Torn

I'm finding myself dissatisfied with the state of things on Azeroth today.

For me, there are a few things to consider when deciding who my main is going to be.  I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but just in case I am, here are said factors:

1. Is the class mechanically fun and complete?
2. Do I like the class's associated aesthetics?
3. Can I see myself as "being" the class?

As things currently stand, none of the eleven classes meets all three criteria.  Hence, my dissatisfaction.

Before I dig into a long-winded analysis of why each class falls short, I want to expand a bit more on what line item 1 means to me personally.  Obviously "fun" is extremely subjective, and even among WoW players my own personal definition seems to be a minority opinion.  But there's also that notion of "completeness" -- what does it mean for a class to be mechanically complete?

Many of the WoW classes bring something unique to the table.  These special tricks aren't typically useful in group content, in line with Blizzard's "bring the player, not the class" design philosophy.  I'm all for this, honestly, I think it's great.  I'm also not saying that a class has to have all of these unique things in order to be mechanically complete.  What I am saying is that the new monk class has really raised the bar as far as the "cool stuff" factor is concerned.

Here's my personal list of things a class needs mechanically in order for me to consider making it my main.  For brevity, I'm not going to include things that all classes everywhere have at least some form of.  The class has to be able to tank.  It has to have a spammable, sub-1-second-cast ranged attack.  And...that's really about it.

So right off, that eliminates six classes.  Hunter, mage, priest, rogue, shaman, and warlock can't currently tank (or, at least, can't queue for group content as tanks), so they're just out.  And that's really a shame, since a mage tank, or even a warlock tank, a nice gish, would really be ideal.  I was having a lot of fun rolling my little malconvoker warlock until Pandaria dropped and the rumors of them being able to queue as tanks turned out to be false.

Likewise, warrior and death knight are out on the basis of aesthetics.  I'm not into evil and a plain-jane warrior just doesn't "do it" for me when there are many magical options available.  I'll direct those with lots of time on their hands to this blog post, written by a very handsome and talented Dungeon Master, entitled "The Problem with Fighters;" while WoWrriors are decidedly superhuman and not just dudes in armor, the basic aesthetic premise still applies.  Not for me.

As far as aesthetics are concerned, there are four general archetypes that I tend to gravitate towards: the martial artist, the wizard, the paladin, and the spy.  These are the four pairs of boots that I like to step into -- some because I think of myself as those things, and some because I expressly cannot be those things.  WoW clearly has analogues for some of these archetypes -- the monk is a martial artist, the mage, priest, warlock, druid, and shaman can all be wizard-types (though, of those types, only the mage really feels like a "true wizard"), the paladin is a paladin, and the rogue makes a good spy.

I had a mage as my main for quite a while, honestly, but that was before I figured out that tanking is my OTP in the world of MMOs.  So, despite the fact that the mage both grabs me where it counts and has some of the best "cool stuff" in the game, it simply doesn't play out.  As for the rest, when we do a nice Venn diagram of "can tank" and "love the archetype," I'm left with only three choices: druid, monk, and paladin.

And because there's something I don't like about, or something lacking from, each of these classes, I'm at a loss.

Back in Wrath, my paladin was my favoritest thing ever.  They had a great rotation, they were indestructible, they were threat machines, they were just fun to play.  The fact that the entire expansion was centered around an order of paladins wielding the Light to defeat the king of the evil Scourge only cemented my joie de vivre.  Paladins were win aesthetically, mechanically, and from the position of self-identification.  But then Cataclysm came and paladins became much less interesting mechanically.  But Cataclysm dropped the ball in a lot of places, so it's perhaps best not to talk about that too much.  Regardless, my Cata-main was still my paladin, though I did take a number of hiatuses for other characters.

Pandaria cameth, and did a lot to "fix" what I wasn't enjoying about the paladin back in Cataclysm.  Unfortunately, the expansion also introduced the monk.  Why is that bad?  Because the monk served to really highlight the few areas in which the paladin is lacking, whilst being unpalatable to me aesthetically.

See, the problem with monks is not that they aren't fun.  They are.  They're so much fun that my monk is basically all I've been playing since the expansion launched.  The trouble is the aesthetics.  Monks like to drink, you see.  They like to drink so much that their tanking spec is named "Brewmaster," and virtually all of the moves one uses are related to alcohol in some way.  Purifying Brew.  Keg Smash.  Dizzying Haze.  Breath of Fire.  For monk tanks, it's all drinking, all the time.  Since I don't drink, I have a hard time really immersing myself in the character.

I'm also not a fan aesthetically of healing spheres the whole ox statue thing.  And, y'know, monks aren't paladins, so that's a strike against them.

What monks do have, however, is Crackling Jade Lightning.  This spell is so useful for rounding up mobs that it's hard to overstate.  The fact that it's actually decent DPS is just icing.  It's a spammable pull, and that's something that no other tank has.  Unless warriors do, I'm not all that familiar with their toolset.  The important thing is that paladins don't have it.  They have Avenger's Shield and Reckoning, but those are both on fairly long cooldowns.

But what about druids, you ask?  Surely the same thing could be accomplished by simply rounding up the mobs in caster form by spamming moonfire?  Isn't that similar?  Sort of, but it's that pesky "in caster form" caveat that sticks the wicket.  Monks can do their trick while being indestructible.  Druids cannot.

The second point is mobility.  Paladins have long been the one tanking class that has mobility problems, and in MoP that hasn't changed.  Meanwhile, monks get not one but two methods of closing gaps.  One of those can even be used outside combat.  Sure, paladins get a nice passive speed buff (or can alternatively talent into a long-cooldown sprinting talent), but their generic mobility is the lowest of all the tanking classes.  That's unfortunate, because mobility is fun and engaging.  Just ask Yoda.

The most disappointing part of Episode II

Finally, there's zen flight.  I don't know that this is going to remain as cheatastic as it currently is, but the ability to levitate, thereby avoiding engaging mobs, whilst still being able to gather, mount, pick up quest items, etc, is just super useful.  That's the monk's biggest "cool trick."  I'm not sure if there is a monk out there who isn't using the glyph.

So that's the rub: in my heart of hearts I'm a paladin, but I'm also a monk, and monks are much more fun to play, but I hate the "drunken master" aesthetic and not being a holy knight when the option to be a holy knight is available.  Monks are also the only tank class who lack a ranged silence, but as I come from the days when everyone had to corner-pull, that's not a dealbreaker for me.

Ah, but what about druids?

Druids would seem to have it all.  Flight form is almost as good as, and in some cases better than, zen flight.  They can tank, they're unkillable, they're mobile, and shapeshifting is pretty awesome when I'm in the mood for it.  They can even stealth, which is useful all on its own.  And I played a druid as my main for quite a while back in BC.  You know, back when it was hard.

I guess druids suffer from the same aesthetic problem as monks, that being they're not paladins.  There's also the fact that they're honestly pretty limited in scope.  What do I mean by that?  Well, take shamans, sort of the other "nature" class.  Shamans deal with the elements.  They control the weather, they make pacts with elemental spirits, they can bring themselves back from the dead.  Their focus is pretty cosmic, all things considered, and that's important.  To me, anyway.  Look at my other "favorites:" mage and paladin are both concerned with matters of cosmic importance.  Mages manipulate spacetime itself, and paladins tap into what is essentially the Force.  Druids are powerful, no doubt, but they aren't world-bending.  When the Cataclysm tore the world apart, it wasn't a druid that fixed it.

So what's the tl;dr?  It's that my enjoyment of the game is diminished because I feel forced to divide my attention between two characters who are each close to my Platonic ideal, but not quite there.  Give my paladin any one of the three things that the monk has and there'd be no contest.  Give the monk some kind of holy, angelic imagery and I'd be all set.  But as it is, I feel torn between the two.  And I'm not sure how to fix it.