Healing spells heal for much LESS of a players hp. Please see Holy Light for pallies in Vanilla and TBC, bombs like HL were very expensive but also healed for huge portions of player HP. Mana regen was generally very High for spirit using healers and using things like OoC regen during boss fights via clearcasting procs and unlimited mana pots (outside 2min cd)healer mana generally went further back then compared to now for spamming expensive spells. Back then healers also downranked spells to heal people in less dire need of healing. Holy pallies often had upwards of 3-5 ranks of HL on their bars.
Tanking rotations now are more then just taunt and threat. they have sensitive active mitigation and resource generating rotations that make huge differences between good tanks and bad. I prefer the current tanking model to vanilla through wotlk any day. Also its not bosses telling you when to taunt is addons like DBM. Most tank swap mechanics are not TAUNT NOW OR THE OTHER TANK DIES. Most are "this is the minumun number of stacks to guarentee a stack reset between 2 tanks so taunting now is optimal to reduce dmg."Tanking now is arguably faceroll compared to vanilla. The boss tells you when to use taunt. The boss tells you when to use your cooldowns. Like i said, i last seriously raided in Cataclysm, and last seriously raided on a tank in Wrath of the Lich King. In LK, tanking was awfully simple for most fights.
Lots of fights are currently soft enrages atleast for for mythic raiding. Host, sisters, avatar and kj all kill you via mechanics not "lul 500% increased dmg cause I'm mad now". I think a balance is fine.Soft enrage isn't really an enrage. It just means you ran out of resources. It allows the raid flexibility, but having everyone heal except the tank or two tanks is quite the exaggeration. Blizzard put in the enrage timer so they can tell the raid exactly how much of a role you have to bring.
You want end tier bosses to be a repetition? What? You want to do the same 3-5 mechanics for 6min on the LAST boss? This makes 0 sense to me. The average raider is leaps and bounds better then they were back in BC and learn single phase encounters quickly. Single phase bosses die very quickly compared to multiphase ones and should be used to early/mid tier fights only.While i like Gruul's design (especially an earlier iteration), i am not arguing for no multiple phase encounters. I am arguing to reduce it tremendously, for example, to end bosses only.
Unpredictable bosses would require the mechanics they perform to be significantly less threatening. Please see Faction champs in ToC. Most of their mechnics were easily avoidable or did non threatening amounts of damage. And even then people found ways to control the npcs and who they would go for. WoW encounters are datamined and tested before hitting live. People know how mobs will react and what buffs they can get. They have also allowed for raid choices in HOW you kill bosses. Mythic Botanist had 3 p3 options but people quickly found out the easiest one and 99% of guilds opted for this route. We live in a world of reddit gaming where everything is common knowledge amongst the community.It's really hard to find a good example in WoW, because of Blizzard's intent for an arcade game. Think chess. Beating your opponent can be really difficult even though you have a lot of time (at least compared to one's own reaction time) to make a move. You have to think for the future. This is largely non-existent in WoW, especially in anything past-BC.
Imagine you have to fight four trash mobs, W, X, Y, and Z. W is the highest damage, because he is a caster mob. X is a healer. Y is medium damage dealer, but cannot be tanked. And Z is a tank, who stuns and is otherwise a pain to leave up. You have only two forms of CC. Now, just like chess and current WoW, you come into the game with a plan. But, unlike current WoW, let's have our four mobs react to your actions. You cc X and Z, thinking you can just burst down W, and out heal all the damage that's coming up. All of a sudden, Z gets a random buff that grants him immunity to CC. How do you respond?
Now, i am not advocating for WoW to turn into a turn-based mmo, but just asking for more time to think. Of course, if you are given more time to think, those decisions must be more impactful. Right now, you either make the clear right choice or the clear wrong choice, but in a matter of a second. I shun this kind of design (at least, when it is every single fight).
On your 2nd point about time.. we aren't playing a board game or a card game. Reactions are also a measure of difficulty/skill. Why should we get to see a cast go off then later decide if it should be kicked.
Dgrip, typhoon, ursols, spellwarding, CloS, intervene, stampeding roar, PW:B, Aura Mastery, Spirit Link, Demonic gateway, and darkness all have been added post vanilla with some being added in each expansion. Sure things like stuns and kicks are still core to the game but they aren't remaking the bicycle every expac.Perhaps it was, i haven't played Legion. Though, i think if you were to count the amount of utility spells in the game right now, i would imagine most of them came with the original game, or some variation of it. Life Grip and Smoke Bomb are two that i know are not (and that was in the start of Cataclysm, when Blizzard was trying to relaunch vanilla, in some ways).
The issue i have with raiding nowadays largely stems from two things. 1) The unholy trinity of class design; and 2) The arcade feel of raid design.
Because of this, players have, generally, infinite resources in an encounter. Mana management is pretty much out the window. Thus, player health is out the window. You either have health, or you don't. When you add in more finite resources, you add in a whole new level of game design.
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I've referenced unpredictable bosses already so I'll just comment on the FF class design. Its a game where people can min max like crazy. If you could just bring 10 ranged dps that splash melee but do way more damage thats all top guilds would do. If the damage was raid wide, top guilds would just find the easiest balance of healers to demo's . It is not how wow is designed if you don't want to play a trinity mmo... wow is not for you. Most wow players like the trinity. It assigns roles and specializations so players can play they want to.I haven't raided in Legion, so, i understand a lot of my points can only reflect the general feel of the modern state of the game. But, you hit on something very key. Let's say we have two classes, one is a marksman, the other is a demolitionist. The bombs guy clearly does more damage, so much more it is not even a contest. However, when he explodes the boss, he will be sure to do damage to all (friendly and enemy) nearby targets. The marksman's damage only hits the target of his choice.
With this, you put the damage onto player decision. Again, coupled with boss reaction, could make for some really interesting encounters.