AoEs have always been high cap or no cap, but cleaves (the abilities in question) all originally had caps. Those caps weren’t removed until (I think, memory might be failing me) MoP or WoD. These changes are actually bringing this aspect of the game back in line with how it was originally.
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https ://cdn.discordapp. com/attachments/513143564272664588/767130454461513738/unknown.png
This was in former live Strat, which has rather large trash pulls. The DH aoe was downright pathetic. The level 18 spriest was unaffected due to tab target multidotting. Absolutely insane this went live.
Legit not even worth attempting to AoE in aoe situations, better to just to keep up a single target rotation. How this made it live is beyond me. If the pack is too large, your aoe damage is lower than your single target rotation, how that makes any sense in any universe is beyond me.
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Originally there was no cap. Literally none. Largest pull in vanilla was Faxmonkey, I watched him do it. 187 mobs from a zig during Naxx invasion event.
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Yeah that’s correct now that you mention it, I remember watching his Stupid Mage Tricks videos. Still, caps have been in place since TBC up through Cata/MoP, a far cry from (paraphrased) “15 years of no caps”.
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Yeah the caps came when ppl were single pulling all of Hellfire Ramparts.
What they don’t realize is, that the cap isn’t 5 mobs and that’s it, you can pull 20 mobs, but you’ll only hit 5 at a time and the five each time aren’t the same. This is purely people who don’t realize that AoE caps have been around a VERY long time, they just never noticed them.
It also varies by class, as I mentioned the only stuff that got heavily capped fits the definition of “cleave” better than “AoE”. Like mages are entirely unimpacted for example, save for Frost Orb which has a cap of 8, which is still higher because it straddles the line between cleave and AoE.
Yup, and maybe… just maybe… that’s why they went the way they have with AoE.
It’s all perspective. This time it’s not fitting yours. Maybe next time.
I think the best compromise is to have sqrt formula applied to all specs beyond their current hard caps.
Use Beast Cleave as an example, does the most damage to its 5 targets and then has the rest of it’s damage affected by the sqrt formula.
Apply that to everything and it may be the compromise people are willing to accept.
This is what happens when you design an mmo with a calculator, rather than concentrating on fun.
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Using AoE to kill large packs of mobs is how it always has been and always will be. It’s just the most efficient way to do dungeons. Players will always find the most productive way to do anything until you drop a brick wall in front of them and say, “No, you can play the game that way.” which is exactly what this is.
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They should of just made it for Mythics as that is what it mostly targets, to slow down carries. Should of left it alone in open world, but another idea from the business minded Dev to slow people down, you know more time metrics.
No, very much incorrect. For a few years, there were careful pulls with CC and various different methods to avoid having to tank an entire pack. This was the norm and no-one complained about it. You are VERY wrong about AoE pulls. -It was the refinement of Paladin in BC as a tank that allowed AoE pulling.
CC pulls are an art within itself, it requires targeting the right mob and doing it efficiently was a huge display of who was terrible and who wasn’t. Very much a skill that is lost on the generations playing today. Everyone these days think CC was intended for PVP, it wasn’t. -Especially in the case of hunter not being able to trap while in combat. I would welcome a return to those days, also having runners and bringing back Curse of Recklessness. Blizzard could certainly make it happen, and would be a vastly different approach to determining M+ skill; breaking CC would wipe the group etc.
The slower you kill monsters the longer it will take to do things, the longer you will stay subbed. It’s 5d chess really, lad
AoE capping Feral’s swipe because they were just tearing it up in dungeons this xpac.
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There is literally nothing hard or skillful about CCing a mob before you pull a pack.
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This.
People keep saying the change is due to M+, but given all the other Shadowlands changes it seems more like they just learnt the wrong lesson from the success of classic. “Oh, they liked the old stuff? Let’s resurrect all the old design choices even if they were terrible”.
Originally several classes, especially melee, didn’ have AoE at all. This sucked for those classes whenever fight design had more than 5 mobs to kill at a time. So, as part of the whole “bring the player, not the class” design choices over the past decade they made sure everyone had some sort of AoE. Some were still better than others, but everyone had something.
Looks like they’re going back on that, with the predictable result that the same reason they changed in the first place will crop up again and being the guy with no AoE is gonna suck, again.
ah i thought it was bug, but it looks like blizzard’s intended design.
Not understanding why this happen, but it’s a strange choice
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While I can’t wrap my head around most the changes, the AOE cap is one that has an obvious reason, whether I like it or not.
It’s nothing more than a means to shake up the M+ meta and strategy.
In some pugs it could be quite an interesting experience. We’ve seen it all, someone cc’s a mob and half a second later someone attacks it. People not cc’ing the right mob but doesn’t matter because they break it anyway…
Strategy? It’s not like “we” players have much say at all to how the classes are designed. Blizzard does it all. We just play what we get and we better like it… or else.
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