Blizzard asking classes for opinionsFollow

Pretty annoying that they ask those class questions now. Things have been discussed for years, and just about everything people asked for has been turned down for reasons nobody could comprehend. If you skim through the first couple of pages of those new threads, just about everything mentioned over the past couple months or sometimes even years is there. Now all of a sudden I am supposed to believe that they actually give a damn after ignoring or outright denying those requests forever?

Already said that elsewhere: 4.3 and the next x-pack are going to be a breaking point for me. They either deliver, or I'm out.

Somehow I have a feeling that I am not exactly the only one who has reached that point, and I am almost sure that the whole purpose of those questions is to prepare someone to make some promises during the Blizzcon panels. Calm the crowds in order to battle the overall quite negative attitude towards the current state of the game.

I have beer and no idea what the discuss has been about.

In my experience, raiding was fun in TBC because it was challenging and had a good story behind it as well as new mechanics.

WotLK was fun raiding for a lot of people because there was a lot of lore behind it that people played through in WC3, and even a lot of the stuff that was on higher tiers was made accessible to mediocre raiders because of how gear and hard modes worked.

I have no idea about Cata though. I feel like the lore has been really ******, though.

There is definitely some missing lore in Cata. But, I don't really feel like it's that different from some of the loop holes in Wrath. In a dungeon, we killed Anub. Then in ToC he was inexplicably brought back. Oh, well he works for the LK so he probably revived him or something. That wasn't really an explanation.

In BWD, we find out that Nefarian, who was killed back in Vanilla, isn't actually dead and we have to kill him again. Onyxia, who we also had killed before (twice) has been revived by him in some zombie form or something, so we get to kill her too.

Cho'gall as leader of the Twilight Hammer at least makes sense, and you get to see him quite a bit in TH and even in some of the lowbie quests, like in Feralas. Al'akir and conclave kinda make sense if you finish Uldum, although I'm still sort of confused about why Ragnaros and Al'akir are working for Deathwing, but Therazane and Neptulon are somehow impervious to him?

Yeah I'm still sad about that. =/ An underwater raid would have been so cool. Honestly I think I would have preferred that to MC 2.0, but oh well. I really should finish Vash on one of my toons though. For some reason, after I finish Nespira I keep getting distracted by going off to other zones and then never finishing it.

OMIGOD DRAGON IS FIRE EVERWHERE KILL!

That's about it.

I'll bite.

Blizzard owns the O-Boards, so as flawed as they are... Well, where did you expect them post questions like this? Someone once said that judging the population of WoW by reading the O-Boards would be like judging the health of a society by visiting it's hospitals. It's a flawed population sample.


Cata has failed to achieve the heights of previous expansions. Several areas of the expansion have left regular players confused.

Healing ~ Utter failure to implement Triage healing.
Path of Titans ~ Just didn't happen
Tanking ~ AoE tanking is Dead.... Wait wait... Long live AoE Tanking.
Loot Pinata's are gone ~ Introducing new Troll Heroics
We learned our Re-Hashed-content-lesson ~ *See Loot Pinata
Talent Trees are too "Cookie Cutter" ~ We redesigned them with less talents and to be more restrictive
OP/UP Classes ~ We've fixed the Wrath-Launch Retadin - Their new name is Frost Spec.


In short, it seems like the law of unintended consequences has taken over much of the WoW development.

I feel like this has all been as an indirect result of the trend toward inclusiveness. (More specifically "All-Inclusiveness") Everyone can play. Every class can play. All specs are viable. Fire has (arguably) been the worst PVP spec since Moses crossed the desert, but if you want to play fire PVP - Not only CAN you do it, but you have the right to feel annoyed that it's not all that good.

There is no Niche to any aspect of the game - At least two classes should be able to do everything. Crowd control is no longer a job - it's just one of your abilities... Everyone has CC. AOE is no longer a specialization (I wish they'd stop claiming how good mages are at it...) - Everyone can do it.

The problem when everyone being same is that there is no difference. Players have spent the last 3 years INVENTING metrics to judge ourselves because there is no difference between RDPS "A" and RDPS "B". So, show us your Gear Score, what's your iLvl, please link achievements, etc.

Back in TBC, when you were forming a PUG for something you looked at a person's gear (You'd be stupid not to), but you looked at a lot more. "Oh good, we have CC" "Great, someone for BoK" "Good, Tanks need Fort Buff" etc. (*Yes - Rose colored classes OFF - If Player A provided no buffs of any kind, but had solo'd Illidan while under Rez Sickness... and Player B barely met the requirements to join the raid... Yes you'd take the over-geared person.) The issue is that now -a-days people ONLY look for the highest possible geared player because NOTHING else matters as everything else is effectively equal.

Including everyone.... Every class. Every hard-core. Every Casual. Heck, Even every Baddie... Has pushed the game to a point where the only thing that really matters is how much time you can devote to the game and how much gear you have.

I would agree with the argument of hybrids vs pures, but I think that it is merely a part of the overall theme or trend toward inclusiveness in all aspects of the game.

I think Hybrid Vs Pure is merely a symptom of the problem.

Hard Core vs Casual, Bring the player not the class, All healers can Raid/Tank heal, etc... Each one of these (and many other issues) seems to be in one way or another, related to the inclusion issue I brought up earlier.

I'm detecting a theme here...

Yeah the mage thread seems pretty good too. I heard from a guildie that someone in the shaman thread suggested completely doing away with totems. lolwut? Isn't that what makes a shaman a shaman?

Totems as they are now (keep in mind my recollection is from the beginning of Cata) are in a pretty good state. They take some skill to use, but they're in a much better state than at any other point in the game (save perhaps when WF totem was completely OP for DPS).

I don't think that they'd change totems to a completely different system (i.e. an aura-based system), I think they'd just have the totems follow the player; for instance, if the totems were like small elemental spirits that the shaman summoned to hover above/around them which provided the buffs.

That's the way I'd do it, at least.

Not really. I was playing devil's advocate more or less. The only real problem is resto on large movement fights where you'd like the totems to move, but can't afford to keep recasting them.

I have a shaman & a paladin, both healers. They are effectively the same healer with some cosmetic differences, at least they were in WotLK.

Totems compared to BoM or BoK which range isn't a factor and which last 60m are a pain in the ***. Compared to Aura's which have no time limit and which are anchored to my toon there is a difference. For boss fights where people are spread out or which require copious movement around an enclosed space totems can be a pain. Having to waste a gcd dropping them can be a pain.

They are a relic of a vanilla style buff system, there have been changes to make it less so, both in length they stay up and increase to their range. However there still is some work that could be done to bring them into line with buffing and how it works now.