Ranged classes dont feel good to play

Community General Discussion
1

As blizzard wants at least 2/3 of all players play ranged classes I tried some and was disappointed - they feel clunky and old, like somebody added a lot of stuff to something old without reworking it properly and too may buttons that serve only to take up keybinds without doing anything fun on activation - rune of power, doubletap etc.

Many classes feel like somebody stuck 2 or 3 ideas together or have extra buttons for the sake of having more buttons that arent any fun to press. A lot of them are missing nice big impactful stuff that feels satisfying to use.

Marksman - kinda ok-ish, but feels tedious to setup Doubletap, covenant trueshot, volley some of them would feel nice, but there are simply too many of these abilities that you drop before doing rotation, and steady shot is just meh

Mage - Hate rune of power, feels like boring cast that takes away time killing stuff, but too OP to ignore
Arcane - Arcane explosion feels really bad in dungeons, spamy, forces in mele, non-mage-ish reason i didnt play it more
Fire - didnt click with the class has potential, but scorch/fireball feels same-ish, and like somebody added one just for sake of buttons. spreading with phoenix flames is nice, but using during combustion didnt feel good
Frost - frostbolt fishing is meh and aoe outside of orb feels meh + rng

Shadow - next to DK dots, SP single target dots feel like ancient relic without easy multidotting, few abilities are boring clones added just for sake of having more buttons, like Mind sear and Mind flay, and generally way too many buttons that arent fun to press

Elemental - one of the best, but spenders dont have visuals comparable to builders and i dislike the elementals, would love some lonely winter type of ability, stormkeeper looks nice and going full sith feels great, but should it be a 1.5 sec castable ability, it doesnt feel good to press the button, its the next buttons that are fun

Warlock
Affliction - not played much, multidotting single target skills doesnt feel good, same as shadow, make it like dk or smtgh
Destro - Chaos bolt feels awesome, but thats about it, rain is a meh, feels like it forgot half the spellbook, with additional skills from talents it might be much better, but they arent optional, cataclysm replacing immolate with channel demonfire as baseline would feel much nicer

2

But they did feel good to play in mop, and cata, and wotlk.

Then something happened, hmmm

6 Likes
3

Didnt play then

4

Class design was not a concern until the the pruning and redesigns of wod and legion. It was really good until then. Most things made sense and felt good. From class kits, to damage numbers to animations.

Then something happened… hmmm

4 Likes
5

Try to be a meele in Nahtria or really, anything is shadowlands…
…and weep
I for one, prefer safe distance
And hate myself for it, watching my meele friends suffer

1 Like
6

SP is feeling pretty good and not clunky to play at the moment. It’s had bad moments in the past but not a lot to complain about at the moment - flows smoothly and (sometimes) deadly.
Incidentally Mind Sear & Mind Flay are nothing like each other.

On the other hand, my alt who’s a balance druid (that doesn’t appear in your post) seems much clunkier to play. Maybe it’s because I haven’t got the hang of how to play it yet, but I always seem to be searching for the right spell.

1 Like
7

Been playing MM on M+ and raids but have reverted to BM for raids while keeping MM for M+. I do agree MM feels like its setup is too long. BM is total joy after MM. Lose some dps, but way more fun for me.

8

Lots of specs feel clunky and unfinished. ):

9

Ranged usually has it pretty good in raids but ever since M+ or perhaps it was just Legion class design philosophy ranged just became meh to me.

I still main ranged, Aff Lock specifically, but thats thanks to DoTs allowing me to perform while on the move. Having to stand still and cast in the same game as Demon Hunters, Monks, Rogues, run & gun Hunters and Fire Mages is just so out dated.

I still prefer ranged but I used to exclusively find ranged better, now I have a Enh Shammy and a Frost DK alt with only my main as ranged.

But I hate how melee damage breakdowns is usually a passive thing.
Like melee, or Windfury, I much prefer ranged rotations and how your spells are actually noticeable on the breakdown of DPS.

10

Boomie is being carried by the numbers but once it eventually gets nerfed it’ll be in bad shape.

The eclipse system sucks. Tank pulls 2 packs and groups them up, you want to pump out your AOE damage for some satisfying numbers but first you have to cast two single target filler spells, or you accidentally cast two AOE filler spells and get stuck with a buffed single target filler.

And the DoTs have 0 interaction with the spec and do very weak damage.

11

They usually fix specs with borrowed power during expac and then they are broken when new xpack gets released. They never learn…

1 Like
12

Yes, ranged doesn’t feel that great to play when you have to stand still and cast stuff and also you have to move to avoid getting hit by one of the 99 mechanics that punishes standing in the wrong spot

13

all classes & specs was epic & fun to play during wotlk with too many spells & talent trees, but Now the current class design feels like it was meant for a bot to play them.

14

Welp, I like my Beast Master Hunter…so, I’m going to have to disagree.

1 Like
15

Ion happened

16

That’s just, like, your opinion man.

17

This might be an ignorant statement so forgive me if it is lol but I really, really, really don’t get why all range specs bar BM have to park themselves to cast spells?
It doesn’t do anything but make the class feel worse, at least for me.

What self-respecting wizard or warlock can’t move and cast spells and incantations at the same time ?

Nothing worse than blasting for a while on this character and then switching to my Spriest lol…talk about night and day.

2 Likes
19

I like how you didn’t even say anything about demonology. Kind of fitting.

20

Wait until Storming week and you’ll think Ranged feels really good to play

21

Whilst I agree that multidotting targets is annoying and limited, it’s for good reason. Could you imagine how busted affliction would be if they could just agony everything from the word go? Specs like affliction and SP shine in raids for good reason, when they can ramp up their damage they’re killer, but it comes at the cost of setting it up and then going into nuke phase. If you take away that setup, they’ll be too strong and you’ll also reduce some of the maintenance the specs require and turn 90% of their rotation into spam Sbolt or Flay.

I don’t find playing destro without Cataclysm terrible. It’s be nice, sure, but even at my scummy key level of just starting out I have enough time to individually immolate everything before I gets the shards rolling with Fire and Brim plus infernal and lay down the rains of fire. I actually find that fun, seeing how many I can push out. I found Demon fire less impactful anyway. Maybe when in a group where mobs die in a blink, but not planning to stay there forever. Much prefer army of internals when playing destro.

Also yeah, noticed no demo spec discussion?