Prune 3.0 should be even bigger imho.

[Deleted]

What ho,

Skill prune 2.0 is almost here, and with it lots of familiar skills, talents and glyphs are being removed or altered. Good riddance, I say. In prune 3.0, whenever that happens, they should take it even further in my opinion. A system can have a lot of complexity and flexibility without being cluttered. I think they should aim for the following numbers per specialization:

• 5 active abilities (skills and spells that you use)
• 5 passive abilities (skills and spells that function in the background and require no input)

Then you could remove the skillbars from the game and instead have it play like a modern RPG, coupled with the new action camera. On top of this, a whole new market would open up on console.

Naturally, there can still be a ton of complexity and class customization behind the scenes. Skills can be manipulated and altered using glyphs or skill points, and specializations as well as talents can still provide an additional layer of skill customization.

[Calfredd]

But why? Why would you want this?

[Deleted]

But why? Why would you want this?

The question ought to be: why do you want many buttons?

At the moment, the game is cluttered with a ton of redundancy. Skillbars, buttons, and what have you. There can be complexity (e.g. intricate skill trees and meaningful choices) without all of that. Besides, if they did trim it down further, the game could be played on console and would appeal to more people, I think. People seem to dig The Witcher 3, and WoW could easily play like that.

[Deleted]

Are you insane?

[Deleted]

The question ought to be: why do you want many buttons?

At the moment, the game is cluttered with a ton of redundancy. Skillbars, buttons, and what have you. There can be complexity (e.g. intricate skill trees and meaningful choices) without all of that. Besides, if they did trim it down further, the game could be played on console and would appeal to more people, I think. People seem to dig The Witcher 3, and WoW could easily play like that.

As soon as you started talking about consoles the jigg was up.

5/10 troll, don't reach so far so early next time

[ttylol]

subtle satire, bravo

[zeropeorth]

Ffxiv manages to be on PS3/4 without being so minimalist; so that argument is moot. Losing more flavor is less rpg feel. They should go back to the bc/wrath flavor days; hunters I think lost a ton of flavor compared to most other classes, from what I recall of the little I played them pre cata to how they felt the last time I messed with them a year or so ago.

[Pua]

It's not a prune they need; it's a vision.

If you have a coherent vision for what a spec should look like, and give it the tools in order to fit that vision, then you can have as many active and passive abilities as you like. Sadly, what they're actually doing, is approaching each spell and deciding whether anyone really needs it or not.

It's the wrong way to do things, but wholly expected from such a talentless class design team.

[Bloodwinger]

subtle satire, bravo

subtle? SUBTLE?

[Pull My Finger]

Stuff looks just about right now in Legion. Pruning was good, but it doesn't need more.

[Todesbote]

I would suggest you play Diablo III instead where all your wildest dreams are already true.

[deniter]

10/10

Very well done!

[grexly75]

On my enhancement shammy in Legion beta I have a full bar full of spells and abilites.. Best thing though in a way is I only have to worry about one totem which I only use when it a pickle..

[Deleted]

I prefered the vanilla to wrath model, where my toon was complex and had loads of skills on the hotbar but the encounters a lot simpler.

[ComputerNerd]

It should have been an ongoing progress.
More spring cleaning instead of a demolition.
Blizzard should work out what they think a given spec should have in way of buttons,and make adjustments every time there is too much deviation from that.
Instead of waiting for years and changing way too much too quickly.

[Deleted]

Honestly I'm more happy with the way it looks for Legion. You've got the option of chosing talents for a more active or passive playstyle, there's not an overwhelming amount of abilities but they sync up more to a coherent playstyle rather than "press cd and win". If I were to chose I'd get spell ranks back. Yes, yes it felt cluttered, but there was actually something interesting about running 4 different ranks of holy light as a holy pally and manage those based on incoming damage, just as an example.

[Sencha]

You should play D3 instead of WoW.

By the way, some specs already have less abilities than what you suggest. That's why Legion looks depressing.

[LilSaihah]

Why don't you just play GW2?

[Kolvarg]

play like a modern RPG

More akin to a modern action-adventure game (which many recent MMOs try to go for). There are many modern actual RPGs that still have dozens of abilities to use and are complex and full of depth.

The main thing imo with WoW is that even when classes were more cluttered with abilities, you didn't really "need" all of them. In fact I'd say the average dungeon/raid player probably only learned their rotation and used the 4~6 skills in it, and rarely ever used cooldowns (other than the obvious ones) and more situational abilities. On the other hand an experienced player could further learn into their toolkit and the little tricks of their spec and become noticeably better without too greatly outperforming a less experienced player of the same spec and gear.

So it's basicly just removing the satisfaction of players who enjoy using their full toolkit so that the remaining players don't have to go through the trouble of ignoring the abilities that aren't as relevant/useful.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with an action-adventure style MMO with very little keybinds and abilities. It's just not what I and many others "signed up for", and even though I will likely still enjoy the game and play at least to check new content, it sucks to see Blizzard "turn their backs" on the fans that helped WoW become one of the most successful and well-known games of all time.

[Deleted]

What ho,

Skill prune 2.0 is almost here, and with it lots of familiar skills, talents and glyphs are being removed or altered. Good riddance, I say. In prune 3.0, whenever that happens, they should take it even further in my opinion. A system can have a lot of complexity and flexibility without being cluttered. I think they should aim for the following numbers per specialization:

• 5 active abilities (skills and spells that you use)
• 5 passive abilities (skills and spells that function in the background and require no input)

Then you could remove the skillbars from the game and instead have it play like a modern RPG, coupled with the new action camera. On top of this, a whole new market would open up on console.

Naturally, there can still be a ton of complexity and class customization behind the scenes. Skills can be manipulated and altered using glyphs or skill points, and specializations as well as talents can still provide an additional layer of skill customization.

No, if you want to play a 5 button character, there is Diablo3 and HotS for you.

- - - Updated - - -

The question ought to be: why do you want many buttons?

At the moment, the game is cluttered with a ton of redundancy. Skillbars, buttons, and what have you. There can be complexity (e.g. intricate skill trees and meaningful choices) without all of that. Besides, if they did trim it down further, the game could be played on console and would appeal to more people, I think. People seem to dig The Witcher 3, and WoW could easily play like that.

Situational abilities are things that define characters more than their core abilities. Everyone can do damage, heal or mitigate damage somehow. But a mage is a class with polymorph, remove curses and spell steal, while a shadow priest has mind control, dispel magic / remove diseases, and off-heal capabilities. Your "clutter" is my raison d'etre.