Which classes have a coherent developer vision and direction?

Anias · 01/09/07, 11:21 AM

As the title says, I thought it might be interesting to have a discussion about the clarity of the developer vision going into TBC for the various classes. I'd prefer to avoid having this turn into a bitch session about everyone's favorite class's percieved shortcomings, and instead focus on what you view to be well thought out and implemented portions of your class.

We spend a lot of time theory crafting, a moderate amount of time bitching, and some other time puzzled. It might be helpful to have a thread for celebrating the successes of the developement as well.

I'll kick it off. From what I have seen, going into the burning crusade, priests seem to have a remarkably well developed and coherent class vision. They are dps/healer hybrids, with a well structured pvp, healer, damage talent set, and synergestic abilities. In particular, the design of mass dispel and prayer of mending both create dynamic and interesting play decisions, and the interaction between prayer of mending and shadow word death in 5 mans is quite elegant. Add to this a well rounded dps tree, a very nicely structured holy tree (yes there's some problems but the overall appeal is good) and a solid disc tree and I think this class is on target for what blizzard intends. (It also helps that what blizzard intends seems to be very obvious)

So what do you admire about the developer "vision" for wow 2.0?

(I suspect this thread may help some of the people who are dissatisfied with their current class find another class that suits their internal want-list better, assuming we can keep it coherent.)

• Ultramagnetic · 01/09/07, 12:05 PM

I was very happy to see Intervene added to the warrior class. While it's been possible to simulate that functionality with intercept and taunt, the "lore" concept of a warrior rushing to someone's defense seems better. Until now, pulling a mob off another player from range has only been possible for other classes (blessing of protection, distracting shot, etc?) so it's about time that warriors got that ability for their role as a group's tank.

Riot · 01/09/07, 12:06 PM

I think that Druids have an extremely well organized and coherent class vision. Right Anias? ;)

***

To be serious, I think Warriors are an extremely polished and extremely well done class on paper and most of the time in practice as well.

You have tools for almost every situation you need to deal with as far as tanking goes. Yes, even multi-target aggro is okay, it just gives you carpal tunnel syndrome...oh wait. :P That aside, Shield Block + Revenge has always been elegant, and Charge and Intercept are just abilities that are fun as heck.

I'm pleased that it seems like the tanking role of a Warrior is being emphasized more in TBC, and that it's gotten more difficult. It'll more quickly weed out those players who can't react or act quickly enough when they need to tank.

I am displeased with the flat aggro modifiers we've had because it makes tanking downright hard on the hands these days. I am also dissatisfied with Arms lately these days as well. If not for Mortal Strike, I think all sane Warriors would give it up in a heartbeat.

berg · 01/09/07, 12:42 PM

I think there have been many good changes made to the Shaman class but it still seems very much like they are just trying random things with the hope of seeing what works instead of figuring that out ahead of time.

From 60-70 druids got specific abilities catered to each spec. Lifebloom for trees, feral skills etc. Not every druid might use these regularly but the ones designed for their build they will use all of the time.

Pallies from 60-70 received very specific new abilities to cater to their new tanking and dps roles. Again not every pally will use them all but if they are designed for his current role and playstyle. They strengthen the class roles.

Mages also have new abilities catered to fire/frost/arcane. Abilities designed to strengthen the current class vision. I could go on forever here but the point is clear.

Shaman on the other hand get the totally uninspired addition of a self only water shield and 3 totems. Ofcourse bloodlust is great but it was also a forgone conclusion and does nto favor one build over another. None of these abilities is catered to any of the styles of play. A shaman at level 70 plays *exactly* the same as a shaman at 60 did which I think implies a large failure on the design side. The spell ranks have different names and the totems might be a different type but I was still dropping totems before and I will still do so now, nothing feels different.

Khalikryst · 01/09/07, 12:49 PM

This may not be fair but whenever someone professing to be class x starts a thread to talk about how great class y is, it's hard not to suspect a hidden agenda. But I'll bite anyway to point out my main class design gripe...

Blizzard has designed an excellent multifaceted game. We have solo play, small and large party pve, and small and large party pvp. And yet half the classes in the game are allowed to minmax in such a way that specializing for one particular gameplay type can severely limit you for the others to the point that the answer is "spend the cash to respec between raids/arena matches or roll an alt".

They've certainly done a great job with Shadow to give it the kind of utility needed to cross from a "pvp spec" to a useful "pve spec". I think they still have work to do on Holy (and other healbot specs) and Warrior Prot to say the same about them.

Heartwarden · 01/09/07, 12:54 PM

<<Note: First i would like to ask for your forgiveness if i went too far on the ranting, but i'm really disapointed with the direction my class is going and the fact that the lack of changes signal that Blizzard is fine with what we got.>>

To be honest i disagree with you completely here, Anias. I think priest class has two fundamental issues: poor implementation of the spells and the discipline tree. All classes can perform their primary role (if they have more than one, such as warriors and druids, but not rogues or mages) with points in just 1 tree. A druid that wants to heal can expend points in the restoration tree. A warrior that wants to tank expends points in the protection tree and so on. Priests need to expend points both in the holy tree and in the disc tree to be good healers. You don't see shadow/holy builds around. Having that said, it removes a lot of versatility from the class, because you have to expend more to get the same results, netting fewer points to expend of offensive abilities.

In theory, priests sound ok, but the implementation of the abilities is pretty poor. Mass dispel sounds awesome at first glance, but the mana cost is so high that it is prohibitive. With that in mind, you will only use it when it is the only option to dispel something (ie. paladin shield and ice block). But the spell has a casting time, meaning it is not so hard to run out of the area or cast a seal to be dispelled instead of the shield. High mana costs is also an issue with the direct healing spells, like Greater Heal and Binding Heal.

Same goes with PW:S. The spell scales at 10% (or 15, don't recall) of your healing bonus. That means that it either is too strong as soon as you reach 70 and gets balanced when people are geared, or it is balanced when you are leveling gear, but is mediocre when you reach epic gear status. In this case, it is balanced for the moment you reach 70. Using it on PvP is nice vs warriors, but pretty weak otherwise, when prayer of mending can cure about the same ammount as an instant cast costing HALF the mana and with no weakened soul effect (and since PoM scales, it will heal for even more later). The lack of spell scaling also affect Lightwell.

Circle of healing (41pt holy) also has a serious problem, which is low HPS, making it weak, when compared to Prayer of Healing (untalented spell).

Back at the discipline tree, it is a mix-match of passives bonuses (unbreakable mind, silent resolve, mental agility), improment to spells (improved inner fire, improved PW:F, improve PW:S, improved mana burn, reflective shield), holy dps talents (force of will, focused power) and nice spells (PI, Inner focus, Pain Suppresion). The tree has no focus, also some passive abilities are critical to healing, like meditation, some are critical to every priest, like improved Fort.

Having a disc tree like this is aint good because it gives nice passive bonuses, but they do not define ANYTHING. If you want to heal you will go holy, if you want to do damage, you will go shadow. Disc is a tree to expend talent points on bonuses that you can't go by without, but you don't see people with 41 points, except for the ones who want pain suppression (a poor choice in my opinion). The tree should have some personality, but i don't see how that is possible without "stealing" abilities from the other trees. Also it will never be a good tree by itself, kind like the arcane tree for mages. You are never an arcane mage, you spec frost of fire and get a handful of abilities there (arcane tree) that are critical to you and you cant go by without them. Some go further down the tree to get Presence of Mind (like PS) for pvp purpouses, but by doing so they lose effectiveness on at all times, except when that ability is up.

All in all, Prayer of Mending is an AWESOME ability and it is the reason i will stick around as a priest. As a sidenote, we had 9 priests when raiding on WoW classic, before we stopped by late november. We are now starting to organize our raid for TBC and out of those, we have 3 priests (1 that will only play because he got a shadow spot). That must be telling something.

Anias · 01/09/07, 1:30 PM

To anyone posting "I loathe this this this about my class for this that and this reason":

STOP.

The thread is intended to highlight portions of each class that stand out, to the responder, as elegant and well designed. Stuff that makes you say "this really feels like class x, it's iconic or makes sense or whatever".

To the folks wondering - I actually have 3 60 toons that I've raided with on my account (priest/druid/warrior) and access to 4 others (mage/warlock/rogue/paladin). I'm also married to an alt-a-holic so I've played the remaining classes I don't have raid experience with through at least the full leveling drill as well. There are plenty of threads already highlighting deficiencies, or examining class x in great detail. This doesn't need to be one of those - if you have a post to make about a percieved lack, head to one of those threads.

To repeat:

The purpose of this thread is to highlight items that you find to be compelling, coherent, elegant, nifty, or otherwise inspiring about a class. Things that indicate to you, that the developers really have a firm grasp on what they want the class to be doing. Things like "Intervene was a great addition to the warrior because it provides a tool that really helps the warrior feel like they are saving someone" or "Prayer of mending's interaction with shadow word death is elegant as it really adds some incentive to add a bit of damage in between heals" belong. Things like "I hate how uesless improved rend is because of how useless rend is" do not.

I can't say it any more bluntly than that.

Back on topic:

Other items I find to be really well thought out - I like what the changes to the hunter itemization indicate about the developer process for hunter changes, and along the same lines the developer investigation of pet scaling. I also find the addition of misdirection and go for the throat to indicate that someone actually sat down and played a hunter in a raid and tried to work out how to make it play more like a leveling hunter. I like in combat traps as well for the pvp side.

I like the paladin healing = mana, as it's a unique and flavorful way of providing them a tanking boost that really feels like someone sat down and said "well we don't want to give them rage, but they need some way to cut down their tanking stats to a manageable level", and I like the paladin take on taunt. Both changes feel well designed.

I'd agree about the shaman/druid role confusion, but I really like how balance/resto synergizes for druids, specificly how it feels like you pick up healing or damage on a smooth scale depending on which talents you take. (even if it doesn't feel fully finished yet) I also think they did exactly what they should do with tanking trees in general with the druid feral tree (even if it doesn't seem to mesh with the other aspects fo the class). I'd love to see some of that logic applied to the prot warrior tree for instance.

So what do you like. What feels like it was really polished, or well done about your class?

Lurchington · 01/09/07, 1:48 PM

As an old priest, I especially appreciated the thought that was put in for a class-only epic quest. I feel that it was an iconic part of the priest experience, and I'm happy I have my benediction to this day.

Conversely, as a new hunter, I'm sad I probably won't get the same chance to go after my Rhok'delar :(

Northerner · 01/09/07, 2:08 PM

Well, I play most classes at 60 and in a variety of roles. I've also played a Hunter and Mage in Beta, although we fizzled out before the 'raid' content. Regardless, my Mage is unquestionably my main character but I like healing on occasion and love tanking as well.

From my personal experience I would say that the Hunter, Warlock and Rogue classes all have fairly coherent identities. While the mechanics are often tweaked strangely, warlocks especially have synergistic abilities and definitely fill a role in a group that can be fairly clearly defined. Rogues as well, especially if played for group/raid success more than just eMeters domination, are excellently designed. No they are not exactly perfect in my estimation but again that is a question more of needing subtle changes rather than a problem with the core mechanics. Hunters as well have a very strong design and by 70 have access to a variety of important raid and group level tools. They are a bit different though if for no other reason than that they have to fill some oddball roles on occasion (no, I don't count tShot) and sometimes it is a little difficult to see what the intended role(s) exactly are.

The Mage class, I think, has a strong and coherent PvE role. I can and do argue quite often about how well the class meets that role or what it should encompass but perhaps does not but I do think it is likely well-defined in a document somewhere and it shows.

WoW is interesting this way overall. Every class has a defined set of roles but the developers are notoriously hard to pin down on what those roles are. There seems to be an institutional hatred for pigeonholing, even though MMORPGs almost require it. I love using classes and abilities in non-traditional ways as much as the next guy but it does make for a bit too much class balance bitching.

Dominick · 01/09/07, 2:21 PM

Having played quite a few characters in both high end PvE and PvP, I can honestly say no class is completely terrible.

Some of Blizzard's solution's to certain problems make people feel that Class X is overpowered because they do Thing Y better than them or to them in the case of PvE. But if you look a WoW as a whole, there is virtually nothing that is heavily overbalnced in any direction (with the caveat that once things -are- found to be broken, they at least make attempts to fix them. Reckoning and Kazzak being a good example, 5 man Loatheb being another)

Coriolis · 01/09/07, 2:24 PM

To briefly comment on priests, I find that pure shadow is a very interesting and powerful spec, and a high holy 14 discp/rest holy is also very powerful (albeit rather boring -> the fact that you can skip ALL the 11, 21, 31, and 41 point holy talents and not loose much is sad). So long as one specs purely into healing or dps and does one or the other exclusively, you have a very strong character. High discipline however, is frankly a joke with no redeeming qualities that I can see (maybe a little bit in pvp in certain limited situations), as is any holy/shadow build.

This is all from a raiding/serious pvping perspective incidentally not 5-mans or any other fairly casual pursuits.

As for what I really like, it's frankly druid feral and shaman enchancement.

Feral allows you in a single spec to be a very good tank (perhaps not as good as a prot warrior but better then a non-prot warrior by all accounts), along with a very good dps class with just a change in gear. The recent changes to the strength-> healing talent makes having catform druids dps, then shift out, throw a few quick heals then go back to dps a very elegant way to play. A feral druid who is good at playing all parts of his spec (tanking, dps, and little bit of heal+innervate+bres when dpsing) should be an excellent addition to any raid. Some fights require offtanks where threat generation/mitigation is not as crucial, it seems that a feral druid can fullfill those better then a non-prot warrior, while having nearly (or equal?) to fury warrior dps on fights where offtanks are unnecesary. Throw in LotP too and it's just a very sweet class.

Shaman enchacement, through fast weapons+JoW+Shamanistic rage should be literally a mana battery for healing while doing very decent dps while attacking. With this spec a raid shaman should be able to output decent dps while giving out alot of healing as well (alot like a feral cat druid although probably less dps but much more healing along with better buffs). The main issues as I see it with this spec is that you may be too threat-limited, and your pvp power is somewhat shady. At the very least you'd need different weapons for pvp (slow) vs. pve (fast). This is the class I'm going to reroll to personally.

Maels · 01/09/07, 2:34 PM

Whoever thought up Unstable Affliction and Soul Siphon for warlocks is taking the class (and the affliction spec) in a great direction.

Warlocks are experiencing a new master debuffer/kill everything slowly playstyle, rather than the pre 2.0 burst-damage-or-lose class we were.

songster · 01/09/07, 2:46 PM

I think the three mage trees are in the main well designed and have a clear vision. Frost in particular is the stand-out.

Frost is about taking control via snares and roots, coupled with good burst damage against frozen targets. Survivability against melee and utility are both high, and the burst damage against frozen targets is apparently excellent with ice lance. Ice Block as a debuff-remover gives this build some defence against casters, but casters in general are a weakness. It's also low-aggro, given that the water elemental will account for a chunk of DPS, aggro free.

Fire is mostly about raw damage. Blazing Speed, Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath give some ability to take control of a melee-range fight and get back to range. Survivability against casters is very low, and aggro management is an issue

Arcane - utility. Nifty stuff like Dampen magic and Amplify magic - two unjustly neglected spells. Overall the weakest of the trees though. I can see where they're going, though - the bottom end of the tree is about assisting the other trees, while the top of the tree is about lots of DPS boosts to make up for the DPS you lose by not investing heavily in other trees. There's also a clear intent to make this the tree with most defence against casters - improvements to counterspell, dampen magic, and Slow to slow enemy casters.

Overall, three well-constructed trees with a clear vision.

I'll go into problems as well though - but I'm happy to delete it if it's against the tenor of the thread.

Problems with frost: Raiding, mostly. When you go raiding, you lose the majority of your utility in terms of roots/freezes/etc. Either more raid mobs should be susceptible to this, or frost should get a (slight) raid DPS boost. Winter's Chill goes a long way towards achieving this, but my preference would actually be to give frost builds slightly greater utility rather than more DPS. I'd also like to see more synergy with other classes. Maybe a fully-stacked Winter's Chill could have the effect of increasing susceptibility to poisons, or slow attack speed fractionally? This one isn't a major issue - in many fights, the limit on damage is set by aggro, not by theoretical maximum DPS. In these cases frost mages will pull way ahead, as a chunk of their damage is done by the elemental and thus the aggro does not go to them.

Problems with fire: Survivability against casters. This would seem to be by design. In general they need to keep an eye out and make sure survivability doesn't drop *too* low. I confess I know less aboput fire than the other trees - maybe it needs more aggro management tools, maybe not.

Problems with arcane: Arcane damage spells are useless in PvP. You cannot afford to stand still channelling Arcane Missiles, and you cannot afford to open your arcane tree up to interruption (thus losing blink and polymorph). Furthermore, Arcane/frost and Arcane/fire builds give extreme burst damage, which seems completely contrary to Blizzard's stated intent. this allows other classes to point to the extreme burst damage of these two builds, call for global nerfs and get them. Finally, arcane DPS in raiding appears lacklustre, though Arcane Blast spam will be extreme DPS if mana is no object.

My solution for the arcane tree would be to remove some of the overpowered synergies that create the excess burst damage. Firstly, Spell Power should be a 100% increase in crit damage, applying to Arcane only. That would also take care of Arcane DPS in raids. Reduce base damage of Arcane Blast if it becomes too damaging after this change.

Secondly, Presence of Mind needs revamping. AP/PoM/Pyro is just too powerful a combo, full stop. My preferred solution would be to remove the existing PoM and replace it with:

Presence of Mind (instant cast): Resets the global cooldown and allows your next spell to be cast while moving.

Optionally, there could be a second rank or improved talent, as follows:
Improved Presence of Mind:Spells cast under the influence of Presence of Mind cannot be interrupted or silenced.

You'd set the cooldown as appropriate so it's not OP. At a stroke, this allows arcane damage spells to be used in PvP, it nerfs the overpowered arcane/fire and arcane/frost combinations, and gives more caster defence (which seems to be a theme of the tree).

drats · 01/09/07, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by berg

Shaman on the other hand get the totally uninspired addition of a self only water shield and 3 totems. Ofcourse bloodlust is great but it was also a forgone conclusion and does nto favor one build over another. None of these abilities is catered to any of the styles of play. A shaman at level 70 plays *exactly* the same as a shaman at 60 did which I think implies a large failure on the design side. The spell ranks have different names and the totems might be a different type but I was still dropping totems before and I will still do so now, nothing feels different.

The devs have always stated shaman are supposed to be an offensive hybrid, and starting with 2.0 it really feels like we are. I've been trying out enhancement since the patch and have been quite happy with the results. In a group with a feral druid, fury warrior, rogue and hunter, the increase in dps that my buffs give are just incredible. If I have any complaint, it's that instead of just sitting back and healing (which is what raid shaman did pre-2.0), I have to get in the thick of things to be useful to my group. It's a radical change in playstyle, and makes enh very different from ele or resto. I also suspect that we'll be seeing some changes in the high end elemental tree soon, which should make the shaman class even better.

My point is you can have two very different playstyles which are both extremely useful to your party/raid. Before 2.0 this just wasn't possible, and it's a clear sign of developers starting to push the shaman class toward a unique roll.

Noules · 01/09/07, 3:02 PM

There seems to be a great deal of effort in TBC to provide for alternate-spec synergies to offset not being dominant at a role, e.g. shadow priest VT, ret paladin JotC, enhance shaman attack power buff. I really enjoy this as I've always found alt specs more interesting and these new synergies really make the question of the 'ideal spec' pretty situational.

As for more class specific things I like in TBC/2.0:

- Spiritual Attunement + VE + VT. Such an elegant way of letting priests do DPS while indirectly providing a large amount of healing in the area they're arguably best at, i.e. total group healing. Or, as a reversal, the paladin can use the mana provided by the priest's healing to fuel their DPS, especially consecrate.

- Righteous Defense. What I've found to be most useful is the enormous range on the ability (40 yards). And while the mechanics is somewhat awkward, it can sometimes be beneficial since only the friendly target has to be within the spell's range. The extremely long effective range really makes it ideal as a semi-emergency 'CC' (in that the mob spends time walking around rather than attacking things). Maybe not the greatest raiding tool (yet...I really have to wonder if there's some encounter that could benefit from multiple paladins chain-taunting off each other from 40 yards away) but it's very well suited as a sort-of Blessing of Protection on a much shorter cooldown.

- Light's Grace. The biggest problem with paladin healing pre-patch was the lack of a good, big, fast heal (we were mana efficient, but it was hard to trade mana efficiency for speed). Light's Grace goes a long way to address that problem for healadins. This also helps distinguish between healadins and non-healadins - I realize this is both a plus and a minus in some ways, but I like that spec matters more.

- Emphasis on spell crit for healadins. One of the most disappointing moments in WoW for me was realizing that Eye of the Beast specifically excluded Paladins (there were other crit items with similar restrictions, but EotB was the big one for me). It's good to see that the itemization in TBC specifically favors spell crit for healadins (as does the new talent increasing Holy Light crit percentage), and that different healing classes will probably favor (slightly) different stats.

- New Righteous Fury/Improved Righteous Fury. Righteous Fury now increases the threat generated by all Holy spells, including healing. The talent provides a very impressive 6% mitigation to all damage while Righteous Fury is up, as well as the increase in threat. This feels like an elegant solution to the issue of Paladin heal threat values. Having Improved Righteous Fury means trading mitigation for less healing threat, which at least for me as a healadin is an interesting dilemma. I like that this provides an option rather than an obvious choice as to which is better in all situations.

- New spell coefficients for Paladins. It was extremely difficult to generate significant DPS as a Holy Paladin before 2.0. Now, Holy Paladins can benefit from spell damage about as much as an untalented mage - which is fairly significant scaling with gear that simply didn't occur before. I don't feel like I'm really gimping myself to be a healadin - I'm still not going to be DPSing in raids, no, and I don't expect that my DPS will be anywhere near a dedicated DPS class, but it should be better, relatively. I don't think I'll feel like I'm struggling as much when soloing or farming given these changes.

- Crusader Aura. Going faster is always good.

The net change is that I feel like the healadin role is a bit more dependent on talents (i.e. I feel like my specialization is providing a real benefit), yet I also feel like my support ability has also improved with things like Spiritual Attunement and the ranged taunt. Itemization also looks much better - hopefully less cloth is going to be necessary to do my job well.