Classocalypse

OR

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Legion

I'm going to admit right now that this post is the imperfect melding of three only somewhat related posts. Let's get to it.

Which Main Felbane Reigns Gamely in my Brain?

Syp has been debating which character he wants to be his main during World of Warcraft's impending Legion expansion. As it turns out, Belghast was trying to decide the same thing.

Having just gotten back into the game myself, I am still on the fence about many of the classes. Druid has versatility, but like always, it lacks focus. I’ve always liked enhancement shammies, I had one as my main of the last year I played. But I wish they hadn’t nerfed the tankiness of the class. When Blizz abandoned Shammy/Pally parity, it seems like shamans got the short end of the stick.

My own altoholism is already rearing its beautiful head, I already have 11 toons on Argent Dawn after only a couple months back. Granted, two of them have been created but never played, and two I played to about level 5 in a single session and have not returned. So I’ll be no help to you there, Dear Reader. Given the trinity roles, many of the classes seem like rehashes of each other. Do I kill with my fists or my daggers? Do I send in my cheetah or my doomguard? Maybe the order halls will restore that feeling of uniqueness.

Classocalypse

I'm lying, Fury Warrior feels way different than Enhancement Shaman or Outlaw Rogue. But I haven't played any of them in the past few years prior to June, so I am not sure how they are different since the 7.0 patch. It might be better to say many specs overlap from one class to the next. For instance, Destruction Warlock and Fire Mage. As an altoholic, my reaction to Destrolocks is that they give up on what makes a Lock unique in favor of imitating another class. However, if I were only ever a Warlock, I might want to distinguish myself from other Locks, taking what is perhaps a path less traveled. And I indicated above, even within specific group roles, like melee DPS, individual classes and specs feel very different, even if they look similar to an observer.

Syp is lamenting the recent changes to the Beast Master Hunter spec. I have a relative lowbie BM hunter that I have no intention of changing (except maybe raiding, if it comes to that). I agree that it seems a little stilted, like they expect a chunk of damage to be auto-shoot. I expected more beast commands, but right now I basically have 4 abilities of any consequence, three of which are on cooldowns and only two of which involve beasts.

On the other hand, they've made it super easy to switch talents and even specs (making trainers nothing but decoration). I am not afraid to experiment. If you're looking for guidance on the "best" specs and talents, Icy Veins is a great place to start, and may be the only thing you need. I also recommend the developer blog posts about the various classes/specs in order to get a feel for their intent.

Too often, we get caught up in being optimal—myself, included—when the focus really should be on having fun. Soon enough, Blizz will take the nerf bat to any "überl33t" spec, which will then be "teh suxxors." Maybe it makes me an awful player, but I rarely listen to the commentariat regarding ideal/garbage specs. The one recent exception is when Manglehaft and Psynister tempted me into creating a Fury Warrior, which is now my boosted-to-100 toon in full 700 gear (thanks to Invasions). However, it is mostly the "fun factor" they sold me on, as opposed to any statistics.

You worry too much

I think Legion will probably be fun; that doesn't mean it will be perfect. Just the other day, I saw a suggestion to make the Demon Hunter resource "Preparedness." When there's not enough to perform an ability, your character could say, "I am not prepared." It's clever, and just the sort of tongue-in-cheek that WoW means to a lot of folks. Then again, I thought Pandaren were a natural fit, but thousands raged about the race. You probably know, Dear Reader, that Blizzard did not follow that DH suggestion.

Blizzard has already tweaked the Invasion XP several times, to the consternation and delight of various bloggers, including me. There will be more changes to come, as there have been in the past. And there will be "winners" and "losers" who will perhaps have legitimate concerns. I feel that I have some myself. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, and how long it will take before people will start bitching about the lack of "content" again in one of—if not THE—most content-rich MMORPGs on the market.

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