Button bloat: what are the bloatiest specs? (IYO)

[Futhark]

Enhancement Shaman are awful. They are just a large collection of cooldowns parading as a class.

Stormstrike - 8 sec CD
Lava Lash - 10 sec CD
Unleash Elements - 15 sec CD
Flameshock/Earthshock/Frostshock - 6 sec CD
5 stacks of MW Weapon so you can either Healing Surge, Lightning Bolt, or Chain Lightning

Then we have Totems
Water - Healing Stream (30 sec CD), Healing Tide (3 Min CD)
Fire - Fire Elemental (5 Min CD)
Air - Capacitor (45 Sec CD), Grounding (25 Sec CD), Stormlash (5 Min CD)
Earth - Earthbind (30 Sec CD), Tremor Totem (1 Min CD), Earth Elemental (5 Min CD)

Then you have Bloodlust, Hex, Feral Spirit, Shamanistic Rage, Spirit Walk, Windshear and I'm sure others I'm forgetting. All of these have some sort of usefulness at some point or other.

The spec (possibly the class) could use a giant overhaul.

This is everything I wanted to say. Enhancement is a cooldown mess that takes me out of the action.

Compare this to Elemental, where there are basically three "tracks" of power to maintain/build (totem DoT, FS DoT, LS stacks) and two of them proc enhanced abilities of existing spells. Three tracks of power with a filler DPS staple (LB), procs, cooldowns, and movement is just enough to make me feel like I'm actively participating, but can still stay aware of the fight mechanics. Enhance trades the "building power" aspect of Elemental for "ability wack-a-mole" . It is distracting and my attacks feel like they have little impact from one moment to the next.


I also wish tanking specs (I only play Blood and Brewmaster) were more passive/pre-damage based instead of active/post-damage based (miss you Frost!)

[Deleted]

Hunter feels quite bad.

Also poss. Shaman. Has way too many ultra niche spells and things you keep on your bars "just in case".

[Televators]

I'm ok with things the way they are, but it is DAMNED close to getting out of hand. I have a 7-button mouse. I can comfortably bind 18 on my keyboard and another 28 on my mouse for a total of 46 active-use hotkeys. I'm not counting another 8 or so that I use for buff/non-combat hotkeys. I use 95%+ of these with most specs in game. Specs I really loathe for bloat (for different reasons) would be (in no order):

Prot, Arms Warrior
All Shaman specs
Balance, Feral Druid
All Hunter specs
WW Monk
Affliction Lock
Prot Paladin

Most of these have several redundant/mediocre abilities and others suffer from additional talents that should modify existing spells rather than add a new one.

The average WoW player probably uses a mouse with just a couple of buttons and can bind far less than someone like me. I think there should never be more than 6 standard rotational spells in the damage or healing kit (Destruction Warlock is a good example with Immolate, Combustion, Chaos Bolt, Conflagrate, Fel Flame and Shadowburn) and then maybe another 15-25 in the entire kit. I think that would be plenty of variety and remain challenging.

[flaggel]

Feral Druid. Its the main reason why I no longer play my Druid

[Deleted]

Arms warrior. What exactly is the point of having overpower, slam and heroic strike as 3 different rage spenders?

The rotation is boring enough as it is, and those abilities are different. Since Rend was removed, they have gutted the fun of the spec, and it's a clear example of Blizzard trying to cut down on button bloat in a seemingly harmless way but it actually gutting the fun out of the spec. 4.3 Arms was perfect.

Sure you would only press Rend once per fight, but it gave a huge amount of interaction through the dot tick that was separate from what we have now.

[notorious98]

therefor serpent sting isnt used in aoe rotation... because it gets applied automatically from multishot. duh.

Honestly, it would make more sense to attach SS to main shot casts (CS and StS) and multi-shot for SV.

[Deleted]

I've macroed reck and banner, besides that agreed.

I have literally run out of space, with over 3 lines of keybinds now, so I feel like I'm at the limit, and I don't have Cleave on my bars at all anymore. That said, I have no idea what they could remove without me being upset. I was upset when Rend was taken away. They could probably make Colossus Smash provide 3 stacks of Sunder Armour by default, and then remove Sunder and the related Glyphs, I wouldn't miss that, I never have to use Sunder.

[notorious98]

I would have to say any of the hunter specs. There are just so many traps, cc spells, counter cc spells, dps cooldowns and pet abilities that it's hard to find a good spot for all of them in my keybinds.

Agreed. Many of those abilities were more useful when you absolutely NEEDED space in between you and your target in order to do any damage. Now that there is no min distance anymore, things like Scatter Shot don't really need to exist. It's not like hunters wear cloth or leather. Get rid of Scatter Shot, Snake Trap, Eagle Eye (even though I personally enjoy using it), Feed Pet, attach Serpent Sting to CS and StS, lose Hunter's Mark, and Beast Lore. Probably Scare Beast as well since it's effective against Feral/Guardian druids, hunter pets, and that's it.

[bufferunderrun]

imho if you think there are too many keybind it's time to go back clicking? Or simply mix? Keybind rotation abilities and just set up a macro bar with the rarely used one and just click?
This whole mantra that using keybind is mandatory for every ability is just stupid and is leading blizzard to do make some stupid change.

[Deleted]

Rotation wise. Fury Warriors need a shitload of key bindings.

Heroic Strike
Colossus Smash
Wild Strike
Dragon Roar
Raging Blow
Bloodthirst
Execute
Impending Victory
Battle Shout/Commanding Shout
Heroic Throw
Heroic Leap
Berserker Rage

These are all used in the single target rotation.
With that also comes a multiple target rotation but that only adds two keys. Cleave and Whirlwind.

[Deleted]

Every time this topic comes out people come out shouting they don't want wow to become Guild Wars 2/Diablo 3 or made casual friendly... sigh

My main a Protection Warrior has a total of 43 keybinds and all of them are useful and needed to tank to the fullest of my ability and for me that's too much, so do I want to cut it down to 6 (diablo 3) or 16 (Guild Wars 2 although some classes actually have 25 abilities)? No, ofc not WoW is not and will never be that type of game, however cutting it back to the 25-30 ability range is very much needed, about the same number I had back in tbc.

I look around my guild and more then half are using Razer Naga's me included, is that what passes for skill these days? Buying a mouse so you can keep keybinds in check? So by that logic games like DOTA2 and League of Legend are zero skill? I mean you don't need a special mouse for it so it's a game for kiddies right? /sarcasm

Anyways, with that rant over let's get back to the actual topic... I think all classes need an ability trim, rotation wise most are okay but some have gone overboard with too many abilities dedicated to AoE that end up being ignored due to poor damage, some rotations could also be overall simplified but some diversity here is good since some like more stuff going on then others.

So what to remove? For me the best way to start would be to undo the escalation of CC/PvP buttons that's been going on since classic, stripping all classes to 2-3 options at most, this will also allow to cutting off allot of the abilities introduced to counter it all. After that I'd say looking at what people are macroing together, if the majority is doing it then it clear to me they should be a single button, not 2 or 3. Then there's also allot of small redundant stuff, like warriors having two shouts which are the same thing but since they give a different buff you're forced to have both bound or swap the bind depending on group composition, I could also lose at least 2 of my 4 raid cooldowns. Stuff that's never used could be removed too but I don't think that helps, stuff like far sight or disarm trap is not something that has a combat use and as such can be kept in the spellbook and adds flavor to their respective classes.

Another way to create more bind spaces would also be stance mechanics as wile they don't reduce ability numbers they do reduce binds by allowing the stance button to be a modifier to a specific bind, something Guild Wars 2 makes use of extensively with classes having two to four stances effectively turning the 5 main keybinds into 10-20 abilities but there's always the risk of it becoming clunky like the old warrior stance dancing (although tbh i was kinda fine with it).

I found it a real shame blizzard wasn't going to tack this seriously in WoD, but I guess the item squish had already capped the QQ quota for the expansion but I have no doubt it's something they see the importance of, so much WoD will add no new buttons, which is good considering I'm at my limit always picking passives when I can, macroing things together and going as far as ignoring abilities when playing my characters.

[Voidstrider]

Hunter's, especially pet related binds, can be annoying. Call Pet should handle calling, dismissing and reviving. If you switch pets, you have to dismiss then call. Why not just bundle the dismiss into the call when you want to switch instead of pressing two keys?

[Armourboy]

TBH I tend to think Ele Shaman is just about right when it comes to rotation + CD's if they would maybe combine or remove some of the abilities.

AOE is the one that dumbfounds me the most with the spec. You have 3 different AOE's ( CL, Earthquake, Magma Totem) but 2 of the 3 aren't that great, but once you get over a certain number of mobs then its ok. Does a spec really need 3 different AOE abilities? I personally think they could get rid of the totem and no one would really care all that much. I' m also realizing I'm leaving out Thunderstorm as well.

Then if you look at healing spells as a DPS its nice to have the utility but dang it creates lots extra buttons and while you may not use them that much the minute you get rid of it you will have a reason you should of used it. We have 5 multi target healing abilities if you spec into them. Two totems, CH, Healing Rain and then the healing through damage one ( the name is slipping my mind). Like I said I like the utility, but that just seems like a whole lot of healing options for a DPS spec.

The other one that left me scratching my head was Fury Warriors. Never quite understood why you need Wild Strike and Heroic Strike. You could easily make one or the other cover what the other does, or at least thats how it feels to me ( and has since they added Wild Strikes)

[Jackkernaut]

Whats wrong witb feral? ><

[Futhark]

TBH I tend to think Ele Shaman is just about right when it comes to rotation + CD's if they would maybe combine or remove some of the abilities.

AOE is the one that dumbfounds me the most with the spec. You have 3 different AOE's ( CL, Earthquake, Magma Totem) but 2 of the 3 aren't that great, but once you get over a certain number of mobs then its ok.

Totally agree. Someday, I wish they would have Fulmination reduce EQ cooldown to zero. How cool would that be? Then both single target and AoE rotations would be perfect.

[Farora]

A lot of classes still have way too many skills. Blood DK for example, even warriors and rogues.

[Deleted]

I don't want to fall into a GW2 scenario where once you understand your class core mechanics, it all just becomes a whack-a-mole game between 5 buttons.

If that is how you are playing GW2 you are failing hard. First of all, you got 9 buttons, not 5. If you're only using 5 you're doing it already wrong. Second, you can switch spec which means you got 5 more. That is 14 in total. And there is a lot of choices between these 14 (it is not 14 different choices though as weapons come in packs of choices). Third, if you use everything on CD you're not playing it right because this is not possible on certain fights because spells have various effects. As I wrote before a few pages back spells have 2 or 3 effects. Some are offensive, some defensive. This works very nice because instead of you just mashing buttons you need to time and plan both your offense as well as your defense. Similar is true in WoW. Consider a DK tank for example. DRW has 2-3 uses: it does damage (and hence threat which you can count seperate) and it also increases your parry. Army of the Dead, similar. Even Blood Strike does 3 things: healing, physical shield, and damage. Consider a priest. Dispersion? You do no damage, you get 90% less damage taken. Fade (glyphed)? You lose threat for 10 seconds, and you take 10% less damage.

- - - Updated - - -

Rotation wise. Fury Warriors need a shitload of key bindings.

Heroic Strike
Colossus Smash
Wild Strike
Dragon Roar
Raging Blow
Bloodthirst
Execute
Impending Victory
Battle Shout/Commanding Shout
Heroic Throw
Heroic Leap
Berserker Rage

These are all used in the single target rotation.
With that also comes a multiple target rotation but that only adds two keys. Cleave and Whirlwind.

Thunderclap.

And your list does not include all the utility. 3 banners, disarm, hamstring, shattering throw, intimidating shout, charge, intervene, pummel, rallying cry, die by the sword, recklessness, spell reflect, mass spell reflect, disrupting shout. Then my warr is also engi, so that is synapse springs, nitro, and cloak (yes, I keybind that, it is a gap closer and is amazing on some mechanics although not too important for a warr due to leap/charge/intervene). Pot as well. Then we got racial ability. And battle horn, great for soloing. And healthstone is keybound on all chars. And then we got def stance, you kinda don't wanna click that cause when you need it YOU NEED IT. Yeah, this class... can't keybind this all. And that is all w/o any PvP macros or keybinds...

[pucca]

Didn't read the whole thread but most of your problems can be solved by using simple macros. No idea why you are complaining, but there's no button bloat in any Shaman or Monk spec (in my opinion, those are my main characters, Enhancement was fine and a lot of fun in BC/WotLK and is extremely easy since MoP) - my main (and only visible) actionbar has 9 buttons (button 10 - 12 cannot even be used) and I can still cast every single spell. Maybe warriors have too much spells or I just need to get used to them, don't know, it's propably just me and because it's only a twink and I leveled him with pet battles...

Easiest macro: /cast [harm] damage spell; great healing spell
Congratulations, you saved [amount of primary heal spells] buttons.

Combine that with target, mouseover, harm, exist, mod, stance or whatever you prefer and save a lot of action buttons. Combine similar spells if Blizzard didn't do it yet and hope that they'll combine them in WoD (example: Purge + Cleanse Spirit, it's nonsense to have 2 buttons for abilities that _basically_ do the same (remove (de-)buffs) but only work on different targets (enemy/friendly) and for different debuff types. Other example Charge + Intervene, it's basically running to someone very fast (and taking a hit if the target is friendly)).

You also don't need to put every single talent on your actionbars. Put all your level 90 hunter abilities in one macro and whatever talent you enabled will be used. And don't put spells on your actionbars you never (or rarely) use - Feed Pet, Beast Lore, Zen Pilgrimage come to mind, I'm sure there are a lot more of them. They serve a purpose but they will stay in your spell book, open it when you need them once a year...

You could also use click-casting instead of action bars if you prefer clicking...

The only abilities that I don't like are those that only work from behind, they should have made them that way, that they do more damage from behind and remove whatever ability you otherwise use when not attacking from behind, but I think this will be done anyways in WoD? Those abilities are the reason why I only play combat rogue and balance/restoration druid (again just twinks, "leveled" all classes at 90).

To sum up: No button bloat whatsoever, but some spells could be combined into one.

The average player can open spellbook / core abilities and put those spells on the actionbar and will do just fine in LFR Being able to use all the other spells when needed is the difference between the average player who doesn't care about others and good players. Personal opinion, no offense.

PS: PVE only, I don't do PVP (if it makes any difference).
PPS: Please no more fun-spell removing, I want my Water Breathing back on my shaman

[Pancaspe]

I just don't get this argument.

If you think you have too many abilities, stop using some of them.

Don't ask Blizzard to take them away from the rest of us.

[Doktor Faustus]

Mage, Enhancement Shaman, Monk from my experience.