Let's discuss borrowed power & new features going forward

Community General Discussion
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One of the selling points for Dragonflight for many long time fans of WoW was that they wouldn’t be doing a borrowed power system.

The recent news of data mining with new gems giving borrowed power in patch 10.0.7 has me thinking about if this expansion actually did come with borrowed power from day one… Let me explain.

Because of the new talent system every class has new abilities and some removed. This is to be expected because of such a huge change in a core system in WoW.

Now what happens when the next expansion after Dragonflight comes out? Does blizzard simply add another row to the talent tree with more options? I doubt it. We have been down that road before and it leads to a overwhelming amount of abilities, and I’d say most classes are already struggling with ability bloat.

If blizzard removes abilities again and adds new ones into the talent tree for the next expansion, what is the difference between that and any other borrowed power system other than just unlocking it via your talent tree?

I don’t think I’d enjoy having to learn a ton of cooldowns for every spec each time a new expansion comes out. This probably isn’t as big of an issue for Raids and Mythic+, but in PvP, knowing the details of a big cooldown from an enemy player is often the difference between a win or loss.

What do you all think they could do to make all the specs feel fresh and interesting without changing or replacing abilities?

In my opinion, spell cosmetics would be a solid idea, at least for one expansion. Kind of like how warlocks can change their ‘red’ fire spells to ‘green’ fire spells via a quest. It would have to be on a larger scale though.

I also think features like Dragon riding can carry an expansion as long as they make them timeless and not irrelevant as soon as the expansion ends. Player housing would be another one of these features but we all know what happens when players ask about that feature haha.

What do you all think? What else can World of Warcraft do/bring into the game as a core timeless feature?

Some things to consider about such features:

They need to be somewhat easy to maintain. Blizzard isn’t going to add a feature and keep it going long term if it takes a lot of effort just to keep it going.

It has to appeal to a large portion of the overall players. Niche features are great for patches, but expansions need to generate lots of interest from all types of players.

Lastly in my opinion, the expansion features need to feel like ‘World of Warcraft’… In a good way. By that I mean they should be able to fit into the mechanics, lore and general vibe of the game.

Looking forward to hearing some ideas, hope you all have a great day. =)

1 Like
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Could just let us keep acquiring more talent points so we can fill out the talent tree completely, but then how broken would we really be? They’d be nerfing Outlaw rogue with every single patc…wait a mintute.

Edit: I see you typing Hornless.

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You mean borrowed power like a trinket or tier or do you mean borrowed power like the passive abilty tree systems of Legion-SL like artifact weapons , azerite gear or souilbinds/conduits that people were not happy with ?

Because i would put the gems in the vein of trinkets or tier.

2 Likes
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This is a lot closer to the mechagon punchcard trinket than any of the problematic borrowed power systems of the past.

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There needs to be more good passive talents, and most active talents need to cost more points. Active abilities that are 3x the strength of the average passive should cost 3 points.

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Frankly they need to be removed. 2nd remove talent points alotgether and make classes whole. Its kinda stupid you go into a mythic dungeon and have to chose between doing 0 aoe abilites or all aoe and your single target suffers by 40%.

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I’ll give you an example of what I mean from the spec I am currently playing. Assassination rogues lost an ability called “Vendetta” in Dragonflight and it was replaced by an ability called Deathmark. If they do the same thing next expansion with another key ability, or even the same one… That is still just borrowing power expansion to expansion right?

Sure you don’t need to do any extra steps outside of leveling up to unlock more of your talent tree, however in shadowlands once you got one toon to cap level you could use threads of fate on your alts and instantly unlock all the covenant abilities while you leveled up. There was still passives you had to work towards with conduits, but a lot of those were directly transferred over to our talent trees as well.

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correct and there isn’t any.

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We do not need more firepower that requires hard-core farming because eventually dungeon difficulty will take that part into the consideration. The final outcome is that hardcore players got a little improvement in the gaming experience and casual players will never complete a 20 m+ dungeon.

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Abilities and talents have always come and gone with new expansions.

By your logic talent systems are borrowed power.

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Abilities have come and gone since the game launched .
THey look at what is used and what isn’t . Just because you used an ability doesn’t me most did . Also they look at will they be able to balance said abilities .

As for the gems like it was said they are closer to the mechagon trinkets .
Trinklets are gear do you consider replacing gear as you level or change expansions as borrowed power systems?

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To a degree sure, but talent trees use to be way more simple. Most of your abilities didn’t come from it before. Most of your abilities were baseline for your spec.

The point I am trying to make is that a lot of players who didn’t want borrowed power was because they didn’t want to lose key abilities when an expansions ended. Lots of people said it felt like being nerfed and that they were missing something when starting a new expansion.

If they keep changing and replacing core abilities from talent trees expansion to expansion, people are going to get the exact same feeling of ‘loss’ and being ‘nerfed’ and that they are ‘missing’ an ability.

I am only talking about core abilities here that are almost always in your rotation or cooldown list.

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For a game this old borrowed power is a requirement and even they occasionally need to squish.

There is no world where power is continually additive. Either embrace it or move on. Those are the choices.

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Ah I miss vendetta. The way assassin plays now isn’t as fun as it used to be.

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I don’t know I believe I got one doing a ptr quest.

Ok found it

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They realise it is not possible to retain player interest without burrowed power. Hi, it is not affecting pvp, it is not worth grinding for.

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I agree. Vendetta could fit into any build, and you didn’t have to build around it to get the most use out of it.

Deathmark isn’t bad, but it feels limiting. It requires more setup and because it’s bleed damage, your talent choices can directly buff it, or do nothing for it.

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So those trinkets you have on are borrowed power on right ?

Because the new gems are going to pretty much turn what ever they go into an extra trinket .

1 Like
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kitty cat that was a biiiiiig stretch

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Meh, you be crazy to lose pvp bounes over some gem. It is not tier set, that is also burrowed power