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Class Fantasy
Now that my move has more or less been completed, my attention has shifted to Legion.
…sorta.
Remember when Ghostcrawler mentioned that Blizzard didn’t like to change things too much between expansions since change can be overwhelming? I laughed then. I’m not laughing now. Seriously, I actually played in the current expansion (about a year ago), and my eyes glaze over just at the thought of looking at Wowhead again.
Some of that will likely go away if I just, you know, jump back into WoW. But I don’t enjoy blind jumps. I need to have some kind of idea first. I enjoy research. Legion research though? Jesus. It’s not even as though you can ignore the Artifact stuff either, as that will be mission-critical in a few months.
After spending considerable time looking over things, the classes and specs that piqued my interest the most were Rogue, Death Knight, and… basically that’s it. Maybe Enhancement Shaman and Affliction Warlock also. My namesake Paladin? Not so much.
I do know that Blizzard spent a lot of time focusing on the “fantasy” of the various specs, and it shows in the talent choices and such. For example, I do get the impression that Destruction Warlocks are all about chaos, fire, and… ripping holes in dimensions. Okay, that one might be a bit weak, but still a massive improvement over the prior fantasy of “Fire Mage.” Shadow Priests seem pretty cool with the Cthulhu business. Rogues have more flavor than which DPS cooldown you want to use now. I especially like how Assassination is poisons and bleeds whereas Sublety is more mystical shadow damage-esque.
Indeed, the flavor thing is really bringing me down when I think about my former main, which spent most of her time as Retribution. What’s the fantasy of Retribution? There isn’t much, you know, retribution going on. Eye for an Eye is neat, I guess. And, whatever, there’s Retribution, but you know what I mean.
You can’t even really say “holy damage” because Exorcism is gone, along with Hammer of Wrath, and basically Execution Sentence (now a talent) and Consecration (mutually exclusive). I thought it was bad last year, but now it’s even worse; I expected nothing, and was still disappointed. The spec seems entirely reliant on Ashbringer for its whole fantasy.
For as flavorful as paladins can be conceptually, the amount of squandered possibility is sad.
Paladins Are Boring
Is there a more boring class in WoW than paladins?
This question has been fermenting in my mind for quite some time now, and it’s a rather depressing one as someone who has had a paladin “main” for damn near a decade. It isn’t a “grass is always greener” issue either, or even a “Retribution brings nothing that a Holy paladin couldn’t” issue. The issue is just straight-up soggy cardboard class design.
I am primarily speaking towards Retribution, as that is what I level and play as most of the time. And it’s mind-numbingly boring. Judgment, Crusader Strike, Exorcism… wait for procs. Sometimes a long string of connected procs appears, and I pretend like I’m having fun for 20 seconds. It never works though, because none of my attacks feels like it has any weight behind it. Part of that could be because every special attack sounds like I’m squeezing water out of a sponge.
Then you get to paladin abilities. Avenging Wrath was the peak of Retribution design, or any paladin design, really – everything else has been downhill. Every button on my bar is defensive. And not like “cool defensive cooldown,” just straight boring damage reduction most of the time.
- Hammer of Justice. “Trinket this and win” button.
- Word of Glory. An “I LOSE” button.
- Lay on Hands. Full heal. Neat.
- Divine Shield. Aka Bubble-Hearth.
- Cleanse. Okay?
- Divine Protection. Damage reduction, wheee.
- Hand of Protection. Ghetto Divine Shield.
- Hand of Freedom. “Dispel me” disco ball.
- Emancipate. For when Hand of Freedom is dispelled.
- Avenging Wrath. The one legit ability.
- Hand of Sacrifice. Soooo useful, Blizzard, thanks.
The talent tree is also incredibly sad:
- Tier 1: Remember when paladins were actually mobile? Now they aren’t!
- Tier 2: Remember when Retribution had PvP utility? Now they don’t!
- Tier 3: Remember when there was a cool interaction between Sacred Shield & Flash of Light?
- Tier 4: Straight-up useless.
- Tier 5: Want a cooldown for your cooldowns, or proc for your procs?
- Tier 6: Have another button that you press once and forget to press again.
- Tier 7: YOUR ULTIMATE ABILITY IS… hey, let’s make Divine Storm not suck.
Glyphs? Just look at them. They’re total garbage. Damage reduction or more healing. Wait, wait… one of them increases the damage on ONE ability, but only for the second mob you hit. Which is just fucking fantastic, exactly what I was looking for. Where’s the glyph that completely changes your leveling rotation, like the priest’s Glyph of Mind Harvest?
Find me a more boring class for leveling, for farming, for PvP. When I get on my Death Knight alt, it’s like 10 years of the hopes and dreams of paladins everywhere, condensed in playable form. “Here’s damage reduction… and a stun break/stun immunity!” “Here’s spell damage reduction… and CC immunity!” Look at Tier 7 talents for DKs. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
…they are all goddamn abilities from the Lich King! That feels amazing and gets you pumpped to hit max level. Where is that cool Uther or Tirion feeling in paladin talents? Nowhere. Total garbage.
When I play my warrior, I feel excited because I’ll basically be able to Charge every mob. When I play my DK, I feel excited because I can Death Grip every mob. When I play my rogue, I feel excited because I can fucking teleport behind every mob (seriously, Cloak & Dagger is amazing for leveling). When I play my druid, I feel excited because I’m playing a nuanced class that some designer actually gave two shits about because whoa, look at all the things I can do.
The more I think about it, the more it feels like the paladin class was transplanted from another game entirely. It doesn’t fit WoW anymore, assuming it ever did. The niche it fulfills is “all these buttons are for other people” when the game has been about all the cool individual things you can do for the last three expansions. In fact, every other class has so many individual things they can do that they don’t need paladin assistance anymore.
I haven’t felt excited about paladins since Wrath, really. Not because there were moments when Retribution was overtuned – although it was glorious for a while there – but because it felt like there was actually nuance to the gameplay. Hand of Freedom broke stuns. If you cast Flash of Light on yourself when the 6-second shield from Sacred Shield was up, it was almost always a crit. There was some interplay between abilities back then.
Paladins need an(other) overhaul. Or, at least Retribution does. There’s nothing retributive about them. Too many of the Ret abilities serve no function to the paladin him/herself nor hinder enemies in any way. Again, if that’s supposed to be the paladin schtick, it’s a dumb one for the way the game is currently designed.
Want some suggestions? Invert the Hand spells for Retribution for starters. Hand of Freedom becomes Hand of Confinement for enemies. Hand of Protection becomes Hand of Sequestoring, e.g. same exact effect except castable on enemies. Hand of Sacrifice becomes Hand of Punishment, where 30% of the damage you take is dealt to that enemy. Hell, how about inverting Divine Shield to Divine Retribution, so that instead of being immune to everything you simply reflect incoming attacks/spells?
The devs wouldn’t need to give Retribution all these abilities either. Make us choose, if you like. Have it be talent, or gylph, or (sigh) cooldown. Make it so that if you take Hand of Confinement, you can’t cast Hand of Freedom anymore. Something, anything.
I originally chose to play a paladin in WoW because I always found them conceptually interesting as a class in D&D, but disliked the Lawful Good limitations. Being a frontline fighter killing things with a sword of light was cool. And that concept can still be cool. Remember Seal of Blood? Conceptually cool.
Tirion. Uther. The Ashbringer. Did you feel anything from those names, and if so, were those feelings at all comparible to the feeling evoked from WoW paladins? From where I’m sitting, whatever class Tirion and Uther actually belong to, it sure as hell ain’t paladin.
That Old Pair of Shoes
Well, I bought Warlords of Draenor this weekend. And, as previously reported, I have 9 now 8 WoW Tokens. So I must conclude that I am playing WoW again.
Surprised there hasn’t been a poop quest yet.
I was about to use “that old pair of jeans” phrase in the title, but the thing about old jeans is that they’re comfortable. WoW, right now, feels like an old pair of shoes instead: soles are a bit thin, rubber peeling off the sides, and they’re inexplicably damp. They still work, and are a better choice when it comes to doing chores like mowing your lawn, but they make everything feel ever so slightly off.
My namesake paladin just hit level 93 yesterday and I have little desire to play Azuriel again. The Retribution rotation doesn’t seem meaningfully different from what I remember, but the great ability pruning of 6.0 means that you have to especially enjoy your particular class because what you have is all you get. And what Retribution gets is Avenging Wrath and… a bunch of defensive cooldowns. Every time I was stymied by an entirely superfluous mountain and/or gentle slope in the no-fly zone that is Draenor, all I could think about was how my rogue could have Shadowstepped their way past the obstacle. Or warrior charged. Or DK Deathgrip the mob down the hill. Or anything.
All of which is fine, right? Just switch mains. Except my rogue is level 86. Which isn’t much of a problem with heirlooms – and what a wonderful goldsink that is, what with the upgrading them to scale to level 100 – but it’s still a speedbump. And there is just something ever-so-slightly distasteful about the fact that I need to switch mains at all. This is the “damp” part of the shoe metaphor.
Alright, Blizzard, take your point and enjoy it.
In terms of good things, there are a few. The Garrison has more or less supplanted my irrational desire to log into Clash of Clans every hour, in the time-management department. I just finished the Prophet Velen questline and felt immersed in the battle in a way I haven’t since… Wrathgate? Not as good as Wrathgate, but in the same parking lot of the ballpark. The music this expansion is extremely good too.
Before I pulled the trigger on the WoD purchase though, I was about this close to purchasing FF14 instead. In all likelihood I still will at some point, during the next $10 sale on the original box. If you are going to jump back into the MMO pool and relearn to swim, it may as well be a new pool, right? I only stuck with WoW because of the WoW Token shenanigans, which required me to use the 10-day free trial, which got me into Draenor and annoyed that I was capped at 1 XP less than level 92, and hey the 25% off sale was expiring that weekend, and… yeah.
Sometimes you just go without whatever is currently in your closet.
Unintended Main
I hit 90 last week on the paladin.
The funny thing is that the reputation concession to alts (i.e. 100% rep gains if you buy a token at Revered) has resulted in some strange behavior on my part. I still don’t like the paladin very much; I chose it as my first 90 because of other considerations, like how it was my only toon with max Archeology (mainly the BoA weapons). Combat as Retribution still feels clunky, especially if I miss with Crusader Strike. Exorcism, Judgment, Crusader Strike, then either Inquisition or Templar’s Verdict, then… wait for procs. Having a 6-second window to Flash of Light after a mob death is infinitely worse than a warrior’s intuitive and satisfying Impending Victory.
Regardless, since I am 90 though, I find myself doing all the dailies that I can. Not just because they are dailies, e.g. the sense that I fall further behind in my future, hypothetical endeavors, but also because I am already near Honored (or well into Honored) with these factions. It feels a waste to start leveling someone else up before getting the 100% rep boost. And thus I continue playing a class I no longer love, earning rewards I can’t use (Coins, Valor, Spirits of Harmony), for the possible betterment of a new main I haven’t even chosen yet.
Obviously I’m getting some form of entertainment, but it is not at the desired level.
On Sunday, I ran ~4 heroics with guildmates and walked out with 8-10 pieces of gear; I zoned in there with maybe two pieces of 450 quest blues and the rest crafted PvP gear. Ended up getting two Strength 2Hs, boots, chest, plus a smattering of tanking drops. As far as I could tell, my DPS on the runs was just shy of 40k, which I am assuming is decent.
Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. In which case, let me tell the universe: make Retribution more fun.
Over the Hump
Okay, so maybe things aren’t looking all that grim after all.
Just like with FTL, and just like with PlanetSide 2, I have gotten over the WoW “dissatisfaction hump” to emerge on the other side. I am still annoyed with the pitiful AH situation and Blizzard’s related policy of indefinite realm life-support, but I am (finally) having some – dare I say it? – fun. It was a close thing, though. In fact, I feel somewhat guilty for rewarding game design that contains dissatisfaction humps at all.
As mentioned before, I started out playing my namesake paladin in Ret leveling mode. The rotation seemed unbearably clunky, and I wasn’t having fun. Indeed, it was not until yesterday that I started feeling comfortable hitting Exorcism on cooldown, instead of the much more elegant proc-rotation that Exorcism was tied to back in the day.
With that feeling “off,” I tried to transition to my Elemental shaman, mainly because she is my resource toon (Herbalism + Mining). The Elemental rotation hasn’t changed much, but Blizzard increased the missile speed of Lightning Bolt and somehow that was throwing me off all goddamn day. Well, that, and the fact that mobs were no longer dying in a single LBx2-FS-LvB rotation, meaning that I ended up having to hardcast several Lightning Bolts into mobs’ faces.
In a fit of desperation, I settled for my warrior, as she was the Blacksmith and thus the only toon capable of making some blue weapons.
Oh. My. God. Was this where Blizzard was hiding all the fun?
Simply put, the warrior was amazingly fun. Every 90 seconds I was rounding up 5+ mobs and Brostorming (ah, memories) them all to death. Even when I didn’t have the cooldowns up, I would frequently round up at least three mobs at a time because why not? Impending Victory, just like Victory Rush before it, turns the Hybrid Tax on its head with a cheap, 20% HP heal every mob death leading to an unending chain of corpses that ceases only when the zone is depopulated. Nevermind Charging every 12 seconds. Or how the stance redesign means you don’t have to worry about weaving stance requirements into all these cool buttons.
Hrgh. I kinda want to start playing right now…
At the moment, I am back on the paladin simply because that character is my historical main. And, you know, I was informed about all these new BoA heirloom weapons and Az is the only toon with 500+ Archaeology. In fact, that is sort of where I am right now: spending probably 3 minutes reading about WoW for every minute playing. Which, of course, is exactly how I played the game for 4+ years.
What Have They Done to Me?
I have a lot of positive feelings towards Blizzard’s 4.3 patch, primarily because of Transmogification. But… why? It has been 50 (!) days since I quit WoW. So why do I get excited about dressing up an avatar in a game I no longer play? Is it a function of my ~7700 hours of play time? Or perhaps unfulfilled dreams of legitimately using Ghoulslicer on every character that can equip 1H swords? I like cool armor as much as the next guy, but I behave this way in no other videogame, even ones that have item sets. Maybe it’s an MMO thing?
Anyway, imagine my consternation when the paladin PvP set was revealed:
...holy shit...
Prior to today, I was a big believer that paladin T6 was the best paladin set in WoW, Judgement be damned. I never legitimately raided Black Temple or got any of the tier set, but I did do quite a bit PvP in TBC (since that was all there was to do) and Season 3’s Vengeful Gladiator’s Vindication set was just as good as the real thing (or arguably better, if you prefer the red recolor to the normal blue). So my sort of fantasy tank set would have been Vindication + Bulwark of Azzinoth + Ghoulslicer. According to Wowhead, the whole thing would have looked like this:
Shut up. It looks WAY cooler in my head.
But Blizzard, defying years and years paladin-degrading precedence, has come out with a PvP (!) armor set that not only makes the PvE one look like a total joke, but honestly steals the whole goddamn Deathwing show from every other class. The only sets that come as close as this one is the Priest T12 and Priest Season 3. Between this new PvP set and the fact that they are putting older Season PvP gear back on vendors – letting me complete the Vindication set and/or get the priest set on an alt without scraping together a BT raid group – you have no idea how goddamn tempting it is to spend $15 on a dress-up simulator.
The only thing stopping me? My nine alts, seven of whom are level 85, are trapped on low-pop Alliance Auchindoun with full heirlooms, max level professions with most non-ultra rare recipes, and approximately 450,000g in liquid wealth. I am not paying $55 per character to move them and a max of 50,000g, nor am I interested in straight-up rerolling without the benefits my ~7700 hours of seniority entitle me. So until Blizzard gets their head out of their ass and tweak the server/faction transfer service price-points (seriously, would a weekend deal kill them?), all this renewed interest and goodwill is going to waste.
Which, given the ridiculousness of my desires in the scheme of things, is perhaps win-win anyway.
In An Age 