Wednesday, June 15, 2016

WoW PTR Class Changes Opinions

Finally was able to get onto the PTR for a short time. Just enough time to mess around with a couple classes, but I haven't gotten to do them all yet because I keep disconnecting and not being able to get on. So, I got about five done before I decided to give up for the day.

Please take the opinions with a gigantic grain of salt because I am mildly irritable today, and I dislike the changes to my main class immensely.


- First up, Shadow Priest. I do not like the new Shadow Priest. I did not think I was going to like the new Shadow Priest. I really, really, really love the old Shadow Priest. I liked the slow build up and the satisfaction of using Devouring Plague. I liked the shadow orbs circling around me. I also liked it more thematically; light and darkness being two sides of the same coin was neater to me than Old God corruption and void magic. The Old Gods creep me out, okay?
The gameplay, to me, felt really too fast paced. The lag might have had something to do with that. I felt like I was button-mashing a bit. Getting to Void Form is easy, and then it's button-mashy time while you spam Void Bolt and Mind Blast so you don't fall out of Void Form. I feel like it is altogether just too much pressure to me. I do not like time limits. I will not be maining Shadow Priest in Legion and it makes me sad.
I can, however, definitely see why some people really seem to love this new version. And that's great!

I did test out Marksmanship and Survival Hunters as well, for a couple minutes (You will not get me to touch Beast Mastery because I do not like the pets to begin with).
- Marksmanship seemed a little...boring. It seemed like there wasn't much to do. Press a couple skills and that is it. It didn't feel mechanically interesting. Also, as much as I love Lone Wolf being a level 15 talent now, it feels like it is very easily overshadowed by the other two talent options. I can easily see either of those two options being chosen as the "meta" choice with Lone Wolf being seen as the "not optimal, just for fun" talent choice.

- Survival Hunter was a lot more fun, although I will admit that I didn't take the time to read every single skill information, so I had a lot of skills lightning up and I have no idea why. It was a fun class overall, I just wish it didn't have a pet :P
Also, I did not like the animations one bit, but that's livable.

- Outlaw Rogue. I really, really liked Outlaw Rogue. Which is odd because I've never once liked a Rogue class in any game I've ever played. The animations are very nice, I like the theming (yay, pirates!), and it felt fun to me. I also like RNG-based stuff (Hi, I main an Astrologian in FFXIV), so Roll the Bones was right up my alley. Sadly, I have no idea what the Roll the Bones "enhancements" are because I had a bunch of buffs up and no idea where any of them came from because I really only messed with each class for a couple minutes, and there is very bad lag because everyone and their cat is messing around with classes at the training dummies. I...can see myself maining Outlaw Rogue. I want to start leveling a Rogue now and get her up to 100, but that feels like it defeats the purpose a bit since I don't like Rogues right now, I like them in Legion. I don't know what to do with myself, in other words.

Last one that I got to try, but only for a few seconds, was Elemental Shaman. The skills are very flashy, if not a little too flashy. Let's just say that if I was an Ele Shaman, I'd get real sick of Lightning Bolt's sound and animation. Also, the Fire Elemental is cool looking.


Updates: Mages!

- Fire Mage feels fast-paced and clicky, in a good way. It was a fun kind of clicky to me, unlike how I felt about Shadow Priest. I think this may mostly have been a combination between the level 15 talent "Firestarter" (against the training dummies specifically, since their health never drops, so Firestarter is constantly in effect) and the level 60 talent "Controlled Burn."
It feels like Controlled Burn is almost an essential talent because the 10% chance to have Heating Up automatically turn into Hot Streak without a second crit seems too good to pass up.

I really liked Frost. I love the icicles about my head especially. It feels like a lot of other classes lost things floating around them (shadow orbs, lightning shield, etc.). I've never touched Ice Mage before so I have no idea what I'm doing with it, and will not even attempt to talk about talents and such because I have no idea how to play it.

Arcane Mage felt lack-luster compared to the other two specs. The streamlining of Arcane Blast, at least to me, was appreciated, but it just felt too slow compared to the other two specs. The level 15 talent "Arcane Familiar" sounds interesting, but it seems lackluster compared to "Words of Power" and also it kept in me in combat longer than I would have liked (I wanted to swap specs!). The lack of a pet-control bar to turn it onto passive would be nice, considering that it doesn't appear to have any animations to show you that it's attacking something.

I would test Warlocks, but they overwhelm me :(

Update 2!
I love Discipline Priest in the PTR! I know everyone's saying that they're awful and ruined, but I really, really like them! It feels kind of like FFXIV Scholar healing except hitting things also heals. I love it. I always liked Discipline's shields anyway, but the fact that I can shield and Atonement heal is wonderful. It helps that I like my Priest anyway and that I really liked the Discipline Priest artifact.
I will be happy to keep using Toyosatomimi, even though I did not like Shadow or Holy on the PTR. But oh my goodness is Discipline for me! This is the first class that I've messed with on PTR that really, really "clicked" with me!

Holy Paladin also felt quite nice for me as well.

Basically, I like the healing classes that are more utility and mechanical stuff than straight healing.

I did not like Mistweaver very much. Or Windwalker for that matter. Windwalker's changes felt kind of underwhelming because it didn't feel like they've changed all that much compared the other classes. And also, losing Jab has messed up my bars! I'm so used to 1 = Jab, 2 = Tiger Palm, 3 = Blackout Kick, 4 = Rising Sun Kick, 5 = Touch of Death. It confuses my fingers to have moved everything over a slot. Moving Fists of Fury to 1 also did no help, because I am so used to pressing F1 for that!




This post will be updated when I'm able to log in again and try more things.

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