"Ultimate" Class Fantasy

Community General Discussion
21

Yes, “specs as classes” doesn’t feel right to me either. Blizzard likes to position modern specs as advanced specializations of the original class, but because each spec is more or less just a subset of the abilities they had in the old system, specs don’t feel like classes… they feel like a singular slice of a class, which is pretty crummy.

Now if they went all the way with the concept and for example gave fire mages fiery replacements for all the arcane and frost abilities that were taken away from them, that might be ok – the spec would come feeling like a master pyromancer with a wide array of spells to use. As it is, though, specs come off as dollar store versions of what they’re being sold as.

22

D’aw. I really liked mana as a resource. Back in Wrath days though. Aspect of the Viper and all that? So much fun. Wrath survival + aspect dancing was unbelievably fun.

3 Likes
23

Retail feels like it only has 3 different classes. Those three archetypes are then split into the playable classes and given different aesthetics. This is the basis for WoW class design.

Warrior - (Warrior, Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Paladin)
Rogue - (Rogue, Hunter, Monk, Enh Shaman, Feral Druid)
Mage - (Mage, Warlock, Priest, Resto/Balance Druid, Ele/Resto Shaman)

And so on…

Game designers throw a lot of things at the player to alleviate/hide this problem such as different aesthetics, maybe some class lore, resource mechanics, specializations, items, the progression/regression cycle, whatever. That’s all well and good, I mean there’s only so much you can do if you want to keep the game balanced and relatively casual gamer friendly.

I think a lot of the people who insist that the classic way is best are probably players who long for a time where MMOs were different. Before WoW changed the game, the differences between classes in your typical MMO were stark.

You could play a Warrior, everything about your character abilities from the ground up screamed Warrior. You were slow, clunky, but you had a ton of health and you swung a giant axe. You knew exactly where your place was on the battlefield and you knew if you moved from that place you’d be punished. Additionally, MMO players just kind of accepted that certain class archetypes beat others. Rogue > Mage > Warrior > Rogue. The cycle of life.

Early MMOs were great at making classes feel distinct, but there was a perception amongst players even then that class balance was a serious game breaking issue. Balance whining, you see, was pervasive in the community from day 1. The Blizzard approach started with introducing the global 1 second cd and building out three class archetypes from there, probably hoping it would make balancing the game as easy as 1, 2, 3 and assure that there was no “rock paper scissors” going on. Of course, over time we’ve learned that even with that system it’s still incredibly difficult to pull off when you want your game to be balanced around every different type of pve and pvp at the same time.

24

I am confused on what part of insanely limited skill set and mostly auto-attacking makes a hunter more fun…

1 Like
25

That bothers me too. I enjoyed combat rogue as well and am not enjoying outlaw rogue nearly as much. I hate how they seem to have essentially removed some specs like ranged survival and combat rogue. That should’ve never been done.

If they wanted to add a 4th spec that’s pirate-themed then I would’ve been fine, and the same thing with adding a melee survival spec. Neither spec (plus the re-imagining of disc priests into a dps/heal hybrid) should’ve come at the cost of essentially deleting already existing specs.

I’d like to see combat rogues, old-style disc priests, and ranged survival hunters restored (plus any others that I’m forgetting). Deleting specs that players enjoyed is a good way to upset players, and that’s not a good thing at all.

26

Because there’s more to it than just auto attacking. It’s not mostly auto attacking. You have to conserve your mana and actually think about when to use spells while in retail I just gotta slam my head on the keyboard over and over. Well not really but basically just spam the same buttons without thinking.

27

Yeah really hard juggling the 2-3 attacks with CD on each of them in classic. Also if you spam buttons w/o thinking in WoW then you are doing a really bad job of DPSing.

1 Like
28

I have to agree with Hamstar on this one. I’ve had people try to tell me during the beta that using spells and abilities less is more intuitive, and I get resource management. I really do. But one of the reasons why I gravitated more to warlock in the beginning was because mana was less of an issue, and playing a spellcaster that has to really limit how much of their spells they use isn’t my idea of a good time.

More power to the people who have fun with that, but adding more abilities and allowing players to use them more frequently didn’t turn the game from an RPG into an “action game” like a lot of people on the Classic forums seem to be saying. It just made things more involving, and personally, I like it that way.

In the current version of the game, you don’t just slam your head over the keyboard. This isn’t Cata Arcane mage where you can literally faceroll your keyboard. There’s procs, there’s CDs, rotations that have far more variety than earlier iterations of the game… TONS of things. Saying it’s just keyboard mashing is a gross oversimplification, if not outright incorrect.

1 Like
29

Class quests help with the color - its what made Legion engaging in a lot of ways. As do the trainers, a bit, even if it is a little tedious.

The problem for me in retail is that it feels more like you are playing your spec over your class.

In classic I am a druid - I have a relatively full tool kit regardless of what form I’m in. That toolkit is enhanced by my talent choices, but the full kit is there. Even if I am spec’d into resto I can be a bear and be a cat. In retail I can choose a second form to have a small amount of cross over with, an then I get like one or two spells from the other.

In 8.2 they further pushed the spec focus by removing access to certain abilities that are “druid” abilities when not in your main form. Cats can’t cast battle rez in cat form any more, no one but bear spec can cast moonfire in bear form. This makes the idea of class fantasy feel less significant and shows a move toward spec fantasy.

Mage is another good example. I can only cast one spell school in retail. I don’t even have access to weak versions of spells from other schools. Rogue changes the entire kit between specs.

There is no crossover or room for creativity. Its all pretty much forced, on the rails game play. Some classes have some flavor spells, but as shaman - who uses farsight in PvE in retail? You don’t need it. The game design leaves no room for those kind of things to be used in any real useful way.

I think its the tools and utility and unique kit classes once had that made that fantasy more significant. As they have taken those away, and give those tools to more classes, its watered it all down a bit.

4 Likes
30

Like almost everything else in the game iteration happened. Some of it was good and some of it wasn’t, and where each item falls is dependent on the individual making the declaration.

For me I liked the fact that I had access to almost every spell and ability regardless of specialization. How I put them together was mostly up to me, and how I felt like playing on a given day, even though I will acknowledge that even back then there was a “best” solution.

I think BC and Wrath iterations were significant improvements, although the 51 point talents got a little out of hand in Wrath.

One of my biggest Vanilla/Classic likes is the synergy between classes. I know they are not truly equal, but each class provided certain bonuses that made them useful to bring along because those benefits to the raid outweighed the pure numeric DPS loss of leaving them out.

I’d love retail to return the talent trees, class counters, and inter-class synergy. I also know there are plenty of people who would leave the game if you gimped their character’s class and spec while boosting their groups. But heaven forbid we create a MMO built around working with other people.

31

I dunno. Casters don’t suffer as much but modern melee feels very action game-y to me, especially demon hunters and monks. White damage making up a good portion of your DPS isn’t great but I’m not really a fan of filling every GCD with an active ability either. Somewhere in between I think would feel right.

Rotations might be better in endgame stuff BfA classes, but when it comes to outdoor content spell variety, at least for modern mages is terrible compared to that of their classic counterparts. At level 40 my classic mage is reaching for a much wider variety of spells on a regular basis than this 120 mage does, which is bonkers and totally upside down. My 120 BfA mage should be absolutely flooring the classic 40 mage in that regard, having access to everything the 40 has and more.

32

Classic people are afraid of changes: they feel comfortable in a game they know from the inside out. It’s ok if you enjoy Classic. I am happy for you.

2 Likes
33

It’s basically the same in retail now what do you mean?

34

You are not sitting there in WoW waiting on your couple of attacks to come off of CD or need to be refreashed while just sitting there auto attacking. Classic = mostly auto attacking.

2 Likes
35

Because you have to think about how to use your attacks. You don’t really need to think when it comes to retail.

36

How do you have to think about attacks that don’t exist? You have 2-3 abilities that all have CD’s and most of your damage is from pet and auto-attack. You have to think if you are going to use arcane shot or…just keep auto attacking? In raids you can’t even use your stings (unless you are the designated one hunter to keep scorpiod sting on). So what are you doing that requires so much thought?

1 Like
37

Well first off, your pet does NOT do as much damage as you think. In fact, you have to micro manage your pet when it comes to raiding. Also, your rotation can be slightly different depending on the speed of your bow, crossbow, gun etc. Also, you don’t use arcane shot in your rotation. And if someone needs you to trap something you need to call your pet off, feign death to come out of combat and then drop a trap. Also, if your pet can’t be in the fight because of aoe, then if you’re using say a wolf, then you have to keep casting the pets spells for it and you also want to make sure your pet isn’t dumping focus too quick.

38

Why should my spec be so similar with others as hunter? It was bad enough to be crapped on for being beastmastery for not playing survival in mop cause it was op