Ability Bloat - What would you do?

[Nobleshield]

I do think that giving CS weakened blows is a step in the right direction though, it always felt clunky to hit Hammer every so often.

[Deleted]

I use Flash of Light at Lei-Shen transitions. ^^
Don't take my only HoPo-free heal away.

[nightfalls]

I'd prefer having 15 abilities that were useful 100% of the time than 25 abilities with a handful of them being useful 20% of the time.

That will get you a class that is useless 100% of the time. Suffice it to say I think we should all be glad your opinions here, in general, are not taken seriously.

[Deleted]

I use Flash of Light at Lei-Shen transitions. ^^
Don't take my only HoPo-free heal away.

Yeah, that is the only occation that I can remember using FoL this tier.

Actually, that is not true. I used it on Iron Qon to heal people during the windstorm and on megaera between rampages.

[Firebert]

That will get you a class that is useless 100% of the time.

Less abilities doesn't mean less useful, and only no abilities is 100% useless.

You're exaggerating in the absence of a point it seems.

[Nobleshield]

Less abilities doesn't mean less useful, and only no abilities is 100% useless.

You're exaggerating in the absence of a point it seems.

I really don't get what he meant by that, honestly. If you trimmed down every class to have 15 abilities that actually sit on your active bars (which means NOT things like RF or Blessings), but every one of those abilities is useful all the time and used in 99% of every fight, how is that worse than having 25 abilities where 10 of them are useful ("useful" defined as worthy of a slot on the primary action bar and/or being keybound to a standard key) only 5% of the time and pretty much useless the rest of the time?

[Firebert]

I really don't get what he meant by that, honestly. If you trimmed down every class to have 15 abilities that actually sit on your active bars (which means NOT things like RF or Blessings), but every one of those abilities is useful all the time and used in 99% of every fight, how is that worse than having 25 abilities where 10 of them are useful ("useful" defined as worthy of a slot on the primary action bar and/or being keybound to a standard key) only 5% of the time and pretty much useless the rest of the time?

Because it narrows the utility of the class at the very least, and that's what some people are trying to hold on to, and at worst simplifies the rotation and lowers the skill cap of the class.

But when everyone has every CC and utility spell going, it's worth cutting down and heterogenising those types of abilities for the sake of space or ease of play. It's arguably not worth it from the rotation side, but clearly people want utility out or combined first, and not things like Judgment and Crusader Strike together.

[Nobleshield]

Maybe I don't see it then because I loathe the idea that there is even a "skill cap" at all

[Deleted]

Maybe I don't see it then because I loathe the idea that there is even a "skill cap" at all

There is a skill cap to everything, even to simple things. The question is how high/low that skill cap should be. In my opinion the higher the better.

A big part of WoW is self improvement. Getting better and better and seeing yourself progress both as a player and as character. If there is a very low skill cap, then you quickly reach a point where you can not improve yourself which is rather boring. It is more fun when you always got something to improve, something to work for. I do not know if that is just my generation though, I know that the current generation is just about instant gratification and havig everything served on a silver platter, something that I to be honest find frightening.

[Nobleshield]

There is a skill cap to everything, even to simple things. The question is how high/low that skill cap should be. In my opinion the higher the better.

A big part of WoW is self improvement. Getting better and better and seeing yourself progress both as a player and as character. If there is a very low skill cap, then you quickly reach a point where you can not improve yourself which is rather boring. It is more fun when you always got something to improve, something to work for. I do not know if that is just my generation though, I know that the current generation is just about instant gratification and havig everything served on a silver platter, something that I to be honest find frightening.

I think for me at least it's more that the skill cap should related to things other than the basic nature of the class. So like for instance I'm fine with a simple (read: "easy") DPS rotation and the mark of skill being knowing when to do things outside your scope (e.g. knowing when to use Hand of Freedom on someone to help them escape a slowing voidzone-type mechanic, or using Lay on Hands to save a healer's life). I mean.. I've been playing video games some 25 years now, so it's not like I'm a kid or something that just wants everything handed to me; I remember the challenges in the original Zelda, or Contra (although 30 lives helped lol), or the original Castlevania (gawddamn Frankenstein) or having to grind shit in the original Final Fantasy for hours in that little corner of the peninsula where you had the harder creatures, because the monsters were that tough later on.

[Vash The Stampede]

That will get you a class that is useless 100% of the time. Suffice it to say I think we should all be glad your opinions here, in general, are not taken seriously.

You're a nice person. Anyone ever tell you're a nice person?

When posting, please remember to remain constructive and to contribute to the topic of the post. - Malthanis

[Celista]

I'd remove Inquisition for sure, feels like a clunky thing to manage.

[nightfalls]

So like for instance I'm fine with a simple (read: "easy") DPS rotation and the mark of skill being knowing when to do things outside your scope (e.g. knowing when to use Hand of Freedom on someone to help them escape a slowing voidzone-type mechanic, or using Lay on Hands to save a healer's life).

You're not fine with that, because those abilities are not useful 99% of the time, so by your verdict they MUST be removed!!!

[Firebert]

You're not fine with that, because those abilities are not useful 99% of the time, so by your verdict they MUST be removed!!!

More exaggeration.

There's a lot of difference between spells like Crusader Strike (Paladins) and Shackle Undead (Priests), I hope you understand.

[Malthanis]

You're not fine with that, because those abilities are not useful 99% of the time, so by your verdict they MUST be removed!!!

You're intentionally misinterpreting his definition of what the "99%" abilities are.

If you trimmed down every class to have 15 abilities that actually sit on your active bars (which means NOT things like RF or Blessings)

That bolded bit. Noble is specifically excluding utility abilities, and is talking about rotational, important-to-your-spec abilities.

Or at least that's what I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, Noble.

[Freia]

You're intentionally misinterpreting his definition of what the "99%" abilities are.



That bolded bit. Noble is specifically excluding utility abilities, and is talking about rotational, important-to-your-spec abilities.

Or at least that's what I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, Noble.

If you read his other posts you would see he isn't excluding utility spells. He said threat abilities on DPS classes is "useless bloat" for instance.

More exaggeration.

There's a lot of difference between spells like Crusader Strike (Paladins) and Shackle Undead (Priests), I hope you understand.

It isn't exaggeration. Did you even read his posts?

I would argue that something is "bloat" if it's not useful 95% of the time or only in fringe cases (e.g. a DPS using a threat-generating move + kiting a boss long enough for a tank to be rezzed; something that doesn't happen in any reasonable scenario) and basically "wastes" an action button slot. I've stated previously that I think the hard cap of "active" action buttons (i.e. buttons that you would reasonably have keybound) should be 24, and ideally even less than that to around 15-20. Anything else is just a button taking up a keybind and a slot on the bar for situations that almost never arise, and those should be the first ones sent to the junk heap.

Void added 4% to his words. Hardly over exaggeration.

[nightfalls]

That bolded bit. Noble is specifically excluding utility abilities, and is talking about rotational, important-to-your-spec abilities.

Considering this entire back and forth started because Noble's post regarding getting rid of RF and Blessings (specifically those two), I'm not so sure what he means. 15 spells used 100% of the time and no other spells is unrealistic and even if it were implemented would make for an extremely poor class for the obvious reason: You're insanely limited on your ability to do anything if it has to be useful all the time.

Getting rid of Shackle Undead and Turn Evil (along with all non-Humanoid CC's) is not something I am against but even then we still have to remember that removing these abilities is in fact a (heavy) class nerf and would have to be compensated for. For instance in PvP balance nerfs to pets would probably have to happen since they would become far more difficult to counter.

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Also generally speaking most abilities in my spellbook sit on my bars except obvious useless ones (like Seal of Righteousness for Holy). I think most people's definition of what is worthy of being on a bar differs substantially.

So Noble's "15 abilities at most that are worthy of being on an action bar" is a rather vacuous statement.

[Nobleshield]

FYI I never once said Blessings, I specifically excluded them because they are basically "fire and forget", not something that you even need to bother to keybind; it was someone else who said Blessings should just be some always-on aura thingie like DKs have. I did however said that RF should have been given to Prot only as a passive because it's pretty much never used outside of Prot except for weird things with Holy (bats on Tortos?), which is where the argument came up because someone said something about tossing on RF for some fringe case in 25H content, and it kinda went downhill from there because I said that I would discount anything in 25H because that's less than 1% of cases where it could work and something shouldn't be kept around just because the upper crust will find a use for it.

I also said that while I Found about 15 to be ideal, up to 24 would work because the center "main" actionbar has 24 buttons, which would stil leave supplementary things on the side like RF, Blessings and the like.

[Krekko]

I love pulling this card!

In design and everywhere in the world around us we see increasingly "minimalist" designs. The problem is, most people misunderstand what being "minimalist" and "minimalism" as a design principle is all about. They forget how to apply and achieve good, solid minimalist design because they are caught up on one, misled aspect of it; A magic number.

This fault can be seen often in various forms of minimalism, be it design for print/advertising, lifestyle, or interior design, whatever it is, people get caught up on getting the number of elements or items down as low as possible with little to no consideration to the actual design process. What happens as a result is that you start getting rid of things you truly do want and truly do need in order to achieve a certain, arbitrary status quo.

The problem is as simple as when minimalism because a design goal rather than a design process.

If you go into it thinking, "Okay, we need to cut things down to this number", you're going to see A LOT Of good things cut and a lot of things hurt, on the flip side of it, artificially filling up to that point can be equally as bad. If you go about the process appropriately, you'll start to see what can go, IF it needs to go, and what can be put where/with what instead.

This is a big problem I'm seeing here, is that there is this unnecessary need to get our spell numbers down to either a certain amount of spells (or a perceived amount) with little to no discretion.

How this relates back to everything is quite simply, we can't go into it as a goal to get the numbers down to a certain amount or as low as possible just for the sake of it. It needs to come as apart of the process of figuring out what our class needs and doesn't need and what we'll be best off with/without in the long run.

We also need to realize/asses the fact that certain spells, while one as an individual player might not use it (like some here clearly refuse to utilize various forms of utility) are still useful to the class as a whole, to our gestalt. We also need to see that consolidation of spells/certain effects are not necessarily beneficial in all situations and can in fact hurt/impede us. You can merge two spells and free up a bar slot (and perhaps not even gain anything major in return) but loose the utility, or situational utility of one of the spells! It's a cause and effect.

[Freia]

FYI I never once said Blessings, I specifically excluded them because they are basically "fire and forget", not something that you even need to bother to keybind; it was someone else who said Blessings should just be some always-on aura thingie like DKs have. I did however said that RF should have been given to Prot only as a passive because it's pretty much never used outside of Prot except for weird things with Holy (bats on Tortos?), which is where the argument came up because someone said something about tossing on RF for some fringe case in 25H content, and it kinda went downhill from there because I said that I would discount anything in 25H because that's less than 1% of cases where it could work and something shouldn't be kept around just because the upper crust will find a use for it.

I also said that while I Found about 15 to be ideal, up to 24 would work because the center "main" actionbar has 24 buttons, which would stil leave supplementary things on the side like RF, Blessings and the like.

And multiple people gave you examples of when both ret and holy use RF and you still say it should be prot only. So basically nerf ret and holy simply because you don't use RF and Taunt in those specs. If you don't want it taking up bar space, don't put them on your bars. That is all there is to it.

You have the exact same attitude you cry about heroic raiders having. You say the game shouldn't account for them but it should account for you. That is pretty selfish. Especially when you have the choice to just as I said leave them off your bar where the people who actually utilize said abilities just would not be able to use them anymore.