Unpruning rather than class changes

Community General Discussion
#1

Been wondering about this since Blizzcon.

When I look at the abilities we’re getting back a lot of it seems more a nod to classic than anything else? Some of it seems like it will unbalance classes further (do druids really need anything bit of utility for example?) while others just seem like vague class flavour (paladin auras… shaman totems etc - thematic but… kinda meh?)

And as said, little of what’s being brought back seems to come from later expansions. I’m not really sure some of this NEEDS to come back. But I’m pretty sure some classes and specs desperately need some kind of rework as the meta in both high end raiding and mythics have tipped pretty badly towards certain play styles…

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#2

They might be trying to get away from designs that encourage insanely fine-grained comparisons of classes/specs (minmax gone mad) and back to more a more “fuzzy” sort of design where the advantages of one class over the other aren’t as clean cut and shortcomings can more easily be more papered over, largely thanks to unpruned abilities. If that’s true it might not make sense to do major reworks until they’ve seen how these resurrected abilities fare in the environment of modern WoW.

But I don’t do much in the way of high end content, so take this with a grain of salt.

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#3

I can see your point for sure. Or any new player that would agree with you. But reality is - some - many of us have been playing for a long long time. Losing core abilities and shifting away from class identity felt like a simplification and unnecessary loss for no reason to the way we played our classes.

I know you used druid as an example but look at paladin, shaman, warlock and warrior. You can’t tell me that the skills they lost over time were necessary for balance reasons

#4

So rather than them making new, interesting abilities you just want them to add old crap?

#5

^^ I feel for you. I’ve been playing since the original beta.

Generally I think there are maybe some things that have been lost that added some flavour to the class. Totems, hands down, were iconic for shaman. They were removed (as I understand it) because they were a pain in pvp. Either they died to quickly or you ran out of range and had to re-cast them. But as a shaman? I felt naked without 4 totems slamming down around me. So I’d love to see those back as standard.

A lot of the rest of stuff though… Using your examples, did any warlock REALLY miss ritual of doom? Aside from the lols? Or curse of doom - so slow that you’d lose major dps if it didn’t tick properly on a boss kill (and useless on trash). Are paladins crying out for auras to come back? Really? I mean hey - maybe you are but I suspect there are other more interesting mechanics Blizz could think of to add spice to the specs. Not just ones that demand ‘buff plz’ then forgetting about it.

A. bunch of these things WERE removed for balance. Shaman complained in pvp about totems dying as mentioned. Auras, curses etc were removed to prevent people only bringing certain classes to things (which didn’t work out but hey…)

And other stuff seems to run the gamut between broken and useless. At one end you have Druids regaining Ursols Vortex and Cyclone - which effectively says ‘bring no other healer to mythic/pvp evahhhh’. On the other you have Mages getting non spec filler spells back. Which… okay? Maybe someone’s been crying out for a chance to cast fireball as a frost mage? Maybe when locked down? ish?

My main point isn’t that the classes don’t need fluff. They do. But just re-introducing old fluff isn’t really that much of a solution. (but hey - at least light well didn’t make a return)

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#6

Who said they are old crap? Like curses should be a class identity attributed to warlocks. It should never have disappeared. The same logic applies to basic heals as a druid or totem usage as a shaman.

Like - just cuz they’re “old” abilities doesn’t mean they’re crap. Some of them should never have been removed in the first place…blizzard agreed.

Btw I think by removing those core abilities and taking away class identity - they removed flavor from certain classes which imo makes them boring and a lot less interesting than they were before. I specifically point to druid because my rotation is literally 4 buttons lol…bringing back old abilities - or even allowing certain abilities to be used spread amongst all our specs would make the class far more engaging and “interesting” as you put it.

I’m open to new stuff too btw - like id love another row of talents at max level in our next expansion instead of having nothing to look forward to as a class and just hoping certain abilities are locked into temporary artifacts or legendaries like the last two expansions.

#7

I think it’s a case by case basis, personally. I agree with you about Curse of Doom. It’s either a weird, silly ability or it’s designed to be so overwhelmingly powerful that any raid with a warlock would be foolish not to permanently kill a player to make a doomguard. There are ways it could work (example: if they changed the spell so the sacrificed player commanded the doomguard), but not sure it’s really needed.

Other abilities were iconic to their classes. Auras aren’t a great example for paladins, but seals were. A huge part of Paladin gameplay used to be choosing your seal and swapping it around as needed. Different seals were used in different circumstances, and it was fun.

Now, that being said, I don’t know if I want to see all the pruned abilities come back unchanged. Like seal gameplay was fun, but it would be more fun for the choice to not be so binary. “I need to use X when I single target and Y when I AOE” isn’t fun. Using seals that augment my abilities based on what I want to do, however, is fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what Blizzard does.

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