Am I the only one here? Like I am not against it at all. Unprune all you want but I wanted actual class development not just some old abilities back and a new “expansion themed” ability.
From a mage point of view in pve I just can not see any reason getting frostbolt and arcane blast back will matter at all. Since most solo things that frostbolt would hit will just die before they get to me anyway and I can just use heating up for flamestrike, meteor, DB, ice nova, phoenix flames etc if I am worried about aoe.
We have gotten the preview and in depth look now. No talent changes, no new core abilities, no changes to core abilities besides number tuning with the new scaling, no new talent at all.
We also do not have a new class, no new race (which we dont really need tbh)…the only thing is replacing azerite abilities with soulbind and essences with coven skills…+legion legendary.
Maybe I am crazy but I am just not seeing what is changing besides our environment. I already pre ordered the game because I like the aesthetic and idea of shadowlands, im really hoping they just haven’t revealed how classes are changing besides giving us back some old abilities.
The prune always affected pvp a lot more than pve. If anything, it was done to try to streamline pve for people by giving them less buttons to deal with… but at the same time it greatly reduced the tactical options for people in pvp.
I would imagine for a lot of people who don’t pvp, the unprune won’t change their action bars very much.
edit: specifically you mention frostbolt and arcane explosion (not blast). These spells are both huge for mages in pvp - specifically fire mages with frostbolt (a ranged snare), and AE is the best counter-stealth in the game.
I saw in a post someone raving about all the talent changes they are working on, did i miss something?
That is what I am concerned about, same exact gameplay, same grind, new area.
I understand that can be loosely used to describe every WoW expansion but I figured with no new class no new race and really a continuation of a story that has been going on the entirety of BFA already we would have some cool new mechanics placed on our classes.
It is hard to be this real on the forums unfortunately but I do agree.
I am actually surprised with how hard this community has wanted class change they didnt take the opportunity of giving us a 4th spec instead of a new class.
There hasn’t really been much that has been pruned from mages that I’d care to have back. Alter Time and Deep Freeze are the only two things I can think of that I want back.
Dunno about Arcane Blast but I would definitely like to have Frostbolt in my arsenal for times when a touch of control is needed. The one I’m most excited about is Arcane Explosion for finishing off packs of mobs when all other AoEs are on Cooldown.
I completely understand that it is a balancing nightmare, but we are also paying them a lot of money.
Like think of any other game, say the new call of duty. 60 bucks to get it. It’s 60 for the past WoW expansion, now someone subscribed for 6 months also to play the new expansion. We just paid double what we give any other game on release.
If it is difficult it may be time to clean house or maybe just look at the mass request on the forums and see if it can be worked on.
Necromancer, tinker, dark ranged are mass requested. Maybe show the players why that wouldn’t work instead of just straight not giving us anything new.
I don’t own a business or have my own video game though so my opinion really is baseless lol.
That would be true if we were losing access to anything, but we’re not. They’ve confirmed that anything that is soloable now will be soloable then because at 50 our power is the same as it was at 120.
Now if instead we just lost access to all content after level 50, THAT would be a progression cut, but they’re not insane and so are not doing that.
Unless there is some drastic difficulty change and AI of mobs though when is a tad bit of control (1 mob with frostbolt) really necessary? Again not hating on the unpruning but from playing since classic and losing arcane explosion I have never been in a situation where I’m like “damn I wish I had arcane explosion right now”
I totally get the fun of it and maybe the “cool I can just finish off these trash mobs now” but any real pve it will be avoided.
I found my hunter completely boring because they pruned it too much over the years, and so far the abilities that we know are coming back for that class/specs makes me happy. I think it would probably depend on the class if you’re excited.
Even now there are world elites that can’t just be nuked. It’s fun to try to take them down solo.
Might just boil down to playstyle differences (guessing you run with a more AoE heavy build than I do) but I run into it fairly consistently, usually at least a couple times for every Nazjatar/Mechagon run.
I’m not as worried about group play as I am about solo. The collective abilities of groups tend to fill in utility gaps but you don’t have that benefit for solo stuff. The pre-pruning “box full of tools for every situation” mage class design made them one of the best in the game for soloing and I’d like to see some of that return.