Another cliff note that came to me, and it doesn’t matter too much in this time of age for wow. but warlocks had access to physical (debatably, currently in SoD I deal an efficient amount of physical I’m sure it molded or started as shadow in retail because by time it was released the gameplay sped up alot making caster things more caster and element not matter as much completely removing auto attack. but in the grand scheme of things, I’m sure they could have fit physical into their kit if they kept an open mind and updated somethings as well as given locks meta more physical dmg options kinda like titans grip but for locks dualwielding one handed swords) dmg , shadow, fel and fire. while as DH only have access to Fire and fel ( chaos ) and limited shadow (the physical part really gets drowned out by the whole rotation, so it feeds into DK’s anti magic shield and things like fel shield for locks pvp talent) I’m not entirely sure if nether ward does it, but I know back in Shadowlands it did it. I also know Blizzards reputation on simplifying and removing things though…
going back to I feel they really unnecessarily cut a class in half and broke it into two weaker parts. now locks can’t deal in physical ( outside of fel guard ) and DH borderline can’t deal in shadow like they can fire Selectively I know they have some kit but take classic where infernals are immune to fire, I had enough of a shadow kit in SoD to fight it while-as Most the DH start up is fire or fel (chaos) so they’d outright be resisted with little peppers of shadow dmg, I unno call me an old soul (I’m pretty young still in my 20’s but x3 ) I loved those kind of mechanics that got you to get out of your chair and be like “oh fire is immune to fire, makes sense” and if someone like warlocks Fel shield or something of the like was my target I’m essentially getting resisted like there’s no way for A DH to shift gears where A meta warlock could always change the way they play to adapt to the enemy, so take a death knight if meta warlock was kept adaptable and updated meta locks would have been able to give DK’s a run for their money likely having a small pure melee kit like some of the demons more steel, physical like capabilities (vs a clustered Fel/Fire with a small shadow kit all revolving around each other/DH retail) as apposed to a death knight popping anti magic shield and just overwhelming a lock with Brain freeze, Asphyxiation,
as A death knight player I really have no issue with really any casters because they just can’t get away fast enough to hurt me, and I simply beat them to death to heal myself all while negating most their attacks or outright blocking them it so tyranical and fun, but I’d have more fun watching a lock bounce out at me as a demon and when I pop anti magic shield they just barrage me with physical non-dot moves then when the shield fades they start hitting me with dots, the games just gotten so simple now its singular kit vs kit with a few classes still retaining some creativity like druids… imagine if we got Wardens instead centered more around anti fel and cleansing and maybe even lore in that whole function on anti fel which i think that divide is imporant, druids, dks, warriors retained that creative kit because there truely unique Dh’s fall so short of that and would have stayed more healthy connected to Locks, if they took druids cat form and bear form turned them into a class named shapeshifter then replaced that whole with “night warrior” i promise both classes will die like locks and DHs.
rewatching the WoW movie and just playing legion it reminds me there’s like a anti fel the blue stuff that seems way too effective on demons and like fel, like the tainted orcs. that would have been received pretty well and actually have a longer lifetime not step on anyones toes and maybe add in more of a cleansing punishing class to fit itself in the merry balance that we had and nicely stand beside rouges not stripping them, (I know its not talked about but I was also playing combat rouge at the time, they took… a nice amount of things from them and turned it into a pirate class that have very slowly been given back in its own form just to iterate I do mean classe"s" ) rather than them stripping a viable pseudo DH class (Warlocks meta) and a few other classes to make a half baked DH class. I know alot of people wanted wardens at the time of legions release and ive heard out crys for caster punishing plate wearer (and not dks, dks are dks… unholy wielders of death magic, im talking someone who punishes them too, just outright spell, caster magic user punishers) , which sounds like wardens… but instead we have DHs and no more story to introduce wardens ever again… and demo locks wanting there meta, not all but enough that i think blizzard really should have played there cards differently, I think there’s more than enough difference with the warden classes then every other class that they could have set the line for (Much more then they have for Demo lock and DH’s the most they got going for them as … one summons…one doesn’t, but for arguement sake its because one doesn’t wanna the other does…the lines so thin it may as well be the same class split among two different characters given to one race for…some reason when it can be all the races that dabble in demon magic/locks, as Illidan wasn’t too much further from a lock that had meta) and it may have even centered the whole story with the wardens, I honestly felt pretty disconnected to everything in legion on multiple classes adding wardens would have given legion that wotlk touch but instead of creating monsters (Deathknights) it would have been noble wardens resisting the fels temptation, and in all honesty it feels like the way they did it felt a reboot of wrath just poorly done DH style the city being like ew… then saying okay. atleast the warden way would have been different, more honored with some underhand and temptation that can be done to all classes. the wardens would have offered more than A demon hunter class using a one class only warglave weapon, the wardens glaves could probably have been shared among other classes as we already have warden glave replicas for those classes (rouges and warriors) all while wardens would retain their own identity.
Because debatably warglaves from DH are more attuned to their class, where as Meta warlocks could have gotten them in the way they make weapons more focused on Meta locks. (so maybe a int/agility sword more specialized toward locks then tank pallys I guess giving them a fancy buff for their demon form, but like might fit a pally if its an upgrade it’s not like they can’t just go mog it if they dont like the style given them grey text but decent stats where meta locks gain it, and giving everyone something rather then just outright being like glaves are only for DH’s only, some people like myself like to cosplay other classes cus its fun, the most a warrior can do is go fish for the warglaves of azz to do that. then again I know they made loot not local anymore around that time. so I guess it matters little aside from giving the creators and developers more work on creating weapons for one singular class that visually looks like warglaves, then designing warglaves for meta locks but can be used as cosmetics for most all classes that can use a sword.
it really helps not box in a class while allowing for more creative powers to design, now anytime they design a warglave its purely DH only. any time they design anything for any class now it’s like their dropping goodies into each class, back then each xpack added so much to all classes, and thats what really had me excited not a new class but a new everything, for death knights that was pretty cool, for monks that was cool but that’s because they were an entirely new class and entirely their own thing introduced in an entirely new world even dracthyr were sorta cool I feel they might have been poorly received because they were a singular class/race combo, DH were just released and now we got two class/race combos that can glide it just wasn’t as unique and impressive, new classes should be a more endearing game design decision should not just introduce any new kit as a class and then kinda abandon the class, what DH’s were is what deathknights were but how it was for every class each Xpac now its like classes get little to nothing other than a very underwhelming rework honestly Dh’s was the first mistake of game design shift, it should have been locks demon spec rework (And not as profound as it was a demon zoo, just demo tanking and having a more perma meta option with like demons grip for dual wielding warglaves, which honestly sounds so much better as were dealing with the legion… who gave illidan his powers… and warlocks can now get meta on the level of illidan like bam. not we had them all imprisoned and now there were letting dh’s free into the wild to go play while demo locks can now summon a unnautal zoo of demons that would have them normally executed for working with the legion. Wardens are so much more complimenting then booting current Demo locks and remodling the whole house) wardens fill that new class role if they insisted on a new class so bad, OR just upgrade every class dodge the new warden class give demo locks what they had and promote them to full time tanks, and give every class some love they deserve from the titans… or the legion instead of starving everyone and giving legion artifacts that got scrapped at the end of the xpac so there was honestly no gain and a tumor of a class DH’s. and now sometimes we get another class dropped in not knowing its about to be starved and reworked to high hell before it see’s any new development or growth I was honestly suprised to see Attunement for dracthyr I thought blizzard was running on so many fumes it could only muster two specs a class, blizzard is really shooting themselves in the foot with half the game choices theyve made since Legion. and I think that hero talents is supposed to be some sort of life saver to that issue… but theres only so much they can add to it before its another talent tree within a talent tree… thats controlled, rather then allowing dual specing… and making there job easier just managing three talent trees and not… 6? each class, 3 of which fall under a new name that’s not talents and is likely get neglected or just scrapped in the next two xpacs giving it the benfit of the doubt.
Blizzard really just put so much weight onto themselves when they could have more expertly appealed to the audience, added to their game and kept things simple enough to balance and grow I didn’t mind the talent tree’s growing allowing new ways to spec, Specs themselves being able to be mix and matched, some things on talent tree’s becoming natural born abilities while adding new talents in there sted having new story to transverse.
all the idea’s I push forth would have fit perfectly into things while fitting the story and not branching out so far fetched like at this point warglaves should be a bit more rare because…were not in legion, were not fighting the legion… and were not fighting demon hunters, its almost indie to see warglaves drop from enemies just because we have demon hunters which by the way… can only be wield by…Demon hunters even though we just fought persay a ton of things that shouldn’t have warglaves because there not demon hunters, and maybe they’d have lil’ easter eggs with camps of DH or like stray DH …or like even demons where you kill them (kinda like those rare enemies) and they have warglaves for cosmetics and just a decent item for Lock metas or pally tanks that could use it as a temp replacement. they tried so so hard to make DH there own class, to make them so independent theyve become the tumor version of Dk’s not quite making it up to their light, Dk’s are so glorious in story, origin and just game design, power design. that they killed off what was arthas retconned the whole lore and still I love to reroll A dk I love playing it, it just plays so well even as blizzard tries to change it and rework it, because its a good damn class thats really hard to change, just like locks still lock, but rn Dh’s are just some…overrated version of what they should have been, even know they play as if a spec had a class… it just feels so bad playing it and some people who main them think the same, if I hadn’t fallen in love with wrath and dk’s i’d be maining a DH and complaining for more kit, more reworks for some life vest to save the class, even the hero talents are like a spec of a spec its sooooo bad and I try soooo hard to make it not bad but its just as hard as it was for blizzard to convince themselves to leave demo where it belongs with locks, and just adding more to them, and allowing nelves to have the lock class. ( kinda ran on a tangent there but I feel it all fits, so just placing this here for viewing and opinions I’ve proof read it a couple times, but if anyone wants to tell me where I should look back at and edit more or just fix because its too hard to understand I’ll happily go back and fix anything. x3 <3 )