As a person with almost 20 years in mmorpgs, I want to give wow a credit for the class identity. I think many mmorpgs fail this miserably.
Let’s take my favourite class, warrior. The dude is just a warrior. Especially in classic, you are just a guy with a sword. IDK about others, but that is very appealing to me. Even looking at the abilities, they are so simple like smash, bash, rend, sunder armor, block, idk… slap xd, taunt and etc. But other mmos make warriors these dragon phoenix fire bs with abilities like “earth shattering world breaking dragon breathe strike of two thousand blades” and then the animation is this “warrior” flying high in the sky and riding four dragons at the same time and they breathe fire on your enemies. IDK man, that’s not warrior for me. And I feel like retail warrior is slowly going to that direction, and I don’t like it.
If you look at classic, you don’t even need to see the class colors to know who is who. I didn’t even turn it on for dungeons cuz I can clearly see their abilities and what they do.
I think in terms of fantasy, we all appreciate a good sword handler, like idk like Jon Snow, Konan, Varian Wrynn, Aragorn, and etc. And wow warrior (especially classic) makes you feel like that. But other mmos, idk why they even have a sword. Just fire mages with swords called “warriors.”
And these new animations posted just below, like some phantom axes crushing on an enemy with colosus smash… idk man… not a huge fan…
Well Blizzard clearly heard that feedback on warriors. They are now slated to summon ethereal blades from out of thin air, like a mixture of mages and Jedi. Huzzah…?
Funny thing is, FFXIV’s Warrior is pretty much just swinging an axe around with massive force. The most unrealistic special effect they have is either smashing the ground so hard there are cracks, or swinging the axe so hard there are shockwaves in the air, both of which WoW Warriors also do (talented Overpower/basic Thunderclap).
I feel the same, but about Beast Mastery hunters. I just want to be a ‘dude’ with several pets that I command. No fancy pew pew, no magic. That’s one of the reasons I disliked most Azerite powers and such: It felt sooooo out of character for my class/spec.
So I can definitely understand your issues with these new powers.
I think Warriors definitely need to be grounded in all aspects - strictly no magic or anything that even looks like magic. They fulfil the role a master of arms - a pure fighter who relies on physical strength and skill.
I do think it’s fair to showcase Warriors being strong enough to accomplish huge feats of power in their combat abilities - after all they do have to compete with actual magical classes, and showing they keep up with raw strength is thematically fitting. But the actual animations and effects need to reflect that, as opposed to leaning into something magical looking.
I’ve said before I’d love to see MM Hunter get some new animations. Like an aimed shot should feel like it fires with the force of a ballista. But right now it feels quite limp.
Basically, the grounded, less magical classes should have animations that reflect that - but given that it’s fantasy you have a lot of scope to stretch realism in demonstrating the physical power these classes possess.
I am fine with some cracks or shocwaves. But the animations up there are not only lame, they also kill the class identity.
I don’t know why blizz doesn’t get it, really. If I am playing a hunter, means I am not playing an arcane mage. I remember Asmongold once said that wow devs copy other mmos and they copy their worst things.
It’s a fair point.
Another thing is that we used to have skill expression that was very thematical to your class. Like a good warrior in pvp would absolutely look like a blade master (good positioning, parrying, good talent timing). A good pvp rouge would look exactly like a rogue (sneaky, cc chains, burst damage). Or a good mage would act like a real wizard (polymorph, blink, very timed ice blocks, fake casting and etc).
While other mmos completely fail at this aspect of the game. Like you have a wizard with magical abilities, then you have another spell caster type that does exactly the same abilities, just different animations, like shooting a star on someone becomes shooting a fireball on someone. It’s like these specs are all the same, it’s just they have glyphs to change their ability animations. WOW didn’t have that, but is slowly moving towards losing class identity.
Throwing phantom axes on my enemy is not what I think when I say “Arms warrior.” Instead, I imagine a blade master, an expert sword handler like Aragorn.
someone in my discord also pointed out how the weapons point away from the target
dude’s just tilling the soil around his target
this animation belongs to a farmer class capstone talent
I don’t know much about the new animations but I hear Lightning Bolt is no longer a bolt but like a ball of fizzle or something.
Speaking of Class Identity, I miss totems on my Shaman and glowie auras on my Paladin (they did bring a faint one back but it’s not as good).
I agree about Warriors, I like to just Charge, Rend, Whack whack whack, Roar!
The last time class felt like themselves was probably MOP. Although Legion at least had Class Order Halls which gave some sense of Class Identity (even if the mechanics weren’t doing it).