It nowadays feels like classes are bloated and have “too many buttons”.
While I was opposed to prunning for a long time, and I retain to think that WOD did it very badly, I think some spells don’t make sense, and classes should have clearly established what they can and cannot do.
Also, do we need 5 spells CDs that you mash when they light up? Wouldn’t 2 spells with half as much cooldown suffice?
And what about modifiers? Do we need so many modifiers that you feel useful only during small window? We moved far from them in some cases (Destruction Warlock) and it feels awesome… but still, some specs are overbudgeted as far as modifiers goes.
Let’s look at Mage for example: Knockbacks - shouldn’t it be more of Shaman and Balance Druid thing only? Why do Mages have that? Stun - does Mage need stun? Shifting Powers - it looks horrible, doesn’t fit into class fantasy, does it make sense for Mage to have it? Temporal Shield - it’s basically noob friendly Alter Time, but do we need two of those?
WoW feels inaccessible for new players, and while I think classes should have core mechanics, and even customizable to a large point, I don’t think they should be easily interchangeable. Some classes suffer from this more than others, but there are certain things that either feel like duplicate (same spell you already have), out of place spells, or mechanics that belongs to other classes.
It definitely needs a big simplification. It’s not normal how many things are on my omnibar sometimes. I try to play a healer now to dodge queues in shuffle, but bro… Playing healer in pvp is like getting a second degree in engineering. I feel like healing could be so complicated with the amount of things to track potentially, that probably nobody is close to the skill cap of this role, just because of how much bloat there is. When I try to play a healer, I really get an extreme headache and full sensitive overload, where my brain immediately shuts down
I think there is room in the game for simpler classes / specs and more complex ones. But this could be achieved through Talents. There should be some passive builds that are easier to play and some more active builds that are trickier.
Some of it could be just innate classes being simpler. Traditionally Warrior is a simpler class, see things - hit things. Whereas Rogues were tricker with cunning sneakiness etc.
The issue isn’t only simplicity, but also class fantasy.
When it comes to PvP, there’s not much option for (I will stick with my example) Mage to play without Blast Wave. But is it really mage thing?
Is mage supposed to have 2 Novas, Ice Nova, Blink, Alter Time, Displacement and Blast Wave to keep melees away? That many buttons? And I am not talking about Slow and Cone of Cold.
They have too much for that scenario, some of which conflicts with other classes’ fantasy. And some of it goes over critical mass.
There’s no passive effect you can possibly have to not feel like shooting yourself to leg, by picking another one of those, which are basically answers to that scenario.
But do you need 10 or however many answers? Wouldn’t fewer suffice?
I think both of those are. And I watched Venruki’s video and I fully agree. Good that they removed Ebonbolt. For example.
Well, it’s a combination of those. If doing damage for example became very simple, then having a bunch of utility and harder raids would be more okay. For example, as a warrior I think the game is kind of simple in PvE, and in PvP the main complexity for me is to expect damage and know what other classes are doing
how else are you gonna push melee enemies away? as long as the mechanics is “standing still 3 seconds till the spell is completed” you gotta do what you gotta do to
This can be taken too far though, if we cared totally around maintaining lore in the fantasy then Gnomes would run half the speed of a Draenei. Plate armour would slow you down etc. But then nobody would play a Gnome as the group would run off in a dungeon and you’d miss the fight.
If classes toolkits get restricted to maintain a class fantasy then you’d end up with only rogues (or who ever had the best class fantasy toolkit) in pvp.
Bloodlust was given to other classes because it was deemed too good for only shaman to have. Groups needed this ability so it got spread around. No class fantasy applied here and I guess it made the game more playable and better.
Strict Class Fantasy might make sense from one point of view but it would make the game less fun.
For PvP it’s too much For example just totems from shamans and pets turn my entire screen into a chaotic mess of rectangles, and then I have to consider all of the little cooldowns for 6-10 cc abilities per class. This is so much that I get overwhelmed hard and get sensory overload
Classes don’t need to be less complicated, they’re already easy enough.
Some specs just have way too many abilities that basically all do the same thing though imo
I asked whether you need all of them to keep melee away.
Most of them serve the same role - create a gap.
Kinda my point.
I disagree. A lot. Actually Rogues have way too much from other classes. Damage reduction in form of Feint? Cloak of Shadows Evasion? Really?
Self-heal?
Let’s not pretend it’s either or.
If Rogues were to gain Knockback now (thunderstorm), would you be okay with that? I guess not, because it doesn’t feel to suit them. And that’s my point with some classes and their toolkit.
With all due respect, mages had blast wave since vanilla. I don’t think too many classes should have the same kinds of utility but if both shamans and mages have it I don’t think it’s a problem.
Sure if you say that classes should have more distinct ways of dealing with issues I’m with you but I think that considering the ammount of classes and ammount of effects, there will always be overlap and that’s okay I think. I do think this is something that Blizz does need to look into though.
But I also think that looking at utility is the wrong angle because I think utility is the fun of the class. Outplaying other people is never really about rotation, it’s mostly about using the tools your class has to them and removing it would probably make WoW less fun.
Revisiting rotations and dealing with bloat there? I do agree to that perhaps, though i personally do like procs.
Also ask yourself, could we do this in a way that’s really satisfying to anyone? Because in classic classes were probably the most unique but there is a huge divide between classic and retail design. More or less since WoTLK classes have started expanding rapidly and that’s been like 15 yrs. How do we bridge this gap without doing too much or too little to actually change things?
That said I think this is probably the most interesting discourse about WoW that we could have and on fundamental level I sure do agree with you at least to an extent.
While i can agree going on ur example, there are some things alike Shifting Powers which i think is needless, it doesnt fit the aesthetic thats for certain.
however, Mage has been a CC Pilot for a Long long time and its very much apart of the nature of the class, Due to it lacking hybridization it doesnt have alot of reasons to bring it, so CC Kinda offers it that secondary utility thats make the class wanted
I mean if we look at arcane, a prune could be argued to be a Positive.
If we look at fire or frost, u’d quickly end up at a 3 button rotation with pruning.
I think WOD prunning was healthy by pretty much removing redudant spells (Single target healing spell is just that and does not require 2 variants that pretty much do the same).
FFXIV has a solution regarding PVP which is literally removing 75% of spells from classes from 9 spells rotations down to spamming 2 or 3 while also having a defined set of utilities. It made PVP there more enjoyable imo.
As for wow, I think we’ve finally reached a healthy balance between legion’s lack of spells and MOP (I liked class design back then but I can understand why one would say mop classes were bloated) so I don’t think we should be removing. I’d say removing some offensive CD but that’s aboot it !
For example just totems from shamans and pets turn my entire screen into a chaotic mess of rectangles, and then I have to consider all of the little cooldowns for 6-10 cc abilities per class. This is so much that I get overwhelmed hard and get sensory overload