Breakfast Topic: Worried about your class?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Nov 16th 2006 at 8:00AM
The Burning Crusade is coming -- and with it comes numerous changes for all classes. Some of them are crazy good, and others are, well, more questionable. But with changes coming every day, I'm not sure any class can be positive what to expect. I'm a little concerned -- not that I think my class of choice, the priest, is going to be worthless, but the classes talent options don't seem to sparkle the way some other classes do. And, yes, after playing two priests up to level 60, I'm wondering if I want to play a different class in the Burning Crusade. But I don't think priests came off the worst for the current state of changes -- but who knows what will happen before Blizzard finishes their tweaking. And what about you? Do you have major worries about the state of your class? Or are you keeping up hope?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Unkle Nov 17th 2006 7:13AM
Hunters ftw!
No worries here.
Kryz Nov 16th 2006 9:26AM
Mage changes make me cry in the corner with my Frost Shield on and my finger on cold snap...
Bunkai Nov 16th 2006 9:42AM
I've read plenty of articles and seen Forum posts from "blue" that detail out the ways in which they plan to nerf Enhancement DPS... combine that with the fact that our shaman set pieces have little or no benefit for the Enhancement tree, and I'm deeply saddend at what is to come of my class as a viable raid member.
Not to mention the fact that we are now going to contend with those #!@$ BElf Paladins too.
That's my motivation for building a Hunter :-)
Eggman Nov 16th 2006 9:55AM
I wouldn't worry too much about priests, they'll always be great main healers and even good damage dealers. However over most of the classes, I get a weird feeling from the new trees. They look great at a first glance, but when I start to plan points and what talents I'll take, it ends up feeling really underwhelming.
I guess we can't judge too much until January, but I hope Blizzard makes everything more appealing.
rulyblue Nov 16th 2006 10:17AM
Everyone should be worried about changes to game play. It won't take long to get used to some simple cases, such as new spells and a decentralized rage concept. Meanwhile, the bigger changes that involve completely redisigned talent trees (and even new talents that pertain more to PvP than PvE are wasted entities for some.) The healing Shadow Priest, the One-Stop-Shop Warlock and the Druid Tank are going to be diffiuclt to translate into the game because people are used to the old rythms of the game. Change too much and you lose some player base and the forums get molre posts. don't change enough and the same isn't "fresh and new" It is all about balance of new content; which we know Blizzard will get right, eventually.
Shadowbrand Nov 16th 2006 10:05AM
Quite happy with the changes coming up.
I play a Warlock atfer all and we FINALLY got ou class review and some things are actually going to be useful to use, and we get a decent high-level pet as well.
Kaziel Nov 16th 2006 10:27AM
Mage changes make me cry in the corner with my Frost Shield on and my finger on cold snap...
Why? What about them is so bad? Maybe I missed them being overwhelmed by all the fun of beta, but I've been very impressed with many aspects of the new mage spells and talents so far.
Sylythn Nov 16th 2006 11:57AM
There have been some excellent changes for Warlocks, and I'm happy with most of them. One thing that bothers me is the Unstable Affliction (41pt affliction talent). If I'm reading it right, then it's just a really good corruption unless someone dispells it. Now in PVE, I don't see that happening - I've yet to come across casters that dispell their allies when you're fighting them. If a boss, or some other mob has an ability that dispells magic on themselves, or clears off all the debuffs from them - does the damage then trigger on them, or does it have to be someone not affected with the affliction? I also don't see it's PVP use because once players get used to recognizing it, there's no way someone's going to dispell it off their ally.
Supamunky Nov 22nd 2006 2:02PM
I have nothing to worry about, I won't be hitting level 60 any time soon. :)
Hub Nov 16th 2006 11:36AM
Warlocks FTW! We finally get threat reduction, and each tree has some nice new abilities. Demonology should have given you a demon to summon all along. Corruption actually has talents I wouldn't mind having. Destruction locks finally got some much needed shadow buffs. I'm very very happy.
Freehugz Nov 16th 2006 11:38AM
I get to walk around as a tree!!! Why would I be worried?
warforge Nov 16th 2006 12:51PM
@2...listen to #7
Seriously if you have not played in BC beta. What is with your knee jerking?
I copied my frost mage over and tested that new frost tree.
Stronger frost bolts with a pet that frost bolts and novas also...thats your fire power move right there.
To deal with a frost mage now is bad enough. Now you get stronger ice spells with a pet casting also ontop of it.
Do you have a clue what it is like to fight against a frost spec? I know as a rogue its a huge pain...and now with a pet you can summon that can nova and frost bolt too...im screwed.
Seriously PTR ..go try it. You have nothing to be crying about.
Tiny Tim Nov 16th 2006 1:26PM
For the person who said shadow priests that heal... your way behind. They took away our heal in shadow form, which makes perfect sense because then a shadow priest would be a lot harder to take down. What they get instead is another DoT that works like vampiric Embrace except giving back mana to the whole party. It seems pretty nice and I'm not worried about my shadow priest abilities at all. Neither was I disappointed with the reflective shield, although I won't be getting enough points to get it.
Lex Nov 16th 2006 1:26PM
Changes for feral druids are great, but most of the good stuff is streamlining old talents. It reads like a great class review--I'm not super excited about the 30+ talents. Those are made up for, though, in the balance and resto 41 point talents (my business is with Isengard tonight!)
Hunter BM tree will be fun, but every build I put together for marks or survival ends up coming out 0/30/31 or close to it.
Is it really a good update if all I'm really excited about is having 10 extra points to spend?
Kryz Nov 16th 2006 2:35PM
I cry because it's boring and lacks any type of creativity.
The elemental summon is lack luster. A DPS boost yes, but do we really need another timed DPS boost? I'm not asking for a tanking pet, cause I would have rolled lock, but this is pretty horrid.
Invisibility....do I really need to make an argument about an 8 second fade that's inturuppted by any damage, lasts 20 seconds where we're basically blind, and has NO PVP use whatsoever?
Ice Spear is ok, but very situational, and useless against bosses. It's nice to have something other than frost bolt to use, but for the most part, we're spamming that same button for then next 10 levels.
And all the fun in beta? You mean the majority of upgrades having loads of stam, and a lack of +SD is good times? It was hard enough to get SD upgrades as it is without really deep raiding, but now, a lot of the SD classes are complaining. What basically is happening, is every class is getting a huge stam gear buff, and in turn, SD gear is fading. So now this war is going to have 10k health, and my frost bolts will be doing the same damage at 70, and they do at 60, because I lost all my spell damage.
PLUS, now they give locks all these spell damage buffs, making mages only stand out for sheeping, which is very optional in most cases.
Jay Nov 16th 2006 4:41PM
Druids need an overhaul pretty badly, imo. Some of the feral stuff is ok, but overall they need much more love.
Hub Nov 16th 2006 4:59PM
My main is a Lock, but I also have 60 mage. I don't understand why mages are so touchy. He used to be fire and now he's frost. Both specs I could take down people in PvP pretty well. Frost takes a bit longer, but they sure had a hard time getting to me. My warlock is still more fun, but the mage can get the job done. Back OT I'm happy to see the arcane tree getting a bit more love.
Kaziel Nov 16th 2006 5:18PM
Kryz: Are you actually in beta? Or is this just you looking over gear and reports from beta and coming to a conclusion?
First off, timid DPS boost? Define "timid"? According to my calculations (room for error based on gear), at level 70 a water elemental should give a 300 DPS increase for 45 seconds out of every 3 minutes. That's not including the bonus from Frost Nova which, with Shatter, will give you even more of a boost.
Next off, Spell Damage is fading? Since when, and what gear are you looking at? Maybe if you're decked out in AQ40 or T3, the 60+ gear is a disappointment, but for me (I'm only in a mix of T1 and and a handful of random pieces from Onyxia, and BWL) it's been almost steady upgrades. Obviously Stamina is going up, but my spell damage has continued to improve as well. And I'm definately not doing the same damage as I was at 60 in my pre-expansion gear (I've replaced almost everything I had, with the exception of 5 pieces of armor). Right now, I'm doing non-crit Frostbolts for over 1000 damage. Also, yeah, the total health is going up, and our damage output is not keeping up... you think mages are alone in this? Every class's health is going up, and their damage ability is not going up by an equivalent amount. Now at least people having a fighting chance, instead of finding themselves one shotted before they can even figure out what's hitting them.
Originally I was going to make my last paragraph about how I think mages are supposed to play like, and how I think warlocks are supposed to play like. But then I realized something... I know next to diddly-squat about Warlock playstyles. I mean, I know the basics, such as the general types of spells they cast, that they can summon demons, etc. But good talent builds, numbers, results of tests, stuff like that I know nothing about.
And maybe I'm wrong, but I have a feeling you don't either. Unless you have leveled both jobs from 1-60, and played around with both at 60, I can't honestly say you would qualify as an expert in if a class is getting buffed above and beyond what it needs compared to other classes.
Kryz Nov 16th 2006 7:31PM
Define "My name is Kaziel and I make points on things that were never said".
I didn't say timid, I say timed. I think we have our share of damage that's on timers, and putting another on there is just annoying. OK, it's flashy that we'll have an elemental summoned next to us, but in the end, it's a spell on a timer. I never questioned the damage it does, only the fact that we have it for 45 seconds, and its on a timer. I would gladly get rid of the elemental for a useful invis, or an ice lance that has a wider use.
And no, I'm not in Beta, so I am basing this off of a number of discussions I've read, and a lot of previews people have done as far as itemization in TBC. If it was an one or two opinions, I wouldn't think twice about them, but when you keep coming up on something, and there's a consistent pattern, how can you deny that this is there? You even say that everyone's damage isn't scaling with their gear as it has up to now, but since when does a mage need stam gear? Damage is what we do. Glass Cannons, not sturdy pistols. Our fighting chance comes from doing the damage faster than someone else can. And I don't know about you, but I don't exactly see mages topping BG score cards in the end.
And you don't need to go into Lock strategy, I know it. I've been in enough raids to know what they do and played one far enough in to know. I was simply using them as an example in my point that without the damage gear we have come to know and love, what are mages? OK, say mages get double the Stam and Int, but it's not up to par with the SD you'd expect, what good is it? People don't get mages for their ability to stay alive, they're there for damage, and nerfing that aspect, nerfs the entire class more than it would nerf, say a warrior, who even with the rage normalization, can still do their 'defined' grouping role fine while holding their own in PVP.
Rogue are the melee version of us in my mind, and they got an excellent review. They have their novelty talents which is expected, but they have address the issues people had with playing the class. I just feel like most of the time, its 1 step forward, 2 steps back with mages.
AngryLagomorph Nov 17th 2006 1:05AM
These are my predictions:
1) Shamans will be given Dragon Form and a talent allowing the use of Plate Armor.
2) Paladins will have their ability to attack removed as unbalancing, and the Retribution tree will be replaced with a Meatshield one, all the skills of which will cause increased threat generation. Also, they will only be allowed cloth armor.
3) Warlocks will be given the "Summon Demon Item" ability, effectively allowing them to make, with a single soul stone, Blue Weapons.
4) The Rage gen of all warrior abilities and attacks will be lowered by one point.
5) At least one new Blacksmithing recipe will require 100 bars of "Nether Silver", of which there shall be but three mines, all within high-level non-instanced elite areas and on 2-week reset clocks.
6) Rogues will still only be able to pick-pocket about 1 silver from even the most imposing enemies.
7) To purchase Flying Mount Riding, players shall be required to sacrifice one year of their life to Blizzard, either working in WoW tech support or, for those of proven programming ability, deep within their code-mines. Only 1 Jolt shall be allowed a day.