The Queue: In which we all have a lot of thoughts about class pruning
It’s a new dawn, a new day, a new leveling grind in World of Warcraft, and I’m sure I’ll wrap this up eventually, probably, it’s fine. But while I struggle to keep up with my friends in leveling and gearing for another WoW expansion, let’s get to another Queue.
This is the Queue, our daily Q&A article in which I try to answer your questions and we all get to hang out in the comments section.
It’s probably OK that my Voidwalker is whispering me threats while I’m in the Voidstorm, right?
Sounds like it’s time to hire a new, more pleasant Voidwalker.
Anyone feel like Pack Leader Beast Mastery hunter is too simple/boring this xpac? We have 3 spells, 1 cleave, and 1 30 sec cool down, that’s 5 buttons for combat max.
I’ve complained about classes that have four button rotations, but Beast Mastery seems to take it a step further into a three-button rotation. I was leveling one in Legion Remix because I didn’t have one leveled, and I thought the simplest build was the best way to go for casual leveling.
Dear readers, I was so bored, I barely managed to finish leveling. My brain needs something engaging to do or it completely clocks out, and then I can’t get anything done even if the thing I am doing is ostensibly easy. Boredom causes me to completely cease functioning. This difficulty combined with how classes are being pared down has been a significant contributor to my difficulty picking a main this expansion.
My friend and I were having a discussion last night and it seemed like a good question for here.
Obviously the ability prune just happened, so it’s fresh in all our minds. But even moving beyond that, do you feel your spec isn’t involved enough? For me (Affliction Lock) and for him (Enhance Shaman) it feels like the specs are missing something. Here’s my general rotation: Haunt – Agony – Corruption – Filler. Siphon Life used to be a thing but now it’s not and it feels like there’s an empty GCD where it should be. Both hero talents and Apex talents are more or less passively bolstering existing spells or, in some cases, giving you a CD.
I can get where they are coming from, trying to reduce button bloat and streamline things, but not everyone wants to do less. My AoE rotation is Seed – Agony – Seed spam and maybe an Agony here or there if it didn’t spread enough. It doesn’t feel as engaging.
Thus you have captured the crux of my problem. A lot of specs feel a little too simple right now, at least in my opinion as someone with a relentless need to remain highly engaged. Warlocks feel a little borderline there for me, though there’s some extra work in pet management (spec dependent), curse management (though these abilities really just fill for a lack of a real kick, functioning as a sort of soft CC), and even movement management with the teleport and gateway.
But I look at some specs, and some things that have been removed, and think yeah, that wasn’t working out well. There’s been some talk about Windwalkers in the comments, and while I presently feel like Windwalkers were pared back a little too much, I agree that Storm, Earth, and Fire was a buggy ability that could cause lots of problems. I do not mourn its loss, and think the spec will feel better long term being built from a stronger foundation than SEF. But it’s pared back a little more than I like, particularly considering how hard Conduit (which has a little more rotation depth and an extra cooldown) got nerfed recently.
The difficulty, of course, is that this is all subjective. What bores me to tears may be spot-on perfect to you. And things I may find over-complicated might be a lot of fun for someone else. Finding the perfect balance of what feels fun is a very tall order, and an overhaul like this is always going to leave some players feeling bad about their class… and other players loving classes they don’t usually play.
Blizzard is intentionally not making any further class changes until Season 1 launches to see how its balance changes played out in a larger scale, so even though we haven’t seen class changes in a couple of weeks, we haven’t seen the end of them. There will certainly be more as Blizzard tries to find the perfect balance on the teeter-totter of terror that is WoW class balance. Perhaps it will land in a better place for most of us before we’re through, or perhaps we’ll find new classes to love. I haven’t come to a conclusion yet.
Q4TLiz: what did you decide to main or at the least level first? (I know I could look in guild but I’m not on enough).
I’m still not sure about a main, but after input from the guild (and some of you) I have been leveling my Warlock first. It was a good call, because Warlocks are a strong class, and they’re very durable — it’s an easy leveling class. Whatever I want to play, I’ve got to start somewhere and hitting max level on one character lets me campaign skip others and gives them an XP boost get alts up to speed. I’m not fixed on the class, but it’s been fun.
But we’re into the second week and I’ve only gotten to level 88. Leveling is feeling very slow, but I’m also typically a slow leveler. Something about this expansion has me feeling very behind, though. Hopefully I can catch everyone up before it’s too late!
Astalor Bloodsworn is a Sire Denathrius fanboy, change my mind
I don’t know how I would change your mind on something so obviously true. There’s been speculation that he actually is Denathrius in disguise because of how similar their vibes are. (I.e. literally the same.)
So, no, I’m not even going to try. I know a herculean task when I see one.
That’s all for now my friends. Take care of yourself and have a pleasant Thursday: we’re on the downhill stretch of the week!
I’ll see you in the comments section.
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