"Ability pruning" is not entirely true

[xhisors]

It's easy to bolt 2 sentences then contradict them. Read the whole post again, all together. There are less base abilities but overall there are MORE abilities and more abilities that are actively used than ever before.

Just because you use 90% of the pruned spells that you have now, doesn't mean you have more spells. I can see if you meant that your abilities are more meaningful now. But we have less abilities than before. Out of the classes I play in pvp(Priest, Warlock, Rdruid, Rogue, mwMonk) I used almost every ability in the toolkit every expac. How you seem to think we only used 50% of the abilities in WoD confuses me.

Warlocks...can have 4 dps buttons to press. They can put their entire toolkit on one god damn bar. Thats just one class, we can go into multiple others that have been gutted out quite a bit. I would have to find the blues post/interview but blizz stated they wanted to reduce everyone to less than 20 buttons.

Why not? Making character-defining decisions is at the heart of playing an RPG.

What character-defining decisions would that be? I don't see how.. putting an AoE heal with 12 second CD iconic ability that we have had forever, in the same row as a Major 3 minute CD that boosts healing of our most powerful spells by 200% and reduces their CD greatly, something we should have to pick from. It makes no sense to me. I get the whole decision making, but in my opinion they could have made what we had to chose from better or at least make sense.

I could understand a little more if they made Divine hym on the level 100 talent row instead of CoH. That would feel like a great character defining decision, major AoE healing vs Major single target healing.

Maybe I'm overly critical of it, I am enjoying the game overall though regardless of how I feel about talent trees and pruning.

[goblingirl]

Oh man that is terrible lol

Is it intended or a bug do you think?

And I loved Bloom as well. I'm sad that's gone. It was like our "thing". Oh well.

I'm not sure if it's intended or a bug. I've read people inferring from some things the devs said that they wanted to put in an "idle animation" for casters during combat, but it didn't get done, so it defaulted to what's happening now. Others are claiming it's a bug. I haven't seen any blue post or tweet explicitly saying one thing or the other, myself. However, it was like this on the alpha/beta, for some time, so I am assuming they did it on purpose, and ignored feedback about it.

[PeterTheGreat]

There are less abilities than before yes - but there are more abilities you actively use.

Complete bullshit. You have less abilities you dont use often, you have less abilities you use often. Every class was robbed. Even casual paladins and DK have less to think about.
Automatic bubble? lol.

[Echo of Soul]

Not every ability in the spell book has to be a combat ability. We've lost a lot of RPG elements over the years in the name of pruning, abilities that could seldom be used but had meaning when they could be.

[Wewlad]

I'm tired of people who think the niche situational abilities are mandatory when they only work because of that 1% chance they might be useful. And they claim it makes them skilled.

It is almost equivalent to kids who learn a few Latin phrases in an attempt to sound cool and sophisticated within very situational (nonexistent) scenarios.

- - - Updated - - -

Not every ability in the spell book has to be a combat ability. We've lost a lot of RPG elements over the years in the name of pruning, abilities that could seldom be used but had meaning when they could be.

I would agree with this, but WoW simply isn't that game because most people only care about combat.

[Renchard]

Warlocks...can have 4 dps buttons to press. They can put their entire toolkit on one god damn bar. Thats just one class, we can go into multiple others that have been gutted out quite a bit. I would have to find the blues post/interview but blizz stated they wanted to reduce everyone to less than 20 buttons.

That's a positive to my mind, not a negative. I've been asking for at least some specs with less keybinds for several expansions now. Not all of us have the reflexes of teens or 20-somethings anymore.

What character-defining decisions would that be? I don't see how.. putting an AoE heal with 12 second CD iconic ability that we have had forever, in the same row as a Major 3 minute CD that boosts healing of our most powerful spells by 200% and reduces their CD greatly, something we should have to pick from. It makes no sense to me. I get the whole decision making, but in my opinion they could have made what we had to chose from better or at least make sense.

If you're going to prune successfully, there's going to be options that at least some people view as iconic made optional or removed entirely. It's a difficult process. I'm sure Blizzard didn't get 100% right, as ultimately some of the decisions are going to come down to their gut feeling.

As to your example above, to my mind, those are exactly the sort of choices the talent rows should be forcing; passive vs rotational vs cooldown.

[xhisors]

That's a positive to my mind, not a negative. I've been asking for at least some specs with less keybinds for several expansions now. Not all of us have the reflexes of teens or 20-somethings anymore.

Having more buttons has nothing to do with reflexes, just memorizing. At this point, i could use a ps4 controller to play some specs in wow, which in my opinion is silly. When we had 60 buttons(including macro's) back in wrath, the game had more than 11 millions subs. I don't think having more buttons is a bad things. Since that is mostly memory, anyone could play it. Now some of that was ability bloat but only having a few choices I feel takes away class diversity and uniqueness.

If you're going to prune successfully, there's going to be options that at least some people view as iconic made optional or removed entirely. It's a difficult process. I'm sure Blizzard didn't get 100% right, as ultimately some of the decisions are going to come down to their gut feeling.

As to your example above, to my mind, those are exactly the sort of choices the talent rows should be forcing; passive vs rotational vs cooldown.

I get that everyone is going to have an opinion of what is iconic. But i think the priest and shaman all agree that Circle of healing and Earth shield are iconic abilities in the game. Is it bad that its a talent now? I think so, does it provide that passive, rotational, cd like you said? Absolutely. I just can't agree with it.

Though it works out in favor in PvP since in 3s you didn't really get the full potential of CoH(other than being instant free healing).

[GreenJesus]

Lets give everyone only 1 button! That way people will use 100% of their spells!!

There is nothing wrong with a button that is only used 20% of the time. Knowing not to use it or use it separates a bad player from a good player. A shaman that used reflect totem or fear break totem versus a shaman that doesn't for example.

[Echocho]

WoW is pretty much an ARPG at this point so removing abilities that add depth makes sense.
1. Do combat
2. Get loot
3. Repeat

[Mizix]

they take away baseline abilities and offer you a 1 in 3 talent choice.

is it more interesting than the old talent trees? sure BECAUSE THERE'S SHIT YOU HAD FOR 7 YEARS IN THERE.

damn right i want the shit i've been using for the last 7-10 years back.

Amen to that.

[Lewlies]

Overall if you look on a class by class basis AND at level 110, there are MORE abilities (including artifact AND pvp) that we would actively use than when this expansion is ending. Some class/spec combos (I.E Disc/Ret/shaman/hunter) have lost but others like druid/lock/shadow priest gained abilities or cooldowns.

[cousinit1686]

What major changes, if any, have you noticed for resto druids? I will be back playing in a week or so and haven't been able to really look into it.

Mastery was changed so you don't need to land a direct heal to do full potential, the downside (I feel) is that your direct heals don't refresh your lifebloom so you'll need to reapply it.

Doing timewalking I felt much safer on my R druid than my H pally. Only ran one each, I might have just had a not so great tank on the pally, or I'm bad, or both!

Overall I don't mind the changes to the classes I play. Though hearing R shaman only has earth shield in pvp... doesn't sit well with me.

[Socialhealer]

WoW is pretty much an ARPG at this point so removing abilities that add depth makes sense.
1. Do combat
2. Get loot
3. Repeat

but it could be a really cool epic ARPG like diablo 2.

not a shit rift simulator like trashablo 3.

[TwoNineMarine]

Mastery was changed so you don't need to land a direct heal to do full potential, the downside (I feel) is that your direct heals don't refresh your lifebloom so you'll need to reapply it.

Doing timewalking I felt much safer on my R druid than my H pally. Only ran one each, I might have just had a not so great tank on the pally, or I'm bad, or both!

Overall I don't mind the changes to the classes I play. Though hearing R shaman only has earth shield in pvp... doesn't sit well with me.

I've heard that as well about the Shammy and it makes me sad. I always enjoyed earth shield. I don't quite understand what they were going with with that.

[Jenox]

Why not? Making character-defining decisions is at the heart of playing an RPG.

Right, it is. So why is pruning the right thing? Less posibilties - less RPG.
And I'm sure that everyone of you guys, who talk about pruning being alright have like "no mind" for a real RPG-Based Game srsly. Everyone who played the "real" RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons knows that the posibility to have "more" utilty even if you invent some own spells and something is one of the most important parts of an RPG-Game because this is what the defines class fantasy.

Class Fantasy is: Shaman with Totems and Thunderstorms, Lava, Elementals going Ragemode. Today Shaman is like - Thundershock (Earthshock Animation). Really thats it! We had Shamans with totems, thunderstorms, lava, elementals but(!) what if we can have a shaman who is like - waiting for maelstrom - continously waiting for .... baaaaam earthshock ..... waiting for maelstrom - contin..... That's some awesome class change in the past years, best class fantasy ever - NOT! And now tell me that the Shaman isn't only about waiting for earthshock nuke - yes I know, but I'm only talking about the fantasy, and in the fantasy, the only big "nuke" which is noticeable is the earthshock damage, every other spells are crippled to being a maelstrom generator, that's not my shaman fantasy, that's blizzards bad idea of shaman fantasy. And Shaman isn't the only good example, I could do this for like 80% of all classes in the current state of game, sad.

[kencloudli]

Slightly off-topic, but I do like the ability pruning in Legion. Others may not like it but I think it is good to fit your abilities in 2 action bars rather than 3-4.

[Fistfury]

What major changes, if any, have you noticed for resto druids? I will be back playing in a week or so and haven't been able to really look into it.

Hi TwoNine,
The talent changes are interesting - take a look at the new legion talent trees on wowhead if you get a chance. Of course the min/max raiding types will sh*t on it as mostly an "illusion" of choice - but I've found that for 5 mans at the very least you can play a multitude of different ways and find them all slightly different and enjoyable.

Changes:
1. Lifebloom can NOT be maintained indefinitely. It falls off after the timer expires and blooms. I actually really like this change - reminds me of the old days. It also makes you think about when it will bloom and try not to waste another heal
2. I don't feel like we lost a ton of utility - we actually get the vortex baseline now - which I find very useful in 5 mans for keeping adds together for the tank.
3. Tranquility isn't nearly as powerful (at least without artifact talents) as it used to be.

Just my experience.

[Sarkol]

People talk about pruning, but looking at the whole picture, with abilties, pvp talents, classes being more distinct again, and talent trees being way more spec focused, it's MUCH better than before. I mean, just take a look at old WoD talent trees, then look at Legion ones. Night and day difference. WoD and before looks horrible compared to Legion.

Most argument against 'pruning' are terrible anyway. They're usually hugely exaggerated, taking things out of context, and full of illogical crying, without any semblance of the bigger picture.

[Icoblablubb]

True, but I don't think blizz needs to reinvent the wheel every 2 years with every class. For years now it feels like the majority wish wow would go back to the old days of wotlk or earlier. We had like 60 some buttons during that time.

are u talking about the (Majority) these 20 people who are hyping Legacy Server? oh yay 90% of those just want a Nostalgia trip. and you'r 60 skills 90% of them were never used or once or twice a day .. can't understand how can someone be so blind about that... yes we lost like 6 tabs in the spellbook over the years but the amount of skill's we use is literally the same .. we just don't have these gimmick skills which were not needed for any kind of content

[Kurve1776]

I think we can all agree hunters got destroyed. went from decent utility to 0 for the average hunter, +1 if you have a pet with brez or lust.

A lot of the other classes I've played don't seem too different from their WoD counterparts. In fact, many changed for the better imo.