What is it? Is it just trends?

In my post, I said that the entire reason we wanted vanilla in the first place was for the sense of community. Sharding breaks it just as badly as crossrealm does in retail. Everyone hated it, downvoted into the ground, told that we have to have sharding.

Today, every other post saying sharding breaks community is praised, amd we somehow all decided its bad again.

The devs said they use reddit as a source of feedback. How are they supposed to know what we want from the game when top posts are based more on trends than what is good for the game?

Just a rant, TLDR at the bottom.

Why are so many people on this subreddit downplaying the healer role? Ever since the dungeon update happened. A lot of healers come out and state that they won't heal because of it, or when people point out that there's a healer shortage, I keep seeing comments like, "It's low level, you don't need to spec into healing," "A Ret Pally can heal just as well as a Holy Pally," or "You can heal most dungeons fine as an off-spec until 60."

Healing, even in retail, has always involved some kind of mana management. Sure, DPS classes have access to healing spells, but how many times can you actually cast them before running out of mana? For most classes, not very many. Paladins and Enhancement Shamans, for example, don't prioritize Intellect as their main stat, meaning they'll burn through their mana after just a handful of healing spells, and you'll just have to sit there watching each of your team members die out.

One of the main reasons to spec into healing at lower levels is mana efficiency. And please, don't tell me to just use Rank 2 instead of Rank 3 to save mana. Two Rank 2 heals provide roughly the same healing as one Rank 3, meaning you're spending more time casting for the same result.

For everyone claiming you can heal any dungeon before level 60 without specing into healing, please give it a try and upload the run to YouTube. I'd genuinely love to see how you do it because it can be a great learning experience for healers who play this game.

Even HOT at levels 13–15 can be rough for healers. At that level, most healers have access to only one Rank 2 healing spell, and there are mobs in HOT that deal AOE damage that can potentially wipe the entire group if people aren't positioned properly. Now imagine trying to keep everyone alive with less than 500 mana because you lack the appropriate talents and Intellect gear.

If we're already dealing with a healer shortage, why are we discouraging people from playing other classes as healers by pretending the role requires little to no investment?

Please stop making tanking and healing sound easier than they are. These roles are already hard enough to fill without people dismissing the challenges that come with playing them.

TL;DR: Just because a class has healing spells doesn't mean it can effectively heal a dungeon. Mana efficiency, talents, and Intellect matter even at lower levels. If you think any class can heal dungeons just fine without specing into healing, I'd love to see you prove it. We already have a healer/tank shortage, so let's not pretend these roles are as easy as some of these comments make them out to be.

I am sure a lot of people will call this ”bait” or think I’m being disingenuous but I’m being serious. We already know that the total amount of experience from Level 1 to Level 60 is the same as it was in Classic, yet we have several new sys granting additive ways to increase leveling speed, between campfires/sleeping bags, food buffs, legacy talents, and more. We also have literally 1000+ additional quests on top of literally 50% more dungeons to explore.

I’m personally a believer that the lower experience gain from dungeon mobs is a good change for the pacing of the game, and though some may disagree, it would seem the main pain point for people is that they feel questing is too much faster. Why not bring the speed of questing down a little if another adjustment needs to be made for people worried about their relative speeds instead?

Some of my fondest memories of playing WoW in TBC/Wotlk was with my childhood friend in Rated Arena. We started in TBC playing Feral Druid/Retribution Paladin in 2vs2. Such a horrible comp, to no surprise we were bad. In today's hindsight, the balance was very relative to put it mildly, but we didn't care and the thrill of competing was borderline magical. Ever since then, whenever I am playing WoW I am still trying to chase that same feeling like it's some drug. We didn't care about win-traders, boosters and none of that. It was my mate and I against the world.

Arena was and still is the holy grail for me, to the point where this vast world existed just for the sole purpose of preparing for the arena. Even when dungeons got boring and content stale, or I wished to change the pace of the game between PvE and open-world activities, I could always go back sweating for the number that goes up or down.

I hope we get Rated Arena. It's healthy for the game. I also believe that a competitive scene can only help player retention - the most dedicated players tend to play the most. 

From what I can gather you get placed in your last position rather than the battle master after a battleground ends. However it doesn’t seem like there’s an option to queue for a bg from the open world.

Would it not improve world pvp as well as bg queue times if you could queue while out in the open world. The alternative is just sitting by a battle master in a city and waiting for the queue to pop. Are people opposed to queueing anywhere? It just seems like a win from all angles to implement.

Edit: This is not about the level 30 beta. This is about how the spec looks for level 60 end-game content.

Elemental has been talked about a lot, but Enhance is currently in a pretty bad spot for raiding at 60. Currently the spec looks even worse than it did in vanilla for raiding, and in core class design.

1) They give no unique groups buffs

Unlike every other version of WoW, enhancement provides no buffs that a resto or elemental shaman cannot also provide. No enhanced totems, no group attack power bonus, nothing. They can't even totem twist anymore, as that was removed. Resto can provide all the same buffs/totems.

2) They are a hybrid dps (melee + spell dmg) but don't have talents to support this

The mental quickness talent currently gives very little spellpower from int stat and none from attack power, so enhance shamans will have very little amount of spellpower.

This combined with the spell coefficient changes severely weaken enhance's shocks, fire nova and lightning bolts cast from maelstrom weapon. They will also be missing a lot of spell casts due to lacking hit, which enhance has no talents for.

Enh shamans can no longer get Elemental Fury either, so that's a 100% crit damage bonus nerf.

3) Two handed-only is inherently weaker and nothing given to compensate

Procs for flurry and other proc-based talents will be happening a lot less, lowering dps further.

4) SoD already fixed all of these issues, why are we going backwards?

In Season of Discovery, runes were given that fixed all of the above issues, so why haven't the lessons been learned and these abilities integrated into the core class design via talent trees and base abilities?

With Forever fast approaching and a lot of people on this sub annoyed they can't power level to 60 in dungeons so they can start raid logging it got me wondering

I played Classic 2019 until level 60 but returned to retail for endgame as I preferred complex mechanics, individual responsibility and intense progression.

I loved the 1-59 journey, it's why WoW is the GOAT and what retail has lost, but I could never understand why a bunch of the battlenet friends I made stuck with classic raiding for so long over Retail.

Was curious what people here have to say. Hoping I can learn to enjoy it as much in Forever but I'll likely just reroll an alt on the opposite faction.

If you're going to race to 60 for endgame, why not just play retail? What does Classic endgame have over Retail endgame for you?

The quest I forgot to do, was blowing up the forge.

When I realized it, I tried entering the cleared dungeon but it had already reset.

I contemplated running the dungeon again, but realised it would be a waste of time, and instead spent 5 minutes whispering people who were in the zone.

Found a group which had just cleared it, and managed to run in and complete the quest...

Way more efficient than running the dungeon again, but also way less fun. Is this really the goal?

Edit: Why is everyone in here so upset and angry? I don't feel like doing grey quests either, since the rewards are so minimal.

Last I played was WotLK and I knew a guy who organized raids and 'ninja looted' ( I think thats what it was called) items in the end. He became so known that he had to even change his name and even let his friends lead and organize the raid and even then some people knew and saw through it and tried to warn others, who had joined the raid.

Has that changed or is it even more encouraged now because of the increased anonymity big dookie server offers?

A lot of leveling dungeons are better for certain classes (WC for leather, SFK for cloth, etc) and therefore always resulted in a lot of leveling dungeons having shortages of different classes/roles. With the dungeon exp nerf, it's just going to aggravate this problem even more since now the only incentive to re-run a dungeon is loot. Classes that have have very few loot upgrades from a leveling dungeon will be even less bothered to re-run it now. Before, at least they could get some exp if they didn't get the 1 or 2 drops they might have wanted from a dungeon that didn't have much gear for their class.

Just another reason to revert this change. Nerfing dungeon exp into the ground has literally no upsides for anyone and exposes a misunderstanding of leveling dungeons in Classic. This new design is incongruent with leveling dungeon design.

So i found this on Icy Veins.

Acording to them, Sever Slam (the chance for everyone to try WoW Forever for free) will start on 19 octomber.

IMPORTANT THING TO REMEBER: Blizzard did not confirm this yet but according to a screenshot in the article 19 might be the day 0 for Server Slam.

Also important thing to remember before coming to this sub and writing angry posts: This is a server slam and if it works like any of those server slam i have personally played its gonna be a lag fest. The point of an event like this is to see how servers would handle the huge amount of players.

This being said, especially in a server slam do not come expect smooth sailing. Its gonna be a mess but thats the whole ideea.

I know absolutely nothing about these dudes aside from what I saw in the cinematic. Putting yourself back in 2004 coming off the heels of Warcraft 3 which introduced a ton of new races to the franchise like Naga, Pandaren, Furbolgs, Tuskarr and most importantly NIGHT ELVES, do you think this new race would have fit into the world and its lore seemlessly?

Edit: I guess is should have initially mentioned that numbers would have to be rebalanced and not necessarily be flat 5% damage. As well as a way to not take effect in PvP.

Let's set aside the fact that trolls were the original race with beast slaying.

I remember during the announcement for Forever, Blizzard mentioned that they wanted races to be stronger against certain enemies. Having both troll and dwarf the exact same flavour of beast slayer is....dissapointing and lackluster

Dwarf makes sense due to their hunting theme with both nesingwary and the cinematic poster boy.

Trolls should get damage vs humanoids. It makes sense from a lore perspective from the original warcraft games. Plus there are troll tribes that have headhunting/cannabalism theme going on. This will also differentiate the two races which is much more interesting.

As a bonus;

Humans - undead slaying

Night Elves - demon Slaying

Gnome - mecha slaying

Orc - elemental slaying

Undead - human/undead slaying? This one is a hard one to figure out.

Tauren - giant slaying

Obviously some will be more powerful than others due to mob abundance type but this is a fun thing thematically.

Double bonus:

Skyborn - wallet slaying (5% increase to sub cost)

Its the best racial in the game by far (for pvp) And does not belong in classic at all.

Nerf Orc, Nerf troll, rework human.

There's no reason to purchase anything other than the cheapest item. Why would anyone do that to themselves except as an RMT transaction?

Change my mind.

Caster dps? F*ck off lmao

1. No one actually fights players their level unless theyre in a group. Its either gank, be ganked, or be in a group to outnumber. I guess thats PvP but not this skills based thing the elitists on here will gaslight you into believing

2. People are going to abuse the shit out of layering to gank and disappear. That doesnt sound like PvP, it sounds like being a fake hoe

3. balanced skirmishes don't happen nearly as frequently as they used to. people act like this is still a common thing, it’s not. Ive played on pvp realms since 2005 hoping it would come back

Put it this way: If blizzard put in some level diference cap or dishonorable kills, people would be furious. It was never about fair fights. I don't fault anyone for ganking, the rules permit it, but spare us the bullshit about "immersion" and just admit you like wasting other peoples time.

​Guys, I need to vent.

​I was minding my own business doing my Level 18 Redridge Mountains questing, taking a nice, casual 45-minute water break between gnoll camps like a true Classic enjoyer, when suddenly the chat exploded.

​"P2WStreamer is in Stormwind.”

​I froze. My hands started shaking. I dropped my Hot Pocket.

​I quickly opened Twitch, found the stream, and confirmed my worst fears: he was STANDING NEAR THE AUCTION HOUSE.

​Do you people realize what this means?! The pristine, unblemished integrity of my $15/month nostalgia simulator HAS BEEN SHATTERED. Sure, I play on a PvE server, I have all chat channels hidden except Guild, I am currently level 22, and I play for 3 hours on alternate Tuesdays after my wife's boyfriend goes to bed... but HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ENJOY THE GAME KNOWING HE IS OUT THERE?

​I’ve seen the posts on this subreddit. I know the facts:

​Streamers ruin the economy! (I have 4 gold and 12 silver, but still!)

​Streamers ruin open-world PvP! (I haven't flagged for PvP since 2019, but what if?!)

​Streamers take all the layer resources! (I don't know what a layer is, but it sounds toxic!)

​The chance of me ever crossing paths with this streamer in an instance or world zone is roughly 0.0001%, but the mental anguish of knowing they exist on the same database cluster as me is literally unplayable. I couldn't even focus on dying to the Defias Traitors in Westfall.

​I’m calling out to Blizzard right now. We need STREAMER-FREE DEDICATED REALMS. Every player must submit a link to their Twitch account, and if you have more than 0 followers, you get banished to the Shadow Realm.

​Until then, I am unsubscribing and writing a 12-paragraph essay on Reddit about how a guy broadcasting video games to 20,000 has personally ruined my childhood memories.

​Who's with me?! (Please reply quickly, I only have 10 minutes of screen time left tonight).

Its far too easy currently, we dont get to see instance boss mechanics, mobs do not feel scary enough anywhere.

just give them (much) more hp and damage.

Thats is all

I think theres a contradiction in Blizzard's philosophy here.

Aggrend has talked about the importance of the journey and getting people out exploring Azeroth. Blizzard has even nerfed dungeon mob XP and quest XP to discourage dungeon spam and make the open world matter more. Fair enough, but why are addons like RestedXP and Zygor still allowed?

These addons literally tell you where to go, what quests to do and which mobs to kill. You dont explore, you just follow instructions until level 60. How is that any different from dungeon grinding in terms of optimising XP per hour?

If the journey matters, why are we allowing addons that turn it into a checklist?

And then theres Aggrend reportedly using RestedXP himself. I find it ironic that the person involved in shaping the leveling experience would use a tool that automates the very journey Blizzard claims to want players to experience. It also raises questions about whether Blizzard genuinely sees these addons as a problem.

I'm not accusing anyone of having financial interests in RestedXP, but transparency about any relevant relationships with addon creators would certainly help.

My point is simple: if Blizzard nerfs XP to protect the leveling experience, it should apply that same philosophy to addons that optimise every step of it.

Ban RestedXP, Zygor and similar step-by-step leveling guides in Forever. Let people actually discover Azeroth instead of following an arrow to 60.

10 years ago, we started to flock from WOD to Nostalrius. What was the primary reason for this? In WOD, we were stuck in our garrisons. Xrealm everything. No real community you could recognize out in the world.

Vanilla wow had what we missed. Recognizable community. The excerpt below was taken from a post written 9 years ago. Before classic 2019, when we were just starting to discover why we wanted vanilla WoW at all.

"Many of you will be excited to find that the sense of community on vanilla servers transcends rose-tinted goggles.

So about a year ago by now, I decided to give these private vanilla servers a try. At first, I was HIGHLY skeptical. As many have pointed out, many of the class rotations come down to one ability. The balance was awful. The game was generally an inconvenient bitch to play.

Until I tried it.

Yes, all those things are true. What vanilla makes you realize, is that none of that matters. The original appeal of this game in 2004 for many people was for its MMO aspect, and Blizzard knew it. Upon replaying vanilla, you can feel the game attempting to connect you to the people around you. In a highly populated server I found myself repeatedly grouping with others for hours just going through the quest lines - and it all feels natural. I found myself leveling as a prot warrior until around 40 just to meet people. As you run through the world, you start recognizing names. In ironforge you might see some guy you grouped with on multiple occasions. You'll see the server celebrities. You'll see the pvpers, the hardcore Raiders, and it feels like seeing familiar faces in a small town. You start recognizing guild names, and the steriotypes that people associate with those guilds. You can find your niche of people in these guilds, and often I found the most rewarding part of being in a guild was to have good conversations with like-minded people."

Sharding breaks all of that. A megaserver with sharding feels a lot like what we had in WOD, a xrealm world where you know nobody. If they really want Forever to be classic+, they need to understand why people started playing classic wow in the first place.