World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

Hunter I think has the least miso-managing twitchy. Especially beast master. Just put your pet on, keep Barbed Shot Frenzy up, fire Cobra Shot as a filler.

That’s what I was thinking… Beast Mastery Hunter seems pretty low stress and easy to play.

There are classes with simpler rotations, but I would say the game currently probably isn’t much different in terms of the pace it plays at. The global cooldown is still 1 second, cast times are short, and there’s plenty of things to watch for and react to. In solo play and in the first couple of tiers of group play, you can get by without quick reflexes, though - missing an interrupt or taking some damage from standing in fire usually doesn’t kill you until you start moving on to harder content.

Have you tried or have any interest in trying Final Fantasy 14? I find that it plays like a slower, heavier WoW.

GCD is 1.5s, isn’t it? I remember when Frost DKs had a 1s GCD. Sooo much more fun. Playing every other class felt like it was moving in slow motion.

Warlock is pretty easy to play. As Affliction it’s all about the DoTs and consuming shards with Maleific Rupture or whatever it’s called. Right now I’m playing a demon lock and it’s pretty easy too. Beast hunter is probably the easiest class I’ve played, though. Get a tank pet.

Yes, it’s 1.5s for all classes now, but is shortened by haste. This was changed a couple expansions back and is the obvious correct solution.

Yeah, I think you’re right. At one point, haste lowered the GCD to a minimum of one second, that’s what I was thinking of. In FF14, it’s 2.5 sec.

I did find this though, which is fucking huuuge.

Abilities Removed from the GCD in Shadowlands - Guides - Wowhead

As a main mage back in BfA, I seriously cursed Blizzard every – fucking – time I pressed those buttons. Arcane Power increases damage for 10s? NOPE. It’s actually 8.5s thanks to GCD. HATED IT.

They increased the duration accordingly for most of those abilities for that exact reason. That didn’t obviate the objection that it felt bad to press a button that didn’t do anything but buff other buttons, so they gave up on that obvious bad idea in the next expansion. Now they all either do something other than provide a buff (typically a bit of damage) or are off the GCD.

Every expansion has blindingly stupid changes. Some designer at Blizzard thinks his idea is really cool, champions it, and it goes into the game despite overwhelmingly negative player feedback. I remember back in Pandaland monk fists of fury would break on movement-- they actually thought rooting a melee was OK, like a caster. I mean, duh.

In Shadowlands, that bright boy designer is all about unpruning, so they give everybody buttons that act as traps for inexperienced players and many lead to poor emergent gameplay. For example, as a BM hunter Arcane Shot is in your spellbook but you should never use it (a trap). For awhile Arcane Shot was better than Cobra Shot for BM, meaning the spec ignored their ability synergies. As a Frost Mage you have Arcane Explosion and playing optimally you should be in melee range using it-- that’s shitty gameplay; Frost is supposed to use Frost Orb and Blizzard. They also reversed some major quality of life changes made back a decade ago, like forcing Shamans to drop totems on every pull.

It’s difficult to understand why they ignore player feedback. I guess they just feel exhausted dealing with it, and just do what they think is best, mistakes be damned. I’m much older now and don’t play MMOs hardcore so I don’t particularly give a shit; it isn’t like back in the Everquest days when I was constantly enraged by the developers’ ineptitude and outright hostility, but it still gets me shaking my head.

Hey, alchemy was working as intended, man.

This is probably closest to the truth. They have a huge player base, and every decision is unpopular with probably a few hundred thousand people at least. Too many skills? Time to prune. Oh, we did too much pruning and now everyone lost fun spells? Time to unprune. People frustrated that certain classes are ignored for raids? Time to homogenize. Everyone hates that classes feel the same? Time to make them unique again.

That brings back memories.

I’m back in WoW. I boosted my horde paladin and started BfA and went straight to Vol’dun. Took around 12 hours to unlock foxes. I’m sure I could have done it faster if I followed a guide instead of just faffing about and doing every quest in the zone. I also unlocked the BE heritage armor and the Nightborne.

Started a fox shaman, took around two full days of gaming to hit 48. I must say I enjoyed BfA a lot more as a level 10 horde player in Zuldazar. The absence of Magni and the constant progression certainly helped.

I’m now 57 and around 3/4ths through Maldraxxus. SL seems… ok. The concept seems stupid, though. Not as stupid as time-travelling orcs, of course, but still stupid. It’s the afterlife except things can still die. Again. And when they do they’re really gone? But they release anima? And you can be a great warrior in life, but in the afterlife you start over as a peon? Unless you’re a famous WoW personality then you get a job as baroness or some shit.

I know it’s just a stupid game and I shouldn’t think about it too much, but it’s constantly bugging me.

We did the first 6 raid bosses in the Castle on Saturday on normal. I’m only at 161 gear and I died once I think on the bosses the group cleared a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t review anything about the raids and was just briefed about when to hide behind pillars and click various things, so it wasn’t too bad. We’re all pretty low level gear-wise at this point, but the raid seems fun so far. Next time I will add enchants, gems, etc.

I’m a priest, but I am also thinking about switching back to a shaman again. I started WoW as a Dwarf Priest because that’s what everybody needed, but I was a shaman from the expansion where they added the Draenei until BFA when resto shaman were altered beyond recognition. They are back to being fun in Shadowlands.

As well it should.

RS is currently the king/queen of healers in SL, so not a bad choice.

We finished the raid on normal and the final bosses were one shotted. We probably out geared the fight on normal, but we had more issues with the dance party boss than the ones after it.

We quickly finished three on heroic.

I am really liking the vault rewards. A very nice addition.

Congrats on finishing normal! We’re on the Council right now. Held back a bit in our 11 to 13 person attempts by only having one good healer and mediocre overall dps.

My guild is at about the same spot, although we are going through the typical expack pains of people joining/leaving the raid group so our progress was temporarily impeded. I like the raid and thank god because now that I’m at the heroic raid point, there’s not much more I really like doing. I think for me it boils down to the loot system. Running 10+ keys is a chore and it really takes some going. And your reward for completing the whole thing typically boils down to loot that isn’t an upgrade, 35 friggin anima, and a chance to bolster your vault. In fact I think the vault is the only place I’ve got loot from in the past two weeks. I like the vault, but really hate the fact that the best place to currently get gear is PvP by a pretty wide margin. Its the side of WoW I just don’t enjoy and it’s the only opportunity I have to get a shot at daily loot now. I hope hinted at changes in gearing come sooner rather then later because it is very discouraging.

Given the context, this has bothered me way more than it should and I think was the thing that pushed me out of the game. I just don’t understand what Shadowlands is. Why are there road signs in the after life? Why are there creatures there? Were they creatures on Azeroth that died? Why is there a landscape in the afterlife, much less multiple different biomes?

I mean I get it. WoW is full of silly things like that, and after playing pretty hard core for four years I was overdue for taking a break, but the Shadowlands lore didn’t help.

For better or worse, stupid lore doesn’t bother me at all.