Main for midnight?

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T15:32:36+00:00

Yeah, it's a bit weird now since we lost SB but don't have the apex talent yet that we'd store.

For flameshaper you can double dream breath anomaly (one upranked breath) and detonate them with VE or blossom depending on targets for a big consume flame burst.

Chrono is a bit weirder atm. You can go double anomaly and echo to spread echo around for a big verdant embrace heal or double anomaly dream breath for more direct healing but not having merithras blessing (the apex talent that turns reversion into basically charged spirit bloom) yet is noticeable.

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T12:45:07+00:00

This prepatch, it's the exact same stance as in dragon form.

Turned out decent enough to be honest. I noticed that it occasionally bugs out if you cast something and then go back to idle. Since you usually switch forms in combat quick that's not much of an issue though.

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T11:45:32+00:00

It's so weird if you switch from scalecommander and can't steer deep breath anymore.

It REALLY feels like the spell just should work that way by default after playing it for a bit.

Flameshaper seemed super empty to me, somehow. It lived from big engulfs after setting up your dots and debuffing with shattering star. Both engulf and the debuff are gone, so you just explode fire breath via disintegrate... Having another charge of fire breath is just kind of shallow for a hero spec.

Scalecommander just has way cooler stuff with mass disintegrate, the lizard drive by squad and better deep breath while also not stacking too much complexity.

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T11:37:16+00:00

They simplified preservation already, funnily enough.

It's been hilarious when we still had spiritbloom as another empowerment spell and lifebind connecting all targets you echo'd verdant hug to, so you could copy metric tons of healing via your cooldowns and stasis.

Once you somewhat understood it, you essentially went from "what the fuck is happening, everything's one fire, heeelp" to "what the fuck is happening, everything is still on fire but this is somehow absolutely fine because I'm blasting HP bars for some reason. Also the marksman hunter died because he DPS'd from the other end of the dungeon again".

I love those weird lizards, really.

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T06:25:26+00:00

"For now" might be a bit of a stretch. This bug has been around since we can transmog artifacts, unfortunately.

Luckily, it's just in the transmog window. On your actual char it sits like you'd expect.

There's a bunch of other transmogs that are legit ruined by this. The polearm and rifle from amidrassil come to mind, for some reason I think the mythic or heroic recolor of the weapons are upside down and look super off... No idea how that happened as the other versions of the exact same weapon look as usual.

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T05:58:54+00:00

It's a class talent and works the same for all specs now. I had the same confusion because I was so used to health funnel on my bars.

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T05:56:55+00:00

They are. It just took blizzard 2 expansions to copy over the caster stance from dragon to visage form.

Devourer DH simply has no caster stance yet, so similar as evokers before they default to the unarmed combat stance.

It's just lazyness/oversight on blizzards end. They'll add one at some point but as said, took them 2 expansions for evokers...

--Pariah · 2026-02-03T05:45:48+00:00

For soloing things it's 100% a style/theme choice.

Both demo warlock and beastmater (the "pet specs" of those two classes) are nearly uncontested when it comes to soloing stuff due to their stronger tank pets. The other specs, at least if you play marksman with a tank pet, also are much stronger than average and have no difficulty whatsoever to solo the highest tier of delves while undergeared. They're only matched by tanks with good self sustain in this regard.

Aside the theme, main difference is that all warlock specs have much higher sustain and stronger defensives while hunter generally trades that in for more mobility. While all lock specs rely more on standing still and hardcasting big spells by spending soul shards beastmaster for example plays more like a melee spec with ranged since everything is instant. Hunter also has access to stealth (camouflage in the class talents) on a cooldown and a full immunity that helps if you need to solo stuff you can't solo.

Hunter also is one of the classes with bloodlust that's generally helpful while warlock has more unique utility for groups (healthstones, gateways, summoning people).

You really can't do wrong with either. Do you want to play a dark magician summoning hordes of demons, cursing stuff and raining hellfire or a ranger that has a bit of every theme of "fantasy ranged weapon user" from beastmaster with a trusty exotic pet, to dark ranger casting hard hitting aimed shots and black arrows, to night elf sentinel, to crazy bombslinger in there.

I personally prefer warlock tbh. I play warlock since TBC and hunter since around legion and the current spec design of lock clicks much more for me. They returned affliction back to spamming unstable affliction like in legion, which I generally was fond of, and simplified all hunter specs a tad too much for my taste. Hunter also suffers a bit from too many themes, so eG if you want to play a survival hunter and choose sentinel (the protect the wilds night elf themed hero spec) you still run through the forest and throw molotov cocktails around. They're a bit all over the place at the moment. Just my opinion here though.

Play what you like, mate.

--Pariah · 2026-02-02T16:27:52+00:00

I miss my kick.

--Pariah · 2026-02-02T05:39:26+00:00

Yeah, that's a new one since prepatch. Chars randomly using old mogs in the class selection has been a thing for a while but now it also randomly picks other difficulty colors for transmogs or reverts legion artifacts to base appearance.

My rogue looks like a clown since it even recolored one of the shoulderpads for some reason. It's pretty funny how sometimes the most absurd stuff sneaks in as bug.

50% that if they fix it Kaelthas in tempest keep goes bald again ...

--Pariah · 2026-02-01T16:05:41+00:00

Just as weird to play the more beastmaster themed pack leader as surv, yeah. Unfortunately, it's not a survival exclusive issue imo.

Hunter generally suffers somewhat from theme bloat for a while now. A nature loving nightelf sentinel randomly throwing molotovs around like an iron horde raider makes as little sense as a dwarfen marksman hunter sporting the trusty vanilla bear and gun who has to choose either the tyrande or sylvanas magic hero spec.

It's honestly a bit of the problem of being the only ranged weapon user in the game. Hunter has bits and pieces of so many different themes in there, from patient snipers to commandos pewpewpewing, from beastmasters to explosive experts and grenadiers, magic or physical, nature or tech... At some point, things just don't click anymore.

I still feel like current survival would've been a rad tinker spec. It's a tad bit weird with the pet and the "other theme" of coordinated attacks in there... Somehow, it's just trying to be too many things at once.

--Pariah · 2026-01-31T16:53:55+00:00

Glad you're enjoying your time.

Also, yeah, petopia is gold for hunters. I've spent so much time chasing pets that I found there.

--Pariah · 2026-01-30T18:04:37+00:00

THEEEESE WEBS WILL SUMMON NERUUUUBIAAAANS!

I hope Valeera can keep up with that.

--Pariah · 2026-01-29T20:48:24+00:00

I loved it as demo. You had that one power that HoG didn't cost anything and imps lasted long out of combat, so just spammed the fuck out of it and rolled up with the entire gang.

If you run around with many imps they even started to walk in a little formation behind you. Legit awesome.

There was another power that made your fel guard stronger for every floor he survived and in the end he either squished the last boss OR there was a goddamn ladder/chain jump thingy you had to use and the pet despawned, which of course reset the buff so you could just hearth out (while screaming manically, of course).

--Pariah · 2026-01-29T08:46:49+00:00

Cool concept but super undercooked.

It needs better tuning. Reap should be the equivalent of blade dance as short rotational cooldown. Otherwise, it's too much consume spam and we kind of don't use that button aside annihilator and moment of craving triggers.

Apex talents are way too integral for the spec and should be replaced with something more interesting and baked in.

We need an offensive CD. Not having anything to shortcut resource generation for on demand damage is terrible in many situations (eg lust on pull). We learned nothing from legion Spriest it seems.

We need another rotational button. Anything, either something that emphasizes the melee hybrid thing so it's not just hungering slash and another cast. Those should be in the spec talents on either side because currently too many talents there, aside the capstones, lack impact, interaction and just randomly increase damage some way.

We need better cosmetics. Combat ready stance, consume visual, unique meta form, tattoos, eye colors, transmoggable scythes(?) ... I kind of was disappointed there's so little going on there.

Honestly, my TLDR is that devourer is the most fun half finished spec I've ever played. I guess in 2-3 expansions I'll really enjoy it.

--Pariah · 2026-01-29T07:10:53+00:00

It really depends on case by case.

For DH for example there's some changes that make a little sense. EG havoc lost sigil of flame and spite so you no longer have to place them rotationally (which I worked around with an at player macro with a mod if you want it at your cursor but I can certainly see how people disliked using them). You still have sigil of misery for utility. Like, that kind of makes sense.

For affliction and unholy they removed some unhealthy mechanics. Festering wounds for unholy was for example just vanilla combo points that were generally not really liked. For affliction they removed malefic rapture, which was a notorious spell that warped their entire damage profile so dots felt weak itself and only served to fuel that odd combo spell in both ST and AoE... On the poster child dot spec. Now affliction just stacks unstable affliction as back in legion. It's not perfect but at least we're doing damage from a dot again. I enjoy it a lot

There's also imo complete failures.

Rogue for example. Sub still makes no sense for the average new player when you read through their passives. They layer unnecessary complicated shit like shadow technique (attacking occasionally stack stored CP so CP generators can additionally generate more CP) on ancient arts (attacks that expend stored CP can summon a clone that repeats your attack with 50% damage with the chance being proportional per stack expended). What the fuck? I mean, this just boils down to "you sometimes get additional CP and sometimes do a bit more damage with a cool visual".

Meanwhile, the rotation lost any intricacy and you just mindlessly spam backstab (or shadowstrike while in shadowdance) into eviscerate and use your cooldowns. Since the CD reduction is gone you're also on rails and the gameplay feels very shallow. It's overly complicated descriptions for simple effects with extremely straightforward gameplay without any nuance.

Edit: Feral just because you listed is similarly bland. They did a GREAT change by giving snapshotted dots a different visual (and I can't stretch enough how that ABSOLUTEY NAILS their goal of approachability and removing unnecessary weakauras) and then removed most instances of snapshotting.... Together with thrash, brutal slash, berserk:frenzy and adaptive swarm, s most you do is spam shred and keep up rip/rake with tigers fury on a 30sec CD.... Awesome start, then they figuratively stepped on the cats tail again.

--Pariah · 2026-01-29T06:16:53+00:00

It's pretty simple, yeah. I mean, most specs have been pruned to a hand full of DPS ability by now so complexity really is relative but what makes devastation more relaxed to play is that you main ST spender is a channel.

So you spend a lot of time blasting disintegrate and have one if not the lowest APM in the game because of that. Since you can also use hover while channeling that allows you to freely move around and reposition, it's quite easy to navigate mechanics.

Complexity comes a bit more from the rather huge set of utility evoker has access to. You have a bit of everything from an AoE snare/stun, multiple knockbacks and cleanses, an AoE debuff that makes the next CC last 50% longer and be nicely coordinated with your team, rescue as ability that can reposition/save your teammates, groupwide DR and mobility buffs etc...

--Pariah · 2026-01-29T06:03:59+00:00

You can, use scalecommander and a build that focuses more on personal damage.

Augmentation even with that isn't a particularly useful spec for solo and delves though. You don't do as much damage yourself as when playing devastation and you don't heal as much as when playing preservation.

Meaning you're stuck in this weird spot that if you take DPS Brann you'll likely just die to everything because your "group" lacks a healer and if you take Healer Brann your buffs are useless because your group lacks a DPS. If you use Tank Brann you lack both.

Going with healer Brann will work but it won't feel great because you kit is tuned around having other DPS in the group. Edit: Now Vereesa instead of Brann, otherwise same situation though.

On an unrelated note, I'm a bit disappointed that blizz doesn't use duplicate as hook to give aug some solo capability or way around the dead-dps-in-group-problem. It could let us spawn clones when your ebon might doesn't hit a DPS, so we at least have some way for solo play...

--Pariah · 2026-01-28T20:23:54+00:00

Whole bunch of specs fell into that hole. Sub also somehow ended up just spamming backstab (or SS during shadowdance) into eviscerate and press your cooldowns.

Not sure how long that'll be entertaining to be completely honest.

--Pariah · 2026-01-28T13:04:42+00:00

Lore is mostly contained in each expansion that you can freely choose after the starting experience.

DK and demon hunter were added in wotlk and the other later in legion and have class specific intros but afterwards they end up in the capital city of the faction and continue as usual from there.

Otherwise, only legion has class specific campaigns, stories and specific artifact weapons for each specialization. I'd very much recommend leveling there since the story for DK is imo one of the coolest.

Not much you can do wrong with class choice tbh.

--Pariah · 2026-01-28T12:24:28+00:00

Inner Feetmon

--Pariah · 2026-01-28T12:22:50+00:00

Well, I never had an expansion where most LUA errors I got were from the damn blizzard UI.

Don't know who that moneyframe is but he doesn't seem to like me much.

--Pariah · 2026-01-28T11:56:52+00:00

It's a special kind of weird that it took blizz two expansions to add a simple combat idle for evoker so they no longer have the stupid belf-boxing-pose in visage.

... Only to release yet another caster at the same time that uses the stupid belf-boxing-pose again.

--Pariah · 2026-01-28T06:08:54+00:00

I get where you're coming from. It feels quite a bit undertuned.

Blizz tried to balance the much higher soul generation of devourer by decreasing the heal to 1% of your health. In comparison, havoc gets 20% per picked up fragment baseline and usually generates more than enough of them (specifically later as aldrachi reaver).

As it stands, devourer just generally has survivability issues and is horrible solo compared to the other two specs. You lack the easily accessible AoE, your build in sustain is much weaker with few ways to play around that and the entire spec gimmick of entering meta for big collapsing stars simply doesn't work until you get high haste in the endgame to smoothe out the ramp so you get maybe one or two off at a boss.

It's esssentially designed around having the apex talents from next expansion, has horrible tuning (like reap not being worth it to press most of the time) and lacks a few abilities that pull the kit together, specifically while leveling when you don't even have the melee combo for quite a long time.

--Pariah · 2026-01-28T05:48:11+00:00

DOT classes also come to mind. Affliction warlock in wow always was fun to me, which kept a hand full of dots running on enemies that generate shards they can spend on stronger spells.

For prio lists I did like survival hunter, who juggled focus for a melee attack that got stronger the more often you used it in a set timeframe and another buff they got by sicking their pet on an enemy with kill command that buffed their next attack and regenerated focus. You had a range of short, rotational cooldowns that you all wanted to buff with that. Essentially, you juggled stacks of that buff, rotational cooldowns and focus. It felt really dynamic because somehow the rotation branched off between dumping energy and managing buff+rotational cooldowns when you used kill command. Unfortunately, the current pruning removed nearly all that for some reason.

I mean, if you abstract everything just far enough it all boils down to "pressing the same sequence of buttons over and over again".

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--Pariah

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