So I am curious to why blizzard insists on adding more temporary power to our classes.
IMO every class should be good enough and feel good enough to stand up on their own. This is the foundation, the core element to mmorpgs. Anything else are additions to enhance the flavor.
I don’t hate these temporary powers given to our classes, I only hate that it’s being used as a fix/bandaid to the classes themselves. And it’s very noticeable to see as you play.
Gear, Enchants, gems, WOTLK stat swaps. These temporary powers are great. Not overpowering at all. they act as an icing that compliments the class…
Azerite traits, Azerite essence, Corruption. Also great ideas, but just executed poorly. They overpower the flavor (classes) and challenge its position with the main dish.
BFA classes: Also lack the fullness needed to be the main dish. They are just not done well. And unfortunately, emphasizes the failures azurite /corruptions. They fight one another instead of enhancing each other.
Now I don’t have access to shadowlands and I know Alpha just started. But that’s the main reason I want to put this into light early. Focus on the classes themselves, not just the temporary powers! Exclude them until every class is able to stand on its own.
Summary:
Temporary power should be the icing on the cake, not the whole flavor. Focus Shadowlands on fixing the core gameplay of the class and make them feel solid on their own without the addition of Temporary power. Make this Priority!
The entire game is temporary power…that is why you get a new tier every 6 months or so. It has been that way for the entire existence of the game and it won’t be changing anytime soon if ever.
For BFA maybe, but it was very much different during my time playing later BC and the whole WTLK.
You can have temporary power without making it the class itself.
Bfa feels like i ma playing the class azerite/corruption over shadow priest for example.
I don’t mind that. I’d just like to see my class abilities actually representing my damage (or healing). Seeing Inf Stars or Twilight every other pull, or Essences before those be my highest source of damage gets old after a bit.
Temporary power is fine, and honestly, Blizzard has done a fairly decent job of making sure that we don’t lose too much of it with each expansion. A lot of the artifact traits, legendary buffs and artifact weapon abilities from Legion were either turned into talents or merged with existing abilities. I imagine the same will be true with some of the Azerite traits as well, or at least the more popular / less OP ones.
Obviously Blizzard can’t allow us to keep all the Azerite traits as passive buffs and the like, but they’ve hit a good balance.
not sure how insane it is to have these systems- after all trinkets, tier sets, activated items, and pre-legion legendaries are all forms of temporary power. Heck you could even count spells as temporary considering most classes get a rework that changes many of their core spells every so often. This isn’t a new part of the game in any sense of the word.
For me, it’s the McChicken. The best fast food sandwich. I even ask for extra McChicken sauce packets and the staff is so friendly and more than willing to oblige.
One time I asked for McChicken sauce packets and they gave me three. I said, “Wow, three for free!” and the nice friendly McDonald’s worker laughed and said, “I’m going to call you 3-for-free!”.
Now the staff greets me with “hey it’s 3-for-free!” and ALWAYS give me three packets. It’s such a fun and cool atmosphere at my local McDonald’s restaurant, I go there at least 3 times a week for lunch and a large iced coffee with milk instead of cream, 1-2 times for breakfast on the weekend, and maybe once for dinner when I’m in a rush but want a great meal that is affordable, fast, and can match my daily nutritional needs.
I even dip my fries in McChicken sauce, it’s delicious! What a great restaurant.
I have been here since the 2 weeks after the game went live, it has ALWAYS been this way, that is why there is gear progression from MC/Onyxia to today’s tiers. It’s all borrowed power, it always has been.
This is possible, but handing you some borrowed power allows them to add and change flavor of things over time.
I feel there is something to be said with corruption and building the set bonus you want for your gear, is it ideal in its implementation, no. But it can be refined over time.
As far as the neck goes, it has come a long way from it’s initial implementation but you are right it is not the best “gameplay” feature they have ever come up with.
There was borrowed power, in the form of the set bonuses. The big difference was they were boosting core setups that were functional and stable, since they needed to be with sets changing every raid tier. Now since we have a system that stays over the entire expansion we seem to have issues with classes being built around stuff from that system as a crutch and then flailing when the crutch is removed… instead of the class working well as a BASE, then the new systems complementing it.
Item level catchup mechanics are a ways away from having half of every DPS’s damage come from the meme beam and the other half come from corruption procs.
Maybe i need to explain myself better so i apologize if i’m not getting the idea out.
This topic you spoke here is what i mostly mean by temporary power.
Gear stats, enchants, gadgets etc. These were fine. Added flair and a extra taste/twist.
Corruption and Azerite, could of been fine, but ended up just overpowering the whole dish. And it doesn’t help that the core aspect of the dish was poorly made as well. IMO the combination of the two is what made it utterly fail.
I agree it can be fixed and that it always existed, but it was never to this extent. And thats what i have a problem with. I want to play my class again, not a gear class.
The pruning of azerite gear atm in shadowlands shows how faulty the core aspect of the classes are. And re-adding the temporary lost from BFA is not the solution.
Got it, this is an interesting perspective i hadn’t really thought about. You have a point.
Yea, this is going to feel bad, just like it did at the end of Legion. I can see how people will feel deflated and weaker and i can understand the frustration with borrowed power. I do think you are right though they could tone it down some and have a better system where you don’t feel like gear is where the class play is.