Class design bloat hurts PvP a lot, it hurts accessibility for PvE, it makes the game unviable to go cross-platform, it prevents new classes and new specs from being added, and it limits the possibility of more interesting gear options.
Class design bloat has no positive.
If Blizzard thinks it’s good for the competitive scene, they should think again. Competitive doesn’t thrive, if Echo or Liquid Players have the most skill expression to do a damage rotation. Competitive thrives, if the average player is having fun and understands the game fundamentally.
Make classes simpler, and stop filling our action bars with 30+ abilities.
Adding a 1 button damage rotation as an accessibility feature does not solve that intrinsic problem.
Vamp touch
Mind blast
Void torrent
Mind spike
Dark ascension
Power infusion
Devouring plague
Shadow word death
Shadowfiend
9 buttons, 3 of which on over a minute cd.
Get rid of shadowfiend sure it does nothing, but same question where’s the bloat?
Fire Mage’s DPS rotation this patch is near enough 4 buttons.
Some specs have a little much, mainly looking at totemic enh shaman and could use a slight trim, but this hyperbole about WoW classes being impossible to learn or full of bloated DPS rotations is blown massively out of proportion.
I think the changes Blizzard announced to Addons and their experimentation with Legion Remix signals to me that they already want to adapt their game design to be fun for a broader audience.
They also already acknowledged that class design bloat exists in various interviews. The question now is, what changing that means exactly for the game and what is most sensible to fix it.
At this point I think it’s less about “if” and more about “how” tbh.
I dont agree with OP, but you do miss some buttons, DPS and healing ones. Not sure, why? Healing rain, healing surge, healing wave. Where are they? Even if you try to argue that you shouldn’t do damage, there are also damage abilities that aren’t visible for some reason. But also, totemic shaman has very little amount of buttons compared to other healers. (-evoker)
Also, if we talk about PVP, there are few more, I think
For PVP with target macros, it is about 30-50 buttons for many classes. For my WW monk without any target macros it’s exactly 30 abilities that I regularly use
Sure a hyperbole from the OP, but that doesn’t make it untrue.
There are other classes that could easily go though some pruning: instead of 3-4 dmg buff abilities with a 2-3 minutes CD (f.e. Fury), just give us one with a way shorter CD. Instead of several abilities doing AoE with a 12-14s CD (f.e. Survival), give us one that can be “spammed”.
If they want to make it more interesting, include more class fantasy (which I would appreciate), they should handle it like chain abilities in AION: once you press a button, it “transforms” and turns into the next abilitiy which can be used in a several second window after using the first, before it transforms back - and no, I’m NOT asking for them to default to one button… but grouping or getting rid of some that do the same would go a long way.
It’s fine if anything they should give few classes more cooldowns or abilities, they can be just situational to give them more utility like giving more classes blood lust or other useful utility or buffs.
my DH feels really boring compared to other classes.
[image hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB](https://ibb.co/whDBfskb)
I have 30. Maybe you don’t use all abilities, because maybe you don’t use your whole class, but I do, and Blizz designed the game this way. If you only have abilities bound that help you in M+, and you don’t use all CC/utility, that’s irrelevant for the discussion
Also, number of abilities is just part of the class design bloat. It’s also about all the procs, passives, etc.
Why do you key bind all those CDs that you use once very 3 min ?
Its dumb. What are you doing? Rank 1 PvP or something? IF you are, you forgot to bind kick to Arena 1, 2 and 3.
So you are wasting keybinds there. You want a suggestion? ALL spells which require a target, like dispells, heals, kicks and CCs. Install clicke and arena UI or something. And just clicking on their party frames will cast it. Like my heals.
And then you free up a ton of useless junk you got there. And your “buttons” will turn into just 5. Which are your main DD rotation. So just 12345 as usual. And any CD > than 30s click it.
One advantage of that is that you dont need to change target to kick for example. You dont need to use focus target either. Just DD the prio target in arena, and simply click on the kick. Which, as an added bonus, you can see what he is casting on the party frames.
This will improve your performance 10 fold. Which, when I did arenas, was ~ 500 to 1000 more rating. Just by installing VohDoo or clicke.
What you got is a badly optimized UI and keybind. That’s what it is.
No, it’s not wrong to bind all your cooldowns for PvP, what are you even saying? I think you have no clue what you’re saying. Also, it’s not even about being able to press them, I do that in my sleep, the issue is that everyone has a lot of cooldowns with tons of passives/procs/etc., and I have to be aware of everyone’s stuff too, not only of mine, and I think that’s annoying. In the end it’s also about preference, and I’d prefer less abilities
If you think that’s about being able to click my buttons, you’re wrong, but it’s not good for the game that it is this way regardless, and it creates barriers of entry. Maybe yes: I have overcome some barriers, but it’s still bad that it is this way.
Point being. That coming to the forums to complain about button bloat because you are too lazy to find proper tools to PvP is lame.
L2P implies as well finding efficient ways of using your toolkit. And the size of the toolkit will not change that fact.
Even if you had 1 button macro to PvP you still need to think where to bind things. How to do it as efficient as possible.
If your goal is to progress in PvP that is. If your goal is to simple yolo some SoloQ arenas and ZugZug for fun then yeah. Just yolo and dont pay too much attention to anything.
But if you wanna progress, you gotta min-max. Including your skill and binds.
No, it’s lame that you are defending Class design bloat, when you don’t even use half your abilities and have your setup made only for M+ keys and clicking abilities, while dismissing all other content and barrier of entry it creates
PvP is also part of the game, and the design bloat is very bad for PvP, because there you have to somewhat know what everyone else has on Cooldown, and in wow this is just excessive since Dragonflight. Having these long damage rotations to create artificial skill ceilings in M+ is not worth it at all, and not every DPS needs to have almost the same amount of defensives as a tank, or 4 different DPS cooldowns with many procs/passives/etc.