Let’s move away from forced specs.

[Kaver]

so, you dont care if they are functional, you just want your toys back. i get it, but he's right. it isnt going to fix anything.

It’s not about getting toys back or fixing anything. It’s about the concept of the classes and what makes sense to me. Right now a frost mage and a fire mage feels like two different classes and personally I don’t like that. This whole thing is just about the “feel” of the classes and class identity. It’s just my opinion.

[Nerovar]

But then let them have spells from the other specs that actually are useful, that's my point, and that should be the main point. Why would you use a fireball in ANY content as arcane, if your arcane blast are both hitting harder and faster? It needs to be some sort of a point to have a spell. Like combustion like you suggest below, that could have a use for the Arcane or Frost Mage. But a fire blast or a fireball that doesn't do anything would only end up in the spell book, for all content, and thus make it useless and won't do anything for CLASS identity, at all.

CLASS identity is so more than just adding a bunch of useless spells, if it make sense to have it and it got some sort of use, then by all means, push that through.

Most of the time, these spells weren't useless at all though. Fireball is probably the worst example. Look at Frost DKs.

With Legion they lost (not accounting for talents):

• Blood Plague - while being "just a weaker version of frost fever" it used to have an interaction with your Obliterate which got 12.5% more damage for every disease -> moved to Blood
• Plague Strike - pretty useless except to apply Blood Plague. Also could infect rogues with BP through Cloak of Shadows because it was a physical spell -> removed entirely
• Death and Decay - small AoE dmg but good to get Rogues out of stealth/in combat -> moved to UH and Blood
• Death Coil - Ranged runic power dump, mostly useless but could provide decent self-heal while Lichborne was active -> moved to UH
• Outbreak - applied both DoTs on a CD -> moved to UH
• Blood Boil - small AoE dmg, spread plagues, gets people out of stealth -> moved to Blood
• Icy Touch - small single target dmg, used the same procs as Howling Blast but was able to purge enemies if you had the Glyph (huge value in PvP) -> removed
• Army of the Dead - pretty decent burst CD though not really that important since it was disabled in arenas/RBG. Good for raids though -> removed
• Blood Presence - makes you incredibly tanky at the cost of damage -> removed
• Unholy Presence - provides movement speed, sometimes used as a gap closer -> removed
• Lichborne - get out of fear and provided leech in WoD (also see Death Coil), later returned as a PvP talent that replaces Icebound Fortitude
• Dark Simulacrum - steal spells (good for stuff like iceblock, bubble, CC etc.) got nerfed pretty heavily in Legion and got turned into a PvP talent
• Soul Reaper - execute spell that was extremely fun to use -> moved to UH as a talented burst CD
• Necrotic Strike - prevented x amount of incoming healing. Pretty big for PvP -> moved to UH as a talent

No one can tell me that these spells were useless or had no impact on gameplay.

[Kralljin]

It’s not about the functionality of the spells. I very simply think that a Mage should be a full package Mage at all time no matter what talents they pick. That’s just my opinion.

I mean, if that floats your boat, go ahead, but then at least be clear on the fact that restoring +6 buttons doesn't mean you'll be using them in a rational fashion.

It’s not about getting toys back or fixing anything. It’s about the concept of the classes and what makes sense to me. Right now a frost mage and a fire mage feels like two different classes and personally I don’t like that. This whole thing is just about the “feel” of the classes and class identity. It’s just my opinion.

The fact that people keep using Mages as the go to example for this development just shows how little they understand of classic and how they actually affected your class.

Fact is: Mages had the most distinct specializations of classic.

If you were a Fire Mage, you used Fireball.
If you were a Frost Mage, you used Frostbolt.
If you were a Arcane Mage, you (were supposed to) use Arcane missiles.

On top of that, each spec had their own AoE with Arcane Explosion, Blizzard and Flamestrike.

Now compare that to Warlock:
If you were Affli, you applied dots and spammed shadowbolt.
If you were demo, you applied dots and spammed shadowbolt.
If you were Destro, you applied dots and spammed shadowbolt.

If you wanted to AoE, you used Hellfire or Rain of Fire on all three specs (Heavy Destro AoE was slightly better, but that's irrelevant for now).

Now, a lot of people will now reply "But Arcane explosion" and they would be right, AE was the generally favored AoE of Mages...post 1.10, as Blizzard then made Instant AE Baseline, as it had previously a 1.5sec Casttime and required like 20 points into Arcane to make it Instant.

Before that, you guessed it:
Frost Mages used Blizzard.
Fire Mages used Flamestrike.
Arcane used Arcane Explosion

So that one "cross use" of abilities was primarily to Blizzard totally overbuffing a baseline version of a spell, whereas the other two AoE's had no significant talents to improve their damage and were generally just inferior abilities (Flamestrike being a 3sec cast and Blizzard being channeled).

It's not like Mages used AE because they had no other choice, they used it because the spec specific choice was worse despite investing 41 points into Fire / Frost, which made them completely fringe abilities in the endgame.
And that seemingly counts as "good design" in the heads of some people.

[telygroar]

Good. I will make a macro to vendetta/adre rush/Killing spree/shadow blades/ambush all at the same time.
People in pvp will die in nanoseconds. Can't wait to see fireblastmage insta full buffed too. )

[Firedemon]

No. I’m seeing it the other way around. From my point of view, Mages should not lose 2/3 of what makes them Mages just because they choose to focus on fire. I think it’s unnecessary to remove any spells.

So what makes you a mage is having access to spells not worth casting? There's just no real reason to bloat the game like that. Why would you be happier if you also had arcane missiles in your book as a fire mage if it's useless, more than having some fire unique niche?

[Kaver]

I mean, if that floats your boat, go ahead, but then at least be clear on the fact that restoring +6 buttons doesn't mean you'll be using them in a rational fashion.



The fact that people keep using Mages as the go to example for this development just shows how little they understand of classic and how they actually affected your class.

Fact is: Mages had the most distinct specializations of classic.

If you were a Fire Mage, you used Fireball.
If you were a Frost Mage, you used Frostbolt.
If you were a Arcane Mage, you (were supposed to) use Arcane missiles.

On top of that, each spec had their own AoE with Arcane Explosion, Blizzard and Flamestrike.

Now compare that to Warlock:
If you were Affli, you applied dots and spammed shadowbolt.
If you were demo, you applied dots and spammed shadowbolt.
If you were Destro, you applied dots and spammed shadowbolt.

If you wanted to AoE, you used Hellfire or Rain of Fire on all three specs (Heavy Destro AoE was slightly better, but that's irrelevant for now).

Now, a lot of people will now reply "But Arcane explosion" and they would be right, AE was the generally favored AoE of Mages...post 1.10, as Blizzard then made Instant AE Baseline, as it had previously a 1.5sec Casttime and required like 20 points into Arcane to make it Instant.

Before that, you guessed it:
Frost Mages used Blizzard.
Fire Mages used Flamestrike.
Arcane used Arcane Explosion

So that one "cross use" of abilities was primarily to Blizzard totally overbuffing a baseline version of a spell, whereas the other two AoE's had no significant talents to improve their damage and were generally just inferior abilities (Flamestrike being a 3sec cast and Blizzard being channeled).

It's not like Mages used AE because they had no other choice, they used it because the spec specific choice was worse despite investing 41 points into Fire / Frost, which made them completely fringe abilities in the endgame.
And that seemingly counts as "good design" in the heads of some people.

I’m completely clear on that. I’ve said from the beginning that it’s not about functionality. And it also has nothing to do with how things were in classic. I don’t care about that. You’re making this way more complicated than what I’m getting at. All I want is that the classes have their whole toolkit at all time. You would still enhance certain parts of it and in practice the classes could still function the way they do now. I just don’t think it makes classes to forget abilities.

[Segus1992]

Doesnt matter, because everyone will play the very best talents / specc / spells / whatever is bis or fotm anyway.
People want more diversity, but google or ask in /2. what to play anyway. If fireball does 1DPS more than frostbolt people will choose fireball.

You will just end up with 4 action bars filled and won ´t use 2/3 of them.

Having done a bunch of random dungeons on live only today, I can confirm that you're wrong, I've seen almost every spec in one day only.

Maybe people tryhard in heroic+ raids, but even then it isn't as much of a majority as you make it seem, except for when there's a huge difference.

[Misuteri]

De-pruning is one thing but purposely breaking “best ever” builds/play styles is what kills me.

I have 3 locks; I see no reason why Cataclysm affliction was broken, I see no reason why MoP destruction was broken and I may get hate for this but.... I miss my demonology farming build from TBC and thought it was the best.

Every person that mains a different class will say that they miss their favorite spec from a different expansion. They wish they could have spec X from expansion Y for all 3/4 of their specs.

This is what makes Blizzard’s class design so mind numbingly stupid. They have things that work then break them.

[Celarent]

It worked in classic because classic talent trees sucked.
And i don't mean that in a "everybody used cookie cutter builds" but rather in a "they were badly designed" fashion.

For the RPG environment they're intended for, Vanilla trees are a lot of fun. They're not suitable as-is for today's hypercompetitive, MLG-esque "no one should have abilities I can't account for mathematically" mindset, no. But that's a change in circumstances and application rather than failure in design. Address some issues, and old talent trees aren't much different from successful examples of other colorful roadmaps from ingenue to adventuring hero.

I just want to play the Class and not the spec.
I want to be a Mage with focus on fire. I don’t want to be an Fire Mage. I think a Mage (and every other class) should have all their mage abilities at all time.

I've dedicated my Classic character to an elementalist spec — split frost and fire with a touch of arcane — and I can confirm that the feeling of "I'm a mage, full stop" is real.

Again, you do have the issue Kralljin mention of the early game's low differentiation between roles and the strictness of today. That can be overcome but at the cost of culture shock and the competitive scene. And laying aside the fact a lot of old-style spells are historically tied mechanically to talents, simply releasing the entire back-catalog isn't how to go about this. One practical route might be to upend everything from all of a class' specs from all expansions onto the table and rebuild a set of across all specs' abilities, eliminating the rest, and introducing some guidance on which spells to keep on bars with old-style talent trees. Focus is back on the class, allowing designers and players to move more freely and worry less about overlap or justification of specs. Not easy, but dedication to fine balance of like 50 subclasses doesn't seem sensible.

[Kralljin]

I’m completely clear on that. I’ve said from the beginning that it’s not about functionality. And it also has nothing to do with how things were in classic. I don’t care about that. You’re making this way more complicated than what I’m getting at. All I want is that the classes have their whole toolkit at all time. You would still enhance certain parts of it and in practice the classes could still function the way they do now. I just don’t think it makes classes to forget abilities.

Then i can also can deduct what @Firedemon already said, spells that aren't worth casting make it a mage to you.
As said, if that floats your boat, i'll hope Blizzard does that for you, but think a lot of other people rightfully assume that getting new abilities (or old ones back) happens under the assumption that they'll be useable.

For the RPG environment they're intended for, Vanilla trees are a lot of fun. They're not suitable as-is for today's hypercompetitive, MLG-esque "no one should have abilities I can't account for mathematically" mindset, no.

No, they're terrible.
Take a look at the Resto Shaman tree for example, its signature spell was in fact CH.
How many talents are in there that actually improve the healing output of that spell?
2.

A 0 / 0 / 0 Shaman can simply put on Mp5 / Heal gear, spam CH and be a slightly worse Resto Shaman, as it only loses out on -5% mana cost, 5% Crit and 10% heal.
Hybrid spec lovers will obviously jump at this, but if you're deep Resto, you feel cheated.

The talents trees are very often bad because they fail at significantly providing a boost to your character.
Specializations are about specializing yourself, not getting just some marginal boost out of it, that's where a lot of classic talent trees fell through.

The Mage example above follows suit, if you invest 41 points into Frost / Fire, shouldn't Flamestrike / Blizzard be better than some baseline spell without any improvements?

[Celarent]

This is what makes Blizzard’s class design so mind numbingly stupid. They have things that work then break them.

All one company, but many different employees within Blizzard. New team of loudest guys in the room with math degrees comes in, cracks their knuckles and sets out to make their mark in Gaming History™. Or it's the same ones and they're bored with what they made.

[Kaver]

Then i can also can deduct what @Firedemon already said, spells that aren't worth casting make it a mage to you.
As said, if that floats your boat, i'll hope Blizzard does that for you, but think a lot of other people rightfully assume that getting new abilities (or old ones back) happens under the assumption that they'll be useable.

For me it’s not about getting abilities. I see the question as: “why would a mage forget spells? Why is it necessary to remove spells?”

[Nerovar]

All one company, but many different employees within Blizzard. New team of loudest guys in the room with math degrees comes in, cracks their knuckles and sets out to make their mark in Gaming History™. Or it's the same ones and they're bored with what they made.

Didn't they say at one point that they brought in Diablo devs for WoW Legion?

[Celarent]

Didn't they say at one point that they brought in Diablo devs for WoW Legion?

I think so. And I acknowledge that WoDiablocraft is a bit of a cheap shot, but last time I looked, the modern game was very grind-'n'-loot. Absolutely more than the original, now that we have Classic side-by-side.

But even without specific devs in the mix, I mean, you get a corporation to a certain size and a certain age, and departments (and teams within departments) move like tectonic plates at high speed. Double-work, reversal, sabotage, etc. I've been in companies like that for the past 10 years, and the amazing thing is that from outside, clients still see just one name over the door.

[Kaver]

For the RPG environment they're intended for, Vanilla trees are a lot of fun. They're not suitable as-is for today's hypercompetitive, MLG-esque "no one should have abilities I can't account for mathematically" mindset, no. But that's a change in circumstances and application rather than failure in design. Address some issues, and old talent trees aren't much different from successful examples of other colorful roadmaps from ingenue to adventuring hero.


I've dedicated my Classic character to an elementalist spec — split frost and fire with a touch of arcane — and I can confirm that the feeling of "I'm a mage, full stop" is real.

Again, you do have the issue Kralljin mention of the early game's low differentiation between roles and the strictness of today. That can be overcome but at the cost of culture shock and the competitive scene. And laying aside the fact a lot of old-style spells are historically tied mechanically to talents, simply releasing the entire back-catalog isn't how to go about this. One practical route might be to upend everything from all of a class' specs from all expansions onto the table and rebuild a set of across all specs' abilities, eliminating the rest, and introducing some guidance on which spells to keep on bars with old-style talent trees. Focus is back on the class, allowing designers and players to move more freely and worry less about overlap or justification of specs. Not easy, but dedication to fine balance of like 50 subclasses doesn't seem sensible.

The simple layout of what I'm getting at is: "Why do a Mage completely lose the ability to cast a simple frostbolt just because he chooses to enhance his fire spells?"

From a "class concept" point of view, that makes no sense to me. It's not about gameplay or functionality, it's just about concept. I just hate restrictions. Even if they don't really change anything in practice in raids and dungeons, I still think there is no need for Blizzard to tell us which abilities we can and cannot use.

[Doffen]

No one can tell me that these spells were useless or had no impact on gameplay.

And I for one didn't and won't do it either. Fireball would be useless for an Arcane Mage, while Living Bomb, Meteor and Scorch would be something they could use. There is the difference. Adding spells just to add spells doesn't help gameplay, while adding spells that you could actually use, do help gameplay. The difference is night and day.

[Celarent]

The simple layout of what I'm getting at is: "Why do a Mage completely lose the ability to cast a simple frostbolt just because he chooses to enhance his fire spells?"

From a "class concept" point of view, that makes no sense to me. It's not about gameplay or functionality, it's just about concept.

Conceptually you can justify it in the same way a world-class jazz trumpet player who also has background on piano wouldn't be able to master the embouchure or technique of a woodwind, and wouldn't bother to mention it as a skill, even if he could hold his own noodling in a basement with childhood friends.

And I may not care for class dev teams' decisions but ability bloat and spec preservation are challenges that can't be ignored.

[Kaver]

And I for one didn't and won't do it either. Fireball would be useless for an Arcane Mage, while Living Bomb, Meteor and Scorch would be something they could use. There is the difference. Adding spells just to add spells doesn't help gameplay, while adding spells that you could actually use, do help gameplay. The difference is night and day.

As I see it, talents would enhance certain spells. So if you had used no points to enhance for example Meteor, then it would be nearly worthless.

[Kralljin]

For me it’s not about getting abilities. I see the question as: “why would a mage forget spells? Why is it necessary to remove spells?”

Because i think it's okay not to have spells in your spellbook that you're not going to use anyway.
Looking at it from a dev perspective, why put stuff into it that a player is never going to use anyway?

It's one of these thing that players probably wouldn't even have questioned if WoW did have the current talent system right off the bat.

But i don't care that much about to argue against it, if people just want that back, let them have it, but don't assume you'll be using them.

[Kaver]

Conceptually you can justify it in the same way a world-class jazz trumpet player who also has background on piano wouldn't be able to master the embouchure or technique of a woodwind, and wouldn't bother to mention it as a skill, even if he could hold his own noodling in a basement with childhood friends.

And I may not care for class dev teams' decisions but ability bloat and spec preservation are challenges that can't be ignored.

I don't think that's the same. This is not about what you mention as a skills. It's just about what you can and cannot do. And I think a Mage should be able to cast a Frostbolt no matter what. If the Frostbolt then was unbuffed by talents, it would be nearly worhtless, but the Mage would still be able to cast it. That's how I see it at least.

- - - Updated - - -

Because i think it's okay not to have spells in your spellbook that you're not going to use anyway.
Looking at it from a dev perspective, why put stuff into it that a player is never going to use anyway?

It's one of these thing that players probably wouldn't even have questioned if WoW did have the current talent system right off the bat.

But i don't care that much about to argue against it, if people just want that back, let them have it, but don't assume you'll be using them.

We just look at it from different angles. You ask why add it and I ask why remove it.