World of Warcraft: Current Year

Maybe I'm just bad, but having not played for a few years and starting back up recently I really hated how enhancement played in Legion. It felt like I was playing whack-a-mole with weakaura icons. Having to hit a button every GCD just felt really spammy compared to cataclysm when you were still hitting things as they came off cooldown but you had some free time in the rotation to think/plan ahead.

This is part of the reason why WoW is fundamentally permabroken. With only three actual 'roles', two of which are needed in very small numbers, there's far too much emphasis on DPS as a one-dimensional attribute.

I've often thought there should be many more synergistic elements shared between the classes in the realm of support and pseudo-symbiosis.

The fights in antorus require 2-3 tanks and 3-6 healers, and a mix of rdps and mdps (they're definitely separate entities now). I think a support role like Bard would be cool, no idea how they'd balance it though.

I also don't think wow or combat in general.is broken. It is spammy, but it's also the most fluid out of any MMO ever.

Some of this is the players fault. Without the ability to directly measure someones contribution to the group in easy to read numbers any sort of real support class just wouldnt really be played and/or welcome unless they were so overpowered that not having one was obvious. I would love to see a support type role, and would likely play one. I just dont think it would work in this game.

I did love leveling disc protes with the whole dmg/healing split. Seems to get infinitely harder to do right in a raid. Reminds me of some of the odd mixed support class/specs from Warhammer online.

I loved the 'Archon' class from Rift which was very much all about support but probably went too far into the 'must have' category simply because it was ubiquitous and singular in nature. It would, however, be cool if Death Knights had a natural synergy with Shadow Priests and a synergy between the different types of DK such that the group was greater than the sum of its parts.

Then again the elimination of all the timed encounter stuff might also help in that it would offer different modes of success other than winning as fast as possible or needing to be as fast as possible in order to squeek in under the enrage timer. Imagine if you had the option of different strategies that still accomplished the same goal but took different time or coordination commitments.

It would suck hard because then every raid would require 1 of each dk and a spriest. Etc.

Same as bard .they'd have to be good enough that they'd be better than not having one

they are semi doing that with some class buffs. like DH buffing the raids magic damage.

we won't see pure support classes in WoW at least in its current form, with its current developers. you probably also aren't going to see Qhue mentioned above, usually top 5 guilds in the world kill something and most guilds after them view it as the only viable strat. i got into a long bitching session with my last guild leader about not doing something he saw on a youtube video from Method because it wasn't the best way for our comp.

Know what's great about true support classes? Because there is no way to directly measure what they bring to the table pretty much only good players play them. I'm smart enough to know what the class is capable of so I don't give a shit if they don't "parse" well, and now I have my pick of the litter when I want to create groups because the rest of the playerbase doesn't understand they're worth bringing.

Khane said:

Know what's great about true support classes? Because there is no way to directly measure what they bring to the table pretty much only good players play them. I'm smart enough to know what the class is capable of so I don't give a shit if they don't "parse" well, and now I have my pick of the litter when I want to create groups because the rest of the playerbase doesn't understand they're worth bringing.

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I think you would have extremes, also get mouth breathing retards/wives playing shouting you cant judge me by parse.

Why would I care what they say about their own ability? Doesn't matter to me what you think about your skill. And that shit happens as it is anyway. You cannot properly judge a healer by their parses so what's the difference if they add support classes?

a c i d.f l y said:

In the realm of WOW, if it's not measurable, you aren't being invited. Especially with the current culture of folks needing their logs reviewed before being invited. I do miss when all of that shit wasn't a thing, and you knew a player was good simply by the fact that you accomplished things together, but these days that isn't enough, and people aren't patient enough to deal with low hanging fruit.

Part of the reason I'm so interested in Sea of Thieves. No scores, no stats. Open ended. Designed to be a pure time sink at its core. But that's a separate conversation.

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That's not what I'm talking about but it's also not strictly true. It's just hive mind. If a popular streamer says it's good then everyone will be looking for that class, regardless of whether their performance is measurable.

Yea there are still a bunch of popular streamers/channels that sway the popular opinion on what's good and what's not for things like M+. I mean, anytime Sco releases a "Here's how I rank current tanks" you'll see people clamoring for only the tanks he calls top 2... for high end bleeding edge world first content pushing... even though we just need to clear the first 5 bosses in Normal.

You're not wrong that prevailing assumptions about support classes would probably keep them out of groups initially. People like big numbers. But the popular opinion is easily swayed by things other than just that. I think it could work, though I also don't really care because like you said Blizzard is shit at balancing and they overreact in stupid ways when something becomes OP.

Ive often thought a Bard could sort of act like how a Healadin heals you for more the closer they are to you. Bringing Twisting back to life in WoW, where Bards would have an arsenal abilities that correlate to each type of play style. A 20 player raid having up to three comfortably. A bard for the tanks and melee dps, A bard for the healers, and a bard for the ranged dps. Each specializing in a tree that would give them the best songs for the classes theyre playing too. Being able to fine tune to each, or be a jack of all trades for dungeons. Up close getting maximum effect, further away getting extremely low.

As far as an Enchanter goes - every boss mob that is fought is going to use an ability. It would be up to the Enchanter to steal that momentum from raid target. The Raid Target viciously slams the ground in a tight animation. The enchanter could capture that cast, and go different ways with it. Steal the momentum of the slam so that the raid gains a buff of some sort. Slow the ability down to a manageable speed. etc. Each boss ability type having some attribute that can be stolen or changed.

Bards based off Hunters, Druids and Rogues. Enchanter based off Warlock, Priest, and Mage. So their basic kit is still there to do moderate damage under that role.

Measured success is how many abilities were stolen or altered, how many people had buffs, how many buffs were used. Honestly, a support class would breathe new life into WoW for me. I would dive right into the class.