Game is becoming increasingly dumbed down

[Gardoc]

pvp was always a failure

most of people did it for 1 reason only - because it was avarding free hc raid quality gear for pve.

legion proven only one thing - that 99% of people who did it in past did it for welfare gear not for actual pvp

Legion proved only one thing - that 99% of PVPers hate pruning and stat templates that kill customization and progression.

[NihilSustinet]

* Class Design is at an all-time low.

Most specs now are both incredibly easy to play and easy to master. The gap between a good player and a bad player has never been smaller

* The amount of handholding during questing is jaw-dropping

* Pruning is over the top

We haven´t got any meaningful (permanent) abilities since WoD and from now on every new ability/cool interaction we earn will be taken away from us at the start of a new expansion. Core abilities are turned into talents (Hammer of Wrath, Shadow Word: Death, Consecration...) which shows lack of ideas and lazy design. In the game´s current state, more buttons would indeed mean more engaging gameplay. Depth is gone.

* Everything is made to take longer without being challenging.

Yes, they changed the leveling process. But it is still just as brainless as before, only takes longer. There is no challenge whatsoever, except getting through the slugfest while accepting that three rotational abilities is all you have. What has become of old Combustion? Old Efflorescence? MoP engaging class gameplay? The game is being designed for half-wits and people with dysfunctional neurotransmitter circuits now. It is reflecting whats going on in the world in general. People are stupid and it is lucrative to cater to stupidity instead of trying to raise people to their senses and wake them up.

* BfA feels more like a patch than an expansion and everything is reused, but just has a new name

1) warfronts - similar to WoD garrison invasions

2) island expeditions - similar to legion invasions / invasion points

3) the whole setting up of our base in the new zone feels like establishing a garrison in WoD

4) the azerite system feels so much like the Netherlight Crucible. It also feels like a system meant to tax those who play multiple specs

5) right now leveling in BfA is just useless, you don´t become stronger, you don´t gain any cool interactions with spells or new abilities. There is no level 120 talent row. You just level because you have to. The road is compulsory. But in the past we at least got something along the way, be it new abilities, talents, artifact skills or cool interactions every 2 levels.

6) the whole Honor system is almost entirely unchanged. Most of the entire talent system is unchanged. Almost all specs feel the same. Even Prestige rewards stay the same. Keystone Master achievement rewards will stay the same, too. No new one for bfa +15 completion. Feels half-assed, rushed and characteristic of a game whose lead developer tries to manage the decline of, not to bring it to new heights

7) the whole time-gating fiasco will be more ridiculous than ever before. You might get a new item but you cannot upgrade it because your azerite level is not high enough so you have to wait weeks to be able to use it properly. Expect this to continue throughout the whole expansion. You receive a cool carrot but it will stay in your backpack and waiting for being able to equip it is like waiting for a timer to run out

8) it seems the game emphasizes cosmetic rewards more than anything. Sad that most people seem to have forgotten how cheap the current allied races actually look, the Nightborne in particular.


I could go on and on. Did I say that the game is becoming increasingly dumbed down? Oh yes, it is. But that´s to be expected, because humanity is becoming increasingly dumbed down, despite the fact that raising the level of one´s consciousness has never been easier...

this has been an ongoing trend since they started giving tier gear for heroic badges in WotLK

[meroko]

this has been an ongoing trend since they started giving tier gear for heroic badges in WotLK

You can even go back further when they gave high ilvl badge gear during Sunwell release.

[Pickynerd]

You can even go back further when they gave high ilvl badge gear during Sunwell release.

Actually in started pre-BC when they dropped ranks and honor could buy GM/HW for all.

[Deleted]

considering the game had it's HIGHEST sub numbers during WOTLK you're just so wrong, you can't get your own head out of your ass can you....the games subs "skyrocketed" during vanilla if you will due to the fact that before vanilla it technically had NO SUBS....and the reason it may have gotten higher during BC was because they announced the expansion called wrath of the lich king before BC was over...use your head....

Everything he said was true though

[Akka]

considering the game had it's HIGHEST sub numbers during WOTLK you're just so wrong

No, I'm right, you just seem unable to read.

Learn grade-school level reading ability and then come back.

[kamuimac]

Got any source why people quit pvp? Or talking out of your ass again. I personally stopped it because i cannot stand the templates for example(and how some classes that orient around X stat, have least of that stat in template). But i guess in your head thats because of ‘gear’...

ye templates suck dont they when you cant just zerg people in quest greens while being in full conquest gear only you have to use actuall pvp skills

this must suck indeed

[Sansnom]

I'm so tired of this BS.
Massive casualization happened in WotLK (reversal of design paragdim, switch from a pyramidal progression concept to an automated "everyone in the last raid" one).

Massive casualization? The game was designed to be casual from the inception. There were no death penalty apart from pride and some minor time lost. There were PvE servers so PvP was optional. Questing gave rewards removing the grind.

WoTLK did not reverse anything. What it did was it made more accessible other parts of the games.

As a game designer and as a business model, spending the majority of the development budget on content that a very small minority of the customers can access is not a good long term strategy.

Blizzard has said that even during the middle of TBC, many players were still below level 60 so they had content to consume. But as time progress, the players will reach max level since the levelling time in each XP is much less than 0 to 60. When that happens, they will look for additional content.

It may be a surprise to some but not everyone likes raiding. Not everyone likes to play in large groups.

The game skyrocketted in sub during the "less casual" period (Vanilla & TBC) and came to a screeching halt during the "casualization era" (WotLK-Cata).

You have your belief and theory. I have mine. I personal do not think the "less casual" was a factor in the decline. Nor do I think the subs skyrocketed because of the lack of it.

[Gardoc]

ye templates suck dont they when you cant just zerg people in quest greens while being in full conquest gear only you have to use actuall pvp skills

this must suck indeed

1) This is MMORPG, you're supposed to get more powerful with better gear. How would you feel if they removed gear from PVE, because only skill should matter?
2) It completely removed customization. You can no longer come up with interesting fun builds, because Blizzard decides from you how you should play your character.
3) I wouldn't mind it so much if they didn't prune the classes. Only skill matters now but the classes are so dumbed down that you're just a DPS bot with occasional kick or CC. And that really sucks indeed.

[Dormie]

Its funny seeing people complain about this now. Where were you when this started happening in Cata? You’re too late, better get used to it.

[Akka]

You have your belief and theory. I have mine. I personal do not think the "less casual" was a factor in the decline. Nor do I think the subs skyrocketed because of the lack of it.

I know people are too fucking dumb to be able to read (like also the guy before you), but :

One can argue that there is other reason for sub curve (saturation of the market or whatever), but the in this case don't use sub as an argument.
Either use it fully, or don't use at all, but don't cherry-pick.

If people use sub as an argument about quality, then they should use it correctly (so saying "WotLK was the best because that's the moment WoW reached its highest peak" is retarded, because if you judge according to sub you'll notice that WotLK was the moment when sub nearly stopped growing, while Vanilla and TBC were the moments where they did grow massively).
It doesn't mean sub are necessarily a good metric, it's just an annoyance at people being ignorant fucktards with their own arguments.

[Paulosio]

I remember back then when there was a big gap between a very good warrior and a normal one, especially with stance dancing.

Stance dancing was just macroing stances to certain abilities.... it was dumb.

[Loeve]

Before it took months for people to clear a new raid. Now it takes days... says it all.

[Deleted]

You missed my point, that is exactly why I'm laughing at the people saying classes are in a good state and not dumbed down.
These people only know their rotation and that's it. They think utility is useless, because they never use it. They think mage having different schools of magic is useless. They think stance dancing equals having macros for different spells. They think buffs are only annoying spells that you press once an hour etc etc.
That's why they think classes are in a good state, because they never knew how to play their class and only thing they care about is their PVE rotation.

Yeah, man. I tried to think of all the complexity that has been pruned away by pruning all the abilities. I am sure there is more than the list below contains

WARRIOR

Taunt removed from DPS specs - could be used on pets to get you out of CC just before it landed / in pve taunt rotations could result in extra time where the boss is nuked during enrage
Spell Reflect - strong counterplay potential
Charge stun
Intervene - A strong counter play ability which allowed the warrior to eat one incoming physical ability on a team mate. (occasionally used to outplay another player by stopping a stun or other physical ability, and could completely shift the arena or situation in your favor)
Stance dancing

PALADIN

Exorcism: Ranged Spell; very iconic to the paladin class (damage to demons and undead).
Word of Glory: (removed from ret) Consumed 1-3 holy power for a moderate heal. Added to the support aspect of Retribution paladins
Seals: Originally a strong identity of the paladin class. A good paladin was easy to identify and swapped seals constantly to counter their enemies abilities. This included healing, slowing, DoT, or AoE portions of seals. Separated a bad pve pala from a good one, no doubt about it.
Turn Evil: Allowed the user to fear undead/demon targets. Allowed for counterplay against Warlock/Death Knights.
Ret Hand of Sacrifice Dispel: Could be used to get a partner out of a crowd control effect. (Allowed for additional utility and potential outplaying)
Judgement Buffs: Keeping an uptime on these separated a good holy paladin from a bad one.

HUNTER

Scatter Shot - Originally used when hunter trap was no instant trigger. Allowed for counter play from the enemy players to stop the trap on their partner.
Scare Beast: Allowed for unique counter play versus shamans, druids, and hunters. Being one of the few crowd control abilities that could be used on feral druids.
Viper Sting: Over time mana drain type ability. Situationally strong. (Doesn’t currently fit into the game because mana is a complete bollocks, dumbed down gameplay...)
Aspects: Aspect of the fox/dragon hawk allowed for additional skill plays from the hunter in order to minmax damage. (most fits the marksman class fantasy) Aspect of the Fox (WoD version) was probably the most interesting. Granting their team a cast while moving ability.
Spirit Bond: Passive ability that granted you and your pet healing. With the removal of pet feeding it brought back the identity of a pet being part of the hunter.
Hunter´s Mark: a skilled hunter knew when to use it properly so the healer would dispel the wrong spell. Counterplay potential...
ROGUE

the whole rogue class is a mess after pruning...

PRIEST

Hymn of Hope: AoE channeled mana regeneration ability. Great for a caster heavy party/group.
Leap of Faith: “Life Grip,” one of the few abilities that could distinguish a good shadow priest. (Preemptively gripping a hunter trap or psychic scream)
Shadow Word: Death: A strong counterplay ability that had a delayed damage effect to yourself. Allowing you to “death” yourself out of crowd control.
Inner Fire/Inner Will: Allowed for a unique “aura” to change based on playstyle. Bad priests made bad decisions.
Spectral Guise: gave priest a way to deal with their difficulty landing offensive fears. Became a problem when it could be paired with feathers (personal speed increases) but increased the gap between a bad and a great priest.
Lightwell: The unique healing “totem” for holy priest. Periodically gave healing out to a partner when they took damage. Before that, people had to click it to receive the healing. The healing was significant though. But people complained, because "I wanna tunnel vision the boss QQ". Removed altogether. DUmbed down.
Psychic Horror: unique ranged disarm

DEATH KNIGHT

Gorefiends Grasp: AoE deathgrip became essential part of DPS DK that gave them raid utility.
Desecrated Ground: Allowed the Death Knight to get of one CC ability and granted immunity while inside of it.
Unholy Frenzy: A utility ability that could be used defensively or offensively. The damage taken portion could be used to break crowd controls. (separated a good DK from a bad one)
Rune Management: With runes being changed, there will be less differential between a player using their abilities at proper times and one who's not.
Anti-Magic Zone: Cool utility spells that granted a team damage reduction from spells for a short amount of time.
Icy Touch: Generally used for its purge.

SHAMAN

I have no clue. But the whole totem management is much easier now I think? And lots of abilities were just split between the specs and Earth Shield no longer exists in the PvE shaman toolkit.

MAGE

Off Specialization Abilities: With the current direction of interrupts. It seems necessary to have multiple DAMAGING spell schools (generally Crowd Control abilities should be kept on the same school). Different schools of spells allowed you to fool a bad player to interrupt a weak spell. Great differentiator between great players and baddies.
Combustion change: Getting a good combustion off vs a bad one really separated a great mage from a bad one. When it worked off a good Ignite, the skill level required was much higher. Now it is just a cooldown among many. Homogenization, dumbing down, standardization, etc...
Mage Wards: Could be used against different spell classes to prevent incoming damage. (counterplay)
Bomb Spells: Added an additional complexity to the mage specs. Frost bomb being the most unique and allowed for potential burst situations. Deciding which bomb to use separated a goodie from a baddie. Now there is no bomb row anymore...
Fire Blast: Instant damage fire school ability. Could be used to eat a reflect/ grounding totem.
Alter Time: Allowed for strong counter play or skill plays in general (snapshotting your buffs.. but too complicated so snapshotting was removed altogether...)
Deep Freeze: 5 second magic stun, allowed the mage to set up shatter combos on their kill target (this is how it should be). With mages being strictly CC/Frostbolt bots it has made this a cc set up ability. Also diversified the pve rotation which currently in BfA is just frostbolt spam and waiting for procs...
Mage Armors: Allowed for counter play depending on the matchup of your enemy. less physical damage taken, less crowd control taken, etc. Again, decision-making removed, homogenization glorified and gameplay dumbed down.
Mirror Images: Should be baseline again. If used properly could give you a second of casting by dropping the targets focus.

WARLOCK

Fel Flame: an instant cast low damage warlock ability which allowed the warlock to cast something other than DoT effects while on the move. Great for killing shaman totems, reflects, and stopping node captures.
Curses: HUGE class fantasy that has been missing since MoP. It allowed for unique play style that separated the class from Mages. (increasing spell damage taken, decreasing melee damage done, etc.); returning as pvp talents.
Demonic Armors: Allowed for changing of different counterplay based off opponent. (similar to mage armors)

MONK

Brewmaster dumbed down in general. Very different from what it was in MoP. Still the most complex of tanks and among many considered difficult to play.......... which I dont get.
Provoke: Should be given to every spec. Gave them a nice way to reset a boss when paired with transcendence. Nice niche ability in PvE.
Clash: Charged an enemy stunning the target. Very useful to the brew master spec. Added to the dizzy fist type aesthetic.
Zen Meditation: Transferred 5 enemy spell abilities to the monk and greatly reduced the damage they dealt. Allowed for strong counterplay when used properly [could be used to ground an enemy cc].
Spinning Fire Blossom: Very unique snare type ability. Projected a flower in a straight line in front of you dealing damage and rooting the target.
Healing Spheres: Made monks a very unique healer. Instant cast ground based healing allowed for a unique level of healing which valued awareness/positioning.
Spear Hand Strike: Healing monk’s lack a way to stop incoming crowd control or spells. Counter play type of ability. Juking interrupts has become a huge part of pvp as a caster.
Grapple Weapon: Unique way a monk could increase their healing/damage output for the duration of a disarm. Cool minmax class fantasy ability.
Storm Earth And Fire: A very unique ability, granted the target the opportunity to copy themselves repeating their abilities up to 2 targets. Could punish healers who sit behind pillar or try to drop combat in arena.

DRUID

Efflorescence - used to be so the raid had to gather together before it blew up. Required more awareness
Soothe: removed an enrage effect. Important in both PvE and PvP. (it served two functions removing reflect or removing enrage.)
Off-Spec Form abilities: It feels odd having your other forms but nothing to really press inside of them. Having an extra kick or even pounce in cat form felt unique.
Insect Swarm: Low hitting dot that lowered the hit chance of the target. Hit was also something that separated a bad player from a good/great one. Bad players ignored it altogether and just whined about misses. So Blizzard removed it under a completely different excuse.
Cower: A threat drop while in cat form. When healing for high amounts as any of the specs granted an interesting play style where the druid could change forms to drop agro.
Cyclone: Originally having a unique DR made this ability very interesting. It had defensive and offensive capabilities. A large issue currently is druid specs are far more tanky than previous expansions.
Genesis: Allowed for skillful plays between balancing HoT uptime and burst healing. (Unique)
Hibernate: A well timed hibernate was amazing when playing against feral druids or shaman specs. Great counterplay and unique ability.
Thorns: (mostly the Cataclysm variation) unique ability which could force an enemy target to swap off the thorned target. Unique playstyle against melee.
Shapeshifting Slows: Very essential part of the class since vanilla. Although it became too strong with mana becoming less important.
Symbiosis: Unique ability which granted druids abilities of other classes. Generally led to some symbiosis traits being stronger than the other. Added an ability to basically every class.

I am sure I am still missing a great deal. Keep in mind that some of these spells still exist in the game but have been completely overhauled to require less thinking and/or have been merged together with some other abilities/passives. This is one other thing which seems to be a trend, very little decision-making is actually required on the part of the player, e.g auto-trinkets with CC of a given duration, auto-bubble when off CD below 15%, etc. The game has reached a state when a lot of in-game character reactions are automated and dont even require a decision from teh player. Pushing buttons is not difficult, but knowing when is the most opportune moment to push it certainly comes with just experience and is characteristic of great players.

Anyway, to those of you who degrade my thoughts because I haven´t killed Argus - I have, 3 months ago already. I will not share my armory profile because in the past this has resulted in harassment. Some of these players who harassed me are quite hostile to me in this thread as well. Also, even if I hadn´t, it would not undercut or subvert my thoughts in any way. It would be naive to think otherwise.

To those of you who degrade my thoughts because I haven´t even been to the beta - I am on it right now. You looked quite ridiculous pointing out the reasons for you thinking so and the following poster proved you wrong. I also plan to do a short overview soon in this thread, of every class on a spec by spec basis as they are currently in BfA whilst comparing them to their MoP versions. I choose MoP because classes never felt more engaging than back then. You really had to use your brain to excel at most of the specs back then.

And to those of you who say that classes are easier now but raids are harder... well, the raids were not much easier than they are now. You cannot tell me that Throne of Thunder was easy... Coupled with an extremely tightly tuned and well designed raid, the classes of above-average complexity provided some of the most difficult and immersive game experiences WoW has ever provided and probably never will again.


just please no personal attacks and statements based on my nationality and what not
and sorry if there are some mistakes in the ability / interaction list. Any additions as to what class X or Y has lost are appreciated.

[aikanaro]

Rofl... go play vanilla and tell me the game is dumbed down. Paladins spammed flash of light. shamans spammed chain heal, rogues spammed sinister strike or backstab then hit eviscerate at 5 points, warriors basically waited for ads on their main abilities and hit heroic strike when they were over 65 rage. Hunters aimed shorted between autos and used multi between the autos aimed shot was down for. Mages spammed frostbolt, warlocka spammed shadow bolt, druids threw hots on everyone, or it warrior was the only thing that I found somewhat challenging and that's only because people don't understand how aggro worked. There are the same number of, if not more, abilities in everyone's rotation/priority now.

Let's say you are talking about dungeon or raid difficulty... dungeon difficulty all came down to how good you could cc and not pull aggro for the most part. Raid difficulty was super scripted and could only be considered harder maybe because there was no telegraphed visuals to help you out.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, man. I tried to think of all the complexity that has been pruned away by pruning all the abilities. I am sure there is more than the list below contains

WARRIOR

Taunt removed from DPS specs - could be used on pets to get you out of CC just before it landed / in pve taunt rotations could result in extra time where the boss is nuked during enrage
Spell Reflect - strong counterplay potential
Charge stun
Intervene - A strong counter play ability which allowed the warrior to eat one incoming physical ability on a team mate. (occasionally used to outplay another player by stopping a stun or other physical ability, and could completely shift the arena or situation in your favor)
Stance dancing

PALADIN

Exorcism: Ranged Spell; very iconic to the paladin class (damage to demons and undead).
Word of Glory: (removed from ret) Consumed 1-3 holy power for a moderate heal. Added to the support aspect of Retribution paladins
Seals: Originally a strong identity of the paladin class. A good paladin was easy to identify and swapped seals constantly to counter their enemies abilities. This included healing, slowing, DoT, or AoE portions of seals. Separated a bad pve pala from a good one, no doubt about it.
Turn Evil: Allowed the user to fear undead/demon targets. Allowed for counterplay against Warlock/Death Knights.
Ret Hand of Sacrifice Dispel: Could be used to get a partner out of a crowd control effect. (Allowed for additional utility and potential outplaying)
Judgement Buffs: Keeping an uptime on these separated a good holy paladin from a bad one.

HUNTER

Scatter Shot - Originally used when hunter trap was no instant trigger. Allowed for counter play from the enemy players to stop the trap on their partner.
Scare Beast: Allowed for unique counter play versus shamans, druids, and hunters. Being one of the few crowd control abilities that could be used on feral druids.
Viper Sting: Over time mana drain type ability. Situationally strong. (Doesn’t currently fit into the game because mana is a complete bollocks, dumbed down gameplay...)
Aspects: Aspect of the fox/dragon hawk allowed for additional skill plays from the hunter in order to minmax damage. (most fits the marksman class fantasy) Aspect of the Fox (WoD version) was probably the most interesting. Granting their team a cast while moving ability.
Spirit Bond: Passive ability that granted you and your pet healing. With the removal of pet feeding it brought back the identity of a pet being part of the hunter.
Hunter´s Mark: a skilled hunter knew when to use it properly so the healer would dispel the wrong spell. Counterplay potential...
ROGUE

the whole rogue class is a mess after pruning...

PRIEST

Hymn of Hope: AoE channeled mana regeneration ability. Great for a caster heavy party/group.
Leap of Faith: “Life Grip,” one of the few abilities that could distinguish a good shadow priest. (Preemptively gripping a hunter trap or psychic scream)
Shadow Word: Death: A strong counterplay ability that had a delayed damage effect to yourself. Allowing you to “death” yourself out of crowd control.
Inner Fire/Inner Will: Allowed for a unique “aura” to change based on playstyle. Bad priests made bad decisions.
Spectral Guise: gave priest a way to deal with their difficulty landing offensive fears. Became a problem when it could be paired with feathers (personal speed increases) but increased the gap between a bad and a great priest.
Lightwell: The unique healing “totem” for holy priest. Periodically gave healing out to a partner when they took damage. Before that, people had to click it to receive the healing. The healing was significant though. But people complained, because "I wanna tunnel vision the boss QQ". Removed altogether. DUmbed down.
Psychic Horror: unique ranged disarm

DEATH KNIGHT

Gorefiends Grasp: AoE deathgrip became essential part of DPS DK that gave them raid utility.
Desecrated Ground: Allowed the Death Knight to get of one CC ability and granted immunity while inside of it.
Unholy Frenzy: A utility ability that could be used defensively or offensively. The damage taken portion could be used to break crowd controls. (separated a good DK from a bad one)
Rune Management: With runes being changed, there will be less differential between a player using their abilities at proper times and one who's not.
Anti-Magic Zone: Cool utility spells that granted a team damage reduction from spells for a short amount of time.
Icy Touch: Generally used for its purge.

SHAMAN

I have no clue. But the whole totem management is much easier now I think? And lots of abilities were just split between the specs and Earth Shield no longer exists in the PvE shaman toolkit.

MAGE

Off Specialization Abilities: With the current direction of interrupts. It seems necessary to have multiple DAMAGING spell schools (generally Crowd Control abilities should be kept on the same school). Different schools of spells allowed you to fool a bad player to interrupt a weak spell. Great differentiator between great players and baddies.
Combustion change: Getting a good combustion off vs a bad one really separated a great mage from a bad one. When it worked off a good Ignite, the skill level required was much higher. Now it is just a cooldown among many. Homogenization, dumbing down, standardization, etc...
Mage Wards: Could be used against different spell classes to prevent incoming damage. (counterplay)
Bomb Spells: Added an additional complexity to the mage specs. Frost bomb being the most unique and allowed for potential burst situations. Deciding which bomb to use separated a goodie from a baddie. Now there is no bomb row anymore...
Fire Blast: Instant damage fire school ability. Could be used to eat a reflect/ grounding totem.
Alter Time: Allowed for strong counter play or skill plays in general (snapshotting your buffs.. but too complicated so snapshotting was removed altogether...)
Deep Freeze: 5 second magic stun, allowed the mage to set up shatter combos on their kill target (this is how it should be). With mages being strictly CC/Frostbolt bots it has made this a cc set up ability. Also diversified the pve rotation which currently in BfA is just frostbolt spam and waiting for procs...
Mage Armors: Allowed for counter play depending on the matchup of your enemy. less physical damage taken, less crowd control taken, etc. Again, decision-making removed, homogenization glorified and gameplay dumbed down.
Mirror Images: Should be baseline again. If used properly could give you a second of casting by dropping the targets focus.

WARLOCK

Fel Flame: an instant cast low damage warlock ability which allowed the warlock to cast something other than DoT effects while on the move. Great for killing shaman totems, reflects, and stopping node captures.
Curses: HUGE class fantasy that has been missing since MoP. It allowed for unique play style that separated the class from Mages. (increasing spell damage taken, decreasing melee damage done, etc.); returning as pvp talents.
Demonic Armors: Allowed for changing of different counterplay based off opponent. (similar to mage armors)

MONK

Brewmaster dumbed down in general. Very different from what it was in MoP. Still the most complex of tanks and among many considered difficult to play.......... which I dont get.
Provoke: Should be given to every spec. Gave them a nice way to reset a boss when paired with transcendence. Nice niche ability in PvE.
Clash: Charged an enemy stunning the target. Very useful to the brew master spec. Added to the dizzy fist type aesthetic.
Zen Meditation: Transferred 5 enemy spell abilities to the monk and greatly reduced the damage they dealt. Allowed for strong counterplay when used properly [could be used to ground an enemy cc].
Spinning Fire Blossom: Very unique snare type ability. Projected a flower in a straight line in front of you dealing damage and rooting the target.
Healing Spheres: Made monks a very unique healer. Instant cast ground based healing allowed for a unique level of healing which valued awareness/positioning.
Spear Hand Strike: Healing monk’s lack a way to stop incoming crowd control or spells. Counter play type of ability. Juking interrupts has become a huge part of pvp as a caster.
Grapple Weapon: Unique way a monk could increase their healing/damage output for the duration of a disarm. Cool minmax class fantasy ability.
Storm Earth And Fire: A very unique ability, granted the target the opportunity to copy themselves repeating their abilities up to 2 targets. Could punish healers who sit behind pillar or try to drop combat in arena.

DRUID

Efflorescence - used to be so the raid had to gather together before it blew up. Required more awareness
Soothe: removed an enrage effect. Important in both PvE and PvP. (it served two functions removing reflect or removing enrage.)
Off-Spec Form abilities: It feels odd having your other forms but nothing to really press inside of them. Having an extra kick or even pounce in cat form felt unique.
Insect Swarm: Low hitting dot that lowered the hit chance of the target. Hit was also something that separated a bad player from a good/great one. Bad players ignored it altogether and just whined about misses. So Blizzard removed it under a completely different excuse.
Cower: A threat drop while in cat form. When healing for high amounts as any of the specs granted an interesting play style where the druid could change forms to drop agro.
Cyclone: Originally having a unique DR made this ability very interesting. It had defensive and offensive capabilities. A large issue currently is druid specs are far more tanky than previous expansions.
Genesis: Allowed for skillful plays between balancing HoT uptime and burst healing. (Unique)
Hibernate: A well timed hibernate was amazing when playing against feral druids or shaman specs. Great counterplay and unique ability.
Thorns: (mostly the Cataclysm variation) unique ability which could force an enemy target to swap off the thorned target. Unique playstyle against melee.
Shapeshifting Slows: Very essential part of the class since vanilla. Although it became too strong with mana becoming less important.
Symbiosis: Unique ability which granted druids abilities of other classes. Generally led to some symbiosis traits being stronger than the other. Added an ability to basically every class.

I am sure I am still missing a great deal. Keep in mind that some of these spells still exist in the game but have been completely overhauled to require less thinking and/or have been merged together with some other abilities/passives. This is one other thing which seems to be a trend, very little decision-making is actually required on the part of the player, e.g auto-trinkets with CC of a given duration, auto-bubble when off CD below 15%, etc. The game has reached a state when a lot of in-game character reactions are automated and dont even require a decision from teh player. Pushing buttons is not difficult, but knowing when is the most opportune moment to push it certainly comes with just experience and is characteristic of great players.

Anyway, to those of you who degrade my thoughts because I haven´t killed Argus - I have, 3 months ago already. I will not share my armory profile because in the past this has resulted in harassment. Some of these players who harassed me are quite hostile to me in this thread as well. Also, even if I hadn´t, it would not undercut or subvert my thoughts in any way. It would be naive to think otherwise.

To those of you who degrade my thoughts because I haven´t even been to the beta - I am on it right now. You looked quite ridiculous pointing out the reasons for you thinking so and the following poster proved you wrong. I also plan to do a short overview soon in this thread, of every class on a spec by spec basis as they are currently in BfA whilst comparing them to their MoP versions. I choose MoP because classes never felt more engaging than back then. You really had to use your brain to excel at most of the specs back then.

And to those of you who say that classes are easier now but raids are harder... well, the raids were not much easier than they are now. You cannot tell me that Throne of Thunder was easy... Coupled with an extremely tightly tuned and well designed raid, the classes of above-average complexity provided some of the most difficult and immersive game experiences WoW has ever provided and probably never will again.


just please no personal attacks and statements based on my nationality and what not
and sorry if there are some mistakes in the ability / interaction list. Any additions as to what class X or Y has lost are appreciated.

90% of the things you listed are shit they added to the game later on that created the whole button bloat issue in the first place and didn't exist in vanilla.

[Deleted]

90% of the things you listed are shit they added to the game later on that created the whole button bloat issue in the first place.

How can you say they are button bloat if they separate a good player from a bad one?
Maybe 10%, definitely not 90%.

[netherflame]

The game is getting easier to play and people still manage to be terrible at it.

[IceMan1763]

The game is getting easier to play and people still manage to be terrible at it.

Any even remotely serious player that was still left would be very unlikely to put up with the ridiculous and incredibly boring grinds introduced in Legion. They're catering to the player base they have left which is extremely casual on the whole.

[aikanaro]

How can you say they are button bloat if they separate a good player from a bad one?
Maybe 10%, definitely not 90%.

Because they don't? More buttons does not make a player better. The difference between a good player and a bad player will always be evident. Regardless of buttons a good player knows when to move what buttons to push when how to react to certain situations and how to improvise. A bad player does not. A good player researches his class and learns how to play it regardless of how many buttons they have to press a bad player does not. A good player is open to criticism a bad player usually gets offended when they are told that they're not doing well. Let's go down the line of your list here you're very first thing is that Tom was removed from off specs originally you had to be in defensive stance to taunt and you had mocking blow only if you were in Battle Stance you could not use either one in Berserker stance regardless of your spec. Spell reflect didn't exist and neither did intervene. Scattershot was not used to trigger traps directly and traps were instant however they could only be used out of combat. Hunters Woods scattershot a mob that broke loose from CC feign death and then put the Trap underneath it. Every single priest thing you listed was either different or didn't exist that's not itself didn't exist and I never really liked them so I can't offer any insight into that one. I realize I skipped Paladin in most of the changes that you've said to paladins are true and I do miss seals and judgements. Mage is the only thing that existed was fire blast. Same thing with Munch for me that does night had I didn't really play it. Druid I'll give you credit on the shape shifting issues, hibernate, and cower the rest were all added later.

- - - Updated - - -

Any even remotely serious player that was still left would be very unlikely to put up with the ridiculous and incredibly boring grinds introduced in Legion. They're catering to the player base they have left which is extremely casual on the whole.

The vanilla burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King reputation grinds would like to say hello.

[Regalbeast]

This has literally been happening since 2006 so....yeah. No new info here.