Why I Think This Expansion is the Worst:

Community General Discussion
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Okay, so. Had time to look over and think over everything. You know, sit back, recline, play things from different perspectives.

Here is my barometer of a good expansion:

  1. Is there content?
  2. Can anyone do said content, barring handicap?
  3. Can anyone progress through this content?

If either of these questions is, “No,” we have a problem.

Let’s go through my barometer:

  1. Is there content? Yes. Plenty of systems. Things to do on multiple characters. A+ things to do. Time-gated, I understand why it’s time-gated.

  2. Can anyone do said content, barring handicap? This is where we’re hitting the fan.

  • Short answer: No.
  • Long answer. Definitely not. Some classes have been outright gutted and destroyed. Some of the best raiders I’ve run with have been complaining about how they’re never going to play Holy Priest or Disc Priest ever again. As a Brewmaster tank, I’m able to survive things that, well… put it this way.

As one Blood Death Knight tank friend (on a mythic team) I have said: “Notice how you don’t have to kite? I’d be dead on that pull.”

  1. Can anyone progress through this content?

  • Let me provide some of my background. I’ve played since 2007. Raided/pugged raiding in Wrath, Cataclysm, and so on. I primarily main tank. If I play a class, I go to the main guides - Icy-veins, primarily, and watch videos from Method, and so on. Not because I’m a try-hard, but because I want to know what I’m doing and focusing on. I usually can end up in the top 70-80 percentile of any class I play. I know what all my talents, abilities, and cooldowns do. If you put me in as a Brewmaster or Warrior tank, I’m going to have a field day and I’d argue I’m one of the best you’ll deal with (not including the crazy people who do mythic raiding).

  • I enjoy testing and playing the game. There are certain rules that I’ve found since last expac and now. Do not bring a holy or disc priest on M+. If you bring a paladin tank on M+ - because of changes, they’ve sacrificed survivability for utility. Do not play a Windwalker Monk. Ever. If it’s Ragnaros, Azralon, or Gallywix - reject them immediately.

Now that we’ve gone through these things, I wish to tell you that 2 and 3 have half-failed and completely failed.

When you pick a class and say, “I want to do the function of this class,” and said class cannot perform as compared to others in content that was designed for everyone to play - you’ve wasted all your time and effort.

It’s not that holy priest’s fault who was healing me in my guild - he was blowing up all his mana to keep people alive for almost no return. In fact, I was healing more than him and kept myself alive longer than he kept the group (and myself) did during an M0 fight. With a vivify here and there, I even kept another DPS up longer. Yes, he had all the best talents and even a legendary to help him.

Torghast: It’s supposed to be out main way of getting our legendary equipment. What happens when you have a class that cannot perform? They cannot progress. “Oh, but anima powers,” yes. Let’s contribute RNG to determining if an already handicapped class can progress. If he doesn’t get progressively more powerful through that floor - he loses. Period. Fact. Sometimes luck isn’t on your side and you waste over an hour to get stonewalled by something you couldn’t get the power for.

Some classes and specs are absolutely great with some of the abilities that exist in Torghast, while others are not. Like a class that can burn through layer 3 or 4 of Soulforge, but not even get past floor 2 on Coldheart, due to not having the tools for the situation.

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It’s why I won’t play this character.

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They aren’t the best raiders if they are complaining about disc priests.

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Depends on content. Once again.

They’re not the best in certain types. PVP? Love them.

M+ - their main schtick - absorbs - is not very effective (edit, due to people wanting to argue definitions). Things just railroad tanks at that point. Tank learns to kite or eat the floor.

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So Shadowlands is the worst because classes still need balancing. Thats not too bad honestly, considering how many other things could go wrong. Its an easy fix that can happen throughout the expansion.

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The problem is - they should have known this already. There was a LOT of beta feedback. They ignored it.

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My honest feeling about SL overall:

I think its a decent expansion thats degraded with overwhelming time gates and forced content.

I think by the expansions end it will be a middle of the pack C tier xpansion.

The torghast and maw will be remembered as island expeditions and warfronts were, only more hated since people will be forced into it all expansion. BFA it was pretty much by the time you realized you hated the side content of IE/WF you never had to really do it again.

I expect a massive content/announcement mid expansion related to a total overhaul of WOW for the next expansion that will overshadow the problems and issues of the last two expansions and set conversation on a totally different tangent.

When asked years from now most people probably wont remember SL for anything specific, which is why i think its a C tier expansion…a gap filler between where they want to go and what they have to do…

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This is a little convoluted for a conversation about spec balance.

I agree that the balance is whacky ATM, and I don’t think this is a good expansion just yet, but those two things are not completely related.

Balance could be perfect, numbers could be excellently tuned. That won’t change the horrible grindy mechanics and layered systems we got this time around.

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I dont think they ignored it, I simply think they had more things to worry about when getting SL ready to ship. I highly doubt they ignored all of the feedback. Do they need a bigger team that can allow them to focus more on class balancing? Maybe. Were they just sitting back and twiddling their thumbs until release? If so then some people should have been fired

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People don’t really get what I’m saying here.

You could balance everything to do the same amount of DPS. I don’t care.

The issue is tool-kits. Some classes are equipped to do things others aren’t and can’t do.

As a resto shaman healer, it’s just nuts to have all those options. I have a fear/charm removal, heroism, raid-wide cooldowns, a polymorph, one of the only ranged interrupts in the game, a 1 minute tank, a cooldown to reduce damage, and all of it.

On the other hand - Holy doesn’t really get that much.

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That is simply not true. Disc is holding their own in M+.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/25#metric=hps

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Sounds like players didn’t 1 shot something and are now frantically looking for scapegoats.

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Plenty of systems doesn’t mean plenty of content especially when you can do all of those systems on the night of the reset.

Maybe he’s just playing his class wrong? As a healer, mana management is a skill as well as knowing fights so you can be ready for heavy damage situations.

I have to disagree, I just think people have become terrible at the game because of how easy it was in the past few expansions. It’s been a minute since there was an actual challenge in the game.

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You could have saved the spiel and just said: “Classes aren’t balanced.” It’s just another one of those threads.

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WHY I THINK THIS EXPANSION IS THE WORST:

for me, so far, its the best content since mists. But i dont get into competitive play. I like the little nothing quests that just give some personality to the game…like the wheel barrel race I just did.

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you are still describing spec balance. Number tuning is not the only type of spec balance. Kit capacity is also spec balance.

But, yes, I thoroughly dislike Shadowlands kit designs. I’m playing the expansion mostly for Xmogs.

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Miiiight wanna check your own link there.

Disc Priest at #2.

Holy priest at #7.

Next drops to #23.

Then 30s.

Look at comparative representation as to priests versus the other classes.

But, looking at that chart, I now feel REALLY bad for Mistweavers.

Mage Tower says otherwise. Regardless.

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Might want to read what you wrote.

This is patently false.

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https://raider.io/news/111-player-spotlight-moadmoad

This is what they were before. Scroll to the charts. Don’t call patently false with me, young priest. I had to deal with you all last expac.

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I feel like people always go into a panic about Disc being trash at the start of each expansion.

And it’s always ultimately fine because the spec scales well.

Also I think Disc benefits the most from groups knowing the encounters compared to other healing specs, since a lot of their healing is pro-active or requires a bit of set up.