World of Warcraft: Current Year

Araxen · Jul 3, 2016

Miele_sl said:
After logging on the PTR I can't help being disappointed, just as I expected, for the redesign of most classes. I copied all my 11 characters and tried the specs I was mostly interested in.

- The monk is not interesting, Brewmaster is a shell of what it was and WW is dps so I don't really care about it. Mistweaver is now just a generic healer, honestly a snooze fest to play, although there are a few interesting things going on with the class, most of them are passive and bound to a specific talent. Bummed by losing Touch of Death and several other spells I loved, good that I can switch to a different healer, but annoyed at all the stuff I did with the monk that are hardly transferable elsewhere without a massive time commitment, including Nat Pagle faction and several others.

- I like the druid, just as I thought, improving bear and leaving resto (mostly) the fuck alone is a godsend. Short cd Tranquillity castable on the move? Sign me up! Even the fucking pigeon spec is fun to play now. It's a vanilla character, so I'm really attached to it. I'll end up playing this for the xpack, so it's all good.

- Priest: holy is okay, discipline is for those who like managing a ton of complicated shit, it can provide a different style of healing, which could be good, I fear you need a good tank to make it work tho, especially in 5 men. Shadow is... I don't know, it seems to me it's a lot of work for mediocre results.

- Warlock: I tried only Demolock. Conceptually is cool, you have to be jesus on the keyboard to make it work while following a tank that chain pulls, it has various possible builds. It's cool to watch and play, not sure how good it can be in certain scenarios, like 5 men.

- Warrior is flashy, new animations are gorgeous for the class, Fury is interesting, prot is also not too bad, but I didn't tank a shit that was hard enough to test it properly.

- Hunter: fire the dev, period. SV being melee is good for a change, but still, fire him/them, it's now a shit class, covered in guano.

- Rogue: who cares? Flashy animations, okay, roll the bones is so fucked up it could be even entertaining to game over it for a while.

- Mage: didn't change much. Tried fire, okay for questing, world grinding, sucks vs bosses/elites as usual, nothing new under the sun.

- Shaman: good feels playing enhancements, resto is quite fun and packed with useful shit to do. Good class.

- Death knight: blood is fun, a beast as usual and the new drain spell is quite fun. Never cared about other specs to be honest. Blood is a decent class, but I'd have to see how it handles spike damage and stuff.

- Paladin: prot is nothing special for what I tried, holy seems fun with a lot of instant casts, but would have to try it on the field.

TL,DR: I like druid and shaman a lot for healing, Death Knight and Bear for tanking, rest ranges from meh to okayish. Legion Hype level: 6,5 (7,5 with lore included).

If I could get a refund for my Legion pre-order I would but sadly Blizz doesn't offer it. This expansion is going to be average at best.

velk · Jul 3, 2016

Miele_sl said:
- The monk is not interesting, Brewmaster is a shell of what it was and WW is dps so I don't really care about it. Mistweaver is now just a generic healer, honestly a snooze fest to play, although there are a few interesting things going on with the class, most of them are passive and bound to a specific talent. Bummed by losing Touch of Death and several other spells I loved, good that I can switch to a different healer, but annoyed at all the stuff I did with the monk that are hardly transferable elsewhere without a massive time commitment, including Nat Pagle faction and several others.
...
- Death knight: blood is fun, a beast as usual and the new drain spell is quite fun. Never cared about other specs to be honest. Blood is a decent class, but I'd have to see how it handles spike damage and stuff.
...
TL,DR: I like druid and shaman a lot for healing, Death Knight and Bear for tanking, rest ranges from meh to okayish. Legion Hype level: 6,5 (7,5 with lore included).

After running a few heroics and mucking around with the dps specs, windwalker actually takes my award for most improved - WW just didn't work for me in any way in WoD, but the Legion version was a lot of fun. Storm, Earth and Fire sucked steaming balls, having it as a generic dps cooldown which you don't have to take is a huge improvement ( whirling punch is way more entertaining too, so I'd probably never take SEF ). The flow of attacks with whirling punch mixed in is just good fun, and maintaining combo strikes adds some variety without being an undue hassle to look after.

Brewmaster was reasonably effective, but I didn't like it - losing guard was bullshit, losing touch of death is unfun, losing dizzying haze is annoying, putting leg sweep and ox statue on the same talent tier is lame. My vote for 2nd most shitty revamp.

Unholy DK got my second place for most improved - play was smooth, I liked the options, and the aoe was pretty hilarious. Frost performed pretty well, and flowed pretty well - it was just kind of dull in comparison to unholy though. Blood seemed ok - probably better than WoD, but hard to say, nothing was challenging enough for my gear level to get a good feel of how it plays under pressure.

I agree on the shitty revamp for hunter. I wasn't a huge fan of WoD one in any case but legion version is just - ewww.

Tarisk · Jul 3, 2016

velk_sl said:
I agree on the shitty revamp for hunter. I wasn't a huge fan of WoD one in any case but legion version is just - ewww.

For the mot part it's not impressive on the MM front. But it's also not drastically different. You no longer steady shot, you arcane shot to fill it in. So the filler being instant instead of a cast time may feel like there's less going on. But I will say that the artifact unlocks add a LOT to how the spec feels. Early on leveling/prepatch it definitely feels lacking. Seemed to get better as I leveled in beta though, especially with 4pc HFC bonus. Not sure if that will be shit in comparison once I drop the set though. Instant aimed shots really help. But I feel lock and load will be the primary talent for fixing that.

joz123 · Jul 3, 2016

So is Outlaw Rogue spec in Legion only going to be able to equip swords? It looks fun as hell.

kaid · Jul 3, 2016

joz123_sl said:
So is Outlaw Rogue spec in Legion only going to be able to equip swords? It looks fun as hell.

Yes it is sword only although you can transmog them to maces/axes.

DavivMcD · Jul 4, 2016

joz123_sl said:
So is Outlaw Rogue spec in Legion only going to be able to equip swords? It looks fun as hell.

Do you mean transmog or equip? Cuz technically they can still equip everything they used to: daggers, maces, axes, fists, even guns, crossbows, and bows. But the artifacts are swords.

Miele · Jul 4, 2016

velk_sl said:
After running a few heroics and mucking around with the dps specs, windwalker actually takes my award for most improved - WW just didn't work for me in any way in WoD, but the Legion version was a lot of fun. Storm, Earth and Fire sucked steaming balls, having it as a generic dps cooldown which you don't have to take is a huge improvement ( whirling punch is way more entertaining too, so I'd probably never take SEF ). The flow of attacks with whirling punch mixed in is just good fun, and maintaining combo strikes adds some variety without being an undue hassle to look after.

Brewmaster was reasonably effective, but I didn't like it - losing guard was bullshit, losing touch of death is unfun, losing dizzying haze is annoying, putting leg sweep and ox statue on the same talent tier is lame. My vote for 2nd most shitty revamp.

Unholy DK got my second place for most improved - play was smooth, I liked the options, and the aoe was pretty hilarious. Frost performed pretty well, and flowed pretty well - it was just kind of dull in comparison to unholy though. Blood seemed ok - probably better than WoD, but hard to say, nothing was challenging enough for my gear level to get a good feel of how it plays under pressure.

I agree on the shitty revamp for hunter. I wasn't a huge fan of WoD one in any case but legion version is just - ewww.

It's not that everything is shit, just almost, but in the darkness I see a few light dots, which means there are a few decent spec revamps that I can get behind, if not for efficiency, at least thematically and in the fun department, they did a decent job: for example the demonology warlock is cool to see and play, how good it is I have no idea, but there is some decent work behind the spec.

What I dislike is mostly the destroying of tanks, which now do shitty damage, have crap self healing, reduced survivability and are in some cases less fun to play because of a massive pruning of fun skills, see Brewmaster. I don't understand why they had to redo completely the Mistweaver, formerly providing a unique playing style, now it's more boring than a holy priest, which is a feat by itself.

There are exceptions, but they are exactly that, exceptions. One is certainly the Blood death knight, which surprised me. I simply love the new version, much more physical and less caster-style, heart strike, marrowrend, etc. seem enjoyable skills with much more "oomph" behind them and most of the talents are cool, from the good old blood worms, to the new 30s recast drain spell.

BoozeCube · Jul 4, 2016

So one plus side to doing everything from your garrison. You don't have to listen to all the faggots on their wow motorbikes.

Xequecal · Jul 4, 2016

Miele_sl said:
It's not that everything is shit, just almost, but in the darkness I see a few light dots, which means there are a few decent spec revamps that I can get behind, if not for efficiency, at least thematically and in the fun department, they did a decent job: for example the demonology warlock is cool to see and play, how good it is I have no idea, but there is some decent work behind the spec.

What I dislike is mostly the destroying of tanks, which now do shitty damage, have crap self healing, reduced survivability and are in some cases less fun to play because of a massive pruning of fun skills, see Brewmaster. I don't understand why they had to redo completely the Mistweaver, formerly providing a unique playing style, now it's more boring than a holy priest, which is a feat by itself.

There are exceptions, but they are exactly that, exceptions. One is certainly the Blood death knight, which surprised me. I simply love the new version, much more physical and less caster-style, heart strike, marrowrend, etc. seem enjoyable skills with much more "oomph" behind them and most of the talents are cool, from the good old blood worms, to the new 30s recast drain spell.

What annoys me about Brewmaster is it's going to be retardedly overpowered or useless, depending on how healing turns out and it sucks not knowing which it's going to be in advance. Right now you can get perma-90% stagger, with the drawback being that the overall damage you take is going to be about the same as a Rogue tanking the boss. So, is there enough free healing from hots + beacon flying around to keep you up against the boss' average DPS without stressing the healers too much? If yes, then well you're the only real tank because it's impossible for you to die to burst damage or literally any tank mechanic. If no, then you have to give up perma-ISB in order to Purify which makes you really squishy and vulnerable for random periods (leather armor with only 35% stagger plus yellow stagger ticking) and that's exactly what you don't want in a tank.

Sumdain x · Jul 4, 2016

I can't decide what to play either after running around on the PTR testing specs. with all pre-mades im averaging 17-25k dps on a raid target dummy but some rotations are infinitely more complicated than others. On beta i can hit 25k hitting 1 button on a DH at level 101 (with artifacts).

Demo - so many cooldowns/things to manage, its probably great DPS but you'll need addons to track everything.

Shadow - push buttons harder and still do mediocre dps

unholy/frost - both seemed fun, easy to track abilities.

Arcane - probably the most fun to play, just for watching big numbers and the quickness talent is fun to play with when it syncs with incanters flow.

Everything just feels mediocre, im sure artifacts will spice up some of the specs but god damn are some of the classes boring to dps as.

Palum · Jul 4, 2016

sumdain x_sl said:
I can't decide what to play either after running around on the PTR testing specs. with all pre-mades im averaging 17-25k dps on a raid target dummy but some rotations are infinitely more complicated than others. On beta i can hit 25k hitting 1 button on a DH at level 101 (with artifacts).

Demo - so many cooldowns/things to manage, its probably great DPS but you'll need addons to track everything.

Shadow - push buttons harder and still do mediocre dps

unholy/frost - both seemed fun, easy to track abilities.

Arcane - probably the most fun to play, just for watching big numbers and the quickness talent is fun to play with when it syncs with incanters flow.

Everything just feels mediocre, im sure artifacts will spice up some of the specs but god damn are some of the classes boring to dps as.

I wouldn't judge anything but core rotation at this point. Numbers and scaling are going to be obfuscated until everything settles and final numbers passes are completed. Even then, it's difficult because certain specs have integral abilities on their artifact that they need to work right.

Dandai · Jul 4, 2016

I hadn't planned on firing up the PTR, but based on the feedback I'm seeing from you guys it sounds like they're balancing the fun and total number of abilities around mostly completed artifacts. I wonder if that's going to turn away even more people than WoD did since it takes quite a long time to finish the majority of your artifact talents right?

Palum · Jul 4, 2016

Dandai_sl said:
I hadn't planned on firing up the PTR, but based on the feedback I'm seeing from you guys it sounds like they're balancing the fun and total number of abilities around mostly completed artifacts. I wonder if that's going to turn away even more people than WoD did since it takes quite a long time to finish the majority of your artifact talents right?

The most important ability you get right away. Then you get more old school style talents (+5% crit, that ability does 5% more damage, etc.) as you level it.

Grundge_sl · Jul 4, 2016

Been reading the stuff on professions and I just don't get the comments I am seeing. Professions will be gated behind quests, random drops and dungeons, and people are glad about this? I don't know I guess since they aren't handing us professions like they did in WoD people are happy with that.

Sure the first time you level it might seem worth the trouble, but seriously once you start getting on your alts all that gated shit is gonna suck big time, especially doing secondary profs like cooking. Yes it's nice that it's not the free hand me shit we have now but it seems like we are trading easy for total pain in the ass.

Dandai · Jul 4, 2016

You're probably right in that much of the enthusiasm stems from a polar shift in their philosophy on profession barrier-to-entry. Personally, I appreciate that they're making it more of a pain in the ass because that means that there will be value in professions again (since not everyone will bother doing all of the pain in the ass things on their alts, supply vs demand, etc). Presumably they had data that suggested they should make crafting more approachable in WoD, but I think they went way overboard with it. They might have also been trying to fix the problem of the main expansion feature (garrisons) not being very compelling, and the quickest/easiest bandaid was making them mandatory for crafting.

Palum · Jul 4, 2016

Yea, I'm fine with that. Professions should be optional and provide a benefit for investment, not just 'level to get bonus' crap like it was previously or 'here, have this for free' like it is right now.

That said, aren't they making it so you need a gathering profession again because of BOP mats?

Dandai · Jul 5, 2016

It seemed that way during the alpha, but from what I understand, they're essentially making the BOP mat (Blood of Sargeras) the same as Frozen Orbs (these may not have ever been BOP, I can't remember for certain) from Wrath and Chaos Orbs (which are no longer BOP, but were until some point in MoP) from Cat. They'll drop off of dungeon bosses (heroic and higher only?), and just like the follower tables from our garrison, there will be a world quest to obtain some that will be offered at a fixed/regular frequency.

Gatherers will get them faster, but gathering is not the only source by a long shot.

Edit: Source is a wowhead comment, so I wouldn't take it as gospel:

Sources for Blood of Sargeras:

Gathering professions (skinning, mining, herbalism) after learning the skill to "find rare materials when gathering", which should happen in the leveling process when you do your profession quests.

With rank 2 Stonehide Leather, I got 22 Blood by skinning 227 normal 110 mobs outside Nesingwary, so it's safe to assume that the drop rate is about 10% at that rank.
Higher ranks will probably increase the chance, it might also be higher for elite mobs.
For reference: Crafting the Elderhorn Riding Harness (LW mount) requires 50 of these.
Fishing
World quests: According to the "Legion Professions Developer Q&A", crafter specific world quests will give you the most blood.
Disenchanting rare and epic items
Drops in dungeons
Shoulder enchant: When revered with The Wardens, you can buy Boon of the Bloodhunter to enchant your shoulders and give you a chance of getting blood when killing mobs. There are multiple shoulder enchants that give you different items to choose from.

Kuro · Jul 5, 2016

I would say most classes' "fun" isn't balanced around a complete artifact. Most artifacts are shitty +MOAR PASSIVE DPS/HPS the whole way through their tree, as you'd expect from them needing to crank out 37 of the things. There are a few specs where artifact nodes you get further in are very important to playstyle, but the biggest impact most artifacts have on playstyle is just getting the artifact initially, which is like the first 40 minutes of your game time in the expansion. That's when you get your extra 30s-1m Cooldown Rotational DPS button or "OH SHIT" Heal, which in some cases DOES change playstyle from what you'll see on PTR (For instance, the Unholy DK's need to build an 8-stack of pimples before Apocalypse rolls off cooldown).

Shit, completing more of your ret paladin artifact just makes you an annoyance in dungeons, as your divine storm goes on a 12 mile add-gathering-hike each time you cast it.

EDIT: Oops, for some reason an entire section of comments didn't load in when I was reading down!

kaid · Jul 5, 2016

Palum_sl said:
The most important ability you get right away. Then you get more old school style talents (+5% crit, that ability does 5% more damage, etc.) as you level it.

The gold upgrades are pretty big upgrades but there are only two in addition to the one you start with when you get the artifact. The passive stuff does make things feel stronger and better but overall they are very incremental boost for a pretty smooth increase in power.

kaid · Jul 5, 2016

Dandai_sl said:
You're probably right in that much of the enthusiasm stems from a polar shift in their philosophy on profession barrier-to-entry. Personally, I appreciate that they're making it more of a pain in the ass because that means that there will be value in professions again (since not everyone will bother doing all of the pain in the ass things on their alts, supply vs demand, etc). Presumably they had data that suggested they should make crafting more approachable in WoD, but I think they went way overboard with it. They might have also been trying to fix the problem of the main expansion feature (garrisons) not being very compelling, and the quickest/easiest bandaid was making them mandatory for crafting.

Yup there is making it more approachable and then they are making it so approachable you don't even need the skill to make the items. They went way to far in WOD and it was just a hot mess. This go round if you actually enjoy crafting what I have seen seems to look a lot more fun and involved. Also they seem to have some pretty neat items you can make for most professions including odd little mini game toys.

World of Warcraft: Current Year

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Trakanon Raider

Pathetic Reaction Bot

Potato del Grande

Blackwing Lair Raider

Peasant

Lord Nagafen Raider

Von Clippowicz

Trump's Staff

Trakanon Raider

what Suineg set it to

<WoW Guild Officer>

what Suineg set it to

shitlord

<WoW Guild Officer>

what Suineg set it to

<WoW Guild Officer>

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Blackwing Lair Raider

Blackwing Lair Raider