The AoE cap sucks

Community General Discussion
47

bro the tank being able to hold aggro on groups bigger than 5 doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to if the DPS can’t hit more than 5. it’s just creating inconvenience for no reason to do so. that’s the point. pulling more mobs should reward you if you can pull it off, not just inconvenience you with no workaround.

also, you have no idea if you’ll actually be able to hold aggro or not. there is a HUGE threat modifier added when all your essence slots are unlocked in your neck. that goes away when the neck goes away.

1 Like
48

Maybe look at the link, and you’ll see a lot of DPS abilities also don’t have caps of 5.

Here is a full list of the 5 cap abilities:

Frostscythe (Frost DK talent)
Clawing Shadows (Unholy DK)
Blade Dance (Havoc DH)
Swipe (Feral Druid)
Beast Cleave (BM Hunter)
Multishot (BM/MM Hunter)
Carve (Survival Hunter)
Arcane Barrage (Arcane Mage)
Divine Storm (Ret Paladin)
Blade Flurry (Outlaw Rogue)
Chain Lightning (Elemental/Enhancement Shaman (Enhancement is 3 cap)
Lava Beam (Elemental Shaman Talent)
Whirlwind (Fury/Arms Warrior)
Cleave (Arms Warrior Talent)

That’s it.

If your class ability isn’t listed there, it either has a cap higher than 5, or is uncapped.

49

which completely reinforces the point that the MDI players will just stack whatever the best uncapped AoE ability is, defeating the purpose of Blizzard’s intention of “getting rid of degenerate gameplay” and only hurts the players who want to keep up in M+ but don’t play a class with a good uncapped ability.

I don’t know if you know this, but that’s a huge list of core AoE abilities for classes. that’s not just something to go like “SEE THAT’S IT” over.

1 Like
50

It’s not a HUGE list of core abilities. It’s one or two abilities for each class, out of the many that they have. Again, here’s a friendly list to help dispel your BS.

Frost DK:
Number of AoE abilities: 8
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Unholy DK:
Number of AoE abilities: 10
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Havoc DH:
Number of AoE abilities: 8
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Balance Druid:
Number of AoE abilities: 8
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Feral Druid:
Number of AoE abilities: 6
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 2

BM Hunter:
Number of AoE abilities: 6
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 2

MM Hunter:
Number of AoE abilities: 7
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Surv Hunter:
Number of AoE abilities: 4
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1*

*Butchery replaces Carve, and they don’t increase their AoE cap above 5.

Arcane Mage:
Number of AoE abilities: 9
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Frost Mage:
Number of AoE abilities: 9
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Fire Mage:
Number of AoE abilities: 12
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

WW Monk:
Number of AoE abilities: 9
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Ret Paladin:
Number of AoE abilities: 7
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Shadow Priest:
Number of AoE abilities: 7
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Assassination Rogue:
Number of AoE abilities: 3
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Outlaw Rogue:
Number of AoE abilities: 1
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

Sub Rogue:
Number of AoE abilities: 4
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Elemental Shaman:
Number of AoE abilities: 7
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 2*

*Lava Beam replaces Chain Lightning if the Ascension talent is selected and used. Both retain the same AoE cap of 5.

Enhancement Shaman:
Number of AoE abilities: 6
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Affliction Warlock:
Number of AoE abilities: 4
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Destruction Warlock:
Number of AoE abilities: 6
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Demonology Warlock:
Number of AoE abilities: 5
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 0

Arms Warrior:
Number of AoE abilities: 7
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 2

Fury Warrior:
Number of AoE abilities: 3
Number of AoE abilities 5 capped: 1

As you can see, with the exception of a few specs, notably Fury Warrior, Outlaw Rogue and Survival Hunter, all specs have a significant number of AoE abilities or talents at their disposal which are not capped at 5 targets. If you want to AoE? You can, with ease.

1 Like
51

How can “Everyone that said it was gonna be fine and that we were overreacting about it agrees that it sucks”
when
“Everyone that actually plays the game knew it was going to suck”

Enlighten me please.

52

certainly you can understand that having an ability uncapped doesn’t make it a core rotational ability, right? it doesn’t matter if more of the aoe abilities are uncapped if the ability is not part of your aoe rotation. you hilariously cite ret paladin having 6 uncapped AoE abilities, but the 1 that is capped is divine storm which was its only viable form of aoe

https://twitter.com/Suplift/status/1294622593891225604

https://twitter.com/MichaelLoda/status/1248071442064957440

https://twitter.com/LimitThdlock/status/1287375089181360134

but don’t worry! they have more uncapped aoe abilities than they do capped, so it must be fine right?just ignore that video at the bottom

what’s interesting to me is you are ignoring the opinions of many of the highest level key pushers saying exactly that I’m reiterating and thinking you yourself know the answer more than they do.

it’s like going into nasa and being super confident they’re wrong because you watched the movie The Martian.

I guess all these people are wrong

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/jdl7vf/man_the_aoe_cap_feels_so_bad/

and all these people are wrong

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/ok-we-tried-it-aoe-cap-feels-horrible/684623/1

and all these people are wrong

https://twitter.com/search?q=aoe%20cap&src=typed_query&f=live

and THD’s screenshot is a lie

https://twitter.com/LimitThdlock/status/1317074015698276353

and Nerftank (who was among the highest IO tanks in the game) is incorrect because you can hold aggro just fine!!!

https://twitter.com/NerfTankTV/status/1317629633668521984

and so on and so forth. but don’t worry, you COMPILED A LIST OF ABILITIES.

basically, you don’t know what you’re talking about and your methodology is horrendous.

3 Likes
53

guys his name is B Evil. He’s trolling.

54

If capped classes completely destroyed other classes in a 5 mob pack. then it would at least make sense.

Like they capped beast cleave multi shot blade dance divine storm ect. but forgot to buff them… lol

2 Likes
55

Not sure if you’re aware buddy, but there’s this thing called ‘changing your rotation’ which you should absolutely do if needs be, rather than relying on the old staple that may not work effectively. Oh boo hoo, Divine Storm got AoE capped. Well if you know it’s AoE capped and you’re going into a dungeon where you know you’ll be reliant on AoE then you change things up so it’s no longer an issue.

That’s what’s called ‘intelligent gameplay’.

Seems you’re lacking in that department. Either way I’m done with your drivel.

56

Lmfao yeah guys if you know something sucks don’t worry!!! It’s not an issue because you can just use checks spellbook worse abilities!

1 Like
57

I will absolutely be sure to let all my top 100 buddies know that all we gotta do is change our rotations!!

1 Like
58

As a tank that very much enjoys big pulls, this really sucks.

2 Likes
59

Laughing in starfall that can’t be stacked

Laughinggggggggggg

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60

I understand why they put in a cap for current content. But farming old content doesnt need a cap. My mog farms have gotten much longer on my non-mage alts :frowning:

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61

Anatomy of a dishonest post:

BM does indeed have 6 AoE abilities of which 2 are capped at 5 targets. So in a literal sense this part is ture. Carhagen is deceitfully leaving out critical context, however.

The abilities he is talking about:

Ability Notes
Multi-Shot Baseline, required to activate Beast Cleave, capped at 5
Beast Cleave Baseline, passively done after Multi-Shot, capped at 5
Stomp Level 45 talent, passively done after Barbed Shot, uncapped
Barrage Level 45 talent, active ability on moderate cooldown, capped at 8
Stampede Level 45 talent, active ability on a long cooldown, uncapped
Dire Beast: Hawk PvP talent, active ability on a moderate cooldown, uncapped

So our main mode of doing AoE, Multi-Shot and Beast Cleave, is capped to 5 targets. Obviously a significant nerf. Stomp, Barrage, and Stampede are AoE talents and they are all on the same row and therefore mutually exclusive. Carhagen doesn’t count Barrage in his capped AoE count as he is only counting spells capped at 5 targets and since Barrage is capped at 8 it might as well be uncapped… or something like that. Let’s also skip over the fact that Stomp, our uncapped AoE talent, has just had its dominance cemented as Barrage, the weaker talent for all of Legion and BFA, had a cap applied to it while Stomp didn’t (further exposing this AoE capping as a “balancing measure” as bogus PR). Finally, Dire Beast: Hawk is actually an extremely good uncapped AoE… too bad it’s a PvP talent and therefore not relevant in any competitive PvE where this stuff is of most concern.

He does the same thing for marksman. Only 1 capped AoE, great! Never mind the fact that this is Multi-Shot, our baseline spell. Never mind the fact that Trick Shots, our primary mode of dealing multitarget damage, has been capped at 5 additional targets since BEFORE Shadowlands, because it’s a passive effect and therefore doesn’t count, I guess. Also never mind that Barrage and Explosive Shot are mutually exclusive and are both capped. After all, they are capped at 8 and 6 targets respectively and therefore don’t count, right? I honestly don’t even know how you arrived at 7 AoEs for Marksmanship. We have Multi-Shot, Trick Shots, Barrage, Explosive Shot, and Volley. As I just detailed, 4/5 of those are capped.

So there you have it: not-so-cleverly twisting the criteria for his counts so it looks like a lot less was capped than it actually was. I have no doubt he did this for all the other specs he listed. Dishonest.

1 Like
62

The complaints are coming from certain DPS specs doing tank DPS in AOE pulls and others (largely uncapped) doing several times that DPS in AOE pulls.

The cap makes it harder to balance the skills because you not only have to worry about the damage values and stat scaling of those skills but also the cap values. It’s just another example of them adding unnecessary complication to things.

Just take the cap off or set the same cap for every class. If you want people to cap out at 30 mobs then just set the cap for every skill to 30, tune the resulting damage values, and be done with it.

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63

If it made no difference, why make the change in the first place? Why not revert it?

64

Great post. I appreciate your effort in making it, hero!

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65

Right… So destro locks and multi dotting clssses can be kings? Makes sense…

Hmm… makes me wonder if the devs got upset someone in their raid was beating them, so they just put an AOE cap on the classes they didn’t play? Seems sus…

66

Do what you want with Starfall, when I tank I am pulling 5 at most and if you pull more I will let you keep aggro, we’ll see how far you get.