My favourite time to play this game was Legion and BFA S3 and S4. Heck even Shadowlands was better than Dragonfail and Warthin.
Most classes feel like absolute trash to play for the majority of the playerbase, and the most played specs are an indication of this.
Come up with better arguments than ´´gO pLaY cLassic luL´´ if you wanna forum PvP please
I wish I could downvote this.
Majority of the playerbase? Bold words. Aren’t you that guy that preaches about Hekili? I believe it’s better to ignore you, since your opinion objectively has no value.
Sure. Whatever. Fact is WoW changed. It’s dying since Classic. Anyone who uses that sentence immediately invalidates everything they have to say.
It’s still an rpg, just not how it used to be. It’s been a seasonal game since legion. Legion and dragonflight are praised as one of the best expansions to ever be released.
We still have a world in retail. We have world quests, world bosses, world events. Do that. There is enough to do.
My alts have been at least 500 when hitting max level. Granted, I also did non-elite world quests while levelling, which tend to provide 500-540 gear rewards. Crafting (if you craft armor or weapons) also tends to provide at least a couple of decent 550+ pieces even without Sparks or crests, though I didn’t take advantage of this early on.
That sounds about right from my experience, but it’s actually 540-550 with a couple outdated pieces dragging the overall down. Right now you can quite easily springboard that 520 onto Siren’s Isle and be 590 within three hours because Veteran gear there costs a pittance, too.
Back when? It was TBC that made epics rather accessible and full epic gear stopped mattering all that much, with item level coming to the forefront. So about the only point in time you’d be somewhat right about this would be Vanilla, and even in Vanilla the only epic that really, really made your numbers change noticeably was a weapon. For spellcasters, it was the same things it is today, you get a barely noticeable +100 HP, +150 MP and +10 spellpower over what you used to have by upgrading to a good epic item. A bad epic item could actually be way worse than your dungeon blue, because it might not have +spellhit on it, for instance.
Considering that going from 600 to 610 grants you about 600k HP (more for tanks) and 10% or more in secondary stats, you should notice. It’s a double-digit percentage increase to your damage.
Frankly, the only thing that definitely got ruined relatively early on (late Wrath/early Cata partially, and fully with MoP/WoD changes) was the sense of the 1-to-levelcap adventure. These days I can barely finish four classic zones before I get to 70 and off to the new expansion. And yet…I know that making levelling unchanged from Vanilla/early TBC would just kill the game. If you had to go through 150 hours of Vanilla, then 50 hours of each expansion just to get to max level, nobody would be playing.
Yeah, my priest is my last char i leveled a couple of weeks ago and after ‘robbing’ my warbank, some undercoin items and 1 or 2 resonance crystel items, the char got without playing to ~565 instant after hitting 80.
Rogues stopped being simple Rogues ages ago. A warrior for example is still pretty much what they always were fantasy wise (expceptions like Odyns Fury etc aside). Rogues only assa still fills that niche (excluding Deathstalker Hero tree and bone spike) as Sub is wielding Void Magic and has done so since a while and Outlaw is a pirate. Many people also wanted Combat back as they didn’t see the appeal of a pirate (that was back in Legion. How its now I don’t know).
Rogues have also always been viewed as the strategic and technical and more complicated class. Whether thats true or not is very highly up for debate. And what I’ve observed is that people deem rogues squishy by default and I read it a lot during seasons where rogues were practically immortal as well and I don’t know where this notion comes from, but its there.
For the present themselves as if you’re a regular rogue in text part I can at least deny this for Sub. Shadowblades states you draw upon the power of the surrounding shadows (magic) and symbols of death states it invokes ancient symbols. Secret Technique is calling your clones shadow clones rather than I don’t know after images that somehow deal damage. Gloomblade states your weapon is shadow infused unlike backstab. Rupture used to be nightblade and tbh they could just name it so again but I assume their reason was “because it confuses the playerbase” (a phrase they liked to use in the past and then scrapped after getting proven wrong over and over again).
Shadow Dance had a different flavor text and I don’t like that they changed it, same goes for Flaggelation after they seperated the abilities from their Shadowlands source of origin and these are the two abilities I agree on. I even use the Venthyr Rune for Flagellation because it doesnt make sense for me for it not to be the Venthyr ability.
Burst window: Yes we are CD classes but at the same time we are not and yes this makes sense. Assa is a burst spec and this has been complained about, this I agree, because it used to be the sustained dps spec and right now we only deal “noticeable” amounts of damage during kingsbane and deathmark+kingsbane. Noticeable because the game is too heavily burst centered no matter the content.
Sub Rogues deal damage during Shadow Dance yes, but we get access to Shadow Dance very frequently (hence me saying we have a CD but we also don’t) due to our cooldown reduction. In a 2:34min fight a Sub rogue can cast Shadow Dance, a 1min CD with 2 charges, 7 times and the log I have open was close to being able to cast another one. There were also 8 Symbol casts (25sec, 3 charges) with a total uptime of 62.84%
Outlaw, the spec I hate (and which is at the same time whyever the most popular. Especially amongst people that don’t main the class. Maybe its the fantasy.) also has an insane amount of CDR.
They changed Roll the Casino a lot (and it has been requested to be removed ever since its implantation. Its not the dmg gain thats the issue, but the bitter taste of a casino even if it evens out over the span of the encounter). The scenarios when you want to roll have also been changed. Right now you want to roll when you 1 buff unlike before when you rerolled when you had 1 or 2 that were 1 was a bad buff or not reroll when you rolled the best buff (whichever it was during the patch).
Then there is a fishing thing you CAN do that is if you have loaded dice (adrenaline rush) up and using it would result in losing at best 2 buffs and none of these lost buffs include half of the potential buffs (and I assume the performance gain in that scenario is equal to pressing FoK/Shuriken Storm after applying deathmark (less than 1% or roughly 1% (considering the dmg loss from not pressing another ability in the total dmg again))
So you effectively dont reroll anymore outside of KiR preventing you from losing buffs, you have no buffs, or 1-2 buffs with Adrenaline Rush. Thats for KiR only. If you use the ambush spec you don’t reroll outside of having only 1 buff (2 buffs is 20% chance. 1 Buff is 79%. 5 buffs is 1% (less of an issue than it was due to count the odds)
The Rogue discord is also advising against the small extra optimizations (I wont list them here. They are also only for KiR again) because the gain is so small that it doesnt matter and nobody that doesnt want their brain to melt should go for it.
Thats Roll the Casino. Other than that based on the guide (again I hate the spec and don’t plan on playing it again anytime soon, especially since I rerolled. Unless its completely broken and I’m “forced” to do it for the sake of progress) its cast its CDs whenever ready (optimize AR to use at 2 or less CP = I assume they mean a scenario where you don’t instantly get back to full CP after a finisher). KiR (since apparently the ambush spec isnt played anymore?) at 4 buffs or more only (very long CD). Vanish I would personaly just use it during supercharger (RTB bound) or when its about to cap. The gain for the other example is gonna be marginal and me ignoring them won’t matter as it rarely does (could be wrong, but doubt it).
Between the eyes has a 99.76% uptime in this log I see here so you can most certainly just ignore the “order” because you’re drowning in casts given his 79 casts in 2:58 and BTE’s duration on the buff.
And then just the order of cast Dispatch at 3 or 1 CP dependent whether you have broadside and Sinister Strike if you ever land on 5CP.
Its not as obnoxious as it was in the past from what I can see at least. But again outlaw is notorious for having an insanely high APM and why you either love the spec or hate it with absolute passion and negotiate with your raid leader by yapping for 5minutes straight so you can play your other spec instead (a usual “I suck at the spec” suffices for me nowadays)
Assa: You track Garrote and Rupture as your standard debuffs and CT if you’re doing actual AoE (spatter you don’t need to track. Just cast Mutilate every couple casts and you’re fine. I didnt track it for the majority of the patch and even now it bugs out because it gets overwritten by another rouges spatter in my WA but I cba to fix it because I press muti by muscle memory anyway).
Kingsbane+shiv (shiv only for KB) every minute and you don’t care about deathmarks uptime (lines up with Kingsbane. The only buff you care about during the deathmark window).
And then we come to the only offender for Assa. Twist the Knife. Gain is noticeable if you do it correctly, Blizzard UI isnt tracking it correctly. You need a WA (this has been pointed out since we got our hands on the double buff. And you need a specific one that tracks it differently than just a regular one that tracks the Blizzard UI buff). Its also the only thing you play around as Assa due to energy juggling and ignore it during CDs because you’re spamming. Tea you can macro to Shiv and so you will always have a charge ready for kingsbane and then you can just ignore tea and have it auto proc (not ignoring it is a 0.3% dps gain at perfect usage aka irrelevant).
Deathstalker: 3 finishers. Finish at max CP (always). Rinse and repeat. Most annoying part is if you have to swap bosses or a boss goes to narnia and the debuff drops as you can only reapply it with vanish as Assa (sub applies it every Shadowstrike. Assa doesnt with Blindside for whatever dumb reason)
The only proc for Assa is Blindside really.
Sub:
You track Rupture. Other than that its just your CDs. Shadowdance with Symbols and obviously ST. Secret Technique with symbols outside of dance. Supercharger CP are properly displayed. If in doubt whether ST will be ready for SD if you use or not = hold it. At some point you have the muscle memory. And even if you don’t you can still get a 90% log on Mythic.
Cold Blood can be macroed to ST and be forgotten (this is advised anyway).
My only headache as sub is the Transmitter.
Only Vanish. And its been like that since a decade or so. The idea of feint as a DPS cooldown was scrapped because nobody liked the idea.
Backstab was changed because it was overly annoying on bosses where you had to attack from the front which rendered the ability useless and you had to sinister strike . After the change people that wanted to attack from behind were granted the 20% dmg increase from the back for it. Deathstalker sub is also using gloomblade.
You can ignore most debuffs.
For sub: I apply find weakness (can be ignored nowadays. Application rate is skyhigh). Fatal Intent can be ignored (dmg at 20% health of the mob). Corrupt the blood can be ignored (dot). Rupture and Deathmark: Have to be tracked.
Assa: Mutilated Flesh can be ignored. Spatter (see above). Bone Spike: Can be ignored. Poisons can be ignored as long as you know you have applied all 4 to you. Fatal intent can be ignored. Rupture/Garrote/CT have to be tracked. Kingsbane too. Shiv doesnt need to be tracked as long as you shiv before KB and then shiv KB at 8 sec remaining (shiv will still be up).
Deathstalker: Deathmark has to be tracked.
Trickster: Doesnt have to track to anything really. Unseen Blade and Flawless form are essentially always up
Fatebound: Nobody plays this. Its also a mess and you will see a lot of complains should they ever buff it without an overhaul.
You mean Deathmark and it doesnt matter as much as you think. Deathmark wants you to finish at 5 CP at least. Assa would do that anyway just like before. Its good that it says 5 instead of 6 as otherwise it would mess with our CP generation RNG. During Darkest NIght (after 3 finishers at 5CP) it wants you to finish at max CP. That isnt an issue because the buff makes it so that you hit hard and want to hit hard (with supercharger you can still finish at 5 or even less because of how supercharger works but you still want to finish at max cp regardless because of the guaranteed and empowered crit).
Deathstalker doesnt interfere with your rotation at all. Darkest night does. Sub also still finishes at 6CP regardless of Deathstalker wanting 5. The guides dont even mention Deathstalkers mark for sub but only Darkest night.
Assas only forced AoE is poison bomb. Yes it breaks CC but so does a bazillion other abilities. Not every ability is a smart one that ignores CC. Assa is also having a heavy tradeoff whether they want to AoE or ST (similar to rets)
For Sub its ST (if they run deathstalker).
Outlaw should only cleave with Flurry.
People want to be challenged!!!
Lets look at the heroic raid parses:
Beastmaster and Destruction Lock both have more parses than every single rogue spec combined.
Retribution has more parses than every single rogue spec + Fire mage + arcane mage + feral + affliction
I don´t remember there ever in the history of WoW being this many people flocking to the easy specs in the history of the game at this extreme rate. Blizz wasting all this time overdesigning all the specs just for everyoen to play Ret, fury, Destro and BM 
People clearly, do not want to be challenged lol (even in retail).
Which is a mistake, because people wanted rogues, not intergalactic shadow monsters. There’s a case to be made for subtlety here, but overall it’s a complete miss.
One thing I want to say is that your reply is very impressive and long, and I read almost all of it, but I’m not going to respond individually because I believe its sheer length is the problem itself.
I said it was overcomplicated to do simple things and there are a ton of little things about the rotation itself that doesn’t interact at all with what you’re trying to do, which may simply be dealing damage to a single target that isn’t doing anything to you in return.
I don’t know if you’re trying to deny this by writing ~22 entire paragraphs justifying why a hundred different things don’t matter or get simplified into not being any real choice in the end but… I’d say that’s a bad strategy because you’re confirming my position as the better one by doing that.
It’s just like the rest. Tons of noise and useless subtleties in doing simple things, and when finally you have a special case that you need to think about…
… oh no, can’t have that! Monsters with special positions or properties are inconvenient.
“I want to spin plates and now you’re telling me one of my plates aren’t available and I have to use a different one? Oh woe is me.”
You know what I think? I think a boss that faces you so you can’t backstab it unless you find the right moment or a tank manages to rotate it sideways - that’s fun. That’s variety. You’re looking at the game world, enemy does something, you respond by altering your rotation.
Why do they exist then? If I can just ignore them they’re just meaningless junk on my screen.
I remember levelling one for the MoP thingy and I wanted to kill myself over this mechanic as assa.
I’m sure if I receive a dozen explanations about various things it turns out there’s a sequence that solves the problem effortlessly and I just do that every time and it’s great.
But if I have to do the same thing every time, why present me with that sequence? It’s a given. Just wasted keypresses.
Yeah, they do…
I think a big part of it is that people don’t want to feel like they’re fighting their spec as well as the boss, if your spec is fairly straightforward to play, that’s more attention that can be paid to boss mechanics, another thing that has been getting steadily more and more complex over the years.
Not exactly. What I did was explain that your take that you have to track a bazillion things isnt a case and that in some regards you’re not up to date at all (Roll the Bones. Feint not being a dps cd (this never made it to live and was beta only)). People overcomplicate stuff and they have always done so.
We arent talking about positioning (you have to position behind the boss as every melee anyway due to parry) but being unable to use the ability at all during the entire encounter because the boss doesnt allow attacking from the sides (this was a thing. Assa or Combat were also usually the to go specs pre backstab change).
As for your woe is me remark: You brought class fantasy in. Backstab was one such ability. Subs wanted to use backstab, not sinister strike.
Because people wanted talent trees. Have to fill it with some junk. And alas people seem to prefer this kind of junk over 1% buffs per rank everywhere and then cause the server lag that we’ve got.
And people, especially older ones, are under the impression they have to track stuff they had to track in the past as well. For example Find Weakness. You tracked it in the past, you don’t give a rats about it nowadays.
Remix didnt have deathstalker. Its TWW exclusive.
And again you don’t even care about the mark as they dont interfere with your rotation and you don’t waste any key presses and then you finish at max cp after every 3 envenoms/ruptures. And you can call it an additional combo point building for all I care as it serves the same purpose with Mark consumptions being the builders and darkest night being the spender.
If we talk about shadow priest.
What do you mean by “not intuitive”?
The last time I played Shadow Priest was in BFA when we had the insanity-draining mechanic.
I switched to Shadow last week, and within five minutes on the dummies, I understood the basics.
That’s pretty fast and intuitive.
Of course, I didn’t master it in those five minutes, but the basic flow of the spec was very easy to understand.
Legion and Wrath as far as I know.
I did play Legion and yes it was amazing.
I also played Dragonflight and it was at best ,mediocre…not even that.
Thanks for the laugh though.
That the understanding in WoW comes from learning and not from playing.
The way you would go about understanding how to play a spec in WoW would always start with reading the tooltips of the abilities you get, and then with that knowledge you assemble your rotation.
So the gameplay is born entirely out of discerning the math behind the abilities. What sequence of buttons produces the highest damage? Math it and do it!
An intuitive game would be Hades.
In Hades you can select different kinds of weapons.
There’s a sword, a bow, a spear, and a shield.
On top of that you have various power-ups you can get as you play.
How you discern what weapon and power-up combos to use and how to execute attack sequences comes entirely from playing the game. You don’t math it out – you play it out.
And that approach leads to some gameplay discoveries based on intuition.
Because what is intuition? Well in speed chess you sometimes hear a Grandmaster say that he made a move based on intuition. What he means is that he makes a qualified move based on his experience.
Intuition derives from experience.
In Hades that manifests in the fact that you begin to understand how some power-ups work better with certain weapons than others, based on your experience of playing with them.
It results in those “Aha!”-moments where the player figures something out for themselves, and is able to act on intuition in the gameplay, because they have accumulated experience. So you ultimately learn how to get better at the game by simply playing the game.
But that just ain’t how WoW is approached.
It’s a static experience where the mobs in the dungeons are always in the same locations and the bosses have the same phases and mechanics each time. And therefore it’s based on learning and then perfecting what you’ve learned. Like playing a piano piece. There’s no discovery in that, there’s just execution.
That is (IMO) one of the major flaws of Retail WoW: Gameplay (Skill/talent interactions and stuff) have grown vastly more complicated over the years, and we have the same in-game resources about them as we had in Vanilla. (Basically, just a bunch of separate tooltips)
Wotlk is overrated at best. I didnt know your opinion is the only correct one.
Maybe we’ve been playing different games for years, but I’ve never learned anything about World of Warcraft just by reading.
Everything I know comes from experimenting and pressing buttons on dummies in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.
I apply the same approach to raiding and Mythic+.
I need to feel it.
I don’t care about what’s written.
People overcomplicate things for no reason, and that’s what holds them back. WoW is a very simple game where you experiment with your spec to get results.
You feel it. You look at the DPS meter, compare what abilities hit the hardest, and analyze what you did differently.
What did you press too little and should press more? What did you press too much?
That’s something you only learn by playing.
Or are you saying you spend your days on Wowhead reading class guides? Because most of those guides are trash.
And you don’t need to read Warcraft Logs that much to understand why someone played certain talents on certain bosses. That knowledge comes naturally when you put in enough hours.
No you don’t. As you go on to say:
What you described was not learning by playing. That was learning by analyzing.
You look at the DPS meter because WoW is not a “feel” game - it’s a numbers game.
I’m saying that we – as a collective playerbase – consume knowledge about class rotations and raid strategies and comp synergies through the wisdom of others.
The people who bother to hit those target dummies and read those DPS meters and math out the optimal rotations and best talent builds and do a bunch of simulations.
Everyone who isn’t one of those people (which is most players), they just copy their homework. Because there’s no alternative.
WoW has so many abilities, so many passive effects, so many modifiers, so many variations in gear and talents and so forth, that there is no way you can arrive at the optimum state by simply playing the game and feeling your way.
The only way since the dawn of WoW, and which has always been a cornerstone of WoW, is through theory-crafting. You math it out.
WoW is not a game where you just “feel” what’s best. You simulate all the variations until the math machine spits out the right answer.
Or you read it in a guide because someone else did it for you.
Yep
We just had Classic Wrath prove this
A lot of us who have played this game since the dawn of time claimed that Wrath was massively overrated. Yet the Wrath babies claimed otherwise and would have everyone believe Wrath was peak WoW. No one considers Wrath peak WoW after Classic Wrath. Kinda funny actually.
Even TBC Classic performed significantly better, and it wasn´t even due to nostalgia (a lot more ppl played Wrath than TBC, so if anything Wrath should win the nostalgia battle).
I agree entirely
It is one of those things were the current dungeon and raid design exacerbates the issue.
I don’t understand how someone who says class design is bad now could like Legion and BFA, when class design was worse than it is now.