Why the AOE cap is a bad thing

Community General Discussion
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Real talk time. There seems to be some confusion as into why this bad.

First off, there are a lot of specs that already have minimal AOE abilities as their primary source of damage. Mostly any dot or predominantly single target spec. Affl, feral, UH DK, Destro, Shadow, etc. While most of these specs have some ‘cleave’ abilities, a large portion of their damage comes from either dots, which are unaffected by cleave or by high single or split target damage.

So what does this mean?

Well, if the concern is that groups are pulling to large in M+, this won’t stop because the classes that cleave are nerfed with artificial barriers. Instead, the strats will remain mostly the same, but classes that can still excel at large group damage will become the primary choice.

How do we know this?

Well, it already happens now. Depending on the week and the affix, some of these specs already excel. They aren’t the best overall though and aren’t considered META. That DOESN’T mean they are bad though. You can build groups and strategies to take advantage of this and still pull large packs and still excel at a high level.

If the real concern is to limit the size of packs being pulled, there are plenty of ways to prevent this.

First and foremost, dungeon design. As is, the mob density in a lot of dungeons is VERY high, even compared to Legion. It seemed like density was increased to make the dungeons more difficult, but for specs/groups that can handle it, it’s a non-issue.

A good example would be comparing Halls of Valor to something like Siege. Halls had very metered pulls with lots of high damage mobs that often had to be pulled in small packs. Some specs that didn’t do well in other dungeons could often excel in Halls because of the pack sizes, as well as the high mob health on some targets. This favors dot specs and specs that had good damage on 2-3 targets.

Dungeons in BFA largely benefit specs with high upfront damage and lots of cleave. DH and Fire both excel at that. With little ramp up, they have immediate damage available. DH is 100% top down when it comes to their burst. Unloading everything while quickly killing low health mobs with huge cleave.

So many of the dungeons are now packed with non-elite mobs as well. FH, Siege, TD, etc. These non-elite mobs often have low health, die quickly, and are easily dealt with by high cleave specs. These non-elite mobs are also bad for dot specs or any class that needs time to ramp up damage. By the time you might get a mob fully dotted, it might be dead already.

So what to do? Diversify!

  • Mob Density - As is, BFA dungeons have some of the highest density of any of the dungeons we have had up until now. Even making some pulls can be tricky given how many mobs you can potentially pick up. To that, dungeons like TD have been a blight on the expansion with mobs being pulled through walls… Reducing total enemy head count would be an easy fix.
  • Increase Mob Pack Distance - Like Halls of Valor, mobs could be more evenly space and spread further a part as well. Not only does this make doing large pulls more difficult because of the time it takes to gather everything, but this means dot classes potentially have more time to ramp up damage while pulls are being made.
  • Increase Mob Health - Right now, there are very few pulls where large health mobs are introduced into a pack. Think… mini bosses. instead of always having 3-5 pack pulls, why not introduce more pulls that are singles or doubles. These can mobs could have mechanics that make pulling large with them difficult. They aren’t quite bosses, but they require more effort to take down. Legion had a number of these and it worked well.
  • Increase Mob Abilities - This is a difficult one as I DON’T think more interrupts need to be added, but rather more abilities that need to be countered. Be it with single target cc, kicks, stuns, banish, clones, etc.
  • Unprune! - This lends itself to the previous point… While are seeing some old abilities come back, lots of the top specs in M+ right now never… lost much. Rogues and mages have remained most unscathed over the years while other specs lost core abilities or now have them gated behind PvP talents. (I hate PvP only talents…). For example, hunter used to have explosive trap as a baseline ability. Not only did it act as an interrupt, but it also could be used to help a tank kite mobs. Now it’s unavailable for PvE content… Dumb. Same goes for Cyclone which I’m glad to see will again be baseline. Whatever happened to Bind Elemental? These abilities need to come back or be removed from PvP talents. PvP only talents = bad.

If the point of capping AOE was to prevent players from doing large pulls, it not only won’t change that, but also won’t address the core problems with M+ design that lends itself to high cleave specs.

TLDR - Diversify! Dungeons need to be designed to allow each spec a place to excel in. If cleave is an issue, stop making dungeons about cleave!

22 Likes
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I semi understand where blizzard is coming from with the whole “we don’t like it when people Zerg dungeons and pewpew as Neanderthals. We want there to be meaningful choices in what/when to pull accordingly.”

But at the same time, it’s like playing D&D with that dungeon master. Your group finds a fun or clever way to deal with a mechanic or boss fight and the DM just goes “heh. NOPE. You’ll have fun the way I IMAGINE you having fun and like it!!” And then just arm twists the party in to changing their strategy because what he says goes.

IMO leave the aoe cap alone.

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They need to stop making the game about mowing down 20 mobs at a time and go back to picking and choosing how you approach fights. You know, get a little thinking involved. I find it odd that my ROGUE can pull 10 mobs at a time while leveling and AOE them down before I take significant damage. I prefer being tactical and feeling danger when I pull an extra mob.

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Typically any challenging “mini-boss” will most likely just be skipped unless you can’t reach the % without it.

Zul before the last boss in KR is an example of this and I have a hard time believing he’s a loved add to the dungeon.

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last i checked, groups don’t pull 10+ mobs (though i haven’t played m+ in months so the dps could be so far out there they do now). that makes this a non-issue. even then, if balanced properly, cleave will have roughly the same (if not slightly higher) dps than mass aoe spells due to target caps. this means there is effectively no difference in dps between cleave and pure aoe. the biggest difference will be the amount of mobs you are willing to pull because the cleave will usually hit different targets. so cleave groups can essentially focus down 4 or 5 mobs at once while the aoe groups burn everything at a slower pace.

there are no target caps right now because limited cleave isn’t a thing now. there used to be cleave in the game and marksman used to be really good at it. there were specs who were gods at burning a couple targets just as fast as they could single target. modern day isn’t a good reference point for cleave.

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Folks absolutely do–and frequently. lol

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Pretty much. For many of us, the big cleave packs is… fun. Hitting those huge numbers is the reason some people play some specs. That said, when almost all the dungeons are built like that, it means those specs consistently excel.

The artificial cap will just hurt some specs and not others. The meta will shift and a new complaint will be on the forums.

yea, they can do that. while the best groups still have to have solid strats for those big pulls, and they can honestly be very difficult still, I think more difficulty one some pulls could be easily added to slow groups down some.

Some of the dungeons we have now are only fun because of the large pulls. I think they have their place, but we need more diversity to let other specs shine as well.

That’s a design issue.

Make the mini boss a trigger for the next event. Open a door. Unlock an elevator. While I never liked the design of Violet Hold, I think some of the elements in that dungeon could be used. Can’t make huge pulls if there are no mobs to pull. :slight_smile:

we do.

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The Zul mini boss before the last KR boss is a good example of this.

Do most groups enjoy him?

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Only in the lowest of keys or in Tol dagor or freehold. Between +15-20 the group’s just aren’t coordinated or good enough to do that, and above 20 the mobs will just annihilate your tank unless you bloodlust

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I don’t want the game balanced around the MDI

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There are better ways to achieve the same goal that hard capping a bunch of classes aoe. No one is pulling big in Kings rest for example (except the slimes obviously). They are going for the chainsaw instead of the scalpel

Also. There is a reason that reaping was beloved by most and I hardly see a positive thing said about beguiling or infested. People enjoy big aoe.

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I agree and disagree with this. Wasn’t this blizzards initial intention with heroics at the beginning of cataclysm? Make dungeons quite difficult for the point of making mob CC and proper mob pulling relevant again?

It was a really cool idea on paper but the execution was pure rubbish. I do enjoy blowing up multiple things, but only because I main unholy. <3

I really like OPs point. If mob density isnt anywhere near what it’s like now for SL, tbh I don’t believe we’ll notice much a change with this target cap. Cheers.

1 Like
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Some uncapped AOE classes and some capped is the issue; they had to go 1 of the 2 directions. The AOE cap will hopefully make the MDI more fun to watch, as right now it’s really just go crazy pull it all pewpew run…it’s gotten pretty redundant.

The cap won’t matter if they go the direction of requiring CC and lowering mob density, but if they keep it as is and cap I agree it’s stupid…it will just extend both the timer and the time committed for no reason other than to not admit they’re wrong.

I’m on the agree and disagree side of this; it will really depend on which direction the design philosophy goes; however if uncapped gets reverted, all classes need to become uncapped. The classes you named will become more useful if there’s an AOE cap, but we require more CC/coordination to succeed.

DH/Fire/Hunter/Rogue are kings due to uncapped AOE, they don’t suffer at all from massive pulls while almost all other specs do. The cap is an attempt to bring everything back in line and make everything viable, the thought is good…but it’s Blizz, so we have to wait for execution to really judge.

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Depends on the key, depends on the affixes, depends on your group comp, depends on the coordination of the group, et cetera.

I do plenty of big pulls on this fellow in 18s and I’ve dpsed plenty of bigish pulls in higher.

No, you aren’t pulling big in king’s rest. You can in freehold though, as example.

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And look at where the game has headed since cata…

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I play with a fury warrior and his target cap is just a meme to us :joy: anytime we do a decent pull we say he’s afk :joy: he hates the aoe cap and I don’t blame him, it’s just boring

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Since we are attributing subs to random things I can mention the game grew the most during TBC which was the era of CC in heroics and very limited aoe.

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Like I said… in free hold and Tol dagor. Most “big” pulls in the rest of the dungeons are 6-7 mobs max.

That being said I personally don’t think there should be a target cap

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Yeah, yeah, I reread what you said. I’m sleepy-headed atm. :laughing:

My initial point was that when it’s facilitated you pull big.

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TD has temporarily “fixed” fury for the most part, due to the high proc rate from our haste. But yeah, it’s fine on 7-8ish but if you do 10-15 mob pulls…there’s just no keeping up. A lot of us are swapping to arms for this reason, and it’s sad.