How can they add more classes and make them unique and have their own flavor?

[Synrin]

WoW has no problems with this.

Not sure what you two are talking about, but atm WoW has loads of issues with class identity. They might fit everything in this amazing story and give you amazing abilities, but for example healers, especially now in Legion will be all the same. Same mechanics, same abilities.....

[RiceisNice]

Not sure what you two are talking about, but atm WoW has loads of issues with class identity. They might fit everything in this amazing story and give you amazing abilities, but for example healers, especially now in Legion will be all the same. Same mechanics, same abilities.....

I agree with this. During cata/MoP there was very little difference between the gameplay and aesthetics of a marksman and survival hunter. Both used a ranged weapon, both shot things and things died. Legion is doing an entire overhaul of that though where marksmanshot foregoes the pet aspect (being exclusive to survival and beastmastery now) and survival being a melee trapper. Can't speak on healers and tanks though, but the class idenity has mostly been an issue for classes that had multiple dps roles (arms and fury warriors for example)

Fire monsters weak against water/ice, absorbs fire attacks, ice monsters weak against fire, absorbs ice attacks, hard scaled monsters impervious against slash attacks, flying monsters weak against shoot attacks, etc.

The first time when I played this game, I was surprised that elemental/attack properties was missing, because in my opinion THAT is really what makes every class/job, and frankly, the entire game unique. Without it, there is really no point in which class/job you choose, because every kind of attack will always result in the same outcome.

Then you're going to run into problems where you (don't) want X jobs because of those elemental attacks. And not to sound rude, but I don't think you've played BLM very much if you think that fire, blizzard and thunder spells result in the same outcome, or any other job for that matter because they'd have other abilities that add onto their playstyle (such as BotD, ninjitsu and MNK stacks)

[Kaurie]

Not sure what you two are talking about, but atm WoW has loads of issues with class identity. They might fit everything in this amazing story and give you amazing abilities, but for example healers, especially now in Legion will be all the same. Same mechanics, same abilities.....

Hmm, I don't have many hours in WoW, but I felt that my Holy Priest was very different from my Resto shaman (way more so than WHM vs SCH, where WHM vs SCH was more like Holy Priest vs Disc Priest iirc)

Because of the way they've structured the game, it would require taking some risks to add classes that would truly feel different or offer "game changing" elements.

Given their track record so far, I doubt they will do so. Classes will likely remain a visual wrapper to similar functioning skills with one or two unique uses.

In my opinion, it is a far greater risk to keep things similar. The game will rapidly become more boring if things are not appropriately spiced up. I think it would be better for the health of the game to add a DPS that everyone wants and rolls/levels up etc (NIN for example), than it would be to add a DPS that few people like and is basically a carbon copy of [x] job (MCH for example). Keeping things interesting is what is going to keep people playing long term. Keeping with the status quo is what is going to have people leaving for the next big thing.

[RiceisNice]

In my opinion, it is a far greater risk to keep things similar. The game will rapidly become more boring if things are not appropriately spiced up. I think it would be better for the health of the game to add a DPS that everyone wants and rolls/levels up etc (NIN for example), than it would be to add a DPS that few people like and is basically a carbon copy of [x] job (MCH for example). Keeping things interesting is what is going to keep people playing long term. Keeping with the status quo is what is going to have people leaving for the next big thing.

I feel like this is definitely the case for MCH/BRD. The two share the same role and purpose, but it's also down to the abilties and flow of gameplay. Instead of sticking with a multiple attachment/stance they had originally wanted for MCH, they scrapped it and only gave one attachment (gauss barrel). ...then turned around and gave BRD a duplicate of said "attachment", and they've done away with having a traditional physical ranged dps. Balance (espesically numbers) sohuldn't be a huge concern when it comes to things like that, you could just tune it with mid patches or hotfixes. It's job mechanics that takes a lot more time to adjust, if not change.

Because of the way they've structured the game, it would require taking some risks to add classes that would truly feel different or offer "game changing" elements.

Given their track record so far, I doubt they will do so. Classes will likely remain a visual wrapper to similar functioning skills with one or two unique uses.

If you're to compare DRG and MNK on release, the two have entirely different GCDs when monk is at GL3. DRG in 3.0 also revolves around mixing in their oGCD (due to animation lock from jumps) and effectively managing their BoTD timer through GS. MNK has no such burdens, but instead need to maintain full uptime on the boss and minimize damage loss from downtime. NIN also approaches differently without the burden of having to maintain uptime, but instead 2 different timers/dots that branch off their weaponskill versus the highest damaging combo, on top of ninjitsu.

Same with BLM/SMN, the two function so differently in their resources that it's just not a comparable gameplay. Likewise with the healer's approach to healing and the utility behind it. The only time I feel they truly dropped the ball on job identity is BRD/MCH, and SCH/SMN if we're speaking specifically on dpsing (which honestly might as well be the case in your average dungeon runs).