i would like to start by saying that I GREATLY appreciate all the hard work and great communication exhibited by the classic team! i have been excited from the start about classic, but the last month or so has hyped me to the point of almost frothing at the mouth!!
however, there is still one thing that I believe is missing to make this a TRUE vanilla experience, and as the title says it’s releasing the game with only 8 debuff slots instead of 16.
i have posted my thoughts on this in a couple other threads, but I figured it would perhaps catch more eyes if I made a new thread about it.
starting with 16 debuff slots will drastically change MC progression and early BWL progression. it will increase damage done to bosses, and shorten kill times. as anyone who played in retail vanilla (or private servers) knows, MC isn’t the most difficult dungeon to begin with. starting with 16 debuff slots would only make it easier, and i believe trivialize Ragnaros to the point where guilds wouldn’t even need to put effort into crafting fire resistance gear, as the boss would be dying so fast it wouldn’t really matter.
it would also make Vaelastrasz easier than intended. Vael was supposed to be a gear check to progress further into BWL. if you couldn’t kill him you had to go back and farm MC, and run 5 mans for gear to increase your raids DPS output. starting with 16 debuffs will trivialize this encounter i believe.
the classic team has listened to so much feedback from the community, that i’m hoping you will see that doing what i’m suggesting will be the last step in truly making the PVE experience almost identical to what it was in retail vanilla, and give us the game that the vast majority of us are wanting.
I agree, they said they changed the content release phases from 4 to 6 because DM gear would “affect progression through early raids”. starting the game with 8 additional debuff slots would arguably affect progression even more.
Please pay attention to this Blizz. It matters. If we got spell batching for authenticity and no DM gear initially for authenticity then surely we can get this for authenticity as well, right?
I mean thinking about it, if they’re going to do a progressive content release it would make the most sense to start with an 8 debuff limit and then raise it to 16 later.
I feel that this is too far though. Will we next be asking for original talent tree pacing as well? To where some classes have massive overhauls to confuse new players along the way?
I agree with the OP that if there is a low-effort solution to 8 debuff slots then they might as well throw it in until the BWL patch where it would increase to 16.
If they are already limiting debuff slots to 16, then they know how to limit debuff slots. This makes me think that there could be a way of starting it at 8 which doesn’t involve many resources or research by the Classic team.
It is hard to communicate how raiding tactics change from 8 to 16 debuff slots without actually experiencing it with the current meta. With 8 slots every single debuff in hardcore guilds is accounted for, there are some creative choices, and if someone accidentally throws a dot onto a boss or trash mob they get yelled at. The main job of warlocks is to apply their assigned debuff out of the 3-4 curses which the raid has decided to use and to refrain from using any other debuffs. Skipping 8 debuffs to 16 does remove some flavor and nuances from Classic Molten Core raiding in particular.
By the way, the main reason Blizzard increased the debuff slots was Vaelastrasz – guilds were exploiting the 8 debuff limitation by using 8 priests to cast mind vision on a raid member who had the bomb debuff, which would result in knocking off the bomb debuff. So changing it to 16 debuff slots when BWL is released is accurate and makes sense.
MC is still a challenge for fresh 60’s with green and blue gear.
Private servers clear that place under 30 min because they are overgeared, abuse consumables/professions, and have knowledge of every fight. Also, private servers have their data wrong which makes it even easier.
You will see plenty of raids wiping to bosses in the first month of MC. Especially pugs.
they already said they want to use 1.12 patch. If you try and pick and choose stuff from release. then why not remove 15 min pally buffs(added before aq40), original AV and original skill trees. like you can pick and choose all day long the changes you want. but increased debuff cap is “vanilla like” just like you are asking for. it was added around ZG if im not mistaken, thus a part of the 1.12 patch they are trying to emulate.
This is such an important detail. If 16 debuffs are allowed, then people will be downing rag in the first week. That’s not how the game is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be difficult. The resistance gear in dungeons has one purpose- to help raids progress so their healers don’t oom.
Some people have been asking to make raids more difficult. You can start by making them vanilla- 8 debuff slots please!
they are already variating from 1.12 in the sense they are not releasing the game with the item upgrades from that patch until Nax release. this would be very minor.
also 15 minute pallie buff’s don’t effect the DPS of the raid, or the kill time of the bosses
There is the biggest problem with Classic WoW, WE have that knowledge as well. Knowledge we didn’t have in 2004. That will greatly change the dynamic of progression & leveling. You can’t go back in time.
you must not have played vanilla pally. buffing a 5 min buff on every raider takes almost 5 mins. by time you finish buffing its time to buff again. having 15 min buffs greatly speed up alliance guilds who would have had to wait for the pallys to stop and drink constantly not to mention the time it takes for 40 gcd to buff everyone
this account i’m posting on is my original vanilla character.