I’m sad to hear that the decision was made to artifically keep the technical limitation of the debuff limit in for Classic. This will significantly hamper my personal enjoyment of the game, because the debuff limit was the single worst aspect of vanilla for me and the reason I was elated to see it raised to the point of no longer being a problem in TBC.
I see a LOT of people throwing out the “it will make bosses too easy” but, honestly, does anyone have the data to back this up at all? Dots were all balanced pretty heavily around the rest of the abilities, and most dots weren’t actually a dps increase. I mean, warlocks were infamous for using only shadowbolt in TBC, an era when the debuff limit didn’t exist, because dots were not dps increases over many of the direct damage buffs available.
Classes like hunters get slightly better, but really if there was THAT much of a difference for certain classes to use debuffs, those debuffs would have BEEN used during vanilla at some point. The classes were all designed and intended to use their full range of abilities in raids, but the limitation prevented this. Paladin judgements, shadow priest debuffs, dots, etc were all designed and balanced around the same philosophy of other abilities, and I have not seen a single person claiming that the debuff limit makes a realistic damage difference post any kind of breakdowns, it’s entirely speculation based on already heavily broken or modified private servers.
I really wish the decision to keep the debuff limit wasn’t just “it will feel right” but was rather “will it make a difference” because if internal testing would have shown no substantial change or increase, imagine the potential for classic. Now not only have you solved the single largest limiting factor on player diversity IN THE GAME from a strict baseline standpoint, you have introduced something that was NOT able to be replicated that was a massive part of vanilla, exploration. If the debuff limit was completely removed and internal testing supported the idea that damage numbers would not significantly be impacted, players could REALLY experiment on a new level with their classes, keeping the old game we love and leaving in a large amount of exploration and learning for players that would not have taken away from the vanilla experience. Vanilla was great because of the core game, not because of technical limitations. This was a huge mistake in my opinion, and a major missed opportunity to do classic wow right by the community. Just a tragedy brought along by the mindless “no changes” crowd that doesn’t understand the nuance and intricacies of wow, because most of the people calling for classic didn’t, unfortunately.
Having infinite debuff slots does not make a significant difference versus having just 16 debuff slots.
On the same token: what would change if we had unlimited debuff slots?
Oh cool, I guess hunters can get a 32 dps increase?
Warlocks maybe get a 8-13% increase in using corruption if they’re SM/ruin?
Rogues using rupture…?
…cool?
That could really make a difference if you could throw on all the paladin judgements on every boss I’d think. Extra healing for all melee, more mana back for all classes with mana bars, and more holy damage dealt by priests and paladins.
Hunters would not use serpent sting, it’s a mana hog. Warlocks actually don’t even gain much dps at all, I don’t believe. I think there’s a myth out there about the OP affliction warlock buffs for TBC, but it was just that a myth. Buffs to shadow damage, and how warlocks worked lead to very similar situations with warlocks that happened in TBC. It was just more pronounced there because there was no longer an excuse for not using the dots.
What it does do is that it allows shadow priest to be a ranged dps spec, instead of a single raid member roll for debuffs. It allows for the usage of different weapons, it allows for warriors and rogues to change specs/poisons, a BIG concern is debuff griefing, were people are dropping the sunder armor and other debuffs because they are intentionally derailing the raid or other issues.
There’s a LOT about the debuff limit that isn’t just in class viability. The entire systemic issue was the single most complained about vanilla feature IN THE GAME. There is a reason it was forcibly increased to 16 before the eventual increase to 40 during TBC. Think about that. Of all the changes they intentionally did not make in preparation for TBC because it was going to be addressed in TBC, the debuff limit was the one exception that they rushed into live because it was that unpopular.
Pretty sure you can have multiple dots on a mob. I know of a video where 40 druids took out Onyxia, and then raided Org. They just spammed moonfire on everything and you could see 10 moonfire dots on each mob.
You already got those debuffs anyway with 16. They were not stackable by having multiple paladins in the group trying to use the same judgment, they would just overwrite the other versions of themselves. And really, who is doing that much holy damage to make a difference? Ret pallies had a 10% party aura for holy damage and that was never utilized for groups.
Shadow priest would never be a mage/warlock class in terms of raid comp. the amount of loot that drops that is used by shadow priests is few and far between.
What spec would warriors go if infinite debuffs were allowed? You know that no one actually cares about deep wounds right?
What planet are you on where debuff griefing is a BIG concern? Are you just making stuff up or do you actually believe the main tank in 40 man raids is going to grief their guild?
Where’s your sources that it was the most complained about vanilla feature in the game? I’d be curious to know where CRBGs, DHKs, the honor system in general, and ret paladins not having an instant attack rank on that list of “most complained about features”.
It’s pretty easy to get a good estimate on DPS increases. Take an SM/ruin warlock, for example. Toss him in a 5 man dungeon and have him use his 5 man DPS rotation. Then compare that to his raid rotation in the same dungeon against the same bosses on another run.
Also, you’re a bit late. Decision was made a long time ago to keep Classic vanilla. The decision was pretty much made since Classic was announced and the only question has ever been 8 or 16 debuff slots.
In fact, a warlock with improved corruption, nightfall and ruin (AKA an SM ruin warlock) would see a very large DPS boost. They’d keep corruption up which would be triggering instant cast shadow bolts in addition to the extra damage.
I have a very hard time believeing that it was a technical limit of the hardware or software, but more of a technical limit in their ability to tune the game to a decent and slightly balanced state.
I would take the very long time needed to explain this, but because I am very short on time that’s going to need to work for now…
If you want to know why, then consider the variance that is possible with different group comps based on the very wide variety of debuffs. Selecting the componetn of those debuffs was part of the “Vanilla” play style.
As a result the game was more or less balanced around that.
It’s not though, because we’ve NEVER had a recreation of vanilla wow to test in. What about SM/ruin? What does that spec have anything to do with this conversation? SM/ruin was a PVP based spec, DS/Ruin outperformed it in pve. It’s pretty clear that this was always going to be the case as you continue to watch the game evolve. As the debuff limit was raised, warlocks didn’t get any better with using their dots. They were dps losses, being too clunky to fit into reasonable rotations. Even in TBC, when the game was the best for SM/Ruin, warlocks still didn’t dot, except for agony, which was so small most of the warlocks just straight up stopped using it because unless you had near perfect rotation on it, it was not a dps increase. And having to manage a dot for a small padding of the meter was more trouble than just spamming one button.
In fact, SM/ruin is great for raid DPS as well as PvP. With the debuff limit removed it would become the highest warlock DPS raid spec no doubt. And thus the Classic experience would be altered, which is contrary to the purpose of Classic.
Judgement of the crusader can increase holy damage by 306. So if paladins can use seals and judgements of righteousness and command, holy shock, consecrate, reflected damage from blessing of sanctuary and retribution aura. And priests can throw in some holy fire, smites, and holy novas when they get a chance, that can lead to a lot of extra holy damage.