Combat doesn't feel good and authentic anymore

Community General Discussion
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Hello. I’m making this thread to complain about the current state and gameplay feeling of combat in modern wow. I would like to raise the question whether this topic might be addressed before the release of Dragonflight or at any point in the near future.

Through the years many spells, animations and sounds have been Changed. In my opinion this hasn’t served the game well in most situations. The combat gameplay and feeling of the game is paramount to any game, especially to an immersive MMO such as wow.

In 2019 when the community was given the chance to explore the old wow with the classic release I started my journey and quickly realized how different the two games are.

I couldn’t help myself but notice how genuine and true in their nature all the spells felt in classic wow. The combination of sound effects, character animation and projectiles all felt to be in place.

The most obvious perpetrator in modern wow are auto attacks. They sound bad and irrelevant, as compared to their classic counterpart which are great.

Since i won’t name every spell specifically, a few of the specs that have received the worst treatment as far as the discussed topic goes are:

Frost, Demonology, Affliction, All rogue specs, All warrior specs, Boomie, Retribution

As I mentioned earlier the reasoning behind my argument is that a combination of better sound and visual effects (including combat text), makes classic Feel better. You can feel every ability that you press and its more satisfying.

I am sure that I mustn’t be the only person that thinks this after experiencing classic. I really hope gameplay gets polished in retail and gameplay combat effects get improved. I am not saying everything is worse, but at large it is. (An example of something that is good in retail and feels satisfying visually and aesthetically is elemental shaman.)

18 Likes
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there should be a addon to add the old sounds for spells and text for crits/white hits

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There are some indeed, you can also mute all the sounds you dislike by searching their ID and using mutesoundfile and replace them with a weakaura that makes a sound whenever you cast a specific spell. However, in my opinion this isn’t a good solution to a bad aspect of the game as this affects everyone, especially new players who might not like their first experience due to bad combat gameplay. Also, most players just cba to do this.

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Combat in Classic WoW was attributed to being so overcomplicated with bloat versus the necessity to actually use every spell because no encounter warranted it.

Combat in Retail has a more impactful dance between weaving your spells versus DPS rotation.

  • If you mess up your DPS rotation, that is the difference between killing or not killing a boss in Mythic or a boss in Mythic+.
  • Miss an interrupt? You might wipe the group.
  • Overpulled a pack of mobs, well wipe and start again.

I’m unsure why people are pretending that Classic Combat is amazing and intricate, when really, it’s not.

  • Running out of mana in Classic and TBC Classic after every second mob? Zzzz.
  • Having to weave between melee, range and skill autoattacks to maximise dps? Zzzz.
  • Having only 2 damage skills as paladin? Zzzz.
    And the list goes on and on.
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I guess you didnt read my post correctly and you wasted a long time writing this. I’m not talking about combat mechanics, but rather about the sound effects and visual effects of spells and their feeling. I never talked about complexity of fights, rotation or any of the things you mentioned.

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Imo, problem with the gameplay nowadays is passives.

You press one button and it does one million things.

You can do your rotation perfectly and afterwards nearly 50% or more of your damage / healing or tank effectiveness comes up from baked in passives.

baking spells into each other happened in WoD and while it was done smartly early on, such way of going about things can only devolve and end in a catastrophe down the line and that’s what has happened.

Add to that the GCD changes, the clunkiness of some class designs currently, and the reduced skill cap on nearly every class which made playing the game correctly be done by focusing on mechanics and optimizing positioning / knowing the fight correctly instead of that and playing your class really well.

One thing I can tell about dragonflight though, I only took a peek at the warrior talent tree, and from what I understood alot of spells are coming back, I just hope they make using them be seamless and not clunky like for example current arms/prot warrior. And the put back the omph in the abilities and less in baked in passives.

In simple, abilities are too backloaded nowadays, they need to shift some of that and make them frontloaded again.

If I hit a mortal strike, I should expect to see the player/mob infront of me lose a big chunk of health, no buffing, no baked in damage, nothing.

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I do agree with most the things you are saying, but I wasn’t really adressing the gameplay rotation aspect of the game but rather the visuals and sound effects. But yeah good points overall

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Unlike Classic where at most 1 or 2 things happen at once in retail with your CD windows alongside procs you can have way too many clashing sounds and effects happening so having very dynamic and loud sounds is actually worse for a new player if anything. Since the old sounds were 100% not ment for modern day retail in the slightest same with classic numbers with how bad they can be in aoe encounters in raids/M+

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I can’t blame you for not mentioning it because few people play the spec, but Mistweaver actually had it the worst.

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Everything is “depressing” apparently. Is anyone NOT going to play WOTLK? - #65

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You should consider leaving the game and seeking a more fulfilling activity.
Your behaviour seems quite unhealthy.

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Completely agree. Running, jumping, postures. Whoever redesigned those and thought it a good idea when reviewing has no taste and just ruined it on so many levels.

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I honestly disagree, I find the classic noises and animations dull and boring, bar ye old gunshot. I feel much more like I am physically connecting to the mob in retail.

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It’s not, and that’s precisely why it’s so great.

When things become so overly intricate with themselves, nevermind the surroundings just themselves, then you can’t really do that much stuff with it. I mean if you give me 12 spells that all MUST be cased, every time, sequentally, one after the other, then you’ve just given me 1 spell with extra steps. You’re just taking up keyboard space. That’s an extreme example sure, but whenever I’m told what my next 40 seconds of rotation is no matter what - and is exactly how Fire Mage plays, then … why do I even have these 7 spells if I already know exactly the order in which I’m gonna press them? There are no choices there.

That’s what retail feels like to me. Just a lot of buttons with no weight.

And it hurts my fingers if I keep going for too long. I can play retail for 4 hours no problem, sure, but Classic? I can play Classic ALL DAY. Literally all day. Because it’s relaxing, it’s full of meaningful choices, and everything feels powerful. It never manages to get overly hectic, and it gives me natural small breaks with drinks so I can get a sip of coke or write a chat message.

It’s just a nice, relaxing time. Even when raiding it’s pretty relaxing.

EDIT: Retail? Oh my God I was just doing Torghast Gauntlet layer 8. Gahhh >.<
And I mean… I want hard stuff in the game, and this is definitely very hard, but the issue is my class just isn’t fun to play when the going gets rough. It just becomes scripted and the only reason the script falters is because game mechanics are harassing my rotation - but it’s still the best rotation. So instead of it being about what I can do to defeat the mobs in various ways and what they will shut down and open themselves up to, it’s just desperately me trying to get off my usual combustion rotation despite dozens of mechanics being fired at me as I weave in and out and around. But I’m still just doing the same rotation I always do…

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I respect it. It is a subjective matter after all. Don’t get me wrong, I think some spells in retail are great. Seeing you are playing a paladin, I LOVE final verdict. However I hate modern crusader strike, blade of justice, and divine storm. I think the wotlk feeling of ret combat with exorcism and seal of command (especially on aoe) was very satisfying to play. The old divine storm was just SO GOOD.

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Except you must have 100 or so extra “powers” - so your rotation must be adjusted to include or account for them.

I only bothered with gauntlet floor 1 on the PTR with an ilevel 245 Havoc DH, maybe too high ilvl? Anyway there were so many powers I just stopped reading. So terribly boring and pointless: a game in a game… Why shall I bother learning and practising new spell and buffs combos when they only exist in Torghast? As I mentioned elsewhere, might as well just park outside and call this “the torhast game toon”.

But if they took away all the temporary powers and instead tuned it to be very hard and soloable, and offer top gear at the end, then yes IMO it would be a fantastic addition.

My memories of the original was how little Seal of Command procced, and how random it was, especially with a very slow 2H. I remember I saved and combed through combat logs to find the (abysmal) rate…
More recently there was the combo where Judgement empowered the next Holy attack, including execution sentence which you had to pre-cast and time right IIRC.

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Indeed vanilla and tbc paladin was abit painful and scuffed. But in the wotlk version seak procs on every attack including crusader strike and divine storm

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I vividly remember playing in original Wrath but cannot remember the class(es)… It’s coming back very slowly and only if I try really hard. Ageing does this to you.

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