Class discussion opened with an introduction of what a hero class means to World of Warcraft. When the original game was being designed they had planned on having hero classes, but they got cut in order to make things simpler for players and for balancing purposes. Many classes were originally planned such as Blademasters and other hero character types from previous Warcraft games, and even other RPG games. They instead opted for fewer classes with more customization and deviation via talents. More classes are not always better for the game.
The first thing looked at when working with classes is Balance. Ever class should be able to solo from level 1 all the way to maximum level if they wish to do so. Every class should also have a role and be viable for 5 man encounters, in raids, and in PVP. Finally, every class should be enjoyable and fun to play for most players. Talents are also very important for the class structure of the game. The original talent system was inspired by and designed with Diablo 2 in mind. They wanted to have a limited pool of points with a large number of skills to allow players to differentiate themselves from others of the same class. The majority of skills should be passive, with few active skills available in each tree.
Balancing each spec against another in a given class is another issue looked at when evaluating classes. It is important to them that they make sure each spec has proper itemization in order to support that spec. They also try to make sure that hybrid specs are still viable. New spells or skills should be more effective than their earlier counterparts in all situations. This hasn’t always been perfect and things are still being looked at, such as making certain classes more viable in pvp such as protection warriors. They have to be careful no matter what they do as major changes could be a shock to the system, the players, or both.
- Druids were designed to be healers, with the ability to fill other roles when necessary. Bear form was designed to fill the void left by warriors when one wasn’t present, with cat form filling the void of rogues. Moonkin was introduced to help fill the void left by mages when one wasn’t available. The focus however has always been to make a druid primarily a healer first, even going as far as to make healing available to them regardless of which spec they choose.
- Hunters were designed to be masters of ranged combat. For a long time this was all they had, and with the introduction of Misdirect they were given more utility. They also discovered that feign was being overused so they changed it to make it more conditional and useful for certain situations, without being overpowered and necessary for a majority of actions. They also introduced pet scaling to make pets more able to keep up with the hunter in later levels of the game.
- Mages were designed to be the DPS king with Area effect skills. This allows them to excel on multiple targets without overshadowing other classes in the single target race. They gave them the Water Elemental talent to make them more like the original Warcraft variants as well as to better identify mages who specced into that tree. Spell steal was given to break the mold a little while giving them something useful in terms of utility.
- Paladins are another hybrid that can fill multiple roles. Designed to be mana efficient and effective in healing while being able to take more punishment than other healing classes. Can still fill the roles of DPS and Tanking when necessary without taking those roles away from the pure class versions. Future changes should see Retribution getting a buff in DPS output as well as solving the itemization issue.
- Priests are designed to be the best healer in the game when played right. Most powerful healers in the game while still having the ability to provide other utility and roles. Shadow was buffed for PVE to make that spec more viable for 5 man and raids. Future changes should see improvements in Light well, Circle of Healing, and Improved Death.
- Shaman were designed to be the Horde’s answer to the Paladin, but was later provided to both sides in Burning Crusade. Designed to be masters of utility and providing enhancements to any group. Future changes should see better scaling for totems and gear.
- Rogues were designed to be the best single target melee dps in the game. Utility was provided by adding Improved Sap as a trainable skill to all rogues. Focus has always been on making sure all of the weapon specs were balanced with one another without making them the same. Stunlocks used to be an issue in PVP and was fixed when health was increased across the board for all players. Most characters can now live through a stunlock long enough to give them a chance to retaliate.
- Warlocks are effective at damage over time and control of demons. Issues in the past included too much reliance on fear, and has since been evaluated and fixed by reducing the length of time fear can stay on a PVP target. This class should be the best dueling class in the game one-on-one.
- Warriors are the best tanks in the game. This class was designed the same way you see most warriors in other games designed. Focused on heavy armor and protection skills while still providing dps as an alternate means of speccing if desired. Rage was an issue for a while especially with the buff to druids, so warriors were given more rage to offset this. Warriors should be the best at tanking while being comparable to rogues in dps as long as they spec into it.
The future of classes for this game will most likely be Hero Classes. As we go forward more hero classes can be introduced using the unlocking mechanism. Other things we can expect to see for classes include more talents from 70-80, and the new inscription profession that will provide enhancements for your skills and spells, much like enchants provide enhancements to armor and weapons. Think of things like adding a knockback effect to your Mage Fireball…
With very little time left, the floor was opened up for the audience to ask questions:
- When asked if we can expect to see more cc for other classes such as shamans, they replied saying that it is a possibility but they have to be careful when adding CC to any class as it changes the balance of PVP so greatly.
- When asked if druids can expect to see limitations imposed on them in things like Tree form removed, they replied that they will be looking at reducing the limitations to make tree form more viable to druids without forcing them to get out of tree form to sue their more powerful skills.
- When asked if Holy priests can expect to see improvements to make them better able to keep up in raids, they replied that some of the weaker talents will probably be buffed soon to make them more usable in raids versus Paladins.
- When asked if we can expect to see more skills being carried over from old games such as Warcraft 3, they replied that they always look at existing skills from older games when designing new skills and spells for expansions. The lore is very important to what they want to do with each class.
- When asked if they plan to fix the issue with hybrids losing some of their viability when speccing into a single tree, they replied that this is something they always look at when balancing classes but that speccing into a single tree is meant to force you more into a single role over the others a hybrid might have access to.
Link to the YouTube video can be found here.