And which don’t?
Also, do you think the relatively difficult or high apm classes should be rewarded with higher DPS output or should Blizzard normalize skill rotation difficulty?
I’m also wondering whether devs account for utility when adjusting damage outputs and where they set the baseline (e.g., top 5% players in M+ or mythic raid) when they do balance patches.
It’s about equal to be quite honest. There are specs that are somewhat easier to execute an adequate DPS rotation on but when it comes to actually playing a spec to its full potential including all utility they are all on pretty equal footing.
So while I think some classes are easier to do the bare minimum on, all of them are about the same to play well.
They don’t tune with difficulty in mind at least in M+. Ret has had seasons where it has been meta, and disc is meta despite being the easiest healer in M+, and VDH is frequently meta despite the “hardest” tank being brewmaster which is the worst right now.
Higher APM should only be slightly rewarded with higher DPS. I say this as someone who loves complex classes.
It’s hard to say in the current gamestate because I’m just returning but Demon Hunter was insanely easy. So I’d vote them for easiest. The hardest is probably some kind of Warlock or Shaman.
It depends if ur a pve or pvp player.
IF you play PVE melee classes require the most skill and mechanic dodging,
If your pvp Ranged classes require the most skill and Mechanic dodging.
PVE imo prolly rogue anything.
PVP imo prolly a demo warlock.
Mostly I agree with this, but there’s some outliers. Windwalker comes to mind, and shadow isn’t what I’d classify as easy either, but it’s more the turreting on Shadow + encounter design pushing the difficulty. Rogue is way up there beyond most specs too.
I’d argue in PvP the most vulnerable classes can also be the hardest to play, even though it’s somewhat “easy” to do insane numbers. Demo Warlock is definitely ridiculously hard though, even if they’re bulkier than a Mage.
Outlaw is at least. The others aren’t that bad.
And yeah Shadow is kind of made artificially difficult by the need to channel so often in encounters that are designed to keep you dancing. You end up clipping half of your channels and it just feels bad.
I did a motherlode the other day that I played shadow for and I don’t know what it is but I just dislike it now. I don’t feel that it’s “difficult” as much as I feel that it’s just not very good.
High-apm =/= complex. Fury exists, after all.
I haven’t played feral in a while, but it used to be one of the more difficult specs to play well. I think unholy is in the same boat.
And I do think they tune based on utility, at least to some degree. Hpal seems to get hit on occasion because of this.
I dunno, Mistweaver is pretty darn easy. Shaman seems easy too.
To answer the OP, I’d personally rather harder specs/classes have advantages over the others. Or have it to where we’re in a situation of high-complexity classes vs situationally-complex classes. Finger gymnastics vs push your buttons at the right time.
Disc Priest feels like a good example of the later. A lot of power in short intervals, can’t just go blowing everything like you can with Mistweaver. Need to know the fight through and through first to make the right calls.
Yeah disc is fun because of the planning involved with it. You can get through fights without necessarily knowing them inside and out but when you do know them you’ll start to see huge HPS bursts after your ramps are timed for damage events.
Another point is that specs which are tuned better become easier. It’s now easier to meet any healing check on disc even if you are making more mistakes than an equally skilled prevoker because the tuning on disc is so good. The prevoker could know just as much, but be able to do less about it.
Admittedly windwalker even feels artificially difficult. From an apm standpoint it’s not terrible it’s more that you’re having to resource manage several moves into the future between chi and energy. Felt like it had 1 chi spender too many and that was causing some massive clunk in the rotation. Ends up being a play the UI game, and depending on what talents you take you might even have an extra channel that clipping is pretty bad.
Windwalker’s hard for the wrong reasons. At least the Celestial version. Hit Combo becomes second nature after long enough, but ignoring energy during burst windows feels weird. Class feels crowded in a bad way.
And then you have the monster that is Shadow Priest. Arguably the coolest sounding DPS of all time and yet it suffers from mobility problems with unfriendly AOE cooldowns.
Even if they fix Shadow’s damage in S3, it’ll still feel like crap to play. Better mobility/cooldowns would go a long way.
I feel like there’s complexity and simplicity in most if not all the specs. Even ret you can have a talent build that includes a few more buttons to press, or you can keep it simple with mostly passives.
That seems like the structure to me for most classes. Passives and simplicity, and then talent choices with more control that add more buttons and complexity.
At least one facet of difficulty at least.
having a caster with as much channeling as spriest has going on, it really needs something like one of the channels being castable while moving (my vote goes to void torrent), or a blink you can hit without interrupting the channel.
Definitely agree on windwalker. It’s super bloated. It has a lot of chi spenders, and if you take Dance you’ve got another one you’re using on single target more often. You might have CJL to worry about instead too. Possibly even Chi Burst. It’s death by a thousand bar slots while the actual APM isn’t bad at all. The main issue I ran into was resource management felt really dodgy with all the chi spenders/energy consumption.
You can cast void torrent on the move, if you go voidweaver for your hero tree. Feels super nice. Priest needs an interrupt and revamped mobility and I’d love it.
Depends on the level of content you do.
It’s easier to perform well in say heroic than mythic because of it being easier to focus on damage and you don’t need to be as worried about defensives.
It can be harder to master an easy spec than to be ok at a hard spec. By that I mean maximizing your play and using the class to its full potential.
Each spec will have its little niche/tricks to get damage/ect.
The best bet is to find a class or two you really enjoy playing.
Leap of faith choice node where you can fly TO your target instead of pulling them. And yeah I was playing archon last time I tried to dps on my priest. That does make voidweaver more compelling. Permanent sprint is kinda nice, but more often than not I want something on the level of roll, blink, etc. I need to close a gap or quickly get out of something without having to run for 1-3 gcds. Body and soul seems kinda redundant.
Unsure for most skill but least skill bm hunter lol