Why I Dislike Modern DPS Spec Design, Summarized:

Community General Discussion
22

Exactly. It comes out to less damage overall, sure, but I like being able to cast spells that just…deal damage like they’re supposed to. Instead of stacking three DoTs to get 8% bonus damage, then casting two dinky-plinky little half-damage Wraths to unlock an Eclipse so I can actually start dealing full damage.

As Resto I just Moonfire, Sunfire, Starsurge, then Starfire until it dies. Nice, simple, satisfying. Sometimes I get a crit, and it feels good.

Resto “DPS” actually feels more fun than Balance DPS by a long shot for me.

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23

I really enjoy damage windows that you can create for unique interactions. % increase is… okay, but it’s better when it changes how abilities interact. I’m pretty over the 2min cd burst window (FFXIV rotted my brain and I am so sick of it!!), and is it really too much to ask for some kind of real combo function?

Talking about Ret is a meme right now so my post justifying my preference for playing hpal as my melee character writes itself.

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24

I really don’t feel the need to measure my whack-a-mole button pressing skills against other people. I’m perfectly fine with gearing choices and positioning being the deciding factors in how much damage is being dealt.

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25

Blizzard stopped listening to these awful ideas a while ago - and that’s a good thing.

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26

Agree to disagree, I guess. I’m going to keep voicing my opinion on the matter.

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27

Yeah I get what you mean. Any damage increase listed as “bonus” or “increased” really just feels “brings you up to baseline”. That’s crummy, especially when your spec is built such that you only get your full stack of modifiers on occasion (e.g. Combustion every 2 minutes). Woohoo, I get to be a deflated balloon 90% of the time.

This wasn’t always a problem. In earlier iterations of the game, several specs felt closer to having their baseline damage actually be what you’d expect baseline to be, with buffs taking you above that for a short period. It’d be nice to return to that.

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28

Tons of us want this. There’s so many modifiers that base damage of things literally has to be garbage or all those modifiers become too strong.

PLEASE BLIZZ, just let things do damage without needing 10 modifiers/1 HUGE modifier.
Like the Cone of Cold talent in frost tree, Blizzard stacks it up to like +600% dmg, but that means Cone of Cold does almost NO base damage…

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29

Yeah…Wrath was definitely one of those times. It was a good mix between having enough buttons to be fun, and still being straightforward without a thousand conditional modifiers to look at.

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30

Actually we don’t need a gigantic power gap between good players (as defined by you, I presume as the top 1-2%?) and the majority, a permanent in-game caste system between those who get all the content and rewards, and those who are expected to continue to pay for the game despite the fact that there is neither of those for them. The game should have ways to encourage and help players on the learning curve to improve on their own when they feel ready.

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31

How long have you been playing? We have actually lost more and more buttons over the years. Spells and abilities have ben removed quite a bit.

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32

Since the very beginning. And sure, a lot of superfluous utility abilities have been pruned over the years, and certain damage spells have been removed or retooled into different forms, but at the end of the day if you look at the Balance DPS rotation from Wrath (which was basically Insect Swarm + Faerie Fire (for utility) + Starfire/Wrath alternating on Eclipse crits, and Moonfire if you felt saucy), then look at what it is today…there are a lot more buttons to consider.

The Eclipse mechanic in Wrath was crit based, rather than “cast two of one spell, then spam the other one for 15 seconds, then repeat forever,” so there was some variance to it, and it was satisfying to hit.

There was no Astral Power build/spend mechanic. No Stellar Flare, no Sunfire, no Celestial Alignment, no New Moon, no Incarnation, no Convoke, no Astral Communion, no Warrior of Elune, no Wild Mushroom…

Realize it or not, there are way, way more spells with actual damage or effective combat utility now than there were before. This is true for almost every class in the game. Even Arcane Mage, one of the simplest specs remaining, has a lot of bonus buttons that just deal slightly different amounts of damage or give slightly different numbers of Arcane Charges, with slightly different cooldown cadences.

DPS is just a juggling act now, but it doesn’t feel any more satisfying to pull off than the WotLK rotation did. It’s just more buttons, more keybinds, more cooldowns to watch, and more opportunities to misclick or mi

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33

when i play demo im doing like a mini game in the middle of the dungeon that’s my rotation

rng dps is something i’ve never been like a “fan” of but it sure is fun to see a bunch of stuff proc, or roll 5 buff roll the bones

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34

When it clicks, it clicks. I did enjoy Destruction warlock during BfA when stacking infernals resulted in absolutely massive Chaos Bolts, but that was a fairly simple spec with a nice payoff. I loved it because it felt more like an old-school spec, nothing but huge crits, a small handful of buttons, and very little fluff.

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35

Demon hunter is kind of like this, no? Low amount of buttons but all high impact buttons. I dunno what build they use now but there wasn’t that much “procs” unless you played the eye beam leggo

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36

I don’t actually know. I haven’t play a Demon Hunter much since Legion, and even then I didn’t play it much.

Modern dungeon design has too many spell effects on the ground at once, I don’t enjoy playing melee classes anymore. It’s way, way too busy.

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37

You should see some of the afflock and demo builds, so many buttons, with millions of timers to track.

Also hell no, wrath rotations were either

A. Boring

Or

B. Clunky

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38

Agree to disagree. I loved every class I played in Wrath.

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39

Well I agree with Rev and disagree with you.

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40

I already agreed to disagree with you.

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41

The virtue is in the median. People are thinking binarily in this thread. Apparently, you asking for less complexity means that you’re asking for every spec to be one-button. That’s obviously not your request.

Overall, I don’t feel the complexity because I actively search for viable yet less complex specs. I also choose passive talents over active ones. But there certainly is complexity and some people enjoy that. Others don’t, so they should probably skip the specs with more complex viable builds.

Also, you are not alone. There are other people who don’t like the complexity. Additionally, as much as you don’t like the complexity, there are people who don’t like rotational simplicity. Some people really enjoy playing a complex spec and working towards perfection. This also adds a feeling of progression to the spec because there’s a lot of room to get better. This can’t be said about the most simple specs.

At the same time, Disc Priest is ridiculous. Even with help/harm macros, it’s just silly. And imagine this with 10 more talent points :joy: but hey! It’s made for somebody! (Definitely not me though lol)

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