I know that the bar was lowered with BFA…And we’ve come to expect little, but you will have to endure Shadowlands for at least 2 years from now, and it’s not even started yet, its on friggin alpha! C’mon people, really, dont accept stuff like:
No new race/class combos: There’s no new class. The LEAST they can do is allow us to experience the current classes with whatever race we enjoy, it’s been 16 years now! So much for player agency, not letting us mix and match our own perfect race/class combo!
BFA GCD: The GCD changes in BFA were terrible, no one likes them and they are still trying to make them stick around. Yet we hate it. So much for player agency, Sticking to a feature no one likes!
The ENTIRETY of player character growth coming from borrowed powers. There’s nothing new for our classes, there’s only stuff that will be meaningless after the expansion is over from covenants, like the artifact weapons and like heart of azeroth. So much for player agency, giving 0 skills or talents choices that will stick around after the expansion is over!
Player agency is a buzz word, just another buzz word they throw around when they’re about to launch a new expansion and never really do anything to show they believe in that concept.
Its cute that you think complaining about something will change blizzards mind. They do what they want and there’s nothing you will ever do to change their course.
Yea I strongly believe we should be hard on them when they do bad things like corruption but we also need to give credit where it’s due and the VAST majority of things I have seen from alpha ave very positive changes.
I’d like draenei warlocks, but other than that, I really couldn’t care less. This is why I’m personally not raving on the forums. (Also I’m not a psychopath)
I really don’t give two F’s about the gcd change. It’s fine for practically every class that I play. Barely even notice anymore. It’s called “adapting”
While I would like a new spell or two, I’m not really willing to lose what I have in order to obtain them, which is Blizzard’s philosophy, and has been for at least the last 5(?) years.
Different people are different. We value different things. Go figure.
I don’t get why baseline abilities were made into talents. Or new talents created that are so crucial they might as well be baseline since nobody picks the other two (cataclysm on destro).
All those things should be made baseline. Blizzard should accept the possibility that it is hard to balance things where one thing is not clearly better than the others. Give us 4 talents per row to pick from, then allow us to pick 2. There might be a must have choice for the first pick, but the second ones will be a bit more even.
Then we’ll finally have customization back. As it stands right now a lot of the “mostly unpicked” talents come close in power already. We just never get a chance to pick them since we’re limited to only one pick.
-1 People that are still playing mostly don’t care anymore about the quality of the game
-2 It will be hard to be worse than BFA
-3 A side of me still think they just don’t care about what people think of covenants, they are going with it #yolo
I am happy with the possible race/class combos. I think it is important that some races cannot be certain classes. If you can be anything you want the value of your choice goes down since there are less sacrifices you had to make.
I am very happy with how GCD works now. I hope it does stick around with some changes for certain few abilities that people reliably complain about. i don’t play every class but on my monk, hunter and warrior and I enjoy the tempo of the game better with a GCD. I like this feature.
You must not have read anything on the new expansions. Classes are getting more skills and talents. Admittedly most if not all of the skills and talents were old things that were removed but still that is a step in the permanent upgrade direction. That said it is wayyyyy too early to make any meaningful comment on Covenant power strength or character growth from it. Until I can see the covenant powers on raid bosses I am gonna assume they are nice flavor abilities like the arrow that lets me shoot through walls.
Replying to my own post, an example of why I feel this way is lets look at destro locks right now:
First talent tier. Normally I’d pick Flashover for the most convenience. But if I could pick Flashover with either Soulfire or Eradication both of them would be legit picks. One would give me an extra button to press and aid in resource generation at the cost of extra (much sorely needed) rotation complexity. Or if I feel like I need a break from that I can go for Eradication for the passive damage gain. As it is now… I got little choice with one pick.
Second talent tier. As much as I want to pick Shadowburn now, I’m forced into Reverse Entropy for the haste proc. But if given two picks. I’d get to snatch Shadowburn for nostalgia and to have another button to press for execution scenarios. While others get to mull over that value vs Internal Combustion because when you can pick Internal Combustion with Reverse Entropy it has very respectable damage potential.
Third tier. Always pick Fel Rush. We got crappy mobility. Fel rush gives us a bit of speed despite the harsh health loss that comes with it (cause SCREW warlocks getting to just have convenience right?!). But now I get to debate on whether I want Fel Armor or Dark Pact. Both are pretty good. I suppose it would be situational and I’d end up using both. But since I only get one pick I never get to use either. That’s what happens when we can only pick one of the three talents.
Fourth tier. This may not be the best example unless they change the third talent choice. But this is where Cataclysm is. A must have pick for destro that I brought up in my last post. With a 2nd choice 99% of locks would go for the AoE incinerate. Inferno is just a trash talent and it’s one of those situations where Blizzard has to delete it and come up with something brand new that would be a more competitive pick with the other two talents. Also why I originally suggested each tier comes with 4 talents to balance out situations like this.
Fifth tier. Demonic Circle is actually finally being baseline in Shadowlands. It was originally a baseline ability and that’s one small step in the right direction. Honestly this entire tier is an insult to the spec. All three of these abilities were baseline for Destruction at one point. You were used to having them if you were destro without jumping through hoops.
Sixth. Another tier that isn’t a great example because Blizzard has neglected it since WoD. Grim of Sac is a worthless talent. Arguably the most useless talent in the game. It was once the best talent in the tier because it gave you 25% of your spellpower for getting rid of the demon but Blizzard didn’t like how everyone was picking it. Instead of just bringing the other two talents up to a similar standard they decided to just nerf it to the point of uselessness instead. Now nobody picks it. I hope they’re happy! Cause even with two extra talent choices people still wouldn’t pick it. 100% of warlocks would take the other two if things stayed the same.
Final tier. Right now I pick the now ex-baseline ability Dark Soul. Cause I actually like having CDs to blow during a burst window. I miss when this tier actually buffed the already baseline ability. I can’t think of any reason to pick the other two when you’re left with only one choice. But if you have two choices… well those other talents become very competitive. It’s a very tough choice and both would be viable but if I had to pick one I’d go for Channel Demonfire. This is how talent picks should be. No automatic grabs. Being able to see the value in them all.
But that isn’t possible when you only get one pick per tier…
Call me a conspiracy theorist or anything, but I feel like corruptions are their attempt at making the worst “forging”, so they can make us feel good about SL when they remove it. Same for GCD.
Game has always had borrowed power. Tier sets are borrowed power. Ever notice how in vanilla hybrid classes were garbage outside of what their raid set enhancements? They would have to pvp to get a dps themed set. Except warriors, they scaled with crit so well that they just stacked it and they had almost infinite rage.
The game also gave abilities right to classes every expansion outside of tier sets, from Vanilla through MoP. That’s what people mean when they say borrowed power - abilities for classes tied to a feature that will only last an expansion. I don’t recall tier sets having active abilities either; I remember them all being passive.
It would be nice to see more class/race combinations added
I believe it was being discussed, so cross fingers and continue praying that it gets reverted
Adding more and more abilities/talents is not the answer, but I do agree that borrowed powers feels a bit cheap. If the goal is to make our specs feel fresh and new with each expansion, without creating a massive skill bloat, this may be the toughest one to solve.
I think what you are trying to talk about is more talent rows. They have added new talents and abilities. Also tier sets completely changed some abilities and had their own rotational changes because of it
