No we are talking about the ability to identify the class from the moment an arena door opens, the second they dismount in a BG, or in any other form of pvp.
Your examples are all abilities used in the middle of combat, the ability to identify who and what you are facing need to happen before that.
How do you tell the difference between a Holy Paladin or a Prot Paladin? A Blood DK vs a Frost DK? An Elemental Shaman vs a Resto Shaman? An Affliction Lock vs a Destro Lock.
This whole “I NEED to identify specs individually ” discussion is really not worth it. It’s meaningless. There are many examples where you can’t identify a spec immediately. Even a Mage must cast their barrier spell, which is a spell by the way.
Which is why I’m arguing SPELLS matter.
It’s a spell they cast before getting into combat that provides a visual indicator via frost/fire/arcane and it’s strong enough that the benefits of trying to hide what you are simply don’t match up. This means they will pretty much always have it up and always tell you who and what they are.
Holy Paladins will normally be identifiable both by the aura, as prot tends to use devotion and holy tends to use concentration, but additionally holy will want to have out it’s beacons, Beacon of Light/Faith, which seeing them tells you immediately you have a holy paladin and again these are things that are out before you engage in combat.
The biggest would be via Blood Fortification it’s a 30% increase in health so when the HP pool is much higher than normal this is a pretty solid indicator your are facing a blood instead of frost.
Ele Shaman has Lightning shield, Resto Shaman has Water shield
Is the one that is fair and blizzard needs to work on. In the past it was generally the pet, Affliction took Feldog while Destro took their succubus. With Grimoire being the normal thing to run it has become difficult in order to do this before they start slinging spells, doubly so since in the past the destro needed to cast immolate but now with hellcaller and wither it doesn’t.
Gurl… I can’t.
All 3 Rogue specs unless you’re REALLY looking at Outlaw’s longer blade. All 3 Monk specs. Both Demon Hunter specs. Evoker in general.
Like come on. 99.999999999999999999999% of players identify specs and classes from the UI. They have since vanilla.
I’m getting the feeling you’re keeping this going because you just enjoy thinkpiece discussions. I’m really so, so good on this at this point. I’ve said all I need to, and I know I’m correct. If we agree to disagree on how the game operates then that’s fine. But I will not go back and forth arguing on objective truths.
Like, if you don’t like how specs aren’t MORE individually identifiable, you should really go make a forum about it. I’m betting you either no one will respond, or everyone will be like “girl, what is she on about”.
Are the exception that proves the rule as the entire rogue class fantasy is about misdirection and stealth, and not knowing what is about to hit you until it does.
Brew will have higher HP for same reasons of Blood, Mistweaver will have stacks of Healing Elixer, have a normal healthpool with no Healing Elixer stacks it’s a Windwalker
As with all tank vs DPS spec the health pool tells everything.
Needs work, but in this case you get 3 classes of exceptions, one of which is literally designed to be the exception, one of which is brand new, and the other sacrificed it’s readability to not be a hot mess, and the next is the newest class in the game. These would generally be seen as mistakes that break away from the trend as oppose to a trend.
I don’t disagree with that, however, Blizzard is the one that actually set it out around Cata or so that they wanted to improve readability of classes and make them all stand out instead of looking like each other with different spells.
So my thoughts on Shadow Form…
First off, the name itself has “form” in it meaning you are becoming a form of shadow.
I see it just like your forms you shift into as a Druid. I really liked it when your primary spell bar changes to an entirely new bar just like what happens to Druid forms and what used to happen for Warrior stances which is a shame it’s no longer the case.
I like the shifting forms affecting spell bars as you can incorporate that into macros that are governed by your “form” or “stance” which gave you increased flexibility in how you choose to play as you can also just flat out ignore it altogether if it either didn’t matter to you or made things confusing.
On the matter that Shadowform is required to use Devouring Plague is very odd to me as it can be disrupting to gameplay if you are not aware or expecting it yet I suppose it fills that “form” idea a bit more.
On the matter of casting Holy spells in Shadowform I find to be just silly and goes against that entire dynamic of holy and shadow are opposing forces and to imply that you need to choose one or the other to use as they are diametrically opposing forces.
Except as Discipline, you have enough discipline to balance the two forces in shifting from one to the other as part of your entire gameplay. Where as Shadowform you should sacrifice your ability to tap into holy magic to fully embrace shadow magic and be engulfed or consumed by it.
The idea of casting holy spells while in shadow form just dilutes the potency of the impact that those spells make as in the past they were really strong because you had to sacrifice your damage and defenses to cast them so they had to be worth it where as now, you can cast them all you like but they are basically a waste of a button press because of how inconsequential they have become.
Back when you can use holy spells and it pulled you out of shadow, yes it would drain you mana but that was only because it was impactful as the result which gave this ebb and flow dynamic outside of just using DPS buttons as it still allowed you to behave as a priest, it at the cost of your shadow damage and other defensives.
Not too dissimilar to feral druids where you can use your healing at any time but it can force you out of form but because of that cost and risk, your heals can still be impactful. Then you can also get procs to use your healing spells without dropping form to gain both the impactful outcome of healing while not negatively impacting gameplay from shifting you out of form.
So my stance on Shadowform is to make it more part of your gameplay that clearly draws a line between you being a shadow priest and just a priest in general.
This is why my idea from my post way in the beginning is me suggesting that while in shadowform, you could get a proc like effect to deal your next mind spell damage instantly as that would both be very impactful, provide reason to be in shadowform and add a bit of mobility that we lack. This would also enable a more sacrifice to not be in shadowform which means you could put more power into shadows ability to off heal as you should be able to do as a Priest.
But I’m also open to ideas and suggestions on what else shadowform could do or incorporate in order to really flush out the meaning and purpose and give you a dang good reason to make sure you are in shadowform when you are wanting to be popping off.
Regarding the cosmetics aspect, I vote for either the glyph system or the barber shop treatment that both druids and warlocks have enabled to select what they want for appearances.
But I would rather Shadowform stay as an active swapping into and out of form mechanic and avoid being removed outright like death knight presences or watered down like warriors stances.
They are grasping at straws with this one. As if not being able to tell what spec a priest is in rated BGs until they cast a spell is sooooo unbalanced that it breaks the game.
We should all demand that Blizzard ban every spec that doesn’t have a spec specific visual indicator on them for cheating…
Yeah, I just had to escape that conversation. I said everything I needed to say.
The replies to my posts speak for themselves. The amount of ignoring or glazing over many of their points I refuted, only for them to move the goalpost a little bit, and nitpick more and more.
I don’t think they had mal-intent necessarily. But conversations for the sake of keeping a conversation going on and on are senseless. Not to mention exhausting.
My main point was said a long time back which you quoted me on.
I don’t care who that offends either. It’s true.
I never said it broke the game, I said it went against Blizzards design philosophy of class and spec clarity and fantasy. Blizz has done a lot of work to make sure classes and specs are readily noticable on sight, I don’t see them changing that for Shadow, IE Shadowform, without replacing it with something else.
From my experience the only people who get upset at having their questions answered are those who ask them in bad faith hoping to make a point instead of actually gaining an understanding. They get upset when they are confronted with the fact the point they hoped to make doesn’t exist.
Cool and in my experience, I know a nitpicker when I see one. Have fun moving your goalposts and nitpicking to the wall.
I’m not here to have college level, hyper-specific debates. I stated my opinion, and every step of the way you kept nitpicking everything I said. If you disagree with me that’s fine, I can fully live with that and respect that for what it is. But there comes a point where anyone can read this forum and realize you’re just arguing for the sake of it. The only reason I even cared enough to keep it going was for future readers. That’s it. Up until a point where I realized I said everything I needed to say, and you revealed your contrarian nature. You even said “to play devils advocate” at the start of all this. I get that it’s a sport to you or something, but I couldn’t care less anymore. Have fun.
Find someone else to “play” with.
Yes because originally when I said that I was expecting a rather simple conversation about readability and clarity which are both important elements of game design. Instead you got upset when “just remove shadowform” wasn’t a good enough stance to actually make a point or justify what you want.
The simple truth is Shadowform is no longer an iconic ability, or even really much more than a small buff like so many other classes have. That buff is something Blizzard could throw into the spec as a passive and remove Shadowform as a whole if they wanted to, it would honestly be less work and coding on their part to do so and likely allow them to clean up coding behind the scenes.
The fact that they don’t, even though its been requested multiple times, likely means they want it there for the exact purposes I mentioned.
If you want it gone brainstorming viable replacements for readability and clarity, the thing I tried to encourage, would give you a far better shot than the nonsense this become because you don’t want to think beyond “I don’t like shadowform.”
Holy … How are you still, at this point saying this. Are you actually a serious person? No seriously? Are you kidding me?
How in god’s name do you get from this quote, which states that I want Shadowform as a form to be cosmetic, meaning BOTH players would get what they want. Either no forced Shadowform, or a cosmetic version of the form that works exactly like it does now visually- just without the 10% damage bonus----- and that somehow meant I want the form to be completely deleted from the game?
The crux of our disagreement is really this point I made further up…
We fundamentally disagree that the form should be forced on the player vs a cosmetic option. Everything else you’re trying to argue like spec and class visuals and identification is nonsense nothingburger extra in my eyes.
I don’t care how much you think it will take away from the class to make the form cosmetic. That is your opinion. You can have that. I don’t agree with it, but I also don’t care.
All I care about is being FORCED into a form that has outlived its true purpose to the point of redundancy. Everything else is just noise.
This is your opinion. The use of the form for spec clarity and readability are actually objective elements of design. Hense why your argument comes down to “change design fundamentals because I don’t like something.”
One of us is talking about opinions, IE you don’t like it and feel forced, one of us is talking about objective principles of design, IE clarity and readability. I asked you how you would address this issue and you got upset because you don’t want to have that conversation you just want something and nothing else matters. That is childish.
That is NOT an opinion though? What??? We don’t like it- is the opinion. Being FORCED is an objective truth. You’re not going to win on this one.
You derailing my main point, while using the guise of professionalism is deceptive.
I have yet to really see you engage in my point that we are forced with limited alternatives into Shadowform. We get the oil-slick glyph. That’s it. “Shut up and eat your poop sandwich” though, right?
These people get off on arguing, don’t feed the trolls. Just roll your eyes and move along.
Discussions are not games, there is no “winner” or “loser” that is a childish mindset.
I didn’t derail your main point, I pointed out that there are valid design reasons why what you want is not in the game and challenged you to come up with ways to make what you want work while still respecting those design decisions. Your response has been vitriol and anger instead of acknowledging the reality of the situation.
That is literally all I have done. I have explained multiple times providing valid reasons for why things are designed the way they are. Instead of engaging with that reality you have become defensive and tried to ignore those realities going so far as to say you don’t care, or calling it noise. Its about the same as a child stomping their feet and throwing a tantrum when they don’t get what they want.
You are not interested in why things are the way they are, all you care about is your subjective view and trying to “win” some made up competition in your head instead of actually trying to understand and engage with the actual reasons why what you want isn’t in the game.
You have been sidelining my main point the entire time we’ve spoken. You completely focus on objectivity and throw out all emotion in favor of absolute logic and reiterating the point you want to talk about. Subjectivity does matter in this discussion, actually. Excuse me for getting fed up.
This is a video game for people to enjoy. You taking it so seriously to the point of calling me childish is crazy to me. Cosmetic enjoyment of the way our character looks or is represented in game is an absolutely valid thing to care about. Your cold logical deflections that constantly go back to how you think Blizzard do, or should orchestrate their game design is ridiculous to me.
You say this, but Blizzard has shown us and told us that- for the future- they are going to take player feedback into account when designing all aspects of the game. We all know Blizzard takes cosmetic representation in the game seriously.
A prime example of this, and the start of this turning point was when Ion Hazzikostas told us that Alliance will not get High Elves and Void Elves are the best we will ever get. What came of that? He eventually conceded in a small way, and we ended up getting natural skin tones, hair colors, and blue eyes for Void Elves.
Dragonflight was a major turning point for WoW creatively.
The point is- customization matters in an RPG. Blizzard have shown us time and time again they understand this and are actively working to improve that for the playerbase.
You want to talk about identifiers being taken away? Maybe you need to be complaining about how Blizzard removed Shadow Orbs/Ravens. That was an incredible visual we used to have.
We talked about making PW: Shield purple, which you seemed to even slightly agree with.
There actually CAN be ways to give you what you want (visual distinction) that don’t absolutely force my entire character model to appear as a translucent purple blob.
I don’t agree that “in your face, extremely obvious” spec distinction matters as much as you. And I’ve already given way too much energy to your sidelining. Anyway.
You – “Shadowform should be optional”
Me – “Here are valid reasons why its not”
You – “Why are you sidelining my point.”
None of that has happened, you have just refused to engage with or acknowledge that there are valid reasons why it isn’t happening.
If I don’t like playing a cat of some type should blizzard allow me to play feral as a humanoid night elf because “muh customizations.”
Customization only goes so far, even in an RPG. Knights of the Old Republic didn’t let you play a rancor, Kingdom Come Deliverance doesn’t let you play a person of color, etc all of which are deaign decisions made by the developers for varying reasons ranging from the story they wanted to tell to being historically accurate.
In the case of WoW your customization is limited for reasons of clarity, Blizzard has actially outright said that was a goal they wanted to improve and have been working on since Cata.
Now I have no issue with other modifiers existing, I literally stated this whole thing as a means of brainstorming them, hell I personally would have no issue with Shadowform as a whole being deleted. I’m not presenting my personal opinion on the matter, I’m presenting an alternative point of view based on what Blizzard has told us in the past.
I know they have said they want player feedback, I also know that based on their previous comments “remove/make shadowform optional” isn’t going to happen without valid and reasonable alternatives to maintain the clarity they have spent literally multiple expansions and years working on.
You know what. I think it’s best if we conclude this discussion. Agree to disagree and all that. You have proven you are arguing for the sake of it without taking player opinion/choice into it at all, while speaking on behalf of Blizzard’s design perspectives. I will no longer bother you or reply to any of your posts. Have a nice day.
Yes. They tried that in Legion and it got hard rejected. One thing I don’t think I’ll ever respect or understand, is the concept of why are some people are such die-hard authoritarians; and feel a need to impose their will on everyone else.
A lot of what has been said is also factually inaccurate if not outright false (this tends to be the case when an authoritarian puts out facts and can’t control what others say in reply). For starters, the Glyph bugs out Voidform and it also used to cause eye-strain.
There actually was another Priest player about 1-2 years ago that supposedly that did a screen share session with their doctor due to eye related issues, and the Doctor flat out said… “Oh… Wow. This effect paired with that dragon flying… is just horrible for your eyesight and absolutely why your condition is worsening. Stop playing that class NOW.”
That’s why Blizzard recently changed Shadowform with the Glyph to not do the smoke puff at all.
Shadowform as a cosmetic spell lets you play with it. It lets everyone else be rid of it.
I get that’s something you don’t want, but a lot of other people do. Ultimately however this is the difference between authoritarians and other people. We’re content to let others have an affordance and do things the way they like it. By contrast, an authoritarian is not happy unless they micro-manage and control everyone’s experience, thoughts, words, and livelihood.
Please note I am not calling you specifically an authoritarian. I am defining what they are as per Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, and nothing more. Any belief that this is a personal attack, is based off your personal opinion and not fact. That is also why I have eschewed using the word ‘you’ until this point. I do this, merely because I don’t know you IRL. Because I do not know you IRL, I can’t hope to understand your motives; beyond what you say on the forums.