Cataclysm Class Rotation Design

MMO-Champion held a contest for writing guides in their forums, and I've been reading through the winning DPS guides since I'm experimenting with so many specs at the moment.  I was struck by a common thread in the advice:

• "Shadow Priests do not have a DPS "rotation" in a classical sense. Instead, we operate on a priority system, determined by which of our spells should be cast at a given time, given its supposed superior damage benefit over other spells." - Newnoise's Shadow Priest Guide
• "In contrast to the Fury Warrior who has more of a preset rotation, the Arms Warrior's rotation is a priority based system that constantly fluctuates based upon inconsistant procs and abilities that pop up randomly throughout the rotation..." - Loto Bordeau's Arms Warrior PVE Guide
• "Alright, the first thing you need to know about frost's rotation is that you're not casting spells in a repetitive cycle. You're conforming to a priority list." - The Ultimate Guide to Frost by Karrok
• "Cats don't use a set ability rotation; instead we have a priority list of buffs/debuffs/abilities to use." - The Cat Guide, 4.0.3a edition by Mihir

I don't know enough about the endgame to tell whether these guys know their stuff or not, but my personal class impressions back them up; Blizzard seems to have gone out of their way to add some kind of reactive proc mechanic to DPS classes.

This approach makes sense because it provides more room for character performance to scale with player skill.  In a world where bosses like Patchwerk sit still and take whatever players are dishing out, gear and a pre-set rotation can account for the majority of player performance.  Moving to a world where players need to adjust their actions allows more room for superior skill to shine through.  (It also means that a subpar random DPS player in an automatically generated group might be that much further below what the dungeon was balanced for.) 

Then again, I'm also looking at these classes from the bottom up, as I play around with each at level one.  Everyone now has some way to restore HP to either themselves or their pets, generally pretty early on in their character's lives.  The casters all have a spammable nuke and the melee all have an instant attack of some sort.  Everyone can now expect some sort of light-up proc that tells them to drop their bread and butter skills and use some more beneficial situational ability.  Though various classes get various buffs, it seems like these too have been shared around enough to make sure that most raids will have most of what they need without too much suffering. 

It's certainly possible that there are exceptions - the Arms guy says that Fury is EZ-mode, though I'd take that assessment more seriously if it came from an actual Fury player - but the result seems to be that you're getting a very similar play experience as you level.  There are still differences in feel - the hunter's focus mechanic is different, some of the healer DPS specs are locked out of healing by stances, etc - but I wonder whether the similarities are going to start standing out more if and when players spend more attention on rolling up alts.

Blackrock Espionage

That's an interesting patch of grass you're looking at there, really, but maybe you'd rather find some higher ground?  Or point the telescope a bit upwards, towards our base?  Or not be chopped in half by my greatsword?  Not trying to tell you how to do your job or anything....

(In other news following up on yesterday's post, it looks like they have not updated the Draenei starting area beyond the addition of a flightmaster(s?).  The first quests are still set immediately after the crash of the Exodar, even though the new voiceover explains what the spacegoats have been up to since then.  No thanks, one more area off my list.)

Shattering Month 1.5

It's been about a month since my last update on my post-Shattering army of WoW alts.  What has my $15 contribution to the Blizzard world domination fund accomplished this month?

• Greenwiz, my Gnome Mage and nominal main, hit level 84, having cleared out Vashj'ir and done various other things that were neither questing nor extensive dungeon running.
• Greenraven, my Tauren Warrior, hit level 82 after doing about half of the quests in Mount Hyjal and five Blackrock Caverns runs in pursuit of a hat for the Winter's Veil achievement.  

• Tangleroot, previously level 9 Druid, advanced to level 16 (Balance), clearing out the remainder of Durotar and the pre-Crossroads portion of The Barrens.  Unlocked turquoise cat form and green bear form.  The enchanted heirloom staff is really killing the enjoyment of this character, as I routinely one-shot mobs with eclipsed Starsurge. 

• Sorrowdusk, a new Undead Warlock, hit level 12 (Destruction) clearing out the revised Tirisfal (probably my favorite revamp of a pre-Cata newbie zone so far).
• Seloxia, a new Blood Elf Priest, hit 11 (Discipline) with a number of quests yet to go in the zone.  In search of a way to challenge myself, my plan is for this character to actually wear the cosmetic holiday armor outfits.  This means I'm statistically (and cosmetically until the Lunar festival hits, since the Christmas outfit is underwear on females) naked, and actually finding a fair degree of challenge as a result.  Possibly the most fun I've had on any alt so far, even though the disorganized quests of Eversong appear to be all but unaltered.
• Blackwold, a new Worgen Hunter, hit level 13 (Survival) while clearing out Gilneas. The scripted storyline is impressive, like most of the new Cataclysm content.

As it now stands, I still have three newbie zones left to go on my survey project (Goblin, Human, and Draenei).  I also have yet to see the majority of the new level 80+ solo content, even though I have one character most of the way to the cap.  Overall, I suppose the content is probably about where it should be; I've still got more stuff left to do in Cataclysm (albeit in part because I'm now running a second max level character) than I did a month into Wrath, and way more stuff to do if I actually continue to work on the new low level stuff.

I will note that I have long since given up on using heirlooms for my budding alt army because they break the difficulty curve.  That aside, I find it slightly mind-boggling that Blizzard designed the new content as a linear quest "theme park" but then set things so that the exp curve breaks if you ever log off (thereby earning rested exp).  Isn't the whole point of a theme park that you arrive at new quests at the appropriate level, rather than after you've greened them out?  I guess the current system is fine if you're just in it for the next level up message, but it's a bit disappointing if you're actually hoping to see the new content at an appropriate level.

(P.S. If anyone who plays Alliance on a US server wants a visit from yours truly, I'm out of slots for the Human and Draenei characters on Hyjal.)

Do Flexible Classes Hurt Replay Value?

I've been rolling a bunch of low level WoW alts since the old world revamp, and I'm currently waffling on whether my Goblin should be my third hunter, my second shaman, or my second rogue.  WoW has twelve races, each of which has at least some new content in the 1-20 range.  It has only nine classes which start in that level range (since Death Knights still get a free pass to level 55), and I already had alts of most classes up to at least the 20's.  

In principle, each class has three talent trees that could broaden the options a bit.  Then again, do I really need to roll an Elemental (spell-casting) Shaman when I could instead respec my existing Enhancement (melee DPS) Shaman instead?  Do I need any new Warriors or Mages when my high level characters of both classes already get access to two of their three talent trees through dual specs?  

(Meanwhile, how will this affect Rift, which has only four base archetypes?  The game's soul system adds a lot of options to each individual character, but your fifth character will not be able to do anything that isn't already available to one of your existing soul-swaps.)

The philosophy behind this type of system is that increased access to group roles (especially while leveling) is worth any decrease in replay value.  For most players, that's probably a safe bet.  I just wonder if there is any way to mitigate this drawback to flexibility.