This is exactly it. Borrowed power is a grindy, uninteresting thing that has taken the place of proper class design. They’re a temporary fix that we loose each expansion and they need to go until Blizzard actually does the work to make classes fun on their own.
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I disagree - abilities WERE removed under those older systems, it was just called “pruning” and happened less frequently. It still happened.
But in a very real sense, your class IS incomplete. Without the set bonuses of a prior tier, you would get stomped in a more current tier. How is that “complete?” Can your class in dungeon blues complete AQ40 and Naxx without being carried? Can your T4-geared class be competitive in Sunwell?
I didn’t say every piece of gear - I said tier sets. Though I’m glad you recognize that gear itself is also expansion-specific, but that is less overt than the set bonuses I wanted to highlight.
Those abilities were never removed to be put elsewhere and earned back, though. Class changes are not the same as “we removed X so we could put X on your gear.”
Without the set bonuses, or without the raw stats? Somehow, I think the stat difference between raid gear and dungeon blues has always been more telling than tier set bonuses.
I never said gear didn’t get replaced…but in the past, it got replaced because the new gear was statistically better, not because they removed the stats from it.
But please, keep beating the drum of “single expansion gimmicks are just like gear has always been.”
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A class should feel complete without any essences, artifacts, traits, corruptions or other power. This was never a problem before.
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If BFA only had essences (and catchups) I actually would have been totally fine with it. The classes felt “complete” enough. It was just messy
Sure they were. Tier sets repeated their bonuses all the time, both across PvP seasons and PvE tiers.
I actually don’t think it’s totally “like it always has been.” In fact, in the opening post I even said:
To elaborate, I think it feels different now for a couple of reasons:
- Tier sets, once earned, could last some ways into the next tier, and in some cases even the tier after that. BFA had new abilities every tier so the old ones felt a lot less useful.
- Between expansions, while you wanted to replace your tier sets and glyphs eventually, it was usually up to you when that happened instead of Blizzard shutting the power off during launch or prepatch.
With those two factors combined, borrowed power feels worse to some than it did before. But I think it’s a fixable problem, and that Shadowlands - once they balance it anyway - is on its way to dealing with those two problems. (Well, the first one anyway.)
I don’t remember borrowed power in vanilla
Tier-sets don’t count in that category because classes weren’t relying on those to be complete. What most people mean are the systems that make the classes borderline garbage when it is taken away.
Tier sets added to classes, did so painlessly with no power grind, were not put in with a planned expiry date and always increased what your class had, never “completed” what it was missing.
Tier sets are not borrowed power.
Azerite traits stopped after 8.1. We played with the same ones all expansion long. And we had to refarm them tier after tier.
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Glypths changed up your spells. Not really borrowed power.
Because the classes have been gutted in Legion, with the weapons in mind to compensate. In BFA, the classes have been very barebone until essences and corruptions.
At least covenants seem a bit better, don’t know how hard it will be to get the good conduits. But after SL? Yep, back to barebones classes.
How do you define a class being “complete?” It’s hard to discuss without some kind of definition.
There were raid-specific ones every tier but I agree, the system was mostly abandoned in favor of essences - which should have really been the focus of the expansion from the beginning.
They absolutely have a planned expiration date. Were you still wearing T4 in Wrath? Maybe T5/T6, but even then, you’d have ditched them by 76+ or so. Same for every other expansion.
You were forced to replace them every expansion (until the eliminated the power aspect completely and made them cosmetic only.) They were absolutely borrowed.
It’s the trendy buzz phrase all the cool streamers are using these days.
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Complete is when a class is able to play just fine without requiring certain systems/gear for it to perform “well.” Systems and gear should only enhance your character, not finally make it playable or viable.
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“Viable” is a moving target though, and depends on the content you’re doing. If you were trying to do Black Temple or Sunwell without any tier set bonuses for example, you were definitely not “viable.” So by that logic, a class with no tier sets was also “incomplete” because there was content they just could not do without being carried through it.
There’s a difference between borrowed power that lasts an entire expansion and borrowed power that lasts for just a raid tier, nevermind the scale behind the two. Borrowed Power systems like Artifacts, Heart of Azeroth, and Covenants aren’t just cool bonuses for doing a specific kind of content, but are the driving factor behind our play choices.
Borrowed Power has always existed, but never in a scale this large, and never as the beating heart of the expansion.
As far as glyphs go, I don’t think those were ever put into the game with the foresight that it was going to be removed, as was always understood with Tier bonuses. If they were successful, they likely would’ve stayed.
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My Legion tier sets still work in BfA content if I so wish. They do not have a planned expiry date.
Unlike the artifact that just stopped working, or Azerite/Essences/Corruption that will just stop working, Tier sets did not stop working.
Stop trying to muddy the waters in the Borrowed powers debate. You’re actively hurting the community with this non-sense of “tier was borrowed power!” It wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to what people hate and are trying to get Blizzard to remove from their designs in recent years.
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I really don’t think you can include those. If they left glyphs in the game, they wouldn’t be borrowed… they’d be permanent and a pliable fixture for your class.
I like borrow powers myself, many people do.
Completely untrue. For example: Unholy DK was pretty mediocre the whole expansion and it was only because of corruptions and certain azerite traits until it became a semi-viable spec. When a class relies on certain systems and gear it is considered incomplete. When a class can play just fine without requiring Festermight and Magus as your traits it is considered complete. Again, gear should only enhance your power and not make it a requirement to be playable.
Tier-sets only enhanced your power as it was intended. If you didn’t have a full set you could still be viable. Azerite and corruptions made it a requirement for me to have otherwise my spec was useless.
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You play FFXIV, not WoW. Shoo.
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