Two posts in one day. You guys are lucky.
In short, I’ve been thinking more and more about the reasons I enjoy WoW, and the many different aspects of the game. A little background on myself–I like to be intellectually challenged, and I like to have to think about, consider, and analyze any and everything I do in my life. This goes from my academic work to my extra-curricular activities to my down time, recreational activities. For me, WoW has provided an outlet for my creativity and story telling capabilities (through RP, which used to be my primary focus and is what got me into the game) while allowing me to learn to manipulate and change aspects of the game to my liking while being different (my avoidance of cookie cutter specs).
Recently, a lot of the changes to the game have been really frustrating to me on an intellectual level. There is a lot of emphasis on “bring the player, not the class” which has been changed, as Critical QQ put it, to sometimes mean “bring the classes, not the class.” My question is this: why? This especially became prevalent as mages the entire game over saw Frost mages get a Mortal Strike buff to their Permafrost Talent tree, and asked the same question: why?
In case you haven’t gotten it yet, this is going to be a ramble, a verbal flood of thoughts that aren’t extremely organized. Comment away, and hopefully my responses will be able to clarify everything I’m saying. I also state that you “need” things a lot. Note that I am saying this in the context of a raid that is entering the instance without any of the gear found within it or any gear of raids of equal difficulty or beyond. For instance, entering Naxx 10 in heroic gear. Just to be clear.
Anyway, here we go.
First of all, I really want to know: what the hell is so bad about wanting to bring along a class for a specific skill or set of skills they add to the raid? For example, Shamans. Everyone loves Shamans, but we ESPECIALLY love them because of Bloodlust. If you have one Shaman in the raid, even if their dps is only mediocre, you have Bloodlust. That’s an awesome talent that helps the entire raid. Great. Class utility right there. If you have a Druid along and someone dies mid-battle, like one of your healers or one of your top DPSers due to an unlucky lag spike or whatever, BOOM! Battle rez, and keep on going. Class utility. It’s another reason to have a Druid in your raid.
So, Blizzard, why do you insist on spreading abilities around, like handing out ice cream at a 5 year old’s birthday-party? I’m a fan of a more socialist outlook on life in general, but this would make even Marx roll over in his grave. Let’s consider this for a moment, and to do so, we are going to go back to the Burning Crusade (I’m not familiar enough with Vanilla WoW, so we have to go there. Apologies to all who would have better examples). We’re going to go back to our favorite starter instance: Karazhan. And we’re going to look at one Boss in particular: Shade of Aran.
For those of you unfamiliar with Shade of Aran, let me break the fight down for you as best as I can remember. He does several things.
1.) Casts Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Missiles.
2.) Sucks everyone into the center where he is standing, casts a raidwide “Slow”, and casts a massive “Arcane Explosion” that mages only see in their wildest dreams, killing anyone who didn’t get out in time.
3.) Has a funky aggro table, a tank favorite.
4.) Summons 4 water elementals about 2 minutes into the fight.
5.) If his mana gets to 20%(maybe?) before he is dead, he casts a raid wide Polymorph that cannot be broken, drinks, and casts a raidwide Pyroblast.
If I’m forgetting anything, it’s not important.
…False. I forgot the worst part. I don’t know how I did, but I think it’s funny that I did which is why I’m letting you all know that I did. Get it?
6.) FLAME WREATH! He casts it, if you move, the raid wipes. Don’t argue with me. You know its true. Even if 4 people live, its still a fucking wipe. Don’t be a prick about it.
So. The thing about this guy is that his three mage spells are interruptable. What people forget is that the first time they did it, it probably wasn’t with a group of 70′s in mostly T5 or better gear. You went in there with blues, maybe a few Heroic epics or badge gear, but that was it. And this fight was all about utility. You NEEDED to have melee classes who could interrupt his spell casts. You NEEDED ranged classes that could also interrupt (mages or spriest). You NEEDED healers who could toss up HoTs on the move, especially when the Water Elementals come out (usually Renew was fine). If you didn’t work out who was interrupting what spell when, chances are a lot would go through and hit random raid members, which wasn’t good, because they hurt. Shade of Aran was a very good fight, and as much as I hated him, I loved him because it told me very easily who in the raid only cared about the damn numbers which mean NOTHING if the raid wipes.
Fast Foward to Netherspite. Basically, stand in the beams that increase stats, including things like mana costs, and don’t let them hit Netherspite or you wipe. You NEED two tanks for the debuff. You NEED a priest in the raid so you have the fort buff, or else some of your DPS won’t be able to stand in the beams due to low health (remember that whole non-T5 or better gear thing?) Naxxramas has a fight that requires Mind Control, and Noth requires some decursers, but otherwise, I can’t think of another fight that requires a certain class. Even KT, sure it’s nice of you interrupt the Frostbolts, but they don’t hit as hard or as often as the Shade of Aran spells, so thus it isn’t as crucial. Blizzard has changed everything to a numbers game, so the heals are just bigger to counter the damage done, and everyone’s damage is increased to make the fight go faster.
What I would love to see is a fight that requires the use of a certain classes abilities (like requiring a mages “spell steal” for Gruul’s Lair, or needing one of every kind of CC for Hex Lord in ZA). To do this, however, Blizzard needs to return certain class abilities to the classes. Make the abilities require timing and skill to use, so that the fights are no longer just plowing up and pew-pewing your heart out. Consolidate abilities to one or two classes, even changing the mechanics slightly for each of those classes. Now that what, 5 classes (and several specs beyond) have Mortal Strike (Frost Mages, Shadow Priests, Rogues, Hunters, and the original Warrior), it’s no longer a unique ability that one has to plan for. You know it’s going to happen in Arena’s, especially 5v5, even though there is no effective healing counter.
Some people might complain that it’s not fair to require certain classes to progress in a raid. I disagree. If you can’t manage to get 2 priests for 25-man Naxx for Instructor Rasuvius, something is wrong. If you can’t manage to get one mage or druid to decurse on Noth, something is wrong. Maybe some of the 12-year olds (or youngers) who play the game might find it to be too difficult. A Google search will indicate that the average player age is somewhere in the mid-20′s to mid-30′s. And those are probably the people who go to Blizzcon and have multiple accounts–they have jobs and thus can afford it, or at least choose where to spend their money.
I understand that Blizzard is a company and aims to maximize their profits. But (and this is the same complaint I have about the most recent Harry Potter movie) please stop fucking catering to the people who don’t give a damn about anything they see on the screen besides the colors. I’m sorry, but you would make MUCH more money and not lose as many players if you catered towards your biggest fan base. I’m certainly not in the biggest fan base, as I’m not a super hard-core gamer, but age/maturity/intellectually speaking, I’m certainly in the same ballpark.
There has to be a compromise and a priority. If you fear homogenization so much, why do many players feel like characters and classes are becoming more and more similar? Why is it that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been asked to use Polymorph in an instance, or seen any other CCing class use it? Why is it that Warlocks, Elemental Shamans, Boomkins, and Mages all seem to do around the same dps (in comparable gear) the difference being that it’s in different colors, yet really don’t add much more to the raid besides a random assortment of buffs?
So I turn to you, players of World of Warcraft: Do you think Blizzard has succeeded in creating a game where “bringing the player, not the class” has coalesced with non-homogenization? Are you pleased with the way classes differ from one another? Did everything get screwed up with the introduction of Dual Specialization as well? I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses!
