I don’t like the active nature of Ice Floes. I’d consider taking it if it was changed to a passive that read something like:
“Moving while casting spells, but not jumping, won’t be interrupted while you have a charge of Ice Floes. Successfully completing a cast consumes a charge. 3 charges (same recharge time as base game.”
I’d also suggest a change to Shimmer, though I’m not sure if the tech is in the game yet. Shimmer would be a 2-click ability, once to initiate the spell and one more time to target the area on the ground that you’d shimmer to. Macro users can easily turn this into a 1-click spell with the [@cursor] conditional.
With both these options, the Mage can decide if they want to teleport or walk out of danger.
No one likes it. The best thing you can do is macro it to key spells that you don’t want to risk having to cancel when moving. Forget about actually using it proactively specifically for movement.
So like a Heroic Leap for Mages? Not sure how I feel about it. Targeted reticle abilities are a pain. Besides they clearly don’t know how to change the code of Blink because it’s been utterly broken since the game launched and never been fixed in almost 20 years.
The bottom line is that movement has become increasingly prevalent in the game to the point where virtually every boss mechanic and M+ affix revolve around some kind of movement. That simply isn’t conducive to a status quo where casting roots the player in place.
Most other MMOs have long since abandoned this concept in favor of being able to freely cast on the move or otherwise provide ample instant cast abilities to use on the move without tanking your DPS. WoW’s model is simply incredibly outdated in that regard and needs a fundamental paradigm shift.
There is simply no reason not to have casting on the move as a baseline in the modern game anymore and, in fact, I would argue that with every new expansion it becomes more and more necessary. The only reason it hasn’t changed is because Blizzard are stubborn and are only now realizing they can’t keep doing things the way they always were just because without alienating players. But at this glacial pace of change I won’t expect anything to do done about the caster movement issue for a very long time, if indeed ever.
I do. Don’t make assumptions that just because you don’t like something nobody else does either.
The ability to decide when my ice floes activates is an important part of the talent for me. I often use movement to cancel my spellcasts when necessary. Making ice floes work passively will make that a bit more annoying to deal with and runs the risk of me wasting a charge on something that really wasn’t that important. In some fights I know that I need to save my mobility for a big burn phase (like Smolderon), so it’s better for me to cancel a cast and lose DPS outside of that burn so that I can have 3 full charges going into the burn phase.
There are also cases where you may need to cancel a cast to switch targets (like the Heartsbane Triad). I’m sure I’ll get a retort of “just change spellcasting to hit the target you end the spellcast on instead of the one you start it on” but that’s changing a relatively fundamental gameplay concept that isn’t likely to happen and would probably have some problematic implications in PvP. The other retort I’ll get is “just change your cancel cast button or macro it into a spell” but I’ll be honest I’ve been doing it this way for over 15 years and I’m too stubborn to change it now.
Ice Floes isn’t just about having mobility, it’s about having the knowledge and control to decide when to use it.
You’ve already lost the point of shimmer here. It’s off the GCD and can be cast while casting. Making it take longer than a single click risks it being too slow or interfering with your existing casts. Macro or not, it defeats the “instantaneous reaction” concept of the ability.
On the other hand, I personally wouldn’t be opposed to an additional blink (probably on a longer cooldown) that does just that - let’s us target exactly where we want to go (and maybe with some extra range to it). However, between blink, alter time, and displacement, I feel like we’re already zipping around a fair amount. Something like that might be an option as a choice node on Alter Time (especially since a lot of mages complain that they struggle to use Alter Time correctly in the first place).
It seems that the idea you’re looking for is some improved mobility for mages. I would take a look in the Arcane tree at Foresight. Its placement in the tree makes it so that it’s rarely taken, but I feel like putting this option in the general tree would be what you’re looking for with the Ice Floes suggestion. I’ve always been curious about Foresight but could never justify taking it (especially when it requires a full 10 seconds of standing still). With a bit of tweaking perhaps it could become an actual useful talent.
As it stands, we have a choice between Ice Floes and Shimmer. As Kerathras points out (relatively frequently, actually), there’s a lot of mobility in modern WoW and casters haven’t always been granted the right abilities to keep up with that. Maybe what we really need is a choice between Ice Floes and (a better version of) Foresight AND a separate choice between Alter Time and “Heroic Leap for Mages”. (Though with that suggestion I’m not sure where to put shimmer).
We’ve got plenty of garbage talents in the general tree - I’m sure we could easily bump some of those out without too much complaint.
You can like it all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still just a gimmick that could easily become obsolete tomorrow if casting on the move was enabled. Just like RoP was “liked” by some people and thought to be irreplaceable until it wasn’t.
The point I was trying to make is that the game is full of these outdated concepts that continue to exist only because “it’s always been like that and we don’t want to change it because our superiors always told us not to” I paraphrased Ion there. They’re slowly waking up to this and realizing that massive changes are long overdue.
The arbitrary restrictions to casting on the move are a perfect example of this and ought to be right at the front of line of the chopping block. You know it’s bad when certain specs or even entire classes are so punished by these restrictions they literally can’t do certain boss fight without being carried. Just look at the last 3 bosses this tier.
Your main argument against changing Ice Floes is removal of player agency. Well if they enabled casting on the move that entire problem goes away entirely and players get all the agency over their movement.
Yeah that happens around here a lot. Kerathras and I have had that particular tilt before. It’s certainly okay to dislike Ice Floes, just as it’s okay to dislike SKB or whatever else. But that’s not license to assume everyone feels the same way or that Blizz is obligated to cater to one’s personal preferences regarding playstyle.
The inevitable retort will be “other classes do better DPS with less constraint therefore Ice Floes is lazy design” followed by the persistent refrain that Mages are a favorite punching bag of neglect from the devs.
As an SKB Fire Mage, learning how to use Ice Floes was almost mandatory, and it’s really not that hard to use. You learn to anticipate when ground effects may be coming and my fingers are always hovering over the Floes hotkey while I’m midcast. Saying the best we can do is macro it to our critical spells is one of the wrongest things I’ve read in here and that’s saying something.
Alter Time is harder for me to use than Floes. I suck at it, but I consider that to be a me problem. My point is they don’t need to change AT for me just because I’m bad at it.
Right and I get where y’all are coming from, I really do. However, you guys tend to overreact when I or anyone else says “everyone likes or dislikes something.” Of course that doesn’t apply to EVERY SINGLE PERSON playing the game, it’s just a turn of phrase. There is no need for the “aha, I gotcha because you used an absolute and I am an exception!” Frankly, it’s exhausting. Would it make you feel better if I said “the vast majority” or something like that?
At the end of the day the fundamental difference between you and I is that you have accepted the limitations of the game and gone out of your way to adapt to them whereas I have always rebelled against what I see as arbitrary restrictions that may have made sense at one time but no longer do. In a perverse way you have become attached to these crutches and are loath to see them go (even if it would be for the better in the long run) because all that time and effort you spent learning how to use them would have been wasted. I on the other hand have no such qualms because I never compromised my enjoyment of the game and forced myself to play a certain way just because it was optimal, even if it meant I couldn’t play certain types of content. You can call it obstinance or lack of a desire to learn but this is a game, something I do for fun, and it makes no sense to me doing something I don’t enjoy while playing WoW. If I am forced to do that I’d rather just not play at all, which is exactly what I did in SL.
While I like the agency of Ice Floes (as mentioned above, there are certainly times you’d want to hold it, and could be screwed over if it were passively applied/consumed), it does feel a bit like an unnecessary step around something that should really just be native to the game. At three charges and really only ever needing it for SKB or Shifting Power (which resets it anyway), it’s very rare that you don’t have a charge up, so it already feels like (as Fire) you can cast everything except Fireball while moving…so would it really break the game to kill this arguably archaic restriction altogether? I’d love my second blink back…
Yes. Yes it is. Maybe stop speaking in absolutes all the time?
Unless you have verifiable data to support a statement like “vast majority,” I’m still going to challenge you. Unless and until you do, try simply speaking for yourself, and be okay that others may disagree with you rather than claiming yourself a member of some phantom “majority.”
Ironic that you refer to talents that you find too difficult to take the time to learn as “crutches,” when I would argue that making everything castable while moving by default would be oversimplifying gameplay such that THAT would be more accurately described as a “crutch.”
But herein lies the crux of where I think you’re wrong. Talents like Ice Floes and SKB don’t take an arduous amount of “time and effort… spent learning how to use them” effectively, unless your only definition of effective is so narrow that it means parsing purple at the Mythic level, which in and of itself is flawed logic.
Well, the typical tone of your posts belies this statement. Your constant disparagement suggests that you do in fact feel “forced” to play builds you consider to be suboptimal and that you resent that. Certainly not consistent with someone who feels their enjoyment of the game hasn’t been compromised.
And for the record, neither have I compromised anything by choosing to play an SKB build with Ice Floes. I enjoy playing those talents. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t. And as I’ve said many many many times, it’s okay not to like those talents. There are many other ways of playing the game. There are many builds and classes out there I dislike but I don’t need them to be changed to my preference just because my head canon says I’m X class so I will rail until said class fits my personal vision of it.
Unfortunately, you know as well as I do that this isn’t possible because Blizzard refuse to release those statistics or even allow for something as simple as a poll function on the forums (maybe challenge Blizzard to be more open with their data sharing). That said, you don’t need to have unsurmountable factual proof for common sense statements like: most players don’t like movement restrictions.
I don’t see the irony at all. What else would you call abilities that only exist to make something that isn’t otherwise possible… possible? If casting on the move was baseline there would simply be no need for abilities like Ice Floes, that’s just a factual statement. Same with things like Winter’s Chill for example. It wouldn’t need to exist if the regular freeze mechanics worked on bosses. Or Evocation if mana wasn’t an issue. All of those things are bandaids and simple fixes that only exist as solutions to much more widespread and complex problems. All I am saying is let’s be radical and address the real root cause of the problem rather than these workarounds and, yes, crutches.
That’s just a question of degree. What I consider excessive you may find trivial and vice versa. For me this game is just a fun pass time and really any undo effort is too much as far as I am concerned. Of course I do realize that not everyone else feels that way and that indeed I might be in the minority. But that’s the beauty of having an equal opportunity to voice your concerns, which we all do as paying subscribers with access to these forums.
I get that a lot and I honestly just don’t get it. Do you think it’s not possible to enjoy something and also be critical of it because you want to make it better? What could be more natural? Of course I am critical of the game. Why else would I be on these forums if I was happy and had no criticism or feedback to offer? If I want to praise the game I will do it on social media. Patting Blizzard’s backs is not what these forums are designed for, at least that’s not how I see it.
Again, it’s a question of degree. Having to use talents like that may not bother you as much as it does me, so you are naturally not going to be as vocal about it as I would. And, for the record, I don’t want to remove things people might enjoy but in some cases there simply isn’t any other way to move forward. Some people really liked RoP, genuinely, but there was no way to keep it in the game without also forcing everyone else to use it and as we all saw when I repeatedly said that “the overwhelming majority of players” didn’t like RoP I was right, or Blizzard wouldn’t have removed it. Same thing with Ice Floes. If the root cause of the problem is removed and casting on the move becomes baseline there would simply be no reason for abilities like that exist. Y’all’s argument is tantamount to saying “well I enjoy cooking with fire and eating by candlelight and it’s worked fine for thousands of years so we don’t need to invent electricity.”
And? Doesn’t change the fact that you’re then making an assumption with statements about “everybody’s” or even “the vast majority’s” feelings about something. Blizzard not sharing data with you doesn’t make it their fault when you make stuff up.
That’s not a commonsense statement, it’s a cognitive distortion. You are over-generalizing the design of the game, as you are also doing here…
And if cars could only go 30 miles an hour there’d be no need for speed limits. Also a factual statement, yes? It’s called a strawman.
Yes, Ice Floes and Winter’s Chill and Evocation wouldn’t exist if we could cast on the move, and freeze bosses, and had unlimited mana. You’re right, that’s a technically true statement. But the game is not designed to have unlimited mobile casting, or allow roots to work on bosses, or for Arcane Mages to have all the mana they want all the time. Call them flaws if you want but I don’t grant that premise. They are design choices. You’re of course free to dislike those choices, but they are what they are. If they make the game that unfun for you, then play something else. No one will hate you for it.
I mean, I could build hotels on Boardwalk without needing to own Park Place if Monopoly was a different game, but it’s not. It’s Monopoly. If it wasn’t they’d have to call it something else. I could make a commonsense statement that most people don’t like building restrictions, though, right?
Or if you want a comparison closer to WoW’s ballpark: As a Wizard I could cast as many spells as I want in BG3 without resting if D&D didn’t put a limit on spell slots. I mean, that’s just a factual statement. And for that matter why do I have to prepare spells in advance to be able to cast them, and why am I only allowed six? Shouldn’t a powerful Wizard have access to his/her entire spell book at all times? Most Wizard players don’t like restrictions on spell casting, that’s just a commonsense statement, right?
Yeah. Maybe you should ask yourself why that is.
I never said you can’t be critical of the game. I too am critical of the game at times. There’s a difference, however, between constructive criticism and simple disparagement, and my point was that on top of hyperbolic rhetoric you frequently cite “facts” not in evidence as part of your rants, such as asserting that a majority of players share whatever opinion you personally happen to hold.
Another case in point. Again with the underlying assumption that those of us who like Ice Floes and SKB are simply accepting flawed talents because they “don’t bother us as much,” as if no one can possibly like something that you don’t. I do not grant that premise.
You were hardly the lone voice in the wilderness on RoP so don’t give yourself too much credit there. And for the record I agree with you: RoP’s removal was a boost for the Mage class. What I personally had said before they did it was that I was more or less indifferent to it and that I wouldn’t mourn its loss if it happened. And that was accurate. I don’t miss it at all.
I don’t feel the same way about Ice Floes. RoP was design limiting in a way that I don’t see in Ice Floes. I think Ice Floes is fun and I think that permitting unlimited casting on the move would not be the boon that RoP’s deletion was.
Oh good lord. This again is emblematic. Yes, we’re all just gritting our teeth and reading by candlelight because we don’t want that new-fangled stuff like electric light and mobile spell casting in our houses. Get off my lawn, whippersnapper.
The challenge in playing a spec like SKB and learning how to manage long cast times and still avoid boss mechanics is part of the fun for me, and not for nothing I don’t think I’m anywhere near the best in the world at it. I’m an average SKB Mage at best. But I still enjoy it. I think taking away that challenge would make WoW a lesser game. Would I still play if they did that? Probably. But I don’t think it would be better.
Obviously, you disagree and that’s fine. As you said, this is a forum for discussion and debate. All I’m saying is to simply speak for yourself.
Dealing damage could become obsolete tomorrow if they make it so my auto attacks always deal lethal damage. Healing could become obsolete tomorrow if they remove the ability for us to receive damage. Gold could become obsolete tomorrow if they decide to activate Utopia mode where nothing costs money and all the NPC’s shower you with gifts and treasures nonstop.
Being unable to cast while moving isn’t a gimmick. It’s part of the game. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that because for literally years you’ve come to these forums and bragged about how you don’t play the game (or, at the least, barely play it) and still want the devs to cater its design towards you.
Being unable to cast while moving by default is part of the challenge. Personally, I don’t want the game to be handed to me. I want to put work into it (that should be obvious from my decision to play arcane for so long).
That actually, removes player agency. There’s no decision left to make. Blizzard made the decision and you have to live with it. You have no choice. There is no longer an interesting gameplay mechanic. There’s no more “I managed to get that spell off and get out of the one-shot mechanic in just the nick of time!”
I want to be clear that I agree with this. Everyone is free to like and dislike things as they see fit. My issue is coming to a post where, for quite probably the first time ever, I see someone complain about a specific spell and having someone say that nobody likes it. Heck, I regularly recommend usage of this talent for players asking for help and often get told that it helped them become a better player or, at the very least do better in a fight. This is, I think, the first time I’ve seen a negative comment about Ice Floes.
I have learned to adapt and provide criticism where necessary. I’ve learned how to play with the hand I’m dealt while also asking for the cards to be shuffled better. Maybe if you spent more time in-game and less time on the forums you’d understand that. The things you call “crutches” are more like supports and foundations. As your primary example here, allowing casting while moving baseline would be a major shift in gameplay and design. A shift that would very likely make me, and probably quite a few others, lose interest in the game. Some things haven’t changed in the lifetime of wow because it is wow.
Friendly reminder that fire is not the only mage spec
Wow, man. I can’t believe you rely on the crutch of (cars/busses/trains/airplanes/boats/etc.) to get around.
Are health potions a crutch for players that can’t heal themselves? Or a feature to allow players an extra boost when they need it?
Are mounts a crutch for players who can’t run really fast? Or a feature to allow players to move faster?
Are portals for mages a crutch for players who only have a single hearthstone? Or a feature that allows mages to send their party and raid members to other parts of the world?
Have you ever considered that some people play games because they like the complexities? That things like mana and spellcasting exist not to antagonize the players but to allow them to instead overcome a difficulty and rise to the occasion so as to create an interesting and enjoyable gaming experience? Because the gameplay loop you suggest (yes, this is a bit of a slippery slope fallacy) sounds a lot like “just give me stuff because I don’t want to put in the effort”.
Being unable to cast while moving by default is not the root cause of our problem. It’s a root part of the game. The root cause of this problem is that we are required to move more than we have been previously. Last expansion I wasn’t able to take Ice Floes and Alter Time and Displacement. Blizzard has actively granted us additional movement abilities to combat the increasing movement requirements. The arguments I can see are “Blizzard hasn’t provided enough movement” or “Having to move, even with our abilities, causes a bigger DPS loss for us than for other classes” but I’d need to see that backed up with data before I could get behind it.
Oh I know why that is I am just too polite to point it out…
Are you seriously lecturing me on rhetoric and ranting after what you just took the time to write? Okay then, lol.
So my assumption is wrong? You would rather have a clunky ability with limited uses like Ice Floes instead of simply people able to freely move while casting? And you’d rather go through the hassle of SKB instead of simply having a longer or more frequent Combustion? I guess I confess that I don’t see why anyone would prefer the alternative. But what’s wrong with that? You’re making it sound as though I am somehow looking down on people for it when I am simply confused by the desire for what I view as unnecessary complexity, same as with RoP.
If only!
This is exactly what people said about RoP, almost word for word yet now almost no one even spares it another thought let alone misses it. I don’t know how you can’t see that…
Oh come on! You know that’s not the same thing at all. Movement has always been a problem for casters and allowing casting on the move is hardly the godmode you’re implying. Not even in PvP and most definitely not in PvE.
It’s both. And you have to ask yourself why that is. Is there some fundamental reason why it’s necessary? Does it somehow enhance player experience? Or is it just an arbitrary decision that made sense 20 years ago when the hardest movement mechanic the game had ever seen was Heigan the Unclean‘s “dance” in Naxx. Why should we accept it as gospel when it clearly no longer makes any sense to do so and the game has long since outgrown it? Oh, right, how silly of me, “because it’s always been that way.”
But why when the deck itself has been artificially stacked against you? No amount of adaptation or shuffling will make it better because the underlying problem will still be there. You have to think outside the box Blizzard have placed you in all these years. Instead of playing the game they give you why not advocate for the game you want? Well unless of course you’re happy with the hand you’re dealt in which case just enjoy it and let the rest of us say our piece. You don’t even have to thank us later when our advocacy makes the game better for everyone, we don’t do it for you anyway.
I know you feel that way but I completely disagree. I am sure you’re not alone and neither am I, why do we have to squabble over who is in the majority and who is in the minority when we’re all fighting for the same thing? You can’t honestly tell me the movement requirements for the last 3 bosses this tier (on heroic and mythic anyway) aren’t excessive and that the tools we have just aren’t enough? I mean ffs when I inevitably died early the first time I killed Smolderon I was genuinely happy looking at the damage I managed to do before I died and breathing a sigh of relief that it was probably enough to clinch the kill knowing that I and the other half a dozen corpses around me did the best we could under the circumstances. And it’s not like the fights are overtuned or the mechanics are that complex, as casters we simply don’t have the tools to deal with them (just like melee can’t do squat about the blooms on Nymue while also doing any damage). Surely we can agree that’s not right?
Not true. I actually prefer having it as an active ability because it lets me pick and choose when I use it. That said, make it actually work in higher ping situations would be lovely - too many times you hit it and it will interrupt your cast or just not register which means you lose uptime. I’d much prefer having it as an active than as OP suggested, or similar to the Arcane talent that builds up when you stand still.
Nah. Not that I use shimmer, but I can see those who do use it not liking that. Targeting reticules are a pain at the best of times. Even with mouseover macros you risk things like accidentally clicking terrain when the camera shifts, and/or losing your mouse cursor even when running addons due to the sheer amount of screen debris. At best it would allow you to “jump over” terrain like Leap does, but at worst you’re going to end up dead to mechanics.
It does seem a bit silly that WoW casters are still stuck in that mentality of “stand perfectly still at all times” when everyone else moved on from that. Heck, WoW tried it in Cata and as far as I recall everyone loved it. There’s no reason not to allow the basic filler spells of Fireball, Frostbolt, AB, Lightning Bolt, Wrath etc to be cast while moving.
Is that so? In that case I give you permission to leave your manners at the door because I’m curious. But I’ll also give you the hint that when someone says they “get that a lot,” there’s a common denominator every time it happens.
Is one of the most vociferous posters in this forum seriously complaining about receiving a response in kind? Okay then, lol.
Hmm, let me see… yes. Yes it is.
Yes. Also “clunky” is subjective.
If you’re suggesting they just hand us said “longer or more frequent Combustion” as a baseline like you are with mobile casting, then yes I’d rather stick with SKB. Also “hassle” is subjective.
With that said, if they want to make Unleashed Inferno a more competitive alternative to SKB, I’m on board with that. I admittedly wasn’t originally but I thought Lanfear and Degenhours made some pretty compelling arguments about it in another thread, just in case you think I’m incapable of having my mind changed.
Obviously. My son also doesn’t see why anyone would prefer broccoli, but then he’s never eaten it.
Oh, I couldn’t care less if you’re looking down on me.
My point is you have your view of the game and you’re entitled to it, but it’s also quite inflexible. It’s not so much that you are looking down on anyone as it is that you are seemingly incapable of comprehending the existence of any opinion but your own. You come across as “My views, if implemented, would make the game better and I’m right and you can’t tell me different. Oh, and most people agree with me, but you’ll just have to take my word for that.”
Well, I am telling you different and trying to explain why I feel that way, and you’re just coming back with “But, I don’t get it.” I don’t know what else to tell you other than that I LIKE Ice Floes and SKB and don’t want to see them gone just because other people don’t like broccoli, especially since there are already ways to play without putting that broccoli on your plate if you don’t want to.
Because I think you’re making a false equivalence. As I’ve said, RoP and Ice Floes are different.
If you wanted to leave it at that, then you should have just left it at that.
Yup, that’s the basics. I have it macro’d to multiple things, but most importantly Shifting Power…which should be castable while loving in the first place.
Then stop speaking in absolutes every time you give an opinion in a thread and people will stop reacting accordingly to what you say, you have a big problem with this and it’s why people react negatively to you whether your ideas are good or bad.
Yes.
Let me bring up an example of something that works in a similar way to what your suggestion does (albeit, not in an entirely 1:1 example but very close to it). The Norgannon boots legendary from Legion that let you cast for a few secs while moving if you were sitting still for 5 secs, it was considered to be a completely useless effect for just about every single specialisation in the game and was only used if you were unfortunate enough to loot it as one of your first two legendary items.
This was also during a time in WoW where classes had been heavily pruned and lost almost all of their mobility tools so the need for more mobility wasn’t an entirely unnecessary thing it was just a poor implementation of it.
Now days that effect is a specialisation talent for Arcane called Foresight but is way harder to activate due to needing you to stand still for 10 secs to gain the effect, it has been a completely dead talent since it was added in 10.0.
Ice Floes on the other hand provides some of the most agency you can have over your mobility on any class right now with the short 20 sec cooldown, 3 total charges and ability to cast Floes while casting an ability or during your global cooldown, you can activate it ahead of time because each usage of it lasts 20 secs or until you’ve casted an ability that can’t be normally used while moving.
It is a very popular talent for reasons like these ones as well as giving you access to regular Blink on top, it’s only not taken right now by a lot of people because at this time Shimmer is usually either more effective or easier to leverage on most fights but before they removed Rune of Power in the rework Ice Floes was almost universally picked for how it let you micromanage movement inside the 8 yard radius of Rune outside of specific encounters where you needed to be able to double Blink or had to quickly cross large distances.
Ice Floes also interacts with Shifting Power’s cooldown reduction.
I do, I miss RoP and I miss the on demand burst damage it brought to Arcane.
I miss the Legion iteration of it that gave you full control over when to implement your burst without losing any damage because of the fact that it had 2 charges and a short 10 second duration (along with generally not needing to stack other cooldowns with every use of it) and I’m not the only one that feels this way among those that I know, but I know a lot of people also didn’t like it or got sick of it after they redesigned it in Shadowlands putting it on 1 charge and auto-dropping it on major cooldowns that resulted in us sitting on a usage of it for way too long.
I’d rather keep it active. Sometimes you want to cancel a spell by moving/blinking. Being forced to press the “cancel cast key” + “moving” sounds clunkier than how it is. I suggest getting a mouse with buttons on the side, and bind Ice Floes to one of those buttons. I just gently move my thumb 1/8th of an inch over and press the button when I need to use Ice Floes. However requiring equipment like that to comfortably play could be seen as questionable design.
I think this is a problem only because of WoW’s old engine. A modern game would have just made this a control option you could toggle, like in Overwatch and how you can modify how certain controls/abilities can be automated or not.
You heard them. “No one” misses it, aside from a few people who apparently don’t matter, so it’s good that its gone.
The worst part about these removals is that there’s a dozen useless and uninspiring talents in the talent trees that could have been removed instead of these abilities that nobody takes because they’re boring/weak. Why couldn’t those have been pruned or made baseline instead of the more unique things like RoP/SWE?
