really class design has been crap ever since Legion. Every DPS spec has been turned into a builder-spender with some version of combo points / secondary power. Sustained AoE has been ridiculously slimmed-down (no more channeled Blizzard / Rain of Fire / Hurricane, etc). And there is barely-any hybridization.
Class Design was at its peak in WOTLK, Cataclysm and Pandaria. Let’s go back and try to incorporate some of those elements back in.
There was such a man (responsible for the legendary mop warlock design) and he got fired years ago.
Are you talking about Celestalon?
99% of the time, when someone says they want to be competitive, they want to be “competitive compared to the top.” (If you’re the 1% who doesn’t do this, then good on ya’)
Healers balance is in a great spot for PVE.
Tank balance is in a great spot for PVE.
DPS Balance is very good, although Destro and Surv were definitely overtuned.
They were hiring for more PVP roles, and we’ve already started to see some changes on that front. So PVP seems like it’ll only get better as those new devs get some soaking time.
Side note, whenever a class designer speaks up on the forums, any relevant conversation/discussion in that thread is completely lost and swarmed with spam. You can be discussing tuning and mechanics on Balance Druid then a wild flock of Shaman join and start spamming “When are you gonna fix Shaman?” and other things like that.
A warlock dev was dropped because of issues related to the Council fo the Black Harvest. If you know, you know.
Celestalon was a damn good WoW dev. He seemed to struggle as a lead, but he’s someone I’d want developing WoW again. (He works on HS now.)
A know a few senior devs who moved to Bethesda and Amazon. Some left for Riot too.
There is literally nothing fun about channeling Blizzard/Hurricane for 8sec.
I disagree! Channeled AoE is very satisfying, it’s just that you also need other AoE spells to mix it up. Casting blizzard (with a cast time) then spamming frost bolt is what’s not fun.
I have played Balance Druid for 12 years now. I have experience with Hurricane, Wild Mushrooms, Multi-DOT, giga-Starfall, spammable Starfall, and all variations in-between.
This covers pretty much every form of AOE playstyle. Hurricane was never a popular button, most players forget it was even a thing. It’s always coming down to Wild Mushrooms and spammable Starfall as “the best version of AOE.” Spammable Starfall is pretty much the favorite type of gameplay, and it mirrors exactly what Destro locks are doing right now with ROF.
If a channeled AOE spell is ever the primary source, then it’s literally a 2004 spell. There’s a very good reason modern WoW combat is still contending for “best combat” among all MMOs. Dynamic gameplay with action combat is great. Channeling a spell for 8sec is simply outdated.
I liked hurricane 
Now we have lunar strike and Starfall and you are only allowed to use starfall when your in the lunar phase. Balance druids are so bland.
Huh, no? You can Starfall in either Eclipse…Starfall is Astral damage.
I think the difference is making channeled AoE a “filler” ability. Like yeah it isn’t fun to chain-cast Huricane for 30 seconds in a raw, but it’s nice to use in between core AoE ability cooldowns.
12 years means you’re pretty much known as a “Ye olde feathered coot” now, correct?
/salmon
Yes.
Channeled filler is a tough sell. There’s a ton of improvised movement in modern WoW. Take Balance Druid MOP for example: We used Moonfire, Sunfire, Starfall, Wild Mushroom, Wild Mushroom: Detonate, and Hurricane in AOE. There’s a lot to juggle and there’s a lot of buttons.
If you were to replace Starfire’s cleave with Hurricane are your filler, it would be effectively the same playstyle, but more limited since channeled spells cannot be instant-cast.
From a designer POV, you’d need to worry about resource generation and consumption in the spec’s gameplay. Pausing the core mechanic for the sake of an AOE filler likely wouldn’t feel good.