Choosing a class for Legion?
Or, what happens when an Atheist joins the Clergy...
So, with Hunters seemingly still in a rather disturbing place on Alpha, you'll probably already be aware that I've begun to look further afield for my next class.
I've decided that I wanted to give full-time healing a go, as it's the only role I've never main specced with during all my years in Azeroth (it'll be 8 years this year).
I've obviously done the whole DPS & Tank thing, even at one stage thinking of playing all 5 tank classes.
Then I realised how boring Warriors & Druids were to tank with...
As I'd tanked so long, familiarity it seemed had bred discontent. Even tanking on the Paladin had become too easy, boring even, which is why I switched to my Hunter a month or so prior to 6.2 landing.
Crushingly, if Hunters had been left as they are right now on live, albeit with the normal expansion-launch-sized tweaks, I'd probably still be maining a Hunter in Legion.
But, that didn't happen, so to the class roster I go!
Roll Call
Rogues are dull to me. I can't get any excitement out of them at all, and, in fact, I deleted my level 90 rogue (please, it was a boost, I wasn't levelling that up all the way!) for a 3rd Hunter.
Mages? Been there, done that back in Wrath. Ditto Warlocks even further back (my first ever class back in 2006 history nerds!), and more recently at the back end of Mists.
Shaman don't really vibe with me too much, although they're fun enough to play, and at least have varied roles across their specs.
Warriors are too bland, too vanilla for me. I like a bit of mysticism, some magic, some flair, a certain "je ne sais quoi" to my class, and Warriors really don't fit into that theme.
That said, Hunters got a bye on that front simply because of the pet collection aspect.
Death Knights...hmmm.
DK's are hard for me to quantify. For a pure melee class, they don't feel particularly visceral, or weighty like a melee class should IMO. A lot of their abilities are more "swish swish swish" and less "smack bash thump crunch", and it doesn't sit well. Plus that and I'm godawful at, and in awe of well played, Blood DKs.
Druids are fun, I enjoy playing mine, and for a while a Resto Druid was up there, but I decided against it. No real reason, but I've played my druid plenty, and have no real desire to main it. Maybe one for a future expansion?
Holy Paladins are sadly boring as well. If Warriors had a healing spec, this would be it. There's no...spice to the spec? IMO at least. It's all single target heals with very little flair. It's hard to explain, and I realise my thinking could quite easily be countered, but that's how the spec feels to me. I've off-specced as Holy in Mists just for laughs during the long long Siege of Orgrimmar, but it never really felt like an exciting spec to play.
The other side of the coin, Retribution, to me seems like a perennial under-performer. Never regularly topping DPS sims, it always seems very middle of the road at best.
And I'm not touching Demon Hunters other than as an alt as new classes tend to undergo massive changes the expansion after, similar to the clean-slate approach to Hunters in Legion. I wouldn't want to get too attached again...
So it really came down to the two classes left: Monk & Priest.
Monk
This is a class I've played as both Brewmaster and Windwalker. Mainly WW, because as I've recently been forced to admit, I'm a terrible Brewmaster player. For similar reasons as Blood DKs, mainly that when the shit hits the fan it always seems to end up with me as a puddle on the floor, rather than doing what I did on my Prot Pally, and surviving through sheer determination and ability.
Maybe the toolkits didn't gel with me all that well.
Yeah, maybe that's it.
*cough*
Anyway, having made the decision to main a healer, first up was Mistweaving. I enjoy Mistweaving, but presently on Live it has a real problem with gear. Unless you're at the "I've cleared Heroic several times" level of geared, your ability to heal is very limited in terms of sheer throughput. But when you are geared to that level?
You rocket through the HPS meters, even beating out the seemingly unbeatable Disc Priests. It's not for no reason that a MW was the first spec to solo heal Mythic Archimonde (seriously though, that's a real fucking thing). MW really bloom late game, and unless you're a Mythic raider, then it's easier and quicker to get better results from other classes. So at least until Legion, I'm left with one class.
The Priest.
The quintessential healer. The original healing class. The healers' healer. The grand-daddy of them all. The only class in the game with 2 (count em, 2!) very different healing specs, and I went into this one and completely changed my mind about my intentions.
I loved faffing about with Atonement on my Priest, Sarenity, in previous expansions. Nothing too serious, maybe the odd dungeon late expansion etc, but I loved Atonement style healing. Probably why I love Mistweaving so much, that choice of the optional play-style of dealing damage to smart-heal your allies.
Atonement is back big style in Legion, and I was all set to main spec a Smite bot...
Then I tried Holy, and I fell in love.
This is the first time I've ever really gelled so totally with a healing spec. It seems like it's the Swiss Army Knife of healing toolkits, with something in the drawer to handle any situation. And they don't need tonnes of gear to do their job, unlike WoD-era Mistweavers.
One great aspect of Holy is that it's just so damned efficient on Mana. Seriously, unless shit really hits the fan, I leave most fights on 100% mana or thereabouts. At worst, I'll either have 50%+ mana at the end of an intense fight, or I'll be dead. And that's spamming flash heals and AoE heals aplenty.
There are very few smart heals in Holy's bag of tricks, Prayer of Mending and Cascade are probably the only ones. All the other healing you do is utterly reliant on either single target or AoE heals, specifically and purposefully cast by the player.
Even spells like Circle of Healing require you to select the target based on their physical location, as it will heal up to 5 other people within 30 yards of where they're standing. Put it on that Hunter standing out by the door? You've wasted 80% of the heal. Derp.
As a plus for me, there's the whole Religious iconography associated with the class and this spec in particular, even moreso in Legion.
Yes, I am a hardcore Atheist, and will be until I die (but not after! :P), but this is one of the many reasons why I chose to stick with my Paladin for nearly 7 years as my main. The main reason of course was their sheer survivability, but the religious overtones and imagery the class evokes was great to me.
So it looks like Holy Priest is going to be The One.
Only thing now is deciding a race and faction for Legion!
I still have nagging doubts about Thunder's ability to get back on our feet come Legion, purely because of the length of time off, and I sincerely hope those doubts are not well founded, but if the worst does come to pass and we go purely social?
Then all bets are off and it may not necessarily be a Horde-only future!
That said, she looks great as a Belf, doesn't she?
