So although its been a little since I've made a post I've still been neck deep in the beta.
I should start by saying from my perspective things are looking pretty grim. Its not that the zones aren't great, everything looks and feels better then ever. It's not the game plays, although they've ramped up the mob health and damage and the dungeons are pretty fucking hard compared to what we're used to, it's fine. It's worst.The two classes I've tied my wagon to are borked right now.
The hunter, which I got to 83, is starting to function closer to how I think they want it to work but I'm not sure its working how I want it to work. In writing being able to steadyshot while moving in aspect of the fox sounds like the bee's knees on paper and probably will work fine in pve encounters aside from the constant need to stance dance, but in pvp its still icky. You're almost always focus starved and its very frustrating. Bare in mind that I don't much care for hunter pvp on live. I mean its fine but it feels like one thing tack on top of another on top of another and often resorts to blowing all your cooldowns to either blow the enemies head off very quickly or trying to prevent yourself from being boned. I'm still holding hope for my hunter but I've almost come to terms with the fact that if I don't like how it plays that I just shouldn't play it and that its ok to leave that bike, those professions, that brooddrake and those achievements behind.
The paladin or rather, protadin is facing a much more dire situation. They want tanks to be able to do decent damage and that is clear from them giving all the tanks something called vengeance, a stacking AP buff tanks get from taking damage. I love this concept because I enjoy tanking and I've always wanted to be able to play as a tank in pvp. Someone who can tank tons of damage, dish out a moderate amount and play a mid-level control er role. I mean...like prot warriors got to do for most of wrath, and even after the damage nerf, can still do. I know people play prot in pvp alittle in wrath but they don't do it as tanks. After the last patch they've all but removed all the damage protadins can do...infact they removed nearly all the abilities as well, I'll explain below.
For pve protadins in beta are pretty confused. Hammer of Righteousness is now thunderclap and shares a cooldown with crusader strike, which is our only way to produce holy power. Holy power is a scarce resource. We need holy power for our big hitting ability, shield of the righteous, which requires a full 3 stack to really do much. We also need holy power for inquisition, our damage boosting 15 second buff. Lastly we need holy power for word of glory, the very small self heal, that as prot when you overheal yourself provides a small damage shield. SotR also procs holy shield on use, however holy shield is now a 15% flat block chance increase that doesn't do any damage. As of right now blizzard's stance is that prot's main ability is avenger shield. AV does a bit more damage then on live, about 5k or so, has a 15 second cooldown with talents and has a 40% chance of refreshing its cooldown from crusader strike or HotR. That's fine. The problem is that with consecration being on a 30 second cooldown, AV being on a 15 second cooldown, CS and hoTR sharing what I seem to remember as a 4.5 second cooldown, but don't quote me on that and SotR. There are actually a fair amount of time where you're unable to do anything, and whats worst your attacks from what I can see don't do much damage. It's clearly broken, but the real downer for me is so far they're talking like, well this is the direction we're taking prot in and its going to but different, we know it doesn't work yet, but it will, and you may not like it. Bleh.
So far I've also tried a few other classes briefly. Fire mages are fun, but ranged and casters eat them. Blood dks are great but I feel like I'm facerolling more then a little. Warriors don't feel any different to me at all, at least not arms. Shadow priests seem fine, but its just not for me any more.
I've set up the rogue but haven't played it yet. I've secretly wanted him to be my main for a long time. I love the pvp play and pve feel alot like a melee version of hunters. So if my other guys don't work out I'm going to have to get the good doctor ready. Who knows though, this is beta and I'm Adam, both things that change like the wind.
tl;dr: They've changed my classes and they don't work or I don't like them.
