Abilities or spells you miss

Community General Discussion
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Hi! As we heard from the previous update there’s some reversals of the pruning of classes coming up in 9.0. As noted this is a slightly harder task in some cases.

To help (And also just to yell into the void), I’m listing out some of the stuff I miss, and I invite you to do the same. It will help inform the dev team of why we miss certain things. But also it would just be fun to see why people liked what.

This is incomplete on purpose, as it’s just stuff I personally really miss. I added a few comments at the bottom for general ability philosophy.

Thank you if you take the time to read this.

Monk

Keg Toss
Keg Toss, and to a lesser extent Exploding Keg, were fun abilities that let you have some flexibilty in generating aggro. Keg Toss let you spam, which was fun to see the barrels flying, and felt almost unintended and like you were getting away with something a bit broken. The delay and non-target felt really good. It was a lot more fun than Crackling Jade Lightning as you’re taking a mobile class and then rooting it to pull more stuff.

Rogue

Shoot
This is going way back, but having a small extra way to interact with the world was flavorful and fun. With Heroic Throw the tech exists to choose a gun and not require re-implementation of the gun slot. Especially now that Outlaw is a thing. A cool flavor choice, my rogue was obsessed with guns, so screw daggers.

Evasion
More just a flavor thing, but the fade out combined with the dodge it was just pretty visceral.

Warrior

Charge (Prot)
Charge always felt more core to warriors as a class, intercept was always the weaker talent that was bound to a different key. Mostly the icon being different feels weird, and this isn’t a huge gripe.

Those banner things
I can barely remember them, but it was really fun and flexible being able to charge to them. I feel MoP had Warriors down really well; right now I feel there’s too many neat gimmicks avatar / whirlingblade / bladestrom but nothing really solid. I changed mains to a BM monk after. Lots of +damage, but not much +utlity or +mobility.

On the stance dance
I’ve never really cared much for the stances/dancing, it was nice as a sort-of defensive toggle. I really like the defensive stance available to Arms, it is super visceral, and could maybe use a shield from our bags. Maybe each spec can rock-paper-scissors to the next (Arms > Prot, Prot > 2h/Shield Gladiator, Fury > Arms (So three swords total and access to slam :grin:)

Shamans

Bandwagon
It’d be cool if shamans existed again

Misc Grumbles

Low Level PVE lockout of Toys/Glider/Uber Wrench
I really dislike that in non competitive/low difficulties of raids (i.e LFR), all non-class abilities are locked out in an arena fashion. While I understand this is difficult to balance, we’re now seeing current content consumables and gadgets locked out. In classic/BC I really enjoyed how much stuff like the shrink ray could be used in sorta-unintended places.

Finding small interactions like that really made the world feel alive. Instances felt like part of an extension of the world, rather than an isolated environment. As someone that doesn’t really push keys or push raids, the fun of BRD and the like was that it was just a unique environment to apply the stuff we found in the world.

Warmode Abilities
I dislike the number activated abilities being locked behind warmode. They reduce class and spec flavour, and just reduce fun if you don’t want to opt into the sometimes frustrating experience. I do warmode from time to time but I think a lot of the class frustration in BFA would have not happened if we just gained a bunch of those abilities, possibly in a new talent row.

After Credits Scene

Posted on general forum as there does not seem to be a overall class or overall development forum and I would really like a bunch of people to post their own takes because this will help make 9.0 abilitiytastic and as the next poster will definitely point out, I’m completely wrong and should probably just delete my account and play hello kitty island adventure.

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TKC, demonic empowerment, thalkiel ascension.

Shadowflame (The short range aoe)

Immolation aura.

Demonic leap (the cata version)

Harvest life

Soul fire (the demo execute)

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I’m not sure how mages play in BFA since I have only played one to level 22, but it would be nice to have that awesome combo back for fire with combustion, I think it was Cata. You would get your Pyroblast dot on them put Living Bomb up and then cast Combustion which I think at the time did extra damage based on your current dots, and the fun part which was that it would eat like 50% of someones health if you did this which was fun. I may be remembering that slightly off but still.

Edit: I just remembered you would want Pyroblast to crit also so you could get that ignite dot as well, then you would use Combustion for the 50% - 60% of their health. that was how ignite worked in Cata.

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Old School Righteous Defence.

Been gone years now but not forgotten.

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I want Symbiosis back.

Please.

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I miss a lot of the old aura kind of spells. Like the paladin auras, warrior stances, death knight presences, etc. It was kind of fun being able to switch between them for different roles/effects and thematically it’s just a nice kind of ability I think. Adds flavor.

Also Eyes of the Beast. Should bring it back with unlimited range. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Druid: Displacer beast! Mobile tranquility! Even the stupid exploding overheal mushroom from MoP

Priest: Nontalented Circle of Healing.

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Symbiosis; it made things fun.

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It’s stupid simple, actually. As a fire mage every time I find myself fighting a group of mobs all at ~20% HP and all my instant cast AoEs are on cooldown, I find myself wishing I still had Arcane Explosion. Yeah I could stand there and hard cast an untalented Flamestrike like a doofus, but I really shouldn’t have to.

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Shattering Throw.

Listen. Nowadays, having a 30S CD on “Full Heal 1” “Full Heal 2” or “Full Heal 3” means nothing. Let’s have more of a chance to actually kill them.

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The current iteration of classes feels very unrewarding to level as and play as. Many old skills that made the classes what they are needs to return.

Paladins
Exorcism, turn evil, and divine intervention, auras, seals. Raid wide greater blessing.
Warrior
Retaliation, sunder armor, stances, gladiator stance. Shoot weapon, shattering throw.
Rogues
All spec poisons, Cold Blood, Preperation, Hemorrhage, poison crafting. Shoot weapon
Death Knights
Presence, icy touch, old runic conversion, Old Horn of War.
Hunters
Aspects of pack, Killshot.
Shaman
Totem System.

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Fire mage was INSANELY fun in Cataclysm, the only reason I stuck around for the remainder of that expansion was the spec was just so much fun to play.

I remember not being allowed into certain raid groups because I refused to play arcane as it was the best spec at the time, but my god spamming 1 over and over is not something I’m willing to shill over $15 a month for.

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I want Kill Shot back for BM, and I want Holy Prism and baseline Hammer of Wrath for Ret.

I would also love the WoD version of Shadow back, with the orbs/ravens, Devouring Plague, dark archangel wings, etc. The “dark religion” theme was a lot cooler to me than this Old God tentacle stuff.

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I miss the druid thorns the most, way back when it was a buff before they made it a 30 or so second thing

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I miss the stances, auras, presences, etc. Mostly, though, I miss the original talent trees and the way classes had access to all of their abilities instead of being locked into a specialization. That was fun. Classes actually felt whole.

Here’s this massive toolbox at your disposal, go figure out how to use it. That’s what I miss.

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There was also a larger number of minor choices which was good too, each row was at least 3 options

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MoP Fire and Brimstone for Destro locks. So much fun to AoE :sob::sob::sob:
and also hunter Kill Shot, and MoP Stampede for hunters!

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Ranged Survival…

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DK presences for sure & most of the mage stuff. I use to find that class very fun.

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Gladiator stance, shattering throw, scare beast, kill shot, wrath era living bomb, cyclone for pve, corpse explode usable on players, divine intervention