Hello, Blizzard said they wanted questions and feedback on the forums, so that’s what I’m doing.
Love the idea, love the reasons behind everything that is being done, it’s been well explained, it’s rational, and most importantly fun.
It goes without saying that in terms of execution this is going to rocky to say the least, I really hope the the development tools on the back end of this version of classic are versatile and will allow designers frequent oppurtunities to turn numbers up and down at will.
With regard to the specific runes, I do have some feedback on some, I am reading Wowhead and it doesn’t show CD’s or resource costs, so please bear that in mind
Mage:
- The numbers on living flame seem exceptionally high, I understand the power budget is in its stationary limitations but I can’t help but feel like in PvE this is already going to be a mandatory pick, it will do 840 base damage in total, at level 25, that is alot of damage. I may be wrong, the CD may be long or the mana cost may be huge, but at a glance they seem like really high numbers.
Druid:
- There is no Rune that replaces the need for druids to farm gnomeregan for MCP’s to remain competitive.
- Add the AoE component of Sunfire from retail to Sunfire(Bear) so it can compete with Paladins Consc for AoE TPS.
- Savage Roar is a boring ability, and mostly disliked in WoW, people hate mandatory spenders that give flat damage buffs. Considering the only other viable leg rune for feral is Skull Bash, it is basically going to be a mandatory pick in PvE content. The potential solutions to this are :
- Keep savage roar but add that other finishing moves extend its duration.
- Remove savage roar and replace it with a rune that scales Feral AP with weapon damage, to stop people from needing to farm MCP’s to remain competitive.
- Add another leg rune that is roughly comparable to savage roar with regard to increase in damage, so that players that enjoy SR can still run it, but those who hate flat damage increase spenders (Slice and Dice, Inquisition, SR etc.) don’t have to use it.
Priest:
- It doesn’t feel like anything has been done to mitigate Shadow Priests mana issues. Balance druids who have comparible mana issues have Fury of the Stormrage, and Paladins have modifiers on Righteous Fury/Crusader strike to return mana to them. But Shadow priests seem to still be missing something like replenishment. It just feels like all these Shadow runes look awesome, but will I be too oom to use them?
Warrior:
- Add a compent to Furious Thunder that spreads Rend from one target to all the others when you press thunder clap, remove the target limit on TC. This is so warriors can compete with Paladins Consc for AoE TPS.
Warlock:
- Add the Immolation Aura to Metamorphosis so it can compete with Paladins Consc for AoE TPS.
Hunter:
- A general concern I have for melee hunter is that if it proves to be every strong, as in, much stronger than the ranged version of hunter, it will feel as if ranged hunter has almost been defacto removed from the game. And those that enjoy the ranged weapon playstyle will be left without a comfort pick. This is one that we’ll have to see in game, but it would be a real shame to see so many players playstyle potentially made somewhat redundant. Defintely one to watch out for imo.
- A lot of hunter runes are tied up in getting crits and crit procs. Which isn’t a problem in itself but it does feel like you could pick the crit runes and everytime you don’t crit you are essentially a classic era hunter. With other classes getting rotational changes that are going to be significant throughout every second of gameplay, it could feel somewhat bad that hunters are gated out of some of their runes based on a coin flip. Especially when so much of that crit rating will be coming from standing still for several seconds.
Paladin:
- As I’ve said above, I obviously haven’t played it, almost no one has, but it does feel like this is about to open the lid on the paladin tank meta again, which isn’t terrible, but will also become quite frustrating. This isn’t necessarily the case of nerfing prot paladins, but it would be nice if other tanks had similar spells to Consc. A constant threat modified AOE which allows for larger pulls so other tanks can be apart of spell cleave comps would be great in the future. Targetless cap version Blood and Thunder for warriors or Sunfire (Bear) performing the aoe DoT is does on retail for example. Like you said in the presentation, everyone should be made stronger as opposed to anchoring others.
Rogue:
- This is complete personal preference and not as objective as the above. But it would make much more senese to give rogues ranged options, similar to the Hunters melee options runes. I would do this and remove Rogue tanking as an option. I don’t think it will compete with the others from a mitigation or AoE TPS perspective and I can’t see and easy way for it to do so. Happy to be proven wrong on this, but it would also make sense from a loot perspective to add another ranged weapon user who uses ranged weapons as their primary source of DPS as you will have potentially removed X% of ranged hunters from the loot pool but not really replaced them with anything, making more and more drops less valuable over time, and similarly making other drops more highly contested.