I just wanted to pop in here and share my thoughts on the two spec classes/classes with only one damage spec.
I feel as tho two spec classes limit things from a design perspective, and create wacky imbalances in terms of finding value leveling a class. I’m going to leave out tanks in regards to this as tanks really typically have two options in this game, flag running or tanking PvE content.
Classes with more than one DPS spec work well. Hypotheticals: Sub rogue get hit with the nerf stick? I’ll try outlaw or assa. Balance druids get buffed? Maybe I’ll switch over and give it a try from resto or feral.
Having the extra spec to pivot to is invaluable, and gives the classes more depth.
Now we get to demon hunters.
Havoc get nerfed? Oh well. Role another class or do one of the two things tanks can do, run flags or tank.
Windwalker monk getting nerfed? You see the problem.
I think it would behoove designers to take a good look the next go round at instead of designing a new class, especially one with only two specs, designing new specs for existing classes that don’t already have at least a couple DPS options.
I feel it would liberate you from a balancing perspective.
In regards to havoc, they used to start higher level/have xp buffs. It doesn’t take much time to get to max anymore, but I feel like part of the reason they designed it that way is that you were going to be limited at max level content. You are as it were, leveling 2/3rds of a class instead of a full one. And if you don’t like tanking, well… 1/3rd.
Anytime a class that’s overtuned and egregiously outperforming others in the same bracket needs toning down. So it’s more that people miss what it was doing than what it should have been doing and understanding why the decision is made.
Some nerf/buffs don’t make sense at times, but as far as DH goes, Havoc really needed a nerf.
Wrong. The “meta” as extolled by CoNtEnT cReAtOrS is unfortunately dictating everything because people can’t be bothered to read theorycrafting and take everything as self evident without any real proof.
It would be just as easy, if not easier to add specs to existing classes instead of designing a whole new one.
Only having havoc as a demonhunter or windwalker as a monk or ret as a pally as your DPS options makes when your class makes the classes IMO a little bland in comparison to the other classes. It doesn’t even entirely have to do with meta, but even if you aren’t pushing the highest content you can feel when something is off with your class. In classic for example, you could feel that you were being pigeonholed into playing a holy buffbot. And we all agreed that was bad. They opened things up since then, I think this would give them the flexibility to open things up more.
I would actually go the opposite. Every class would have 1 and exactly 1 spec per role with every class having at least 2 specs/roles. Given the more “in depth” nature of talent trees, you could bake certain trees to be more or less 1 playstyle over another. For example, frost DK could be the “single target DPS”/raid tree and unholy could be the “AOE/cleave”/mythic+ tree" (or vice versa…I don’t really care which).
This would do wonders for balancing and making sure every class had some kind of group role utility beyond being yet another DPS.
I’m waiting for the day Blizzard flat out drops the other two specs (one for DH and Evoker) for classes and forces us to be just one for whatever class, Prot War. Holy Priest. Arcane Mage etc.
Demonhunters, havoc anyways, are never going to be nerfed because they have only one DPS spec and blizzard knows they can’t hit it too hard or people playing the class will feel too bad.
I regret even mentioning demonhunters, I can see it is very triggering to some of you.
I’m not really talking about meta, although it certainly applies.
I’m talking about general feel.
I can level a rogue and have three DPS specs each feeling different. Or I can level a demonhunters and do the same thing forever. Obviously I’m exaggerating a little bit but here is another example in a different direction.
Why are hunters the only ranged physical damage dealers?
All the other ranged are casters. Wouldn’t it provide the game more color if there was another ranged physical damage dealer? Well you could design a new class… Or you could circle back around to one that has only one or two dps specs, and then make a spec for them.
I feel like you didn’t mean to respond to me…but anyway…
I absolutely think having more classes/specs is the wrong move. We already have WAY too many as is and balance is a nightmare because of it which, combined with a community so hyper focused on min maxing performance, means anything not first or best is utter trash and bad.
I’d MUCH rather see people have 1 option per role and trees for that role aimed at building their toolkit around the content they expect to be doing. Let’s not pretend that every spec for every piece of content doesn’t have an optimal build. The bloated talent trees we have now could just as easily be baseline spells and passives in a spellbook and 99% of us would be just as effective.
But what would change is instead of trying to balance classes that have 2-3 specs for a role, they can have 1 and much more care can be put into that 1 to make sure it is as balanced along with its peers than amongst many more peers and, in some cases, itself too. Balancing a “DPS warrior” now comes down to building say arms warrior as the raid tree and fury as the mythic+ tree. Not as sexy as having both be balanced/designed for both, but far better for overall balance if 1 was the chosen spec for that piece of content over the other.
This sounds like how things were before going back to the new talent trees. Respectfully I didn’t like it. Pruning led to exactly what you were talking about with using deathknight as an example, frost being the pvp spec and unholy being the PvE spec. This isn’t fun to me as it reduces your options.
I get things will be optimized and there will always be a meta, but the game feels best when it’s all new information to people. The best way to do this IMO is by adding more options, not taking them away.
It also isn’t entirely what I am talking about.
This isn’t a discussion entirely about balancing, it’s about general feel and design which can include but does not solely include balancing.
Pruning didn’t lead to anything like that. Pruning was a boon to the playerbase as it led to classes having more strongly defined niches and allowed to excel in those niches instead of it being expected that anyone could, with a push of a few buttons, be good at whatever.
I feel limits are actually good and healthy. I WANT to be a DK whose the incarnation of slow but steady endless death. I want to absolutely dominate at my niches and be terrible at other things…not just feel like I’m a flavor of X but who uses frost and unholy spells instead of nature and shadow or fire and fel or what have you.
And given the game has rapidly swirling the drain into hyper competitivity, balance is of paramount importance because we do live in a world where the perceived strength or weakness affects your ability to even get into more and more trivial levels of content.
You don’t have to unless they make it unplayable, but in the event they do, and let’s not pretend it hasn’t happened. Then you have to reroll to a whole new class.
I came to that conclusion because that’s literally what you are doing when you choose to level demonhunter. You are commiting to only having one DPS spec and only two specs total. And having basically one play style. Talents help diversify individual specs, but never to the extent that a frost mage will feel different than a fire mage as an example. I think Blizzard could see this, as it isn’t really a hidden issue.
Less specs, less options, less fun imo.
So, while I like new classes it’s just a suggestion, you could just as easily make a new spec for an existing class. If not more easily.
I get where you are coming from, but adding more specs is probably harder to balance. I think blizzard should just make sure those specs are never at the bottom… they don’t, but it would be nice
Pruning kind of leads to what it is I am initially pointing out. So we take your suggestion and make frost the raid single target spec and then make unholy the m+ cleave spec.
Under this example let’s say unholy ends up just too strong in m+. Blizzard decides to nerf. Now, let’s assume the nerf is severe enough which does happen, because we pruned the spec to only specifically do one thing well, it has no where to go. So deathknights just can’t run mythics. Or rather the work required to find a group becomes so severe you are wasting too much time in group finder. At least until they buff it.
If you have more specs and more options than maybe you can pivot to something else entirely.
Under your scenario, this can happen to any spec and, in fact is MORE likely to be an entire spec. How many fire mages do you see running around in mythic+ whereas they were prolific in BfA.
It’s far easier for Blizzard to decide Unholy is the mythic+ intended spec for DKs and, if they over/underperform, where exactly is the tuning needed to bring them inline because that very same tuning change today may just mean the spec is gutted or bonkers broken for raiding whereas they don’t have to be concerned about unholy raiding because it was never intended to be good/bad there to begin with.
Your ideas/wish is well meaning but ultimately works against your own wishes. Less is more in this case I can promise you.
It is harder in a way and it is easier in a way imo.
Yes you have a whole new spec to balance, but using havoc as an example, I don’t think people would mind if the spec disappeared for half a patch cycle. It might feel refreshing if havoc were under tuned, but you can’t do that because they wouldn’t have anywhere else to turn.
It makes it harder in a way, but liberates you as a designer in some other ways.
And I fail to see how introducing a new spec is any more difficult than a new class with multiple new specs to balance.
I don’t really think its an issue. I never played a class where i liked all 3 specs or that had 3 desirable specs. I mained Hunter for 10 years and vast majority of the time there was just 1 correct choice, 1 passable one and one dogpoo/niche one.
Same with Shaman, outside MoP there’s hardly ever been a time where both Enhance and Ele were equally desirable.
And finally back in my Warrior Days Arms only purpose was PvP while Fury was only playable in PvE. I honestly kind of miss that more focused approach to spec design, when Arms, Frost, Sub, Survival, Destro etc. were clearly more tooled towards PvP.
But anyway, i main Evoker and idk what i’d do with a 3rd Spec.