Community Perception - How Can it Be Solved??

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Twitter: @Preachgaming
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The Good Book - / preachgaming
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[@gentor9549]

All problems can be solved by not having a community. Blizz is working hard on that.

[@baelfyer1277]

"I used to be a goth for example" *pauses video to take that in* Ok, I'm good. Great video!

[@lisakalse7113]

Preach with blue hair... Imagine

[@LunaTulpa]

Preach with hair is hard enough >:3

[@maggimaster]

Preach with hair is hard enough already. I think if I remember right he had ghost dye his hair which stained his hands then preach got kicked out of his parents house and lived with his awesome brother. Ghost went to work and was told he needed to clean his stained hands or go home so he stuck his hand in a bucket of c113 or some cleaning crap then his boss asked how he cleaned his hands and he told the boss...then got a warning lol

[@sinklar7946]

pgeEdge

[@Dantarn]

Preach with hair.....imagine.

[@dreadgear9683]

Preach with hair to begin with !

[@oplawlz]

It can be solved by blizzard not releasing classes half finished at the beginning of every expansion.

[@Skyblade12]

Once a change like an expansion level shift goes live, it is pretty much too late to change the perception on it. The only way to shift the perception would be massive buffs, or a massive shift to the play style. As you yourself said: It's how the class FEELS to play that drives part of it. If they make the class FEEL more fun to play, the perception will shift. But that is a larger change that they usually reserve for the expansion level shifts. Another way would be to rebalance ALL the classes. Which is a huge change for an issue like this, and again, is the sort of thing usually reserved for an expansion level change. Finally, there is the buff method, which then needs to be followed by the debuff to bring it back in line. Not a very good method. But remember as well: Blizzard already KNEW they were feeding the negative perception of the classes when they made the announcement that they weren't going to have them in a good state at expansion launch. This was three years after the infamous "we don't want you playing Demonology" comment. Blizzard KNOWS how the community reacts to that sort of statement. That they made one anyway, saying "Shamans and Shadow Priests aren't going to be done until 8.1" was incredibly negligent. Not only did they ruin the classes, they announced to everyone that they were ruined, and wouldn't be fixed soon. And, since the changes made are relatively minor (on paper), and don't much shift the "feel" of how the class plays, 8.1 would do nothing to correct that perception.

[@Grumpyk1d]

I'm an old school player and I've always had the mentality of taking the PLAYER, not the class. As a result, I have regularly done +10 and higher keystones with PuGS (I often make my own groups on my tanks). In many of those runs I have elected to pick up a shaman dps or a shadow priest; and the majority of the runs are successful. At the end of the run, I always get a message of "Thanks so much for taking a shaman" or "Thanks for inviting me even though I'm a shadow priest." It's mind boggling that people would rather take an undergeared "meta" dps or an overgeared "meta" character with ZERO raider.io into a +10 or higher keystone simply because the class perception is so high. Often times these runs are the worst runs you can imagine, and these are the runs that the forums are filled with where people leave early after a few wipes or what have you. It's because you have a 395 Demon hunter doing less damage than the tank, you have a 390 rogue that hasn't interrupted, stunned or CC'd a single mob, or you have a 385 mage that hasn't dodged a single mechanic in the first 10 minutes of the dungeon and is constantly stressing the healer making them go oom. Recently, I have been heavily recruiting for my guild's raid roster to prepare for the next raid and during my recruitment I have run across several people that are playing non-meta DPS (Shamans, WW Monks, and shadow priests) and I encourage them to continue with those characters because they have a passion for that class and are going to work harder to be good than a flavor of the month dps that can't even be bothered to learn what all of their skills do. Pick the PLAYER not the class and I promise you will have a better experience every single time!!!

[@BeowulfGaming]

as shaman, this made me smile happily :) I get declined most of the time for m+, becuase they are looking for rogue, DH and mage and demonology wl

[@Colty95]

While i agree with you, i for one if i see two guys with similar ilvl and raider.io score i will always take the meta class over the non-meta class. In regards to guild recruitment you are absolutely right, the attitude of the player counts 10x more than the class he is playing.

[@WondderWaffel]

Join a guild, the pug world is a dice toss if you get a nice group or if you end up wasting half an hour of your life with people that will call you all kinds of ugly stuff. I don't care what class people are, unless it's extreme endgame pushing. The role is the most I bother looking at when I do end up doing m+ with my guildies. Doing a +10, +15, whatever key we got, I just ask "anyone wants to come along?" We've run past +10s with prot warriors, shadow priests, ele/enh/resto shamans and all other classes in between. The only ones I get a bit skeptical about is the people I know who can't carry as much weight as the main raider(ie, socials) I still bring em, of course, but past +10 and especially when we get to +15 I have to see if we have enough main people who can play their class to the best of their ability. We got 4 main raiders already? Sure, we can bring along a social for this 15 key, doesn't matter if they're a flavor of the month spec like rouge, DH or mage, w/e. We know they'll perform worse than the shadow priest we know is of mythic raider quality as opposed to our social that is contempt with just clearing hc from time to time. That last statement probably made me sound a bit elitist, but it's just the flat out truth, I'm happy to bring socials along, some of them are great people and extremely fun to play with. But I can't expect to clear a +15 in time if I invite 4 socials(unless it's the rare kind that is actually mythic raiders, but just can't do it for the moment due to real life commitments, but that's another topic) +10, maybe, probably. It all depends on the player, some socials could might as well join us in our mythic raids, while others are 60 year old and just play the game to have a bit of fun. (Yes we actually have people of all group ages, all the way from 15 years old, up to 60+ year old, games can be fun with breaking age barriers)

[@Necr0Fenix]

thats cool, being a BDK tank i never do my own keys as i know i get easily acepted, but i have seen that the few ragers i gotten were DH (at least the ones that stood out) will try to experiment that, think i got a +11 boralus from weekly chest, will try to make my grp with it and see what i can invite and how it goes

[@adametherington8105]

I've been playing Elemental Shaman since the start of the expac and have never really had an issue finding groups, I think there's plenty of people like you out there who see shamans as a class with an aoe stun, purge, hero, self brez, slow, cc, and the damage isn't that far behind (I put up top damage numbers in my guild, and competitive in any M+ I join so I don't even really see how we're behind at all) and they take the chance. On the other hand I've worked since the start to keep an IO that's half decent, and I try to run with people on my btag/ from the guild if at all possible. Shaman players themselves have to step up and do what they can to turn the perception around. As a side note, as of 8.1 I sim higher as elemental shaman than DH's and locks with the same ilvl.

[@PkMystikal]

Goth Preach with blue hair? We need to see those pics

[@christophermccaffrey3787]

Preach with hair!!!! omg

[@SoleymoonPercussion]

@@christophermccaffrey3787 lmao

[@ALMAPAGAN]

I was there when they attacked you for the legendary video, and you had been right and I was a player who did not get my first one till 3 months in. Never felt fun. I wish they had taken my "fun" away lol.

[@LethalShadow]

Ahh the good old Legendaries... I empathize. I also took 3 months to get my first legendary, despite playing an insane amount. When I finally got one, it was a PvP lego. I ragequit that character, level-capped my DH, and within days I got a legendary on him... but it was also a PvP lego. I unsubbed out of frustration right there and then. I only came back once they implemented the legendary "fixes" like dropping one per spec fast. I then proceeded to get a legendary which counted for all 3 specs, that I did not want. Ah... good old Legendaries...

[@ALMAPAGAN]

@@LethalShadow in the end I got the healing pally legendary swapped to healer and than gave up went brew master and never got a good monk Lego but at least all the specs felt fun to play.

[@Platinum9951]

Legion really did have potential to be a top expansion but it was neutered by the game design philosophies of people like Ion. Went casual in WoD and was thinking of raiding again in Legion, but between RNG Legendaries, RNG loot upgrades, endless AP grinding, and not even being the best geared in town due to Mythic+ I stayed casual. Gamechanging legendaries that you had no reliable way of getting untill the final patch, how did a top 100 guild caterer like Ion even let that slide in the first place.

[@Sugefut]

Yep... or even worse, you wait 3 months to get a shite legendary which you cannot use so you have to reroll your character or suck all expansion.

[@Emajenus]

11:32 Tom and Jerry aren't working all day, they're ruining the house with their endless shenanigans.

[@Sando669]

Make classes fun. People will play their classes if they're fun and they'll complain bitterly if they're not fun. Low DPS + unfun = death for the class. The community gets the wrong impression when the class themselves are complaining, which shamans have been for all of BFA. You have no incentive to fight through that perception and prove people wrong when you hate playing your class. When your class is fun, you're keen to show people you can rock it, and you're also motivated to play better. People will accept a well performing boring class, but a poor performing boring class is just a dead weight. When you're looking at the complaints as an outside, it's really easy to say "wow even the shamans themselves think they're crap" and move on. Asking the community to look into it in any more depth than that is silly. Blizzard have two levers, fun and power. If both are set to low, complaining about the community is just ridiculous.

[@MuffinTopsADTR]

Sam Anderson classes are definitely a shell of what they once were and it’s sad. GCD changes combined with heavy pruning killed a lot of the fun feel we love. Perhaps they are looking to bring this to console and need to simplify things accordingly. I can’t see any other reason for the drastic regression. We had this, it worked and players were happy. For Blizz to say it’s too complicated makes little sense. I

[@Eklypsis]

Absolutly. Asking how to fix community perception, when they muddled all dps specs together so they play essentially the same, is just retarded. If you have 2 cars and both feel and look similar you pick the one with a radio, or the slightly faster one even if its a 1 km/h difference.

[@xvocab]

@@MuffinTopsADTR I think the ship sailed for wow on console a long time ago. There is no reason for class design to be this bad.

[@LethalShadow]

I agree 100%. What determines which class I play is not the numbers, at least not completely. It's how the class feels, primarily. In BFA it was very difficult to play anything else than my Demon Hunter, because that class felt the same as in Legion, while all my other favorites felt WAY worse than they did in Legion. Each new patch, I look at whether that has been addressed, to determine whether I'll resub. And so far, it has not. Considering I was always an altaholic, it's very strange to be in a place where only 1 or 2 classes/specs even interest me now. BFA is the first expansion where I did not bring at least 6 classes to max level, despite being the FASTEST 10 levels I've ever experienced since lvl 60.

[@keithcoughlin8571]

Sam Anderson I agree with this point. I played ele shaman through Legion. It had highs and lows. Niches and fights that it was destined to perform poorly at. I stuck with it and pulled good numbers despite the fact that warlocks were nearly always better. The spec was fun, it was fast paced, flashy, and the sound effects were fun to experience. I had tools and abilities (gust of wind) that enabled me to counter some of the mobility concerns. Overall it was just fun and I stuck to it. Its so slow now. So dreadfully slow that even getting lots of haste and crit haven’t made the spec more fun. Will gear over the course of the expansion make my class faster and fun again? Maybe, but I am trying to play now, and if its not going to be fun til I am geared at the end of the expansion, I am not having fun. To hell with the numbers, make the class FEEL smooth.

[@LyubenV]

Sadly this is partly why I quit wow. I've played a Guardian druid for 5 years and at no point has the community perception been lower than 8.0 Even during Highmaul it wasn't this bad, back when bears were weird dodge guys. I had the highest raider io score of any Guardian on my server, and a decent one compared to druids yet I would still be turned away from groups. 25% of groups would firstly just say 'Blood DK only' so even other tanks were messed up but when it came to getting invites myself, it wouldn't happen. So I did what you probably should, and I ran my own keys. But even then, people would apply for my group, see that I was tanking as they probably expected me to be a healer or something, and just leave. On every reddit thread people would recount their experiences of how Guardian druids were complete awful, worst to heal, bring no utility etc. And even though I didn't accept that, it was pointless because people had made up their minds. So what did Blizzard do in 8.1? 12% damage buff, 1m change on roar and a new talent option. Its complete filler, never going to change perceptions, hardly addresses any of the real problems caused mostly by excessive Legion pruning and it was a slap in the face because it was such a minor hotfix style change yet we waited 4+ months for it. I just can't do it anymore, I've let my sub lapse and am just gonna wait for changes, or wait for classic with all honesty. At the moment I'm spending most of my free time painting my old warhammer models and that feels quite fulfilling. At least stepping away from WoW has led to that one improvement if nothing else.

[@deadeye0o]

Somehow youtube decided to comment on your other comment 🤷‍♂️

[@loweredvirus]

Agreed. My guardian druid is in a bad spot which made me quit. Since it was either DH or monk for those Mythic+ dungeons

[@grim86]

Ahhh classic where class design and rotation was utter trash

[@FimbongBass]

Yeah really in classic good luck playing a guardian druid lmao thatll totally go over well

[@LyubenV]

@@FimbongBass Who said I am? Im gonna play a priest and heal.

[@Gravesmasher23]

the problem with casuals and M+.is that they PUG it, and its a nightmare to pug, NO group will let you in, if your RAIDER.IO isent good. This is what i hear from alot of my casuals friends, then i ofc offer them to help them out, but i can see this problem.

[@Ukrist0]

To be fair to Tom and Jerry their jobs are very time intensive with unpredictable hours. You never know when Tom has an opportunity to catch Jerry when he's trying something cheeky!

[@Mmaniac93]

Design dungeons and raids so that it's not mostly about clearing trash as quickly as possible or getting though a phase as quickly as possible. Also, don't admit that a class will not be finished for the first 5 months of an expansion, at the very least don't change it from the previous expansion, if you don't know how to go about changing it.

[@emptyforrest]

also when you do say it wont be finished untill next major patch, commit to that fucking promise and give us something more substantial than a stupid numbers tweak that could have been a hotfix 3 weeks after launch.

[@jcd7583]

As an exclusive Shaman class since BC, I've never had so many insults/Rejections/abuse in an expansion I'm getting now in BFA. It's ridiculous to the point where I don't feel like playing anymore. Even since 8.1, my dps is never at the top for long. It's situational due to constant moving, interrupts, stuns, purges and even spot healing I contribute to the run. What pisses me off the most is when the top dps links the overall damage for the run and calls me out saying I need to do better dps. I'm tired of the /played ~8 hr on the flavor the mouth class, rampaging through content just to hop to the next when its time comes. There should be a "Mastery stat buff" based on amount of time on class (/played) to counter this game killing nonsense. IMO of course....

[@tadeassvetlik4299]

It might be a stupid idea, but i would do something like they did in MoP with class review videos. Short less then 5 minutes video showing the UPDATED classes and how they play out and get people thinking "this is cool, i want to try it". Some people might not even know about the class changes so this would be a great way to show they did something with them

[@vaaarhoven]

good idea on paper but that would put many youtubers out of choices/ideas for videos

[@DePhoegonIsle]

Decent concept... failure in design... unless you literally get players to watch the video.. which I can assure you most will not, it won't work.. and all it'll do is end up getting those same players to think that blizzard is stacking a bad class to look ok.

[@tadeassvetlik4299]

Im not talking about long in depth videos, but very shot one showing what they did with the class, but you are right. Like Preacher said in the video: there a lot of people who just dont bother checking out class changes. Also the most players think its dps aka. number issue and you cant show that in the official video

[@i.m.3940]

steve angel dude, nobody gives a shit about youtubers, we want a good game and fun classes. How the hell do you even worry about these people in the first place boggles my mind.

[@123fakestreeeet]

Showcase performance of good players using your own resources. Reach out to those that do actually play the spec on a high level, and get the community to see what these specs can do. As part of the priest "thinktank" as you like to call it, we deal with these comments from players thinking the spec can't pull it's weight, or more commonly feeling their own poor performance is specifically because of the spec, when it is not. One of the best resources we have to counter argue, and ultimately teach people is the stream and videos from Matthxw of Honestly OCE. Doing 20-21s as a shadow priest regularly and putting in an exceptional overall performance, I think without those few at the top showing what can be done, we'd be in an even worse spot than we already were going into 8.1. Blizzard should do something with that, help members of the community fix community perception.

[@heathcliff8940]

You might be right on some, but for me, i think that all these streamers playing only fotm (which i don't blame them for , they're pushing 20+) and all the stupid ranking videos on KZbin, even from Beta, like "BFA DPS SPECS RANKED" or other bs, have a heavy impact on the commuity perception, because people chose only easy answers to their questions, and this is only feeding them that.

[@vids4mee]

actually for real, if there is a way you, or maybe if preach knows someone who this would be better for, can make a new segment highlighting good player POV's or send ins of underrepresented specs and provide commentary on them that could be a good resource to use to link people in conversation about these things. it might at least make a dent in people who believe most in FOTM who feed the problem the most.

[@booradley6832]

I honestly have to agree with this, I started writing a very similar comment then deleted it upon seeing this. If you give everyone a video of each spec completing high keys from their POV and annotated as to what they're pressing and what they're doing, it gives players the confidence their class/spec can do well, and something to aspire to. Have blizzard put it out through their official channels so everyone sees it. If even 1/10 players see that, and its official, it will filter down through the whisper effect. In the end it will overload the system with people's opinions of what is and isnt viable. Basically everyone will have their own decision into the perception of whats good and bad- which is the way it should be.

[@123fakestreeeet]

@@booradley6832 I think, personally, blizzard creating their own content for this is probably not the way to go. Something very simple would be something like the streamer showcase that was done for Overwatch and more recently Hearthstone. Contact those who do produce content / have performance on that spec, and arrange a key stream (With slightly more family friendly tone) and cross promote it in the blizzard launcher. Maybe from there blizz can cross promote community content that focuses on showing these specs perform too. Point is all the resources / evidence to refute community perception is out there already.

[@123fakestreeeet]

@@heathcliff8940 Indeed they do, and at this point I have to say a lot of fixing this problem isn't just community perception. It's toolkit balance, and making sure everyone has a reasonable amount of relevant utility that is actually desirable for completing keys faster. Shadow, for example, does have a fair amount of abilities / options that can be considered utility (Stam buff, VE, shield, offheals, shackle undead, mind control, mass dispel) but it's all either so niche it barely seems relevant, or its not focused on making a key faster but instead patching up mistakes or substituting a lack of healing. People don't want contingency for if their key goes wrong, people want to make their key faster when it's going right.

[@kylesanderman9202]

I feel like the change of wind thats felt is because theres not many players left besides the dedicated. All the players who would have disagreed with the mentality of these "dedicated" players, just dont play anymore so they are no longer a voice. Ill admit i too have unsubbed, but from the outside looking in it seems that the few became the many because the numbers have dropped enough to allow it

[@Jaigarful]

A big portion of the shadow priest community is gone. The founder of How2Priest, the Priest discord, unsubbed from WoW in November.

[@S4NoctiS]

Your perception is probably mistaken. The people who are more dedicated and therefore spend more time playing the game notice and care much more about the details of their gameplay experience. The casual player actually does continue playing usually until their social cycle falls apart, bad gamedesign is a lot less annoying if you play the game 5 hrs/week compared to 40 hrs/week - in fact some mobile games(and I argue wow is moving in that direction) are already designed to punish you for engaging with the game normally with every activity you could be doing being less relevant to progression when compared to the daily login bonus. Wow is already at a similar spot when many players have likely used the garrisons for all of their economy based needs and major progression at some point can boil down to a weekly chest upgrade. The game is still easily worth 13€ if you just think about what else you could do with just that money over a full month to have fun. Couldn't even go to the cinemas once where I live. The people who love the game and are hurting for it to be in this state are the ones who leave first, not the casuals who barely spend time with the game.

[@philr1118]

it's hard to change the Community Perception when most of them have stopped playing, I think Blizzard has alienated it's customer base to the point that most either don't believe them or trust them. When BFA launched and was dog shit Blizzard walled themselves in and would not communicate with their own customer base but rather chose to insult most people that said BFA was garbage. I have played since it the beginning and 2 months in to BFA I was done with mess. Lost all but 3 B-Net friends, all the others just vanished. Small guild got to the point we couldn't put together a 5 man Dungeon, it's like people just "ghosted" and never looked back. I'll say this and by NO means do I want to see anyone lose their livelihood but WoW needs a whole new face for their game, most that follow it close are so tired of seeing Ion and Lore that it just turns them off. I loved the game for years and played no matter what but now I can't stand to log on and see a lvl 100 and a lvl 120 with the same tool kit, long gone are days of character progression.

[@Belgaer20]

@@philr1118 My guild could be consider as small one and our raiding team consists of 30 people, yes we had couple people leaving in last 4 months, but usually just 2-3 days after we've got a recruit to replace them. So maybe your guild had other problems than just BfA. And perception is a huge problem for entire game, we had good shadow priest that refused to even try his spec in BfA and changed to resto Shaman "becasue ele and ench are garbage in dps" and then was shocked when our enchancment shaman was beating enyone else. People are so close minded with their own opinion, or opinions they have heard, most of them are not even looking for different ones, made by mabe someone like preach or Thete (for rets). It's so bad that my friend that is ret paladin is not doing any m+ outside of guild because he can't get to any group, only becasue people get this opinion ret is bad, and it's spreading across the realms. It doesn't matter that he is easily doing +14-15 with us on time, perception is that ret is bad. It's not blizzard - players are ruining fun for huge part of players forcing them sometimes to switch classes because of spreading this false perception.

[@kylesanderman9202]

I could see the arguement that less dedicated players are still there, but they just dont care enough to post of the forums so it appears the voice is gone. Its probably a bit of both tbh. Its safe to say the majority of players who were there BFA day 1 have unsubbed from the game (actiblizz can hide the real numbers all they want but when the clear majority of players across various platforms all say that week 1 their bnet list was 30+ strong and by week 4 its just the same 2 people who are always on and they were already back to farming mounts like its the end of the expansion, and everyone else has already unsubbed, we can see the numbers even if we dont have an actual figure to represent them) and arent posting on the forums but i guess there could be casual players that are just not bothered and cant be asked because what they use the game for, they arent affected nor probably even notice all the annoying things that players who play every day would notice, so they have no reason to post.

[@bloodmorel]

I had seen that blue post on shamans. Unfortunately, I'm not prepared to take Blizzard's word on whether enhancement shamans are viable. I've seen too many instances of Blizzard denying problems, only to later recant. That's not to say they are or aren't right in this instance. Only that they lack credibility.

[@WondderWaffel]

Their dps and utility is viable, even in progression mythic raiding content, we have one and he's been on every boss up until G'huun during our progression, never bottom of the dps charts and most of the time competing with the top 5(he's a damn good enh shaman). Only times we've had to sit him out is just cus we got too much melee for certain bosses(fetid especially) Is the spec anywhere near as fun as it was in Legion? No. I'll agree with you on Blizz's credibility, how many times weren't we told during legion that x wouldn't carry over into the next patch, so you shouldn't start stockpiling it. Only for it to actually carry over into the next patch, making those people that believed blizzard, look like fools.

[@pmkaboo2446]

ive been only playing for 4 years, but i dont remember a patch where the difference between top and bottom simmed dps would be so bad, that a decent bottom spec player wouldnt be able to outperform a bad top spec player, which means all specs have been perfectly viable the entire time.

[@shurken01]

ST they're fine. Their cleave/MT is mediocre and their kit brings nothing special to M+. Great players on bad specs will almost always outperform awful players on good specs in terms of dps and mechanics, but being viable doesn't mean they're even remotely close to optimal.

[@Grixxx]

Played Enhancement since 2005 and I still do. Legion/BFA rework of Enhancement has been the worst design change I have ever seen - it completely ruined what was enjoyable. One button rotation 4Head. I made a comparison video yesterday on my channel for Wrath vs BFA. It isn't all bad, in fact my rework of Enhancement which you can find on Twitter includes a lot of the utility, hell that PVP talent ride the lightning is amazing and I believe should be how Enhance's AOE should be handled. Good numbers does not mean the spec is enjoyable.

[@aeryncowell3046]

It's especially easy to blame the class when you don't want to blame yourself.

[@Xen9889]

you are also someone who has taken his time to learn every single aspect of this game and obviously worked hard to achieve it all, very good video dude thanks

[@jammann44]

"Are you talking about the very niche, ultra, cutting-edge-of-the-world runs? Because that's not what you're doing!" Thank you, Preach. I wish i could play that clip as I tried to join a M+ group.

[@Heskala]

Remember when Paragon brought a enhancement shaman to Highmaul even tho everyone were talking how bad the spec was? Yliajo smashed the Mar'gok fight and suddenly everyone were talking about the spec in a positive light.

[@SyndicShadow]

Thank you for taking such a balanced, fair-minded, considerate approach to these issues, Preach.

[@pugernoufer]

Preacher, over on the US forum(s), blue names only respond to ridiculous threads like, "What does your character eat for breakfast?" and the like, while the serious issues get ignored. Because of this, players have a tendency to get snarky at them from time to time when they post in such pointless threads ("Oh, so you have time to post what your favorite breakfast foods are, but not about mob scaling."). If I were a blue name on those forums, I'd make it a point to always be commenting to threads regardless if I could do something about the issue or not. Even something as mundane as, "While I don't have the authority to do this myself, I will pass this comment on to our *whatever* department." or "I'm creating a list of the most important concerns you, the playerbase, have concerning BFA. What are some things you'd like me to pass on to the higher-ups?"

[@nicholaspassage1704]

I personally havent used the wow forums to post but ive read a ton of posts, i feel like cms only want to talk about the good rather than mention anything problematic. Probably cause they want to make their job as easy as possible

[@pugernoufer]

@@nicholaspassage1704 Right now on the US forums, the only blue posts to see is in a thread "lounge" (RP-type where you can kick your shoes off and talk about anything), and a response to another player saying how they've disabled the ability to turn off xp gains, since players were using their lower-level characters to power-level their 120's with AP, gear, etc. If there's better communication going on, it's certainly not on their forums.

[@Sugefut]

So much yes Europpa... They hand out perm-bans over here on the American forums for having a viewpoint with any form of critical thinking behind it.

[@DanAmurskiy]

I'd say the best way to tackle the problem is *Show, dont tell* mentality. A weekly stream of blizzard devs running M+ or some arenas would go a long way. Show some underrepresented classes played by their class designers (if those still exist). Let them go over recent changes to the class and why they were made. If you run dungeons you can bring devs from art team who worked on the thing. Put peoples faces behind Blizzard machine. Post the stream/vod on blizzard launcher. My guess is getting a 45 stream out every week should not be too hard even for small indie company.

[@wolframowy]

Or even better: collaborate with big guilds and create class-spec showcase in various environments. Well known names bring more trust.

[@FinalBossTV]

Illustrating a lot of good info on the game's current situation herein. Cheers sir.

[@robbruh1661]

Hey big fan :D love ur guides!!

[@tobeyblackhurst63]

Yes that's all well and good Preach, but it's over man. Blizzard has NO gamer trust anymore. Time and time again Blizzard will mess something up, people will call it out for months, only to be told either "working as intended" or "we're looking into it" only to have nothing happen on Blizzards end. Then when people start to bail Blizzard tells us to "wait, changes are coming" only to have it turn out to be nothing but a stall tactic. But hey don't forget to buy our new store mount. Dude, we are just done.

[@derekbush6239]

"We've been listening to player feedback over the past several weeks, and we'll do a better job communicating in the future." -The most repeated lie of any gaming company this decade.

[@LethalShadow]

Basically this. It's like an abusive relationship. "Wait, don't leave me. I'll change I swear ! I just need some time. Give me some time." But as for me, my response was basically "Sure. Call me when you have changed, and have tangible proof." And just like a relationship, you should never be with someone for who they COULD be. Why would I pay monthly for a broken product, with the promise that it will be fixed later ? My friend stuck around because he thought 8.1 would fix everything. It did not. And now that friend unsubbed too. Joke's on him, he paid 2 months of subscription he shouldn't have. Meanwhile, I'm still just checking in with each patch. If they do fix BFA, I'll come back. Until then though, words are just wind. I am DONE giving my hard-earned money to companies for what their game COULD BE.

[@leighsa4647]

Yet wow is still here

[@tobeyblackhurst63]

@@leighsa4647 if you say so. I mean, EQ is still here but much like WoW, it ain't worth playing anymore.

[@derekbush6239]

@@leighsa4647 I bet good money the sub numbers would give some insight into how well the game is received rn. I struggle to find anyone in SW half the time on a pretty high-pop server.

[@matthewchapman7301]

To answer the question you put at the end: I don't think Blizzard CAN change community perception, they can only fix the classes that are actually broken and that's up to US, those of us who care about the game, to speak out and correct people. "No, Enchancement Shamans aren't shit, and here's why". Beyond that, I think only time will sort it out. It's an uphill battle, certainly, and very much like the issue news sources today are facing. So many people prefer to get their news from social media rather than trusted news sources that fact check and research their stuff that you spend more time correcting bullshit than doing anything else. It's one of those weird paradoxs where we have so much access to so much information that's so easy to become horrible misinformed to the reality of a situation. Regardless, I appreciate the work that you do. Keep on keeping

[@snipe320]

Apparently there's a bug/exploit where if you complete majority of M0 Temple of Snek, get the huge haste and DR buff, THEN start your key, the buff stays (from page of /r/wow today on reddit). It might not be the best example to take from raider.io. But yes I agree with your main point Preach. Great video as always.

[@MInquisition]

On the enhancement post - League of Legends saw something similar in the past, where a champ is seen as being completely gimped, trash, can't put out any damage, despite the devs running numbers and the champion actually being totally fine, if not still high-teir What they ended up doing is pushing out a "Fake patch notes" type deal, where basically they told everybody that they buffed said champ by like 20%+ across the board, but actually changed nothing. Overnight people started crying out that the champ is busted. Placebo effect is real, might be able to solve this.

[@robbruh1661]

What champ was that ? Didnt hear of that (playing lom since release)

[@Zewinter]

Having transparency and using community influencers to dispatch their message instead of hiding information, doing bad communications and fighting the community would be a good start if they want to win the community perception battle. It's like they don't care right now and it's all going downhill from now, even if they fix everything this expansion is over for most people.

[@12fulworld69]

I think gameplay might actually do a lot. Seeing classes have talents changed and abilities added, even to a small degree, signifies change. It is easier to understand that they are different from when you didn't want them when they look different and do things you didn't know they could. Naturally this would be done in combination with a buff, but thereby not needing as big of a buff for people to take notice.

[@CPowell133]

A true case of perception becomes reality

[@Colty95]

In my opinion, while the mentality of "take the player not the class" works great when recruiting for a guild when making a group with pugs if their rio and ilvl are the same i will always take the better class. Even when there are small differences in ilvl i will still chose the better class because it is one less thing that can go wrong. My logic here is that every pug player is the same, a guy playing a shaman has the same chances to be a great player that loves the class or also a new player that thinks throwing lava is awesome (it is). Because of this for me it matters only what i can see for a fact class, ilvl, rio and chat interaction with the said player. Now in regards with what Blizzard can do to change the community perspective i would make a video/blue post every 2 weeks or every month with statistics and all the relevant information on how classes are doing in raids/m+/pvp. I think this will reveal to players that the classes are much closer to each other in terms of metrics. By doing this they could only tweak the numbers by a little and show in the next video that even with small tweaks the shamans are now above average. I know that there is such information on the internet, and that people already do this but i believe that if it comes from Blizzard it would have more legitimacy and it would be easier to disseminate the information.

[@snarly7346]

Fascinating analysis Preach, good job.

[@Niflaver]

Really cool that you're bringing this up Preach, it's difficult tackling an issue made up by the community. I don't think it's up for blizzard to solve this, however I think they have to tool to mend the problem: I think spotlighting prominent players of classes/specs could go a long way of helping address issues like this. The issue for content creators is reach and take your channel as an example. The amount of excellent content and discussion you bring up with the game I think deserves more attention from blizzard than it is currently getting. So what could blizzard do? Include prominent content creators because they breathe life into the games. Start including content creators / High ranked players / mythic invitational players in spotlights and feature them on the blizzard launcher. I think prominent players are important for this because it deals with credibility, they have good knowledge and understanding and can shed perspective to the players where it's lacking. It would also help the issue of blizzards poor communication. There are downsides to it, favoritism, community dislikes spotlighted person, classes/specs skyrocketing in popularity, to name a few I could think of.

[@ModeKaioken]

As a CASUAL ap has made me quit the game so I don't see how ap is good for casuals. Having a pointless carrot that evaporated into nothingness when I don't grind ap a few weeks is crap I want to grind for something I can notice change my gameplay. At least when you grind gear you can still build a few sets with different secondary stats but grinding this fake power when I know Ill have nothing to show for it at the end is the biggest turn off. The BIGGEST ISSUE is that it makes playing alts hindering. I've been a bg casual since wrath and usually play a few classes for fun but the only time you can play another class without falling behind on your main is kind of when you have a set of 370+ gear which as a casual takes me forever making anytime I play an alt kind of just putting me further behind others and for someone who just wants to casual bg its kind of crap loading into people decked out in gear because they main a class or do a lot of m+. Maybe its because I'm a pvp casual it effects me in this way but I think it was a bit more fair for casual pvp when the pvp gear had a boosted item level in pvp meaning if you grinding a set of honor gear it would scale (in pvp only) to mythic level gear and arena gear would scale (in pvp only) to upper levels of raiding or in todays world m+. The main problem is if your someone who just plays to do bgs and never dungeons, like I used to be, then your going to be getting progressively weaker as the season goes on and people start decking out in high level m+ gear and your stuck with pvp gear that is either to weak being honor gear or takes to long to get and is rng as f via arenas.

[@ModeKaioken]

Also shamans are bad because the gameplay is bad to play. I assumed 8.1 had more then just balance changes like to a degree a class rework. Shamans suck because they got no actual attention just some numbers tweaks to a spec that plays like crap. They actually are pretty brokenly strong in pvp atm but still crap to play.

[@Jandiss]

@@ModeKaioken the point is, as casual what do you need the AP for? really not that much you want it but you do not need it, also have you seen the difference in AP requirement for Mythic items compared to Normal? the itemlvl makes the mythic items better, but you cannot use those traits, as for the next Raid Tier it's even bigger of a difference (the outerring unlocking at AP16 for example and some of the inner ones at AP40 and higher) as Casual you will never get effected by this. As for Shaman gameplay beeing fun? thats an opinion, the one might like the other doesn't and that doesn't just account for shamans but all classes what one likes another will not.

[@Jandiss]

@@mattleccese true enough in Legion it worked cause you gained permanent bonusses, on everything and not just as they call it now "for rent" since you loose the boni when you swap to another azerite piece

[@ModeKaioken]

Honestly I don't like ap for 3 main reasons 1) Grinding an intangible reward I'd prefer grinding gear I know its the same endless grind but after an expansion you got a bank full of cool gear you collected where after legion your grind just evaporated. I just want to have something in my bank maybe I'm just a collector like that. 2) If you don't grind it every week your power slips away. More so in Legion with concord but this system still in a sense does the same thing when you don't keep up you level the new higher level gear you get you just cant wear. I think its worse in bfa because you actually just end up not wearing gear and every time you look at your higher level versions of the gear it triggers you a bit more. 3) The biggest reason for me an less likely to effect others is multi classing. Everytime you jump on an alt you pretty much fall behind on your main. Sure in wrath cata and older expansions it was the same in the sense your not grinding gear on your main while your on an alt but I think in older wow there was more plateaus on power where you for example could only grind so much conquest a week for arena gear then your progression was more or less done and you wouldn't fall behind on an alt. I used to casual bg on every class in legion and every time I swapped it felt like crap falling further behind where I could have been with concordance. I think to some degree titan forging is responsible but I could handle that I didn't like it but I could deal. Ap just broke the camels back for me because I can't play in a competitive way and multi class in my eyes anyway. All in all I never minded ap at the start of legion when you had some class depth in picking which path to take. It created interesting game play in PvP where you had access to different abilities then someone else who played the same class. It really rewarded research and planning. I really enjoyed that level of depth even when it was punishing because I took a bad path. When it became concordance of legionfall, or rather something you have to grind every week lest your power slip away it should have been scrapped. I think it became a cheep game mechanic to try and push player engagement metrics. It feels like its only purpose is to make me have to log in and that I don't like I'd rather have activities that attract me because I want to engage rather then have ones I feel I need to more so because I pay a sub though. Not that I think I'm owed an easy game but that if you want me to pay you then at least make the game a bit more fun to grind. Either way I feel better getting the rant out lol.

[@Jandiss]

@@ModeKaioken i mean regarding PvP Concordance didn't actually matter cause it was set to a certain lvl, but yeah i think we all agreed on your 1st point that not beeing able to use certain gear cause you cba to farm the AP for in in BfA sucks, less so for actual casuals cause you usually don't get the gear that you really cannot use at all, hitting lvl 30 AP is easy enough and with that you can use atleast 2 rings. As for Multiclassing beeing an issue? Legion was worse since even multi speccing was really annoing cause you had to refarm all that ap :/ I see your points and they have their validity. Class depth is something that got kinda lost from Legion to BfA. The old Slogan "Bring the player not the Class" seems to be really disliked these days but i really liked the Idea.

[@Xen9889]

FFS I didn't realise how in-depth this game actually is until you explained it here, being a casual player I had no idea, and when I say casual I mean casual, I've not yet got my first char to level 120 yet!!

[@nevermore3928]

You have been the one gamer/streamer I've agreed with for several years running on your points of view. Always logical, backing up with correct information and facts, not just throwing an opinion out there without evidence.

[@Aetherian1]

Indalamar 2. Hire well known class leaders like those in world first guilds to make videos showing them absolutely crushing certain scenarios. Hell, have them make those videos snarky towards Blizzard and ask what on earth Blizzard was thinking giving them [X] to seem more down to earth and relatable, foster a better community-company relationship.

[@williamarthurfenton1496]

I don't even do normal mythic dungeons yet I think WQs, Warfronts and that level of content should never award epics.

[@TheAssirra]

As long as higher top tier members of the community like high key runners and high end guilds say "x is bad" everyone will think "x is bad everywhere". I especially remember Method straight up saying "buff shaman" when they were asked why there was no shaman in their WORLD FIRST RACE. So this only enforced the idea that shaman is shit in raids in general. This will only get worse over time actually since more and more high end tier members are doing things like streaming and creating a viewerbase.

[@jdubz8173]

They’ll hold out to a major progression change when people can relook at shaman and consider whether it’s good again or not.

[@vegavega5344]

Preach as a Goth? I cannot unsee these images in my head.

[@xpCarlo36]

WoW in a lot of ways used to be a game with a series of mountains to climb, with varying heights and terrain, all with its own rewards and niches. Some mountains were smaller than others, with the Everest of the game being raiding. Player agency drove our decisions, and which mountains were good for us. Now, it is more of a treadmill on an incline (ilvl). Regardless of the setting, the end goal is a high score, in a game where the goal posts keep changing. I really hope to see the mountain range return.

[@briancatt7813]

I won't lie. My first question is always, "Mike, what feels good to you?" because Preach's preference when it comes to gameplay closely matches my own. After that, I go with whatever armor class my raid has the most of so there is more gear to pass around :D.

[@pyloniac]

I think they have to buff those classes to an extent where they become so overpowered that they are utilized by said groups of players and then subsequently toned to a normal level.

[@Pahchii]

It reminds me of when I was playing arcane mage in WoD. People in my groups would regularly whisper me to go fire and later asking when arcane became so good. Fact is that as long as you play basically any spec correctly you do much better than anyone that just follows trends and don't look up their stuff.

[@nocokepepsi1051]

I see 2 possible options for this problem, one is to remove war-forging and titan-forging, which should slow the gearing process down a bit so players can learn the dungeons and raids as well as their own class better, second one is to have streams on the launcher of "under-performing" classes in higher keys or raids.

[@Struckerx]

One possible solution would be to give the least played healer/tank/dps spec each week a stacking 1% damage/health buff in mythic+ the following week, and remove a stack of the buff from all other specs each week if they had any. That would let weak classes (perceived or otherwise) to build up enough stacks to compete and be taken seriously. No spec would be under-powered long enough for the community to give up on them.

[@Starfable]

Best video I’ve watched in a long while on WoW from any KZbinr

[@kikusama]

Truth. Enhancement Shamans have some weird quirks with the new changes that make them feel like they are struggling. They took away sooo many totems in Legion, they were abarely shamans. I personally have alyays played Resto and Enhancement Shaman since BC. I have seen and dealt with all the million changes that have come with them…especially enhance, but they don't have bad numbers. They are tricky to play and have quirks.

[@zXHipoXz]

I think one of the ways in which people have this false perception is when deciding what is "fun" or "engaging" for a more objective term. I think the Survival hunter is the biggest example of this too. To give a general rundown of what I mean, the way in which players are seemingly deciding fun (from what I've seen from the forums at least) is the easiness of the spec. Somehow anything associated with the word "complicated", such as feral druids without the rip refreshing with ferocious bite talent, is a big nono. "I don't want to have to do all these things or learn any of this" and this is a perfectly fine and valid point. Those who don't want to learn about specs shouldn't be forced to, there should be an option for everybody (something I'll refer back to). However.. often I will find those SAME players complaining about how easy it is and how boring their spec is. I'd like to say that it'd then be easy to dismiss those players as outliers who just don't understand engagement in games, but this has become such a widespread perception that it seems it's too many players to simply dismiss them. Additionally, there are players who use this mindset to make a judgement of other specs (this is where Survival comes in). Legion Survival, the spec with seemingly the worst reputation even at the end of Legion. Why was this the worst spec? Because it gained that reputation at the beginning. It's similar to the perception of Enhancement now, except it continued for the entire xpac. Now since "fun" is completely subjective, I'll use "Engaging". What is "Engaging"? I would argue it's elements of a spec which 1. Keep you interested 2. Keep you busy (downtime is disengaging) 3. Keep you thinking (spammy specs with no significant purpose in their abilities can be disengaging too) So how did Legion Survival fail at this? 1. The obvious failure I see here is the learning curve. Other than that, it was one of the most interesting specs due to how much there was to it. 2. No real failure here. There was no downtime. Often when you're pooling for focus, you're losing dps if you aren't using your non-focus cost abilities. 3. Again no failure here. You had to plan your cooldowns, your focus and your charges around each other. Combine this with the "downtime" of sustaining all DoTs and buffs/debuffs, there is no failure here. But wait! There's more. BfA Survival had gained a positive reception, yet had the majority of the platespinning and cooldown aspects removed. So BfA Sruvival now fails at the business and thinking elements of engagement. Okay, seems like an obvious downgrade so far, but what about interest? Well other than the bomb mechanic, there is nothing which adds to interest. There's objectively less in this spec. So why is BfA survival more engaging than Legion's survival? It isn't. It's just more simple. The lack of a learning curve in this means even timmy the faceroller can play! Since everyone can play and produce numbers with little punishment for mistake, without having to learn the spec, it it makes the player seem better at the game. The whole "engagement" and "fun" argument of specs aren't about the specs design at all, but how easily they allow players to look "good". And THAT is where the perception has become fucked around class design.

[@Azuredragon653]

Speaking specifically on specs vs. other specs in M+, making 20 mistakes with bad specs is not as punishing as making those 20 mistakes with good specs. Regardless of whether people could play better, bringing better specs will always better than bringing worse specs.

[@jordanbowen3151]

I personally would do a "shadow buff" and buff the spec by like 1% and mention "this should fix the damage issues with the spec. We would love to hear any feedback you have after playing it" It would get people to play it theoretically and the damage buff is negligible, you could even hotfix the buff out at a later date after perception has changed?

[@tmg1993]

the 23 ToS you kept referring to was completed using a huge exploit lmao

[@incubi51]

Part of this issue is all the tools and ways to create groups with randoms (Premande Groups). This causes people to play the game as solo players as part of groups. And this solo player always wants the "best" setup, so the other people in the group don't hold them back. Instead of finding a guild with friends and real social interaction that bring a player because they are friends or have some social bond to each other.

[@Judiacator]

The issue is deeper than just who is doing good now. The shifting perspective of what class is good, and more importantly, how much that matters for killing stuff is only an issue because of the number of people that dont understand how to play their class in the first place. What needs to happen is systems within the game that are meant to teach people how to play their class - and keep it updated & incentivized. A mix of mage tower and tutorial that is designed for your average player to learn how to play their class optimally. Thus removing large swaths of badly played characters

[@Mattikus517]

Elemental Shaman here! I got shit from pugs for playing elemental, Guild struggled with curve for a few weeks with Uldir Curve but the night I join, we got it. Was in Orb group 1 & 6, Stormkeeper and chain lightening to clear Undulating Mass Cysts, Ghost Wolf & Windrush totem to rush up with orb, throw it to Orb partner. So efficient with my Druid buddy using cat form. Got Wind Shear, Purge, Hex & Lightning Surge totem. Windrush totem helps with the Malignant growth dodging on final phase. Tremor totem helps with those the fail at Gaze of G'huun. Sure, I was like 7th on DPS. But it's not always about the numbers, This is an example of how utility is useful too and I wish more people saw that.

[@ChumblesMumbles]

Possible contributing factor is that the "average" players aren't doing the type of truly challenging content in which the utility of a shaman (or ret pally) becomes really useful and noticeable. If the only thing they pay attention to is a damage meter then that's all they'll see, and they probably aren't playing with good shaman either.

[@sorcen9580]

I'm sensing a new catch phrase: "Blame the player, not the class."

[@SugarcatPlays]

I’ve been away from the game for over 6 months now. After a decade of playing every day I still feel the loss but I just don’t have time any longer. It’s nice to see change happening. The community had so much poison in it sometimes. As a fellow youtuber I’ve gotten very lucky to have a welcoming and great community so far. Damn it I miss wow.... might have to come back

[@DiscordBeing]

Have you not kept up with how shit the game is now, though?

[@AlexSaheli]

During 8.0 I saw amazing ench shams and shadow priests with very good damage in mythic :)

[@elegymusic]

Being a spriest I can say that we do extremely well in m+ damage wise. The big problem that has plagued spriests is just our utility.

[@EnergizingBane]

Agreed!

[@michaelchung1526]

This is easy to fix. Blizzard can, during the beta before class changes go live, give method or whoever is interested access to the class changes and do a live stream / VoD of a high level key being run by the 5 "worst" classes in the game and complete a +15 or something.

[@EludeStalwart]

If i was Blizz I would try to develop a tool that allowed people to see the leaderboards for different specs, so the player could see how far progression in that spec the community is obtaining... plus bragging rights for the player that is the top shadow priest, or the top fury warrior, etc. I think this would motivate people to play the classes they love and also show how good each spec is compared only to that spec and players playing only that spec. I'm sure there are things i'm not taking into account with this recommendation but something like this would be fun imo.

[@Nashnash20000]

I often hear of Blizzard mentioning that that their "Internal tests/sims" prove the community sims incorrect. If I was blizzard, I'd try showing some of that off. Maybe it'll prove people wrong now, or show why they don't make drastic changes. Maybe it'll prove their internal testing/sims wrong so it can improve for the future. I think it'd be interesting to see at least. I'd be less inclinced to say "Yeah, but that's not how it is" if I knew how Blizzard were ranking specs/whatever.

[@Draedson]

I feel like the deal with shamans is where Lore should have been doing since 8.1 dropped, but never did for some reason

[@OmenOfStorms]

Another area where perception will be skewed is with those of us that have quit. I quit at the end of legion seeing what was gonna happen in bfa. But my guild passed on info of what classes got shafted. I have still been assuming as such and perpetuating such information.

[@Opie_eg]

A good fix to community perception would be a more organized recap for each patch or hotfix. I know some of you might not like this comparison but league of legends has these mini video recaps detailing what has been buffed and what has been buffed or nerfed not going into much detail on the video itself and making it short/relevant. I think should blizzard employ this, people would get the needed curiosity to check the patch notes. Also making patch notes contain more information and more correct information would be great.

[@HeyaitsLynn]

It's hard to imagine Preach being goth. You seem to outgoing and full of banter. It's like imagining Rick James being a librarian.

[@Dauth312]

What I would give to see Preach getting down in a mosh pit lol

[@kampfhase3712]

Community Perception is especially important if you don't have many friends or a guild. I think the community has become more "anti-social" going the path of least resistance for loot. "I want to play an overpowered class so pugs will invite me so i can have a better ItemLvL so.... pugs will invite me." If those people would form groups/raids that break the meta on their own, rather than complaining, things could change. Example: Complaining about Curve Achievement because you don't get invited to Pugs / Creating own raid or looking for a guild

[@andresvaldevit3692]

OMG, I think I'd shit my pants finding me in front of Mike when he was Goth. Can you imagine a big ass teen with blue hair, white makeup, black makeup around the eyes, dressed up in leather with spikes...it's the blue haired Hellraiser!!!

[@12kidder1]

I'm trying to imagine Preach with a mass of blue hair (or hair in general), and I just can't envision it.

[@coryaustin7379]

I no longer care what BS Blizz spews from their mouths anymore. "we need to work on communication, we want to improve here, we need to do blah blah blah" We've heard that shit before. I'm done with it.

[@Corpsealot]

You do nothing and let things naturally find their place. Rebalance the classes and specs as necessary and the rest will follow. Trying to manufacture a certain perception is very dangerous.

[@nuggsy7085]

I’m not entirely sure how to fix it but perhaps an official Blizzard video where they break down a struggling class? I understand high end people know what each class is good for but the average player just sees the numbers. They could go in depth, explain their numbers, explain what their use/niche is and be as clear as possible. Not everyone reads the forums but if they make a in depth class overview and stick it on the launcher they’re bound to get eyes on it. Maybe I’m completely wrong on this but it’s just the only thing I could come up with. It’s easier for people to grasp certain things if they see it rather than read about it on forums.

[@pauldunecat]

I just got my enhancement to 110 for heritage armor. Part of that leveling was doing the dragon in dark heart thicket. Tank died, healer died, I died so reincarnate, I send out my elemental to tank, self healed and applied damage reduction cooldown, throw some range spells, bloodlust, then shimmy up to the boss for the final 4K. Saved that pull. I'd put them even to fury with leveling for fun with leap vs ghost wolf being a tough call.

[@AlbinosaurusR3X]

I know you don't want to hear, "They shouldn't be in this position in the first place," but that actually is the answer. The reason they keep finding themselves in that position is because they want to engage in social engineering and try to manipulate community perception. Instead, they should simply do their best to balance the game and make the classes all feel good to play (in every spec). The community will sort itself out in time. I think Vanilla gives us all the evidence we need for this. When things actually are imbalanced, it's proven mathematically by dedicated players who aren't going to let common perception dictate their own. These are the lads and ladies that *establish* community perception in the objective way, rather than subjective, so if Blizz just balances the game better, the numbers will bear that out.

[@squidfishie]

The party composition argument you bring up is absolutely true. The same thing happens in FFXIV. However, instead of a composition for dungeons, there is a community of players that are hellbent on having the "meta" raid composition no matter what, even when the caliber of players using the classes are very low. The only time having the meta comp is actually beneficial is when you are at least 90-95 percentile or higher. At this level of play, the players understand the strengths of the composition and can leverage them through buff stacking and mechanic execution. Any lower than this level and the players are either not good enough, or unable to fully leverage the composition's strengths. It would be more optimal for them to simply play a class they enjoy and learn how to maximize that class instead. And focus on mechanic execution and uptime. Community perception of classes goes both ways. People think the good classes are way stronger then the rest or much worse then the rest which is almost never the case.

[@jong.7944]

All you've got left at this point are the most dedicated or addicted. Of course they're the first-rate Kool-aid drinkers. And I'm sure it's gotten way more groupthink with the new forums and the heavy censorship.

[@SL-oe6tj]

I'm in the dedicated group and I'm not happy with the state of the game but I play because a couple close friends still do and its a behavioral thing at this point too. Even if I only log on for an hour to do whatever it is I want I do. I'll be the first to admit this is a waste of my money but hey. More importantly, I've accepted pugging way more often now because like many people's experience, my guild fell apart as the masses unsubscribed. I was in a Mytchic Uldir progression guild when this happened and had a set mythic+ team to run with. As I've been pugging more of recent I have learned to not take the game as seriously and have started focusing on completion. This has lead to diverse groups in mythic+ in which you'll find the non-usuals...yes I've even ran Mythic+ with Prot Warriors, Feral Druids, and Shamans. Are they the best groups? No, not by a long shot but it allows me to actually play the game and allow the group to accomplish something (what WoW used to be about).

[@zenspeed404]

Or casual players.

[@hogi2599]

@@zenspeed404 Everyone below Mythic Raidung is a Casual player.

[@hogi2599]

@@zenspeed404 And very high M+ ofc.

[@xerann9653]

I think doing a spotlight video on a spec for content that is underplayed would work. Could even get a mythic+ or method to narrate it for blizzard.

[@Charistoph]

I went in to a normal LFD to complete the Shrine of the Storms last night. Not quite confident in that dungeon, I went in as Feral (as I was using Guardian to pound through content). The Healer spent the entire time in Shadow Form. We wiped on the trash pack at the first elemental. The elemental kept getting healed, and we couldn't kill the healers fast enough. Pure inertia and the Healer getting damage aggro caused the wipe. I asked why the Healer was in Shadow Form. The only response I got was, "you're in Feral". I responded with, "but I'm not the one here as a Healer." He responded with, "look at the guild under my name", as if that explained it. The Healer was a from a different Realm, so I had zero idea as to who they were. I don't follow guilds, either, because all I get is spammed guild invites, so it makes it a challenge to want to know them. They were called Exalted Logic, and he was from Stormrage. I mentioned that the Healer being in Shadow Form didn't sound very "exalted" to me, and so they kicked me. No other explanation other than their guild name. If they were doing it as a challenge, I can understand that, but they didn't give that reason. I even switched to Restoration to keep the Tank alive since the Healer couldn't be bothered to do their job, and they still kicked me.

[@darryllyle5250]

Certain Websites, like Icy Veins, help perpetuate these perceptions. People look to these sites for guides on how to set up your class or advice for rotation and their summaries still say This class isn't doing so well. Etc.

[@chriswilson9748]

I remember when it was impossible to get into a raid group as a brew at legion launch. They were totally fine but people were convinced other wise .

[@thelichking9000]

This community perception of having low and high tier classes is something that a lot of other online games have. Whether it's a MOBA where you do group pvp only and randoms want you to pick an S-tier hero or a 1v1 fighting game where the majority of players will flock to a specific character because he wins most of the tournaments, regardless of skill a group of people will just choose what they think as "overpowered'. But I do believe there is a way to improve this community perception, and maybe this is the way: A revamped Challenge Mode, where your rank will always be visible when queueing for looking-for content. Not only have it that you will have a rank next to your name (bronze, silver, gold) but it should be thrown at the community like a major feature part of a patch (adding it to a patch YT-video, adding it to the window that you see when you launch WoW or something else that's in the player's face). You could even add something to the rank system where you mouse over a player with a bronze ranking and under his/her name it could read "This player has proven to know the basics of their healing" and with a gold ranking it could read "This player has proven to have mastered their tanking!" This idea might have some flaws, but I believe it's something that will add something to puggers and especially those who might think their class is "low tier". I mean we already have ilvl to "compare skill", adding another measuring stick could help.

[@DiscordianKitty]

I don't really care about the forums or how Blizzard deals with them. They're a known joke. The thing that has given me a bad impression lately is the way Blizzard seems to have ignored legitimate criticism from trusted sources - people who don't usually like to just complain, but who understand the game and have build a positive reputation - community leaders if you will. For example, I'm pretty certain you predicted there would be a problem with not being allowed to trade Azerite gear - I remember watching a video about it and I think it was you. Then I sat and watched Ion pretty much dismiss all the arguments about it, insisting on going ahead with the decision. Later, once all the problems that were predicted came true, Ion suddenly changed his mind, and everyone praised him for being able to admit it when he was wrong. I mean, yes. Sure. That's good. But what bothers me about BFA is a great deal of the problems were spotted early on. Blizzard has been getting feedback from trusted sources for months, and it's like they decided to just ignore it. Now they're trying their best to do an about turn, but imagine if they'd just been more open-minded in the first place? It hasn't left the best impression. And I went into BFA with fully rose-tinted glasses on. I was ready to ignore it all. But seeing someone repeatedly apologize and admit something doesn't work - for things that we were told wouldn't work months ago - just cannot leave a great impression on anyone.

[@LethalShadow]

"Then I sat and watched Ion pretty much dismiss all the arguments about it, insisting on going ahead with the decision." That is BFA in a nutshell, my friend. This also happened a lot in Legion. Watching Ion basically give us the "You think you do, but you don't." attitude about every single valid criticism for the last 3 years has made me very sour towards Blizzard. Q&A's are such a joke... seemingly always picking the most irrelevant/softball questions, often about transmog and mounts... because THAT is what we REALLY care about. /s WoW is an abusive relationship where Blizzard knows best and we just need to give it time, so we can see the light and realize we were wrong. In the unlikely event that Blizzard actually made a mistake and recognizes it (lol), we are expected to keep paying a subscription while they work on fixing it. You are 100% on point when you say that repeated apologies and "we're working on a solution (but we have no idea what that might be)" certainly do not inspire confidence, much less a desire to keep supporting the product.

[@DiscordianKitty]

@@LethalShadow You see, I didn't notice this in Legion, because I was kinda too distracted by how much I was enjoying the game, I wasn't paying so much attention to the news. :/ Also, I haven't paid a subscription since Legion either. Honestly, if I wasn't paying for my sub with gold I wouldn't still be subscribed right now.

[@jamieweir9843]

The moment they deleted the feedback and test forums for BfA, this Xpacs feel and play was set in stone. Lazy, boring and repetitive.

[@JustMrNiko]

having a spec. highlight for all the class/ specs where they show some niche gameplay by a high end player of that spec. ether in a real scenario or a made up one, WHERE they showcase it on their official forum/ sight to ease people would be best IMO. if you are wondering, yes the idea are from PoE. build highlight on their official KZbin page. :)

[@TheLinkwily]

They should do a spotlight video like the one they do for HOTS when they release a new hero showing all the stuff they're good at.

[@unbanshee2985]

The solution might be to go over the top buffing a spell that doesn't really affect someones dmg e.g. lighting shield/thunderstorm if people see a spell get massive buffs then they will probably think the class is strong again.

[@metaskie]

"Our guild carries enhancement shaman...." Phrasing!

[@TheMorrok]

Lol. I remember that Feral buff. I got shit on. Absolutely abused, by my guild, other players, but that buff. That buff let me just shit on my guild runs. Suddenly my guild realized that I actually was skilled and that Feral was in a rather awkward spot. Earned some real respect then. My new guild never made me work so hard for respect.

[@54tisfaction]

I remember Warlocks at the start of Legion, they couldn't get into a PUG - because of perception.

[@RazanaArcclaw]

uhh preach... that is how it has always been... "You are just casual, no you are just bad"

[@xXxXxEmoSasukexXxXx]

I know this is a tad off topic, but Bloodbourne is such a fucking Gem. I love it.

[@stefani.5737]

I don't want you to feel like your points are undermined by this (because some of them are pretty fair and wide-spread) but....we need that blue hair picture dude! :D

[@LemonGingerHoney]

I think the issue is related to the skill cap of the class. If you give the bad player easy class, you might end up with the mediocre result. witch is acceptable. If you give the bad player class with high skill sealing, you will end up with bad community perception. There was similar issue in TBC with elemental shamans. It took time to grow friendlist and show people that you can actually play well. Maybe that's the answer here? Become a good shaman and build a proper friendlist?

[@fakename8961]

Bliz should put into the game something that shows your theoretical DPS and HPS. That could solve the issue of someone being perceived as "bad" because you could link in game all your stuff. Yes it would be bad if you don't reach that figure, but you can't argue with numbers. I think it would be more helpful than linking an achievement.