D&D 4E I wish WoW were like 4e

[katahn]

I wish WoW were like 4e....

* Every class would have a defined role in a party and no amount of talent selection would change that. Every warrior and paladin would be able to effectively tank at all levels of the game, every priest, druid, or shaman would be able to effectively heal at all levels of the game.

* Talent choices would add new options or mild benefits that don't have an end-result of effectively completely changing the role one has in a group.

* Crowd Control would be a role that one or more classes would have as a primary function. So instead of needing 2-3 DPS classes with secondary CC abilities you could have DPS/utility classes not be relegated to second-class citizen status.

* Healers would be able to routinely do non-healbot things in a group if desired without completely sacrificing their ability to heal.

* Threat and aggro would vanish and tanks would get powers that prevent enemies from moving past/away from them instead. Tanking wouldn't just be a PvE concept and would be a PvP one too.

* DPS classes wouldn't be defined by DPS but by the ability to do damage while being harder for their enemies to target and hit. This way all classes can still have enough DPS to manage life while soloing.

* Gear wouldn't be the be-all and end-all of character power. It would instead be more of an enhancement.

 

[cdrcjsn]

Play Lord of the Rings Online instead.

HPs is Morale. Minstrels heal by attacking enemies. Most classes do roughly the same damage with DPS classes doing just slightly more.

Honestly, if the game came out at the same time as WoW, I would probably have preferred playing it (visiting Bag End in Hobbiton is very strange but exciting).

However if you're coming from WoW, many of the minor upgrades to that game over the years will become apparent. The AH and mail system will appear clunky for example.

The game has many good points, but a lot of minor things irritated me that would probably be fixed with time. That, coupled with the fact that I've already invested a lot of time in WoW, made me drop the game after a few fun months (after I reached my goal of getting a hobbit house). I might pick up the game again in the future if I can spare the time though.

As for...

* Every class would have a defined role in a party and no amount of talent selection would change that.

Though it's harder than 3e, it is possible to play a role outside of the normal designated one in 4e. You can play a Striker Paladin for example, but would probably lose quite a bit of resilience found in a Defender Paladin due to ability allocation and you won't have the mobility of real Strikers. Likewise you can make a Warlock Defender type that has the defenses/durability of a fighter, but might not be as good at keeping foes on you. So you can play a role outside those dictated by your class. You won't be as good as a class designed for that goal in mind, but you can make one that's decent enough to do most of the job.

 

[Mirtek]

I wish WoW were like 4e....

* Every class would have a defined role in a party and no amount of talent selection would change that. Every warrior and paladin would be able to effectively tank at all levels of the game, every priest, druid, or shaman would be able to effectively heal at all levels of the game.

* Talent choices would add new options or mild benefits that don't have an end-result of effectively completely changing the role one has in a group.

These are among the two things I dislike the most in 4e. To me the roles are to hard wired into the classes. I guess you can suck in your role if you really try, but you will just suck in your role and that's it instead of sucking in your role because you really took a new role as you abandoned your old

* DPS classes wouldn't be defined by DPS but by the ability to do damage while being harder for their enemies to target and hit. This way all classes can still have enough DPS to manage life while soloing.

Well, I don't think this is the way thinks work in 4e. The strikers are still much more squishy than the tanks

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

. . . You can play a Striker Paladin for example, but would probably lose quite a bit of resilience found in a Defender Paladin due to ability allocation and you won't have the mobility of real Strikers . . .

Oh, man, please tell me how to make a Ret Pally for 4dventure! I'll be all over it!

(only somewhat tongue-in-cheek )

 

[Oni]

Oh, man, please tell me how to make a Ret Pally for 4dventure! I'll be all over it!

(only somewhat tongue-in-cheek )

I can just imagine everyone else at the table wondering aloud why you're not healing or tanking for them. (I used to play a Ret Pally, never got so much grief before or since for how I wanted to play a game.) I guess the real advantage in a table top game is you can reach across the table and whack the offending yahoo in the head with the PHB. I like the idea of a paladin who goes out and really puts the smackdown on evil, it would be cool if they included enough options for that type of play style for pallies.

 

[Cirex]

I was a retribution paladin aswell. I managed to raid Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, but the harassing, even by my guildmates in a supposed to be mature guild, was a bit annoying.

 

[katahn]

Some of that "offspec harassment" comes from the fact that any class capable of tanking and/or healing is seen as "infringing" on the role of DPS or simply being selfish and neglecting one or the other role.

In a tabletop game I don't mind the idea of "ret pallies" or "dps warriors" or "moonkins" or whatnot else. In a tabletop game the DM can adjust the content the group is facing so it's appropriate for that group. In an MMO though, I think this is a bad approach. An MMO is basically a pure hack-n-slash campaign and having strictly defined roles that classes can't just drop through talent selection is a good thing.

In a tabletop game you can expect a group of 5 strikers (dps) to work, albiet with some challenges probably. In an MMO there is no adjusting of the content, the content is based around tank + dps + cc + healer and if you are missing one of those things can get very bad very quickly. So yeah, maybe strict role-definition in a tabletop isn't everyone's cup of tea, but in an MMO... I think it would be a good thing.

Plus, WoW could really benefit from finding an alternative to the threat/aggro mechanic which only works on NPCs to make the tank/defender role relevant in PvP. It's ridiculous that there's an entire segment of the game where a core class role simply is irrelevant.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Plus, WoW could really benefit from finding an alternative to the threat/aggro mechanic which only works on NPCs to make the tank/defender role relevant in PvP. It's ridiculous that there's an entire segment of the game where a core class role simply is irrelevant.

That's a fact! I played a warrior up through tier 4, some tier 5 content and had total lifetime PvP kills of < 100. You just CAN'T PvP effectively with Prot spec/gear. It would have been fun to get into PvP such that enemy players were forced to deal with my toon's raid buffed 16K armor and 22K health. Oh, well.

I still want to see a striker Pally in 4e! Hopefully the smite powers will make it possible to really lay the pain on critters with a paladin. The vision of a fully armored and crazy damage buffed paladin laying the holy hurt on enemies just sounds fun.

 

[cdrcjsn]

Oh, man, please tell me how to make a Ret Pally for 4dventure! I'll be all over it!

(only somewhat tongue-in-cheek )

Sure. I'll post my build on June 6th =P

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wish WoW were like 4e....

* Every class would have a defined role in a party and no amount of talent selection would change that. Every warrior and paladin would be able to effectively tank at all levels of the game, every priest, druid, or shaman would be able to effectively heal at all levels of the game.

* Talent choices would add new options or mild benefits that don't have an end-result of effectively completely changing the role one has in a group.

* Crowd Control would be a role that one or more classes would have as a primary function. So instead of needing 2-3 DPS classes with secondary CC abilities you could have DPS/utility classes not be relegated to second-class citizen status.

* Healers would be able to routinely do non-healbot things in a group if desired without completely sacrificing their ability to heal.

* Threat and aggro would vanish and tanks would get powers that prevent enemies from moving past/away from them instead. Tanking wouldn't just be a PvE concept and would be a PvP one too.

* DPS classes wouldn't be defined by DPS but by the ability to do damage while being harder for their enemies to target and hit. This way all classes can still have enough DPS to manage life while soloing.

* Gear wouldn't be the be-all and end-all of character power. It would instead be more of an enhancement.

As they might say on the WoW boards: SRSLY

Yeah, though, fine points all. I note that the upcoming Warhammer: Age of Reckoning MMORPG (which started development before 4E was announced) has a similar "Four roles" structure (tank, melee DPS, ranged DPS and healer in it's case - ranged DPS tend to have controller-ish elements interestingly), and you can never spec to the point where you can't perform your basic role well.

Also note that in W:AR, the tank classes have abilities which debuff the damage of enemies who aren't attacking the tanks, as well as various abilities to keep enemies near the tanks, so clearly the ideas are spreading.

I'd be very surprised if WotLK didn't feature a few "4E-ish" abilities, too.

Brent_Nall - Not to derail this into a "You're bad at WoW" thread, but why in god's holy name would you be wearing PROT GEAR into the BGs unless you were in AV and about to tank the boss or the guards on a flag? I think this is a case of "Well that's your problem right there!". If you just wear, y'know, PvP gear, and y'know dual-wield decent weapons (pulling on a shield as a appropriate), then whilst you'll never be an Arms Warrior with an uber 2h, you'll kill plenty of people and be very capable in helping to achieve objectives. I personally have about 5000 kills on my Prot Warrior and certainly wouldn't call them "impossible to PvP with". It's just a matter of thinking it through. Maybe I'm missing the point, but you already have Hamstring if you want to keep people near you, and a 6-second stun. I'm not sure exactly what abilities 4E Fighters have that go above and beyond those, apart from the penalties applied by their "taunt" - something W:AR is replicating. It would be nice to see something like that in WoW, I admit.