Do you feel all classes are being dumbed down with each expac that comes out?

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

I guess easy to learn and hard to master eludes a lot of people on these forums or they really don't understand good game design. Classes are easier to play (for the most most part, not all though) but harder to master depending on talents, procs, and how resources are used.

Also, having 30+ keybinds (my enhance shaman) was never fun nor complex IMO.

You can also tell who the scrubs are when they only say two button rotations for a class.

What exactly is hard about pressing 3-4 buttons? Thats pretty much where every class/spec is right now.

[Tankitbetter]

Does anyone here really think that DPS rotations have ever been complicated? (Not counting kitty in ICC) For the most part, every class simply has been "keep up this debuff, spam these two-three spells."

Rotations are not hard. You can literally download addons that flash the ability that is your best ability at the time and you'll do 95% of your max theoretical DPS.

The skill comes in your execution - can you push the correct buttons while interrupting, moving out of aoe, handling boss mechanics, etc?

If you want to actually do something that takes skill, heal. There is no priority system there. Your choices matter. As DPS? lolno.

[Deja Thoris]

What exactly is hard about pressing 3-4 buttons? Thats pretty much where every class/spec is right now.

Thats complete bullshit. I main a shadow priest and if anything theres more buttons to press rotationally.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

I always laugh when people bring up BC/Wrath as a time when specs and rotations were advanced and in depth for all classes. As someone who played a fury warrior through those times (vanilla as well), the rotations and overall depth was pretty bloody shallow. For BC fury, your main attack spells were Bloothirst, Whirlwind, Execute and Heroic Strike if rage allowed with Rampage being kept up. That was 4 buttons to press plus a 5th every 30 seconds. Obviously stance dancing was something that was done then (playing with NZ ping on a US server basically mean't it was pointless for me to even try) but still, if we're going off number of buttons needed to play the specs, that's pretty simple compared to Fury on live, and even still for Legion.

Warriors have always had the lowest skillcap in the game along with "huntards", its no big secret that they've always been a joke.

As a destro lock at the beginning of cata i had curse of elements, corruption, bane of agony, searing pain? immolate, incinerate, conflagrate, soul fire, chaos bolt, shadowburn, shadowflame, fel flame, soulburn. I hope all that nonsense sounds complicated because it was, and thats just single target.

[Stormspellz]

i miss greater healing wave and mana tide.

Remember the "use the right spell for the situation" phase they tried to pull for healers, lol that went out the window fast.

[Aori]

Playing the classes was always easy, it was tailoring builds and gear to suit your needs that was the hard part. That was neutered in Cata and killed in MoP. There just isn't anything interesting about everyone being the same. I still think removing pre cata talent trees was one of the biggest mistakes of WoW.

[Lightfist]

Warriors have always had the lowest skillcap in the game along with "huntards", its no big secret that they've always been a joke.

As a destro lock at the beginning of cata i had curse of elements, corruption, bane of agony, searing pain? immolate, incinerate, conflagrate, soul fire, chaos bolt, shadowburn, shadowflame, fel flame, soulburn. I hope all that nonsense sounds complicated because it was.

Nah, it really doesn't. I do enjoy how you listed every ability you used - no matter how infrequently you actually had to use it. Like, Curse of Elements? Really? It was a once per fight ability.

Some classes used to be more complicated, but it really came down to being convoluted - and most of the time, the difference between the 'simple' and 'optimal' rotation wasn't very large. Half the abilities of any given class were situational, gimmicky messes that added little to gameplay besides make things complicated for the sake of complication.

I miss some of the flavorful abilities that have been pruned, such as Sense Evil for paladins, or Eye of the Beast for hunters - but pruning is a necessary part of moving forward. Without it, we'd either be stuck with the same spells or our spellbooks would become utterly bloated.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Nah, it really doesn't. I do enjoy how you listed every ability you used - no matter how infrequently you actually had to use it. Like, Curse of Elements? Really? It was a once per fight ability.

Some classes used to be more complicated, but it really came down to being convoluted - and most of the time, the difference between the 'simple' and 'optimal' rotation wasn't very large. Half the abilities of any given class were situational, gimmicky messes that added little to gameplay besides make things complicated for the sake of complication.

I miss some of the flavorful abilities that have been pruned, such as Sense Evil for paladins, or Eye of the Beast for hunters - but pruning is a necessary part of moving forward. Without it, we'd either be stuck with the same spells or our spellbooks would become utterly bloated.

Curse of the elements was a 1 time thing in pve but not pvp, and i named 13 abilities. Theres not a single class or spec in the game that used more abilities as part of their single target rotation, theres no need to lie we were both playing the same game.

[Amaterasu65]

i miss greater healing wave and mana tide.

Remember the "use the right spell for the situation" phase they tried to pull for healers, lol that went out the window fast.

Why you say so? You can use the PW:S for every situation and it will be right!

#kappatron

[Lightfist]

Curse of the elements was a 1 time thing in pve but not pvp, and i named 13 abilities. Theres not a single class or spec in the game that used more abilities as part of their single target rotation, theres no need to lie we were both playing the same game.

Yeah, and the majority of those abilities were either:
1.) DOTS that you barely had to pay attention to
2.) Situational, gimmick, and ultimately unnecessary to class design.

I mean, how often were you using Searing Pain in PVE... ? And if we're talking about PVP, then damage rotation is hardly the deciding factor in difficulty.

[Nerovar]

Looking at what they did to my Windwalker... These are really poor changes. The removal of Tiger Eye Brew and the big change concerning Storm, Earth & Fire turned this class into another instant burst button smasher.
Also the removal of Runes and Presences on my DK was infuriating.
"[...] we focused on getting more depth out of less complexity." - Blizzard 2016
I can't really say that I love them for turning this RPG into a moba.

[Wolfie of Medivh]

I always laugh when people bring up BC/Wrath as a time when specs and rotations were advanced and in depth for all classes. As someone who played a fury warrior through those times (vanilla as well), the rotations and overall depth was pretty bloody shallow. For BC fury, your main attack spells were Bloothirst, Whirlwind, Execute and Heroic Strike if rage allowed with Rampage being kept up. That was 4 buttons to press plus a 5th every 30 seconds. Obviously stance dancing was something that was done then (playing with NZ ping on a US server basically mean't it was pointless for me to even try) but still, if we're going off number of buttons needed to play the specs, that's pretty simple compared to Fury on live, and even still for Legion.

Yeah, I think a lot of them work in the realm of theoretical maximums rather than what people actually played. I don't know any shamans who in real life setups did the insane totem twisting that we could back in TBC all the time. YEah you'd break it out if you were on that 1% last boss pull, but most of the time it didn't add much more than frustration, and I for one am glad they got rid of that sorta thing.

[Delusionality]

Curse of the elements was a 1 time thing in pve but not pvp, and i named 13 abilities. Theres not a single class or spec in the game that used more abilities as part of their single target rotation, theres no need to lie we were both playing the same game.

Enh used just as many, plus more for raid utility, in MoP.

Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Earthshock, Flameshock, Unleash Elements, Flame Totem, Earth Elemental, Fire Elemental, Ascendance, Lightning Bolt, Bloodlust, Elemental Mastery, Feral Spirit, even the Herbalism CD as it was a massive DPS increase at the time. That's not counting the raid healing Enh was capable of putting out at the time without hurting its damage.

Ultimately before I was done raiding I had 32+ keybinds. Including every button on my Naga. It was ridiculous. Now I'm not a fan of the current iteration of Enh but it's not because there's less buttons.

Mechanics should be where complexity and skill is added. Through mechanics like Snapshotting which I can only hope returns someday. The amount of abilities classes had reached a ridiculous level it also makes balances a freaking a headache when every class has a library of abilities it needs to function. I'm sure overtime bloat will reoccur, and will be cut back again. But this was a good change.

Also having an ability list like that does is create a huge priority list.

[papajohn4]

Do you feel all classes are being dumbed down with each expac that comes out?
I play a mage

Mages used to just spam fireball while keeping 3 stacks of Scorch up. Warlocks Used to just spam Shadowbolt while keeping curse of elements up. No, I dont see classes being dump down in each expansion, all I see is content dumb down in each expansion.

People had fun when mage and warlock was as I described above, because the content needed them to do much more than just top the meters...

- - - Updated - - -

Warriors have always had the lowest skillcap in the game along with "huntards", its no big secret that they've always been a joke.

As a destro lock at the beginning of cata i had curse of elements, corruption, bane of agony, searing pain? immolate, incinerate, conflagrate, soul fire, chaos bolt, shadowburn, shadowflame, fel flame, soulburn. I hope all that nonsense sounds complicated because it was, and thats just single target.

???? Warriors had the higher skill cap in Vanilla/TBC.. I mean the good warrior that knew how to stance dance and change equipment for the best result.

[Morssoe]

People had fun when mage and warlock was as I described above, because the content needed them to do much more than just top the meters...

Those were better times.

[Nights]

Judging by rotations u have to do in order to execute dps properlly no. judging by ammount of time u have to invest in order to get into raids on decent level yea.

[WowIsDead64]

I agree, that Blizzard should remove some pointless stuff, like CC from PVE, in order to avoid confusing players, cuz most players want to put all available spells on their action bars and don't realize, that some spells - are pointless PVP-related trash, but I don't agree, that Blizzard should remove core class abilities or turn them into talents. Talent system is terrible, isn't working and killing core game to force players to use it - is extremely terrible idea.

[pfbe]

I thought they had made the game's direction pretty obvious when they decided invisible walls everywhere were better than the possibility of having someone use pathing to kite mobs.

[Lilija]

People had fun when mage and warlock was as I described above, because the content needed them to do much more than just top the meters...

And what times was that? Cause I don't recall dps having to do anything more than... dps. If something, interesting mechanics were introduced in later expantions rather than earlier but in most cases the first job of a dps is to dps without dying.

Anyway, number_of_buttons != complexity

[Deleted]

Dots and "press on cd" skills does not require much skill.. no matter how many u have.
more buttons =/= higher skill
I would agree that if there were no addons like Weak Auras.. but as it stands now, pressing buttons =/= skill.

I prefer less buttons(5-7) each impactful with different meaning. Skillshots(hit or miss) instead of dots. Timing instead of pressing on CD.
But NEVER 10+ buttons each doing exactly same thing.


Aiming, timing give so much more to skillcap than all the dots in the game! With addons, managing dots adds almost nothing to skill.