"Ultimate" Class Fantasy

Community General Discussion
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This has been something on my mind since Classic began to be discussed by people on the boards. This isn’t meant to be a “Classic vs Retail” thing, but it is meant to be a discussion about two fundamental differences between the two.

One of the reoccurring things I’ve seen people chatting when it comes to Classic is that there’s this group of people going on about how Vanilla gave you the ‘ultimate class fantasy’ (which is a term I have very mixed feelings about) as compared to other iterations of the game, and that got me thinking as to why people feel this way, because to me, the idea of ‘class fantasy’ got better as the game developed further.

Every class encompasses a number of tropes, styles, and themes to them, and for me, that’s an element I’ve come to adore with WoW’s classes. Classes like Warriors and Paladins come to mind with how warriors can be berserkers, knights, and masters of arms, or paladins being righteous defenders, healing clerics, or zealous crusaders. It really does feel like it caters to your class being able to be played with various styles behind it, and for me, that RPG aspect is important. Variety is important.

When I look back at Vanilla and now to Classic however, I’m reminded how certain trees weren’t all that great. Paladins in particular come to mind when I think about how ret played back then versus how it plays now. It felt like it was more geared towards support and synergizing with others, yet for the people who liked class design in vanilla, people seem (and are) fine with it. Most of my friends who play paladin in Classic are fine with being geared more towards support in PVE. Hell, when I get around to investing time in Classic, I’ll probably go that direction too, but it still feels like it follows a more singular theme.

To me, ‘class fantasy’ is highly subjective, and I’ll always think that variety with specs and playstyles will be important to maintain the magic in a class since there’s a lot of ways different archetypes can be played, but I’m curious as to what others think the “ultimate” class fantasy for a class really is. If you’re primarily a Classic player and you think the class fantasy in vanilla is better, why? If Retail’s classes are more your thing, why do you prefer its class fantasy instead?

Also, what’s your take on how you play your main/favorite class in regards to the RPG behind it?

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All I know is you couldn’t pay me to play a Classic hunter. So many things have improved about this class, there’s no way I would go back. Ammo? Pet training? Keeping pet happy so it doesn’t run away? Mana as a resource? Nope. Not doing it.

I don’t have any trouble role playing as things are. I can still use my pet if I want. I can still feed it if I want. I don’t miss having sixteen different types of ammo and a special bag just to hold it.

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My very first character was a warlock (I still have him!), and man, I do NOT miss having to have a bag for soul shards. Now, spell reagents I didn’t mind so much. I played RS for a long time and got used to their magic system that using materials for spells wasn’t a deal-breaker, but good god I hated that loss of inventory.

I couldn’t get into hunters until like… Wrath. I think Mists was when I really got into it, but I think I liked it best in Legion with the survival changes. Kind thought that a ranger with two weapons and a ranged primary was sick, but hey, spears are cool too. :ok_hand:

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I have an alt I play as the “new” survival. I didn’t think I’d like it because I’m bad at melee, but it’s pretty fun.

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I think all the little RPG things that made classes so much more unique are what people mean by class fantasy.

Shamans have to carry their totems in their bags to use them. Rogues have to make poisons and apply them. Hunters have to take care of their pets. Bow or gun you had to carry ammo. We had alot of class specific quests to complete for our characters maturation from no spells to completed spellbook. You had certain spells that would require reagents. Warlocks had to sacrifice a party member to do that demon summon.
There was alot of cool little things and just other things that just kind of made sense RPG wise that were removed to make the game more convenient and that’s all fine and good… But alot of the OG players miss it because it made the game more interesting overall, even if it was more annoying sometimes because you ran out of ammo mid instance cause you were to dumb to buy enough before running in.

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I’d like to emphasize this.

Class fantasy is subjective and different player have developed different class fantasies for their character over the years where the previous mechanics of the class (like using a 2h weapon as a frost DK, for an example relevant to the toon I’m posting on) supported their concept of their character.

The devs in Legion made their subjective decision on what they thought “spec fantasy” for each spec was and it didn’t necessarily fit with previous ideas that were supported by previous options. Now it’s like ok frost melee spec, Army of the Dead isn’t frosty, so of course you don’t need it and the devs prune Army of the Dead and all presences among other things. It’s not like frost melee spec is part of a class called a Death Knight /facepalm.

When I think frost DK, once concept I have is that of a glacier - slow/hard hits on my weapon with powerful Obliterates - which is best fulfilled with a 2h weapon. I’m sure there are other players that have a different fantasy where dw is fine. Both concepts have been supported in the past and should be supported like they used to.

That’s just one example from the toon I’m posting on.

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My preferred idea of class fantasy is more in how the character is treated and the quests they are given. Classics class quests are a great expression of this, they let you feel like you are a paladin or warlock or whatever. Legion Order Halls were a good example of this too. Gameplay has it role to play as well but I don’t need to buy arrows to feel like a hunter. I would say that despite being a fan of BFA I do feel like that one of the areas where it feels lacking, especially after Legion, and class fantasy is my number one draw to classic.

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^This I could get behind if they brought it back.

^This, not so much.

Or you couldn’t use the new weapon because you had the wrong ammo.

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They used class fantasy many times in warlords. I guess demos class fantasy was to be heavily nerfed because blizzard didnt want people playing it.

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I am still salty about Glyph of Demon Hunting and Gladiator stance. Yeah, demon hunters became a thing, but man it was fun tanking early instances as a lock.

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I really love the class fantasy of being a zealot for my loa.

But a lot of the class fantasy erodes when you do some of the sillier, light-hearted quests.

My death knight found it strange to rescue bear cubs from the burning areas of Hyjal.

I did it for the xp but I’m sure he was spiking the cubs into the ground.

I wish class fantasy was achieved through more meaningful or class specific quests. But then the game would’ve been prohibitively expensive to develop.

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I have been playing warrior since cata and love the current state of warriors. My only criticism is arms mastery is a bit meh and not a huge fan of prots ignore pain.

I really like current rogue specs too

I can’t stand classic warrior it feels so garbage, clunky, weak and so damn annoying to play. Rogue feels much better in classic compared to classic warrior but still is well short of its contemporary wow state. I’m going with paladin now on classic purely for RP reasons. I fired up a new paladin on retail and straight away that felt much better to play, a true warrior of the light not some bard class/healer

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Classic paladin really is super bardy. Played a bard back in EQ, and being a mana battery and keeping resists up definitely made me ready to give paladin a go in WoW.

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That’s the problem. I went from being a combat rogue who was a spy whose specialty was reconnaissance, to a drunken pirate who liked to play dress-up and act like some 6 year old’s idea of what a pirate should be.

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I personally enjoyed mana hunter. And real volley

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i had my ultimate class fantasy a long time ago, back when death knights could use two-hand swords in frost spec.

but they took it away, and now i’m a stabby stabber stabbing things with toothpicks

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To me a big chunk of it is the game making you feel like what your character is… so like for mages, that’d be stuff like your mage being sent to go talk to Tabetha to make you a wand and later a staff or finding Archmage Xylem in his tower in Azshara to learn Polymorph: Pig.

So in other words, if you’re running around doing things that only your class would normally do, that’s and example of class fantasy. A lot of magic is sapped away from the game when you’re doing the same old thing as everybody else – you feel like Faceless DPS/Tank/Heals #2987372312 instead of whatever your class is.

The other big component is baseline class toolkits, e.g. all mages get Blizzard instead of just frost mages. These have been eviscerated across the board since The Great Pruning in WoD. It feels so indescribably wrong that my level 40 Classic mage uses a wider variety abilities across more schools than my 120 BfA mage does… it’s like somewhere along the line, my mage’s noggin got bonked a little too hard and he got downgraded from archmage to second rate single-school sorcerer.

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Yeh I sympathize. I know it’s not the same but Have you tried playing a spy as subtlety?

I remember on an RP realm I inhabited pre-MOP a lot of combat rogues rp’d similar to monks we now have in the game.

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For me, class fantasy should always come first, balance second, in a quest to get your resurrection spell at level 12 as a paladin, the paladin quest giver say - “Although called upon to smite evil in these harsh times, you must always remember that it’s aiding others that will truly set you apart from the citizens of Azeroth. Compassion, patience, bravery–these things mean as much to a paladin as strength in battle.”

Yes, even though I by all means intend to play ret in end game, I am a support class, that’s a paladin’s class fantasy and it reflects in my gameplay, in Dungeons I will DPS and throw off-heals in battle to aid my healer’s mana consumption, switch auras as it is needed, buff my companions. Help others in the world with their questing by healing and buffing them and helping them killing their targeted mobs.

That’s who I am, that’s the class I picked.

It’s a feel hard to describe, but I don’t feel it in retail, maybe it’s the fact that we are a spec, not a class, maybe the design of “Bring the player not the class” isn’t for me, with everyone doing everything, no class feels special…

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I’ve had the complete opposite effect. I’m having way more fun on my hunter on classic than I do on retail.