Only 2 weeks left until
Legion finally drops on our heads like a proverbial bag of hammers and everybody’s excited to get that lump on the head. To tide us over, Blizzard released the pre-launch event of the Broken Shore along with the availability to create and use the Demon Hunter in all current content. Right now, Legion is poised to be the expansion to give WoW a much needed comeback from the declining subscription base and the theme park MMO growing staler and staler with each passing day.
With a ton of new game mechanics such as the Artifact system, Transmogrification system, improved PvP components and progression, as well as bringing back players to a more
true sense of WoW-ness in the form of pitting them against the classic Burning Legion, there’s no denying that Legion is shaping up to be one of the better expansions since Wrath of the Lich King.
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I’m one of those people that got a
WoW Legion key when pre-orders opened on day one, but an iffy feel for the expansion, despite all its new features and apparent polish, still lingers within me because of one big thing – the
Demon Hunter.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying Demon Hunters are bad because, in fact, they’re pretty damned awesome. However, the manner in which Blizzard is trying to sell this new hero class is bringing back horrible WotLK PTSD flashbacks when the Death Knight first came about.
I’ve got to hand it to Blizzard – the Demon Hunter, for all intents and purposes, and again looking back at the Death Knight’s history, is a very balanced class. It’s got decent burst, great sustain, and amazing mobility, all the while being stifled by a relative lack of self-sustain, at least for their DPS spec, Havoc. Tanking with Vengeance is also absolutely amazing with some rather interesting mechanics that keep players on their toes but also easy enough to pick up. I’m pretty surprised that it isn’t as OP as the Death Knight during the heyday of WotLK. The awesomeness of the Demon Hunter alone is enough to merit a purchase of Legion.
BUT….Everybody Else Got Nerfed
To make the new kid look special, Blizzard decided to cut off the tall kids’ legs to help him stand out more, all the while maintaining the DH’s great balance. The classes we’ve all grown accustomed to have been nerfed to a degree that, while still playable, they’ve become shadows of their former selves. Granted, almost every major update and every expansion has brought huge mix ups to the way most classes are played, but it simply doesn’t sit right with Legion.
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Ranged classes aren’t too affected by this because the DHs are primarily tanks and melee dps, but the latter two roles are the ones that mostly got the shaft. In general, I’m assuming, to make the crazily mobile DH stand out more, Blizzard nerfed the hell out of mobility across the board, damaging even the most mobile class since Mists of Pandaria, the Monk. Classes that used to have decent mobility like the Paladin, Death Knight, and Hunter have been given little to no options for it, especially prevalent on the hunter who lost Aspect of the Pack in favor of the ultimately useless revamp of Aspect of the Cheetah, a minor movement boost for 12 seconds but a stupidly long cool down of 3 whole minutes. Classes that are reliant on mobility in the first place, like the Monk, suffer from increased cooldown times on skills like Roll and Flying Serpent Kick, being completely outclassed by the longer distances and shorter cooldowns found in the Demon Hunter skill set like Fel Rush, a far more godlike Roll counterpart that hurts people and has a shorter cooldown, and their godlike double jumps.
Apart from the Assassination Rogue and the Death Knight, most other melee dps specs and some ranged specs fall short in comparison to the Demon Hunter’s Havoc spec. It’s not to say that none of the other classes are viable or that none of these will change in the future once everything’s been tuned for Legion numbers, but at present, there really isn’t any reason to play other classes other than the Demon Hunter. This is a major deterrent in my opinion as I personally can’t seem to enjoy the original classes anymore due to DHs.
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But despite all this, the classes play better than ever. While a lot of skills have been pruned from most of them, rotations and skill concentrations have never been more convenient and streamlined. The Monk, especially, has been toned down to be easier to use with their rotations being far more fluid in transition, but just as complicated to sate the more hardcore. It wasn’t like back in MoP or WoD where being a good Monk really required dedication and a lot of understanding just to play the class competently; now it’s easy to pick up but still maintains a high skill ceiling.
Warlocks get a nifty new playstyle for Demonology, Hunters get the amazing burst-damage capabilities of the now-melee Survival spec, and tons more for each and every class. Disregarding Demon Hunters for a while, every class in WoW brings something new to the table that topples the old role hegemony WoW’s had since Cataclysm. Mages, however, are still strong as ever, but that’s one dominant, historical force in WoW that is definitely never changing and I think we’ve all accepted that by now.
It’s Always Going to be a Love for the Class
There are going to be some folks out there that are going to say, “It doesn’t matter how strong a class is and play what you like.” That’s very true and I agree with that wholeheartedly. I’ve mained a Monk since Pandaria and I’ve not once let it go no matter how hard they nerf it because the whole mobility shtick they had going for them was just my style. But with the Demon Hunter now staring us all in the face and clearly sports the superior mobility, it’s not unnatural for me to think that going Demon Hunter is the better option. But all of us WoW players are attached to our old mains of course and it’s hard to let go of a character we’ve put so much effort into for years.
And, yes, I am quite aware that pre-patch is an ongoing balance up until live and a few weeks after it. There are going to be tons of hotfixes, but those are pretty much just fine tuning. In the entirety the class changes, this is the direction they want to go with and won’t really change as much as the gutted class fans would want.
In the end, you have to know that Legion, as an expansion, looks just so good and is absolutely worth every penny. New players and casual MMO gamers will absolutely love how classes are so streamlined and simple, without the muck and bloat of the older expansions. This is something I want clear. But the true determining factor for veteran players, both competitive PvPers and hardcore raiders, to come back is if the classes they want to play are still fun and/or viable in the game. This is really what it all boils down to and Blizzard seems to forget that more and more with every expansion. Pruning is one thing; gutting is another.
