Hi guys, this WoW phrase has brought a few discussions lately in the community especially during the Blizzard: Battle for Azeroth Q&A a few days ago. I stumbled upon an article that talks about this. The conversation leads when Josh Allen, brought up an old controversial WoW phrase: “take the player, not the class.” Hazzikostas answered regarding the tired phrase.
“Bring the player, not the class is one of the most misinterpreted phrases over time,” he said. “I remember when ex-WoW lead system designer Ghostcrawler posted blogs about this in early Wrath of Lich King expansion days. It was a response to a completely degenerate situation at the end of The Burning Crusade.”
This was an old WoW philosophy from the days of the game’s second expansion, WOTLK. My understanding through this was that we didn’t have raid-wide buffs for the most part except for the things like Prayer of Fortitude or Mark of the Wild and almost everything was party based. It was a Battle shout, it was Windfurry Totem, It was Leader of the Pack, It was all of that stuff that leads to a situation on constructing groups back then.
My understanding also that Raid leaders only pick certain players based on the highest item level (how good their gears are) but not focus on the classes with their unique capabilities and it made the whole composition lost its balance to actually defeat certain situations or encounters. I always say this too that It may not be all just about gears but players need to start thinking about what we can do in groups i.e skills whether it is PvP or PvE situation.
The goal of the new expansion coming up Battle of Azeroth is to return some of that missing class utility. The choice of the class won’t matter to you anymore. Instead, it will exist to help support the group rather than just worry about yourself. The idea is key to what World of Warcraft special to so many players.
It is a matter of choice of class composition that we need to take into each fight helping build World of Warcraft into massive MMO that it is to this day. According to the game director, Battle of Azeroth is looking to take the series back to those kinds of hard choices in the game. Hazzikostas added that the philosophy for all its good intentions has made the community focus too much on the character or their gear and not their chosen class.
Anyway, I am looking forward to the new expansion like always. Read this link from Wowhead too regarding Battle for Azeroth Class Design Overview if you are interested. This is an open discussion, feel free to leave comments below. Thank you again for dropping by.
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