World of Warcraft: Current Year

Dandai_sl said:

Frost is a mix of tempo and DDR, whereas Arcane is all tempo and resource management. Fire is fishing for crits and knowing when/how to react to procs for the biggest damage.

I guess I should've remembered that not everyone cares about whether they're reaching their maximum potential. In light of this revelation, please accept my apologies. Here is a description that I think we can all agree with:

All classes play the same if you go into your LFR, hit 1-2-3 over and over, and push the pretty flashy buttons when they sparkle good.

Hope that settles it.

Click to expand...

Using a straw man and being a condescending little bitch is one way to go about things.

It would be much more interesting if arcane turned you into a battle mage and suddenly you are melee dps. It would truly change how the class plays instead of being a little more ddr than the other nuke from afar spec.

If you're trying to maximize your dps, and you have multiple dps specs - you dont really get the option to "choose" which one you get to play. All mage specs seem to be a revolving door based around equipment. Frost is almost always "acceptable" to "great", where fire can be shit, to out standing and the same goes for arcane. You have different spells and each spec acts different, but I wouldnt go so far as to say that each spec would be on the verge of being a class all on its own. So the 33 classes bit just makes me roll my eyes. If Frost was a Tank Spec, Arcane was a support spec and Fire was a dps spec - then I would agree with you. Otherwise....

Big W Powah!_sl said:

I love the mobility of the warrior, but I'm less and less inclined to melee these days.

I love the concept of a durable caster with lifetaps, but having forced locks into using pets to take the hits drove me away from them.

I had a BLAST in WotLK on my lock when I range tanked shit. I even enjoyed destro lock+imp blowing shit up and ember tapping my health back. They've just fucked my lock six ways from Sunday, I suppose. Petless lock with WotLK era healing abilities would be pimp shit.

Click to expand...

Shadow priest?

I would not say a mage is like 3 classes. That's a stupid arguement.

They are all basically immobile turrets that have their own name. If one was melee, was mobile and one was bursty you might have an arguement.

Are the three mage specs different from one another? Yes. Are they a LOT different in the way that each of the 4 Druid specs are nearly a completely different class / meet the needs of radically different archetypes? Hell no

Dandai_sl said:

Fair enough. They aren't classes in that one is melee dps, one is ranged dps, and one is a tank. In that case all of you are right and there are only 4 classes in the game. Sorry for my misunderstanding.

Click to expand...

Neckbeard arguments.

Qhue_sl said:

Are the three mage specs different from one another? Yes. Are they a LOT different in the way that each of the 4 Druid specs are nearly a completely different class / meet the needs of radically different archetypes? Hell no

Click to expand...

Once you start using different resources and mechanics, you can call it a different class. Druids fall under that argument and so do Demonology Locks.

I mean I would define class as....the class. There's 11? (checking my math) Yeah 11 classes. Instead of bickering about whether individual specs count or not, I want to know how someone got the count down to 6. Which actual classes are just complete clones in his eyes? I guess cat druids are just rogues with heals and shittier stealth, but nothing else stands out.

Also, be careful about calling for more classes. That's how you get Rift and their 40 or whatever pseudo-class bullshit. To clarify, it was cool having that much variety and possibilities for hybrid specs in Rift, what was bullshit was their trying to advertise them as 40 completely unique, individual classes.

The Rift class system was great, it was just shitty the way the ended up designing it.

DavivMcD_sl said:

I mean I would define class as....the class. There's 11? (checking my math) Yeah 11 classes. Instead of bickering about whether individual specs count or not, I want to know how someone got the count down to 6. Which actual classes are just complete clones in his eyes? I guess cat druids are just rogues with heals and shittier stealth, but nothing else stands out.

Also, be careful about calling for more classes. That's how you get Rift and their 40 or whatever pseudo-class bullshit. To clarify, it was cool having that much variety and possibilities for hybrid specs in Rift, what was bullshit was their trying to advertise them as 40 completely unique, individual classes.

Click to expand...

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FU-UN.

It isn't really about having 33 classes or 11, or whatever. It's about a variety. With Draenor (and probably earlier), they really neutered the uniqueness each class had. When I was leading raids I didn't give a shit what ranged classes showed up, just that ranged classes DID show up. I didn't care if it was a hunter, a mage, a warlock or.. ok I didn't want elemental shamans, but you get the point. I don't know what abilities each of those classes even had, I just wanted someone who could pewpew and not worry about them getting cleaved in the face.

Back in Vanilla at least every class felt different, now every class is normalized and shitty.

I'm sure they'll eventually bring something new in, but I want some new mechanics that differs from what is currently offered. It just seems like so much work to tune pve and pvp around anything new. Although if they'd already just separate the two somehow that would be great, still not sure why they don't after all this time.

I think I figured out my ideal change they could make to a WoW class.

Take a pet class (unholy DK would be acceptable), give it a low/no DPS pet/petstance that provided healing to either the master or raid (preferrably togglable; Stronger just on master, weaker to raid). Nothing that rivals actual heals, but something solid. Then give them a spec that doesn't do wonderful DPS on its own, but provides a shit ton of utility. I'm thinking lots of aDPS in the form of buffs to specific types of damage (physical or magic), solid CC, a couple debuffs, and make it somewhat dynamic to play. My wotlk demonology warlock was more adps than personal dps. It was fun to me.

I'm thinking DemoLock for magic, since they've already been lended this way. And actually unholy dk would probably be best for physical imho.

But anything where I'm more aDPS and provide CC/Healing utility over personal DPS and I'd be happy. It would have to be viable on raids, though.

It would be very challenging to balance correctly, which is why we probably do not see it.

Unfortunately the class changes I would want they've already had, and are clearly not going to bring back any time soon:

Shammy tanks: Not as much armor as the other tanks, but with mail, a shield, threat increasing abilities, good aoe, and heals they made pretty damn good offtanks and dungeon tanks back in the day.

Hunter pet tanks: Again never really viable as a main tank but they were tough enough to hold a couple of BC heroic trash mobs at the same time the hunter was trapping another 2 and kiting 2-3 more. Man I loved BC heroics on my hunter.

Atonement Disc Priests: Still exists but not nearly as good as it used to be. I assume because it was too much fun.

Warlock demo tanks. Everyone thought it was great then Blizzard said nope.

Man the shipyard quests on the PTR are bugged to hell. Would be nice if they actually worked. Tanaan Jungle is pretty fun. Like a massive Timeless Isle which I liked a lot.

DavivMcD_sl said:

Unfortunately the class changes I would want they've already had, and are clearly not going to bring back any time soon:

Shammy tanks: Not as much armor as the other tanks, but with mail, a shield, threat increasing abilities, good aoe, and heals they made pretty damn good offtanks and dungeon tanks back in the day.

Hunter pet tanks: Again never really viable as a main tank but they were tough enough to hold a couple of BC heroic trash mobs at the same time the hunter was trapping another 2 and kiting 2-3 more. Man I loved BC heroics on my hunter.

Atonement Disc Priests: Still exists but not nearly as good as it used to be. I assume because it was too much fun.

Click to expand...

The ORIGINAL 31enhance/20resto shaman was king shit. Too bad they fucked it up so fast.