Before even going into spec specific issues, I think the baseline of the 2 resource system (runic power and runes) feels clunky and outdated. Blood, UH and even frost (depending on build) are heavily reliant on having a lot of haste, and feel awful without it. This shouldn’t be the case.
Now as for spec specific, I’ll focus a bit more on UH as I’ve mained that for the last 3 expansions… Like you said, it feels so bloated. You know when something is over engineered but for no good reason? Sure everything is great if you align everything in perfect order, but if you do one mistake on the rotation we very quickly fall down the meters. Not very satisfying to play. All of our own attacks feel weak and aren’t satisfying to press, paired with poor and outdated animations, they just feel like filler until army, ghoul etc have all lined up again.
I would like to see a better use of the wounds system. Right now it’s build 4 of them for apocalypse, then just make sure there’s 1 or 2 always up so you can pop and don’t over cap. Ok they’ve added festermight which is quite a frustrating minigame on its own. I would like to see more gameplay around wounds, as right now they’re more of a resource or currency.
Maybe they also apply stacking dot? This way we get to plan around them more. Let’s say a boss or a pack of mobs have some sort of mechanics that require us to stay in range for a while. I’d look to build those up to max to get the most out of the dot whilst unable to melee. Maybe they pair with other diseases in some different way, causing even more damage once the synergy is correct. Generally, a build that relies more on diseases and dots in a fun interactive way not “press outbreak, apply 3 diseases and ignore until expires”.
The minion side, yeah sure it could be better as well, besides the well needed visual update. It’s a bit better with the dragonflight talent revamp but still frustrating. Too many CDs to press and ultimately things never line up nicely with army so we always end up having this bizarre lag before second army. ERW doesn’t fit the CD cycle neither. As a start, this CD thing needs to get ironed once and for all, so we can get better cycles. And please remove some of them from GCD (looking at you DT and apoc)… In terms of how it feels though that’s a different question. Summoning a horde of zombies should feel more chaotic… Would love to see some sort aoe side to having loads of zombies besides the DT cleave… Like imagine attacking a pack of mobs and your zombies slam and slash into everyone like the feral rabid pack of monsters they’re meant to be… It’s a bit too orderly right now.
Frost… Absolutely boring… Rework the whole thing from the ground up. Such an odd spec, should feel so awesome and strong yet it’s one of the most disappointing aspects of this class.
Blood… A bit odd, defo better this patch but still lacks something that other tanks do better. I would describe blood as “hey you’re nearly invincible but you otherwise kind of suck.” 