Will TBC-Classic meta be as stagnant as Classics is?

I just read an Icyveins article about TBC Classic being locked on the last patch in TBC, much like Classic was locked on the last Vanilla patch. If this is true and the same as Classic, it would mean that class balance is also locked on the last patch, meaning the Meta is stagnant from day 1 onwards, as it was in Classic.

Please tell me Blizzard actually learned from its mistake with Classic and are planning to have class balancing actually change over the course of TBC phases in order to not have the same problems as in Classic where certain classes are vastly outnumbering other classes due to the balancing being locked in their favour.

Please tell me i’ve completely misunderstood the whole situation and they are not planning on repeating the exact same mistake again.

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I hope they do that, but by improving it further from 2.4.3, not by simulating old changes. TBC+ is your friend.

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There is always meta and there is no solution for it. As for TBC vs Vanilla - the class stack in terms of performance widens by a lot. In Vanilla you have core DPS specs and after that nothing really. In TBC they somewhat finished support classes and also overall pure DPS is more in line between classes (yet still hunter/lock are perceived as best and to some extent likely so).

So if you aren’t really trying to do the quickest speedrun the options you can go for in a raid team and so on should be quite wide. And if people want some fun there may be even rogue avoidance tanking challenge and so on.

And with smaller raid sizes, attunements and resources gathering there should be more activities aside of slow weekly 40-man raid logging.

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Talents and mechanics will not change so from day 1 till the last day the classes will remain, however the classes and specs are much closer in efficiency pve wise. Hunter and Warlock will still be “THE” dps classes, but tanks and healers will be much more diverse pve wise.

PvP wise there will be a lot of different comps in arena, making every class shine, IF your skilled and get the right composition for it. Some shine 2vs2, other 3vs3, other in 5vs5.

So no it won’t be so bad as in classic, depending what activities you enjoy.

As i played through TBC from day 1 back in the day i am fully aware that the class design is miles ahead of Classic where the execution on alot of the speccs are downright aweful, so yes, i am aware it won’t be As bad.

My point is that it will still be bad if they decide to intentionally stagnate the meta from day 1 as they did in Classic. There are still some classes in TBC that will be vastly overrepresented (although not to the extent as in Classic).

This compared to how the actual TBC experience was, when classes got tuned differently over time, making the meta actually interesting and making sure the class spread worked as it was intended.

Response to Bigkeg above:
Saying there is always a meta and there is no solution to it completely misses the entire point of my post, and indeed the game design of retail wow since day 1 of Actual Vanilla up to today.

There is always a meta, Yes. This is as true as there is water in nature. Yet if there is no change to the state of meta (or indeed, water)… It becomes Stagnant.

It shouldn’t be as bad as classic. Pretty much every spec in TBC is good enough, meaning that yes, there are some classes that will do better on average, but the distance among them will not be as high as it was in classic. Of course some top-end guilds will go for the meta comps, but I don’t expect the rest will do the same this time.

IMO it is better to have people enjoying the class they play throughout all of the tiers even if it is not the most optimal one than having people playing the most optimal class/spec for one tier and then switching to another class because they hate the gameplay forcing guilds to adapt and change comps constantly.

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Once again, read my previous comment. It wont be as bad as in Classic, i know this, that is obvious to anyone who actually played through Vanilla and TBC back in the day.

My point is intentionally stagnating the meta on day 1 leads to the game being stale from launch. Sure, you can play 1 character throughout all of it and be “the best”. But it doesnt take away the point that you will never change your playstyle. There wont be a point. You can simply put rank x of whatever on your bar and never ever change it, it will always be the best rank of said spell.

If you actually played the game back in the day you’d know that this is not how the game is supposed to work, not in Vanilla, not in TBC, Not in Wotlk, Cataclysm, Pandaria, WoD, Legion, BFA or Shadowlands.

Intentionally stagnating the game by locking balancing from day 1 is Bad. This is my point, plain and simple.

This is not true, it depends on your activities and gear that you collect. Most (not all) classes have relevant set bonuses that will make you switch specs and thus playstyles, plus the fact that you can get multiple of such sets, and the fact that every spec is relevant, you can totally switch up your character. You can be a healer in one phase, a dps in another phase and a tank in a third phase (if your a paladin or druid) all with completly different play styles, strategies both pve and pvp. If you want to play one class and mix it up, i’d recommand choosing a class that can do multiple roles. You’ll be able to do different things in both pve and pvp

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Thanks for taking 1 sentence out of context and completely missing my point. Try reading the sentence that follows it, you know, as a normal functioning adult does.

Having class balance be locked (As in NEVER CHANGING) means there will NEVER be variety in class balance. This means the META will be STAGNANT

Have i made my point clearly enough now?

Actually no, because you can say that of every phase and every patch. What you want is a change of mentality of the players. No matter how much you want that that will never happen. The majority of players will always go for the meta, wichever that one might be, and they will resist to any change.

For example look at Eve online, you have set meta’s there and they will change as soon as a change is set, and that will be the new meta untill a new change comes.

Its in peoples nature to want to win, and playing the meta is usually the winning strategy If you want to have a continuesly evolving game, don’t expect that to happen in tbc because it won’t.

How to solve stagnation in TBC: Add dual spec

BOOM - Now all those pve specced healers and tanks can partake in arena, BGs and all sorts of other fun things!

So, do I understand correctly that you don’t mind the meta, but instead just prefer Blizzard to force us into a new meta 3 or 4 times per expansion? I mean… To each his own I suppose. I’m actually glad to know what my character strengths and weaknesses will be like from Kara to SWP, but that might just be me.

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There will always be a meta, changing it around does nothing but cause annoyance by making player have to keep several characters up to date.

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Short answer: yes!

I can already see casual guilds recruiting only optimal raid comp (warlock group + boomkin / BM hunter group + feral / shamans for Bloodlust rotation, shadowpriests for mana etc.

No rogue/ no dps warrior (only 1 warrior as MT) / 0 or 1 mage etc.

I agree that all specs are viable but what i learned from Classic us that Viable = benched if RL has the opportunity to bring the top dogs in.

So what you are seeing is people recruiting raid comps that are actually quite diverse, they just dont include dps warriors and rogues? How horrible…

Of course the people recruiting now are looking for whats the best, however once we get into tbc and there are raid groups still lacking players, they will start taking the ones lower on the ladder.

It’s also worth noting that gearing 10 or 20 of same class will be much slower than gearing a more diverse mix.

As someone who got benched because of fury warriors stacking times ans times again, I am more than happy to see a meta shift.

What I meant is just that it’s still minmaxing. Just with the new meta specs stacking.

Yes it’s min maxing, and no matter how much you try to balance classes, there will be some sort of min maxing, the only way to kill min maxing, is to remove every part that can possibly be improved. At which point, you dont got much of a game left.

This is a RPG, the entire genre is built upon improving your character and your team, min maxing is just taking that part to the max, and there is nothing wrong with that
Some restrictions are good so that there doesnt become too much of a gap between players that do min max and players that dont.

There are so many people that complain about min maxing, and most often, it is people that is angry that the min maxers dont wanna play with them, because they dont wanna put in the effort to min max themselves, and instead of trying to find likeminded players(Which there are plenty of), they run off to the forums creating angry posts.

Exactly, i agree. I think that is a good answer for the OP.

Yes there will be min max for most like Classic. Roll non optimal classes / specs at your own risks :slight_smile:

yes it will be