Lately, when I watch internet streams, I see influencers playing on the test servers, ranking classes into tiers, and discussing them on their broadcasts. My friends and I talk about it too—some of their classes get buffed and move up in the tier list, while others get nerfed and drop down. Some classes don’t even get touched by Blizzard, probably because they’re not popular. It almost feels like watching the stock market or cryptocurrency prices.
Will there ever be a time when we can just play the class we love, regardless of the meta? Farming the same trinkets over and over again feels exhausting. If I get a trinket that isn’t on the tier list, I don’t even feel excited—because the balance doesn’t really change. I wish every class had tools to deal with affixes. I wish trinket stats were adjusted once a month. I wish tanks and healers got bonus rewards—more players would queue for those roles, which would lead to faster matchmaking and more enjoyable PUG runs.
These are just my thoughts as I watch WoW slowly lose new players.
Yes. Right now you can do that!
You’re overstating the importance of tier lists and metas. The absolute worst class in the game can still clear every form of content. You might cap out at doing 16s when the best class can do 18s, or whatever, but for 99.9% it doesn’t matter.
The difference between the best trinket and a trinket that is only just kinda okay is only going to be a couple % worth of DPS. Not unimportant if you’re looking to be the absolute best you can be, but ultimately it’s not what’s holding you back from going further.
Content creators make the tier lists because it’s good content. Everyone wants to know what’s good in a patch and WoW doesn’t exactly discourage FotM rerolling since it’s so easy to do. But ultimately the best class is the one you enjoy the most. You’re not going to get the same results playing a good class poorly because you’re uninterested in learning it, compared to playing a class or spec you really enjoy.
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Yes, right now.
Realistically, for 99% of players, they are stretching A and B tier into S-D, just for clicks/engagement.
You’ll also see that different tier lists will say different things, so there’s a lot of opinion in there as well.
But until you’re at the bleeding edge of the game, player skill and comfort matters a whole lot more than what class they’re playing.
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