In the Blizzcon presentations for WoW Classic, it was mentioned that they chose to use 16 debuff slots rather than 8 because they wanted to ensure more people could play the specs they wanted. One thing they used as an example was Warriors and the Deep Wounds talent, citing that Warriors in early vanilla couldn't spec Deep Wounds because it would overwrite more important debuffs. This is true.
However, in addition to an increase in debuff slots to 16, later in vanilla in patch 1.11, another system was added to address these concerns. The debuff priority system ensured that the most crucial debuffs for raiding, like Sunder Armor, would never be overwritten by the least crucial debuffs, like Deep Wounds. With only having 16 debuff slots and not having the debuff priority system, there could still be issues with Deep Wounds overwriting other debuffs. Similarly, even if the debuff slots were 8, Deep Wounds (for Impale) would be safe to spec into as a Warrior because the priority system would ensure it never overwrote important debuffs.
During the presentations at Blizzcon, Blizzard said that their reasoning behind choosing 16 debuff slots was to ensure less problems with less critical debuffs overwriting more critical ones. My fear is that this is only half the solution, and perhaps not even the most effective part of the solution. The debuff priority system is the best solution to this problem. I'm wondering whether they remember that it was added to the game in 1.11, and thus I created this post as a potential reminder. It was a really long time ago, after all.
Bumping this one time for visibility, and to see if others find this to be as important as I do for the health of the game. Thanks.
+1
The main reason I wonder whether it is known is because, during the presentation, they also said that they had data from "a little before" patch 1.12, which sounded as if they may have had some of the data from 1.11 but perhaps not everything.
I posted this during the height of forum spam about sharding and loot trading, so I'd like to bump it once more, because I feel this is a really important system that needs to be put back in the game. This will be the last time I bump it unless some conversation happens.
A very interesting question... I would hope it gets addressed.
Yeah, I actually just watched that section of the Classic panel again, and I determined that Blizzard didn't actually quite say what I thought. All he actually said was that the 8 and 16 debuff limits are objectively worse game design than modern WoW but they are restoring 16 debuff slots anyway due to balance and authenticity. Although he mentioned that it was a problem that debuffs could be overwritten by less important ones (such as Deep Wounds overwriting Sunder Armor), he made no mention of addressing that issue.
In my opinion, not addressing the issue of debuff priority is in fact a violation of authenticity, because it was addressed in vanilla in patch 1.11. Since they are putting the game systems (not counting progressive content release) in a 1.12 state, it seems to me that they should be adding the debuff priority system as well.
In my opinion, not addressing the issue of debuff priority is in fact a violation of authenticity, because it was addressed in vanilla in patch 1.11. Since they are putting the game systems (not counting progressive content release) in a 1.12 state, it seems to me that they should be adding the debuff priority system as well.