I’m having a harder time then ever with choosing a main for DF because I frankly don’t like any of the classes I’ve tried up to this point. Idk if it’s the talent points bloating buttons so every individual button ability feels weaker, or is just the baseline
of every class.
First I capped a havoc DH and went to 385 ilvl only to find that the only optimal specs have 10-13 active buttons with constant movement which is just exhausting to play and learn new dungeon/raid mechanics with.
Then I tried evoker, multiple rogue specs and boomkin, and they all feel very weak and spammy during leveling, didn’t cap any of them yet. Evoker is probably doing the best out of them but the awful 25y range with slow casts just feels bad along with empowering abilities while mobs are wailing at you.
Rogue and particularly outlaw feels like I’m tickling enemies and no one ability does any damage. Same with balance as nothing but starsurge has any weight to it. Havoc feels pathetic outside demon form as well. This has been an issue with retail for years imo with abilities doing damage in aggregate, but feeling extremely weak and underpowered on their own, but somehow it feels worse in DF than any prior expansion. In older expansions like Wrath, you fireball a mob and take out 1/3 - 4th of hp at the least.
Also, the initial DF leveling experience is jarring because it was definitely tuned to mid 220-250 ilvl, while you arrive there with like an average ilvl of like 130-150 due to how fast 1-60 is now, so just fighting mobs feels bad for the first 3 levels at least.
PvE does feel like that.
If you want to feel like any button press has consequences, play PvP instead. It’s much more rewarding that the boredom contest that is PvE content.
Leveling generally will feel harsher on some classes than others. Scaling and ilvl are just in that kinda state.
The issue with DF initially is that most ppl were ilvl 280+ coming from SL. During the prepatch we could get our alts to 250+.
But newly leveled alts are generally starting around 180-200(considering your doing dungeons). So yeah, they need to boost the ilvl a little at lower levels.
It’s incredibly scuffed and they are doing this with every new expansion due to their awful scaling system. I just tried the starting area with a 250 warr from SL and it’s a night and day difference compared to a regular sub-200 character that gets there from Chromie time questing.
Trouble is PvP gets boring fast too. Same Maps, same lame afkers and same toxic leehers. Try Random EPICs and the only map to pop is the infuriating and frustrating Wintercrap. PvP maps are due for serious revamp.
Nope, I never queue for those, for the reasons you mention.
When I play BGs, it’s the regular ones.
Their problem is that when they add new BGs, they can’t help but try and create brand new concepts.
When we’d all be very happy with what they did in Cataclysm: just copy and paste WSG and Arathi, and slap a new skin on them.
The reason why you feel weak while leveling (mostly towards the end of level cap) is the fact that while mobs grow steadily in power, you often find yourself lacking in terms of equipment.
The most noticable this is for people well geared from previous expansion, as levels makes their character to demand more stats to be effective, creating a paradox that the higher you are, the weaker you get.
Lvl 68-69 are the most painful levels currently. At lvl 70 as you start quickly closing the gear gap between you and the mobs and slowly building up some real strenght via progress, this finally goes away.
It is the only con of otherwise briliant scaling system. However it is massive con.
Scaling is a lot like fighting The Borg in Star Trek. One minute you can take em down in two shots and your crits are cycling every rotation and then you can’t. Normally after you level. Sadly like The Borg the scaling adapts and makes your attacks less powerful. I tend to refocus the gear at that time simply with higher level stuff. The stats can just be the same in terms of percentage but the gear level needs to correlate with your level. It gets harder as you climb to cap cus you are reaching the limit of your gear level without doing the 70 stuff. So at 69 its like fighting The Borg stuck in treacle with a gale force wind blowing in your face… or not. It’s a Warcraft mystery.
So I levelled 3 characters 60-70 that were active in Shadowlands so had SL endgame gear. They all went through mobs like a knife through butter….in fact it made levelling feel pointless as it was so easy I wasn’t able to practise new rotation or talents as they were dying too fast.
I find the majority of it is lack of gear. I ensure to make my characters some 233 gear from SL or if you have any anima left, send some tokens. SL mats are cheap as chips these days, though.
Then around level 67/68 everything gets harder because you’ve essentially caught up to the quest ilevel.
I really want to play a rogue and a shaman but they’re so unfathomably squishy I’m just sticking to BM Hunter. Guardian Druid is also fun.
I don’t know about that. This character had Sanctum gear at level 60 and I was top DPS on AoE and bosses in most dungeons unless there was a max level with 380+ gear.
It appears that as soon as i hit 64-65 on my alts, they are suddenly made of glass and hits like a grass straw. From 60-63, sometimes 64, i can reliably pull 3-4 adds without any issues and no CD. But from 65-freshly dinged 70, i can only do 3 adds with CD and just barley survive. 1, maybe 2 without CDs.
Its always been like this since Legion as i can remember but not THIS bad. You “grew” weaker and weaker with each level but this xpac it just suddenly hits you in the face after a specific level.
Well, there is also a bit of difference - casts of abilities were rarer in old expansions.
Say, you played a rogue. You had a whacky low energy regen, so the game made sure your Evi or Sinister Strike would feel strong. Or look at Revenge in Wrath, the MVP of warrior leveling. If I didn’t have it, I’d still be staggering at level 50 on that alt of mine. Or for Fireball? You simply ran out of mana after killing 4 or 5 mobs (in LK, it’s probably more, it’s more mana friendly than TBC).
Effectively, you had much fewer resources, so you were given strong ability casts to make up for it. That’s no longer the case today when your Wrath doesn’t cost any mana and it actually generates a resource for you to use with a stronger spell.
We could say that no matter the game version, you won’t be pumping insane numbers all the time. For Classic because you have to use your resources wisely, for Retail because of the build-spend cycle nature of most specs.
