Which specs are actually too complex to play?

Community General Discussion
1

Wanted to talk about this because recently there have been an awful lot of people talking about rotational complexity.

Ill remind you that one of the reasons why talents were brought back, and people wanted them back was exactly because they wanted access to more abilities and a more fulfilling rotation, and for the most part, the new talents were a colossal success.

So far the only spec that i can think of that is “too complex” Is arcane mage. But not just because it’s rotationally challenging but also because it’s unintuitive.

Seems to me that the actual problem with specs that are complex is not really the rotational difficulty but rather the unintuitiveness, along with little to no margin of error and no way to make up for a mistake, which is exactly what makes arcane so unforgiving and difficult as a spec.

But so far that is the only spec that i can think of that is actually too difficult to play. And not in a fun way.

Most specs could be improved, outlaw rogue for example, is pretty difficult, but fun, a few things could be improved, like certain buffs, especially grand melee, slice and dice, and blade flurry, but aside that it’s not super difficult. And it’s not unforgiving in the same way that arcane is.

Blizzard should also make it so certain buffs do not require weak auras to track, they can do this through audio and visual cues.

For example, there is literally no reason why legacy of the sun king shouldn’t have a visual and audio cue, does blizzard just assume that to play fire mage you need addons? Because that’s definitely a mistake, they should bring you the tools in game to deal with this kind of stuff, not expect you to go to a third party site and download an addon.

Mind you that i’m not against addons personally, but i do think that blizzard should do more in this department.

But if you want my brutally honest opinion, i think most of this is just the cries of people who are just not good enough for the most part. At least when talking specifically about rotational complexity.

Frankly speaking most rotation are pretty easy to understand, if you can’t use a keyboard correctly, or have the reflexes of a 100 year old person that doesn’t mean that the game COMBAT should be designed around the lowest common denominator. Because otherwise you’re not able to keep up, screw that frankly speaking. Instead of complaining about combat maybe you should do things that are more at your level, like pet battles.

One of the things i’m most looking forward in the next expansion if the extension of the talent system, there are a few things that i would really enjoy seeing, like the shadowlands enhance tier set as a new talent for example. The new talents in general are one of the things i am looking forwards the most, this was just an example of what could potentially be added, and if all this complaining means that blizzard will back down on this, i will be extremely pissed.

That’s about all.

2

rogue

Affliction warlock

Havoc DH

MM Hunter I think based on statistics

I think the following 3 are problematic in general. Not necessarily “too complex”:

Mage for example has a very well-designed way to do damage, but I think their utility/cc/mobility spells should be pruned hard

Arms is not complex, but arms is not fun to play at all, and it’s very very unintuitive. Rage generation is also extremely rng, so spending on defensives feels reactive based on the rage you have, and not what is happening in the encounter. The highest damage rotation doesn’t make sense logically.

Brewmaster Monk seems to also be way too convoluted.

In the end, none of the specs are “too complex”. It’s never too complex to learn and understand a damage rotation by heart by checking a guide. However, some specs just have very illogical design, whose balance is based on an optimal damage simulation, and not on a design plan. I’d really be curious to see the designer responsible for arms warrior explain to me, why the damage rotation and defensives work the way they do, and why/if he intended it this way.

3

Only momentum is unfun to play for dh, but you can avoid that for a pretty minor dps loss, less than 5%. And no, havoc is definitely not terribly designed, like at all.

Affliction warlock does have an ability that should just be integrated into unstable affliction, and that is haunt. And the agony ramp up is just unnecessary. Not really terribly designed, but could be much better

As for rogue. Assassination does have some very significant problems that should be addressed, assassination is legitimately badly tuned, and their aoe is badly designed. As for outlaw and sub, no. They are not badly designed at all.

But this isn’t really about complexity. The rotation itself is not too difficult.

Arms is mostly fine, frankly speaking you don’t have a lot of downtime on arms either, which i actually like, so the point about rng rage generation is just kinda unimportant. You do have some moments of downtime, but they are just moments.

Oh, and how could i forget about augmentation, but that is more of a situation that i think that aug was just bad for the game as a whole. Would have much rather have a normal melee dps spec.

4

none of the specs is hard to play if you read your talents and spells when you level your characters instead of copying random builds . use builds from websites but learn what they actually do . people just try to memorise a rotation and they complain when that rotation has more than 3 buttons to push. if you get the logic behind it then it’s not hard. some just requires more attention to timing that’s it.

3 Likes
5

Arcane definitely is.

That is not up to question.

It’s the only spec iv’e had significant problems learning the rotation, and there is a reason for it.

It’s because it’s legitimately hard, and punishing to play.

1 Like
6

it’s one of the few ones that requires more attention like i said but i don’t think it’s impossible to learn. i don’t play it on my mage because i don’t find it rewarding like 999 buttons to do the same damage as some specs do with 3 buttons. i wish longer rotations and ‘‘harder’’ ones would actually do more dps

7

I’m not saying it’s impossible.

Just that it’s the one spec that is indeed overly complex to the point it’s not very fun.

And that’s just not how they balance things, also, arcane is currently strong so, your wish has been granted.

But just because a spec is like 50 % harder to play, it doesn’t mean it should do 50 % more damage, that’s just not how balance works.

8

i think it should at least do at max tho, otherwise it becomes ‘‘overly complex to the point it’s not very fun’’ if you get enough reward from it, you try to get better at it ,it’s just like raid tiers, what’s happening here is mythic raid giving worse gear than lfr . i don’t like the way they balance classes now. if i play arcane i want to be able to top the dps meter every time, not until a better meta class comes along and does more dps with less effort . turning back to the point, i think if the complex specs did more dps then people would have more incentive to try to get better instead of heedlessly playing fotm with the perfect rotation from websites

9

But complexity alone doesn’t mean fun.

What makes a spec fun to play is interactions, and also, some degree of forgiveness in the spec. Arcane is completely unforgiving. It’s also quite static.

Just not a good spec.

A complex spec shouldn’t be played because it does the best damage, but it should be played because it’s fun. Just like any other spec.

Arcane is just not fun.

Also, no it shouldn’t, balance shouldn’t be dictated by how hard the spec is to play.

Frankly speaking, how hard it is, there is a degree of subjectivity to it. It’s just not a good base to balance things around. From any point of view. It’s just completely wrong.

10

but then it comes to a point where everyone presses the same buttons at the same time and gear becomes the indicator for dps which makes the game boring because it doesn’t matter if you’re a good player or not you just won’t get your reward by playing better, i’m not saying bm hunter should be at the bottom but the hard specs should always be on top , if you think a spec is fun then you should play it without caring about numbers that’s applies to easy specs too. what’s the reward for arcane player playing it with %100 focus when a bm hunter can play while eating their dinner and do more dps ? it’s a complete dilemma from either pov

11

I find the question you are asking to be a bit flawed in the context of the discussion you are trying to have.

I feel that it would be better to ask “at what complexity level of a spec, the target audience becomes so small that it is not worth it developing for it/balancing it”.

In games with such a wide playerbase, difficulty of a spec is not constant cause blizzard wants to provide different options for players of different skill levels a choice.

This is exactly my point. You are using for reference yourself/friends of yours, without taking into account people that you do not come into contact. Not saying you are wrong, just that your statement gives a whole different dimension to your question.

To be fair blizzard dropped the ball in the design department of the UI, PRECISELY because they allowed addons. I LOVE addons, they just gave the players so nice tools for customization, but blizzard in the process focused on game development and ignored user experience.
Think of it like a fast food having a 3 star Michelin chef. They can make the regular fast food menu, atmosphere and stuff, but the chef will carry the cooking. This is the relationship wow has with the addon community.

No matter how bad practices blizzard has on UI and UX (user interface and user experience), as a player you have the tools to make the game WAY better.

12

I have been playing since classic pretty much, and I have every class at max level currently. I main a VDH, but lately, I’ve been attempting to get 36/36 mage tower challenges completed.

For me, the most complex are (and not in terms of defeating the challenge, but in terms of pure gameplay):

  • Assasination rogue
  • Brewmaster monk
  • Demonology warlock
  • Arms warrior
  • Protection warrior
  • Mistweaver monk
13

Huh no?
Two COMPLETELY different things? lol

14

I dont think pressing Aimed shot over and over again is too complex

15

I am not sure what is too complex. But for sure the game has become more and more complex. Looking at my current setup for my hpala and resto shaman, it has changed quite a lot since previous expansions.

And on my alts i am just choosing for more passives. I play brewmaster but for sure i am not going to play another upkeep button like rushing jade wind. It is already too much.

I rerolled my dps alt from fire mage to frost DK since i can’t stand the hard casting pyroblast for proccing combusts, which requires tracking 2 WA’s (dont know how fire is after the rework). The frost DK needs some (cooldown stacking) macro’s though, also not very cool, but overall it doesn’t have too much bloat.

Edit:
It is quite OK people who are better than me can get more out of their specs :slight_smile:

16

Easier said than done when there’s like 60 talents and 35 abilities and 20 debuffs. You’ll be sitting there for a while.

And the tooltips aren’t even correct anyway. They forget to mention all sorts of stuff. For example it isn’t mentioned that Winter’s Chill is consumed by Ice Lance and Glacial Spike but not by Ray of Frost or that it isn’t consumed by Comet Storm or Ice Nova, even though those abilities do benefit from the effect. PRETTY BIG DEAL and makes the difference between a bad mage and a good one.

It isn’t mentioned on any of those spells or the debuff or on any talent.

What’s true about the game almost universally, with a few exceptions, is that a lot of the complexity comes from a visual noise and buffs and debuffs in a quantity that is so large that almost nobody can tell what’s happening on the screen while fighting alongside another player, and this only gets worse when you fight against them.

Blizzard tries to correct for this by hiding almost all the spell effects from other players from view. This helps, but of course only serves to obfuscate the problem - in a quite literal sense.

I have 26 cooldowns on my bars and to come in here and hear “Wehhll that’s not that complexuhhh” - gimme a break. Literally. I’m taking a break. I’ve had enough of this and not being listened to about it.

I am now in the unenviable position that every single player I played with and spent my time with has either gone to +26’s or just quit the game over complexity or stress reasons. Every single one. I’m alone. Semi-hardcore players just don’t wanna deal with this, and new players certainly don’t either.

17

Ok, goodbye.

1 Like
18

I was thinking of going Arcane Mage for pvp and I read this…
Maybe I should consider.

19

Meeh, prefered legion affliction along with it’s tankiness. And that one did not need haunt.

20

Arcane is the only spec in the game that is too hard. I feel like a lot of specs people call hard aren’t at all, but are rather very unintuitive and/or annoying to play.

Like Arms using low damage-high rage cost abilities during its burst window. Or Affliction having to talent into low damage-high maintenance talents, and having completely RNG Soul Shard generation (while Destro have the single best resource system [also Soul Shards, but works differently] in the entire game).

Have you tried Ret? They only have 1 cooldown (can talent into 2) and 6 rotational abilities, 2 of which can be (and is) talented out off. Every single ability cleaves (minus their single target Hp spender). So their rotation is exactly the same in every situation.

Edit: I realized this might come of as condescending. But that’s not my intent, i am a Ret main.