What is the actual impact of returning old niche abilities?

[bullseyed]

Impact on my Hunter?
Well, I’ll get Hunter’s Mark, which just means another GCD ability I have to apply every time I switch targets. Otherwise it’s just apply before pull and forget about it. Ooh, so exciting!
Killshot? I’m kind of happy about getting an execute back, but seeing as how I enjoy playing SV from time to time I’m worried it will be forgotten and make SV even more of a dead spec. Honestly, why can’t Blizzard do anything to make this spec as appealing as other melee? The lack of damage and utility compared to others is extremely poorly implemented.
Eyes of the Beast? Verdict is out on this. On one hand, it’s just a “toy” ability. Borderline useless and a time waster. On the other, if pets are strong enough to survive running thru packs on m+, with a coordinated group (heals not hitting the pet to pull aggro), it has the chance to be even stronger than Shadowmeld as you can easily pull packs away and have your group skip it and all the only CD is from rezzing your pet and the non CD of the ability itself. So, it could actually have some nice uses for things like m+ and even the tower (depending on its design).

SV's real issue at this point is the lack of AoE/Cleave DPS, or perhaps more specifically the need to swap azerite and possibly talents between ST and AoE DPS, while other melee classes do not.

Single target SV is really good, but not good enough to make up for the other shortcomings. It was good enough to make up for it prior to the Blur of Talons nerf back in Uldir (same patch that Enhance shaman got gutted).

SV doesn't have good utility, but it isn't that bad either. Utility isn't really valuable in raids anyway. Either way, rogues have as much ST, more AoE, and more defensive CDs. The main benefit to SV is how fun it is to play, how good the rotation is, and how it doesn't have combo points. They should consider giving SV a better version of Cheat Death than rogues have.

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I played a ret paladin for basically 10 years. Having Consecration and Hammer of Wrath back as baseline abilities rather than having to spend a talent point on them is nice. I enjoyed throwing hammers and making sparkly ground as part of my rotation, it was a very paladin-y thing to do, and I'll enjoy doing it again.

But consecrate will probably not do enough damage to be worth using.

And if it does, rets will complain when bosses have to move because of mechanics. Think of Ashvane for example.

If ret is balanced around consecrate being used, then ret wont be viable on fights like Ashvane. If they don't balance around it, it either will do trivial damage or be OP for fights where the boss doesn't move. This is why these types of abilities were removed for Quality of Life fixes.

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they removed it -.- ? sorry i don't play prot warrior, but of all prunned abilities, how the f8ck exactly did they see that ability as 1) not class or spec ability and 2) not useful?
how the F8CK did they see an aoe taunt NOT useful !?
pls tell me u trolling and that ability still exist in-game, no way they are that f8cking brain dead retarded stupid, and i don't even play warrior (i'm pally main)

Because not every tank should have an AoE taunt. Only some tanks should, so those tanks have niche to play in.

As a paladin main, you should know that as prot pally AoE tanking was their thing in TBC and WotLK.

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you spoke either never happened (spellstealing buff ... are you joking ? ),

You've obviously never done high end PVP in WoW.

And the case being made for fireball as a frost mage is "well what if I got kicked and locked out of frost" which is exclusively a PVP item.

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And none of these bots or weakauras do it closely as good as even a half decent player.

False. There was a ban-wave in Uldir that impacted players who had #1 parses on WCL due to using rotation bots.

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All these people going back and forth about how useful / useless the skills are. That's not the point. The point is flavor. They're just fun, a concept that's long-lost to people, apparently.

Right, like NFL games would be improved by "flavor" if random events disrupted the games like WWE wrestlers sprinting onto the field and tackling players.

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Killshot doesn't replace aimed shot, you use both because killshot has a cooldown. It's just an extra thing that's fun to press in a specific moment, it changes what you do. the boring passives don't change what you do, hence why they're boring.

If pressing a button with a different text label and picture on it is fun, please seek immediate mental health treatment. Not a joke, you are mentally ill and need help before you harm yourself.

[unbound]

A lot of people seem to be praising Blizzard for a massive directional change on class development.

And that is the primary problem right there.

They are adding back some pruned abilities with little consideration. This is hardly a "massive directional change" on class development...it is just lazy effort of putting a few things back.

[bullseyed]

For all classes * it's a big part of what identifies you and sets you apart from other classes. Hunters are the ranged class with complete control "mastery" of their companion beast, so for them it's a big part of fantasy to go into their beast (Eyes of the Beast) and move around as their beast. So is their aspects and buffing their ranged attacks. Their traps are iconic and has many different (situational) uses. You can go through the same things for every single class, even the newer classes.

Perhaps your fantasizing about controlling animals and being inside them is best kept to yourself or in private?

The primary use of eyes of the beast was to trick newbies into PVP flagging by attacking your pet so you could camp them until they quit WoW. Griefing isn't a game mechanic, so eyes of the beast was removed. At the time they had also said something about how an engine update had broken the ability and it wasn't worth fixing, but they had to fix it for classic so it can come back now at no cost.

I think there was also an exploit in some dungeon or raid at one point by using eyes of the beast. It likely will be set to "outdoors only" or something to prevent that.



Eyes of the Beast could have interesting implications in M+. You can pull stuff away with your pet while the group runs by, then the hunter runs by and feigns to skip packs. But that's possible now by just having the hunter run by and feign anyway. Just would lower the risk a little bit.

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that doesn't mean useless abilities should be a fundamental part of RPGs by any means whatsoever, I don't even get how you people can't see how stupid that talking point that is. also just because a game is good doesn't mean the developers actually knew what tf they were doing when they were throwing all that shit in the spellbook, classic is a perfect example of devs making a good game while having no idea what they were doing in the grand scheme of things

You can still "/emote is casting fireball" as a frost mage on your RP server. No need to clutter up the real game for LARPing.

[Gungnir]

There is not a single class in this game that uses a "Rotation" anymore. everything you press is situational/reactional in a fooking PVE ENCOUNTER

Ah yes, I forgot that casting Frostbolt is a situation and reactive response, and not something you do all the time.
Rotations exist, as rotations are what we do 99% of the time in a fight. You rotate abilities for maximum damage output.

Have people just lost cognitive function recently?
What the fuck.

Yeah, no, it's you who don't understand. You are once again trying to say that the classes today have dead rotation and no niches. What they are saying that there are situational abilities in game now that matters. Even for PvE. You were first responding to someone that tried to be funny with someone that had their bars full with abilities. Which is a thing in the game right now.

Do you not have any form of reading comprehension?
We were discussing PvE rotations, what words in that sentence do you not fucking comprehend?

Have you ever played the two last expansions? You go around here and say that the class design in the game right now is shit, fine, your opinion, but it's not as dead as you want it to be. You even want situational spells right? They are in the game right now. The new niche abilities will be mostly that, they are not going to change drastically. A boomkin still needs to use utility and situational damage spells, yeah, even for PvE!

Oh look, resorting back to assumptions again because you can't handle a discussion.
And yet again, WE WERE DISCUSSING A PvE ROTATION. Go back to school and specifically focus on reading comprehension because you fucking lack it.

Since -when- is a a raid encounter strictly about PvE rOtAtIoN? Holy hell, how ignorant can one be.

Because we were strictly talking about PvE rotations and not encounters, you impossibly daft donut.

[Unholyground]

Good this will make them rework shit again, I like learning new shit. when the classes stay the same from expansion to expansion things get super stale and boring.

[Sesto]

personally i believe they should remove all abilities except 5: resource generator, main damage button, aoe damage button, excess resource spender, and dps cd
other abilities are unnecessary

[tankbug]

I hope this doesn't affect introducing new abilities. BfA brought nothing new to my warrior, and only made my Legion play a bit more boring. I don't give a shit about the returning abilities, wtf am I supposed to do with shield block, challenging shout and shattering throw as a fury warrior?

[Zandalarian Paladin]

To me, it's all about having multiple tools. That's what I love about paladins, for instance. I can heal, damage or tank as a DPS, even if I am unable to be a healer or tank per say.

Auras are some of the most amazing tools for paladins - playing Classic, I can't help but feel like they were part of what made paladins... paladins?

[Djaye]

if you would spend in your entire lifetime one second to to listen more experienced people then you, then you would know that those cases that you spoke either never happened (spellstealing buff ... are you joking ? ), or wasn't gamplay intensive , pressing one button by 2-3 people to rebuff cr'ed dps isn't something that affects gameplay much, if anything it's annoying chore to do when you would rather be playing game, also this false notion that "classes more reason to be brought to content as they supply the buff", let me clarify to you that all of classes had their own buff that gave either 2 stat buff or 1 stat buff, they were so abundant that it was impossible to complete raidgroup without having all of them, so that argument also seems to be more of wishful thinking someone that hasn't played in the old days then arguments guided by reason and experience, so please why won't you leave conversation and not spread misinformation anymore ? thanks

mage spellsteal was a very real thing and could strip a target of heals, hots and buffs rather quickly.

[CrawlFromThePit]

If pressing a button with a different text label and picture on it is fun, please seek immediate mental health treatment. Not a joke, you are mentally ill and need help before you harm yourself.

There's different animation, sound, effect, damage, makes the rotation deeper and more exciting for a specific moment.

You're gonna tell me you could replace all your buttons and only do arcane shot all fight long and enjoy the game just as much? You're the one with mental issues.

Based on your replies to other people above mine, I would say I'm impressed you managed to type all that while still wearing your straightjacket.
You NFL comparison is proof you don't even understand the context of a discussion even if you have all the time in the world to read it afew times and think about it.
Getting locked to a school of magic is not exclusive to PvP, there's a bunch of mobs in the game that can interrupt a school of magic, so you're objectively wrong on that.
About the paladin thing, again, you don't even understand the context of what the guy was talking about, you replied in a way to express some form of superiority (which is inexistant btw) and making claims about design that hold absolutely no value even to the argument you pulled out of your ass. The entire point of warriors having an AoE taunt was exactly because otherwise their AoE tanking was lacking (in the past), a paladin would have had nothing to do with that skill.

If you're gonna try to insult people first make sure you're above them, not far bellow them, it's makes whatever you throw at them just fall back in your face.

[Kurve1776]

Right, like NFL games would be improved by "flavor" if random events disrupted the games like WWE wrestlers sprinting onto the field and tackling players.

Yeah that would be cool actually.

Also, are you sure you're even paying attention to what you read?

[sam86]

As long as I can unilaterally remove any frost mage using fire spells from any queued content I may do without delay or vote, sure!

But if I do a random dungeon and a mage is losing to the tank on DPS because he's casting fireball as frost, it impacts my game experience. I need to be able to remove that negative element from my gaming experience with no penalty to myself.

those type of players won't do dps above tanks, even if u remove fireball from their ball btw

[Sluvs]

I think there is some difference between "major revamp" and rebalancing ability values and in some cases retiming cooldown values, re-evaluating how often procs happen or changing cast times. I think it's fair to say that with a number of abilities re-entering our ability toolkits that some of that will happen. I may be wrong though and that they will just stick the button back on the bars as is without changing anything at all because they didn't mention it at Blizzcon. That seems far-fetched. Adjustments to those values may not qualify as a "revamp" as such but can bring very great changes to how a spec will play.

Just observations really, not trying to push an agenda here. You can totally change the way a spec plays just by adjusting stuff like this and never adding or removing abilities at all.

Maybe, but to me a revamp is anything that changes how you play significantly.

Now its a waiting game, I mean, without beta we cant even provide proper feedback.

[Doffen]

Ah yes, I forgot that casting Frostbolt is a situation and reactive response, and not something you do all the time.
Rotations exist, as rotations are what we do 99% of the time in a fight. You rotate abilities for maximum damage output.

Have people just lost cognitive function recently?
What the fuck.


Do you not have any form of reading comprehension?
We were discussing PvE rotations, what words in that sentence do you not fucking comprehend?


Oh look, resorting back to assumptions again because you can't handle a discussion.
And yet again, WE WERE DISCUSSING A PvE ROTATION. Go back to school and specifically focus on reading comprehension because you fucking lack it.



Because we were strictly talking about PvE rotations and not encounters, you impossibly daft donut.

Lol, grow up. It's clearly that you are hurt when someone calls you out. Hope your day gets better man.

[shoegazing]

We were discussing PvE rotations, what words in that sentence do you not fucking comprehend?

Why should this conversation be limited to PvE rotations?

Usually the people who are asking for unpruning are not asking for PvE rotation reasons. The most vocal group asking for unpruning seems to be PvPers.

And a frost mage would use fireball in PvP in some circumstances. Not only if they were interrupted on the Frost school and still wanted to get some damage out but also to bait a noob into interrupting them on Fire school (you'd be surprised how many noobs out there will fall for this)

[FAILoZOFF]

Druid hasn't lost much to return, Mark of the Wild, Healing Touch, Hurricane, Nourish/Cyclone/Thorns for PvE players are the big ones I can think of. Most everything else is intact isn't it?

yeaaah right, almost as if they didn't lost 90% of cat/bear abilities for non-cat and non-bear spec, other than that, they didn't lost much

[GreenJesus]

The low IQ types of people who whine about stuff probably will be casting fireball all the time as a frost mage. Because that's what happens in LFR.

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Eyes of the beast has no purpose with PVP flagging removed in favor of war mode.


They should refactor it to allow the hunter to teleport to their pet, giving hunter + cat = solo shroud.

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Of course Blizzard wasn't wrong, though.

Hunters getting killshot back for example is pretty dumb. Only warriors should have execute. They had already added other "execute-like" abilities for BM and MM hunters as well (which presumably will be removed).

Wrong. Paladins should have hammer of wrath and shadow priests should have shadow word death. You are repeating blizzard talking points that "only warriors should have an execute" when these classes have had them since nearly forever.

[DazManianDevil]

Of all these abilities (from a PvE focused standpoint) I'm looking forward to Kill Shot the most.
I personally really enjoyed dps during the later stages of WotlK due to several specs dynamically changing based on boss HP, specifically Hunters having double tap Killshot, Demo Locks spamming Soul Fire with molten core procs, Affi with drain soul refreshing DoTs etc as this made your class feel more alive in a sense, as opposed to now where there is little to no flow of combat. The only way you can make dps feel any different now is pretty much Haste.

These added quirk spells by themselves won't be a big splash, but I'm hopeful they will lead WoW back into a better place than its been the past few years.
Heck, didn't Shattering throw give a 20% armor shred if it didn't break a bubble back in the day? That alone gives Fury a beefier execute window, which is something.

[Irian]

The more interesting group buffs came at the time of "hybrid tax", where a class did less overall output because a buff they brought increase the overall group dps.

See Dark Intent, Tricks of the Trade, Unholy Frenzy, Windfury Totem, Paladin Blessings and many more. Where on a meter you personally look shite, because your group buff gave everyone else more dps and you paid a price for doing that to your own dps.

It has its ups and downs, but in modern WoW where everyone is measured on their own personal performances the concept of being "supportive" is dead.

Fighting over who gets a Blessing, Innervate, Tricks, DI etc. was a fond memory but in practice today it just gets min/maxed into irrelevance where a DH giving all magic users 5% more dps is more preferable than bringing 1 Spriest for every Warlock to give DI to...

I loved that stuff, personally, but that's just me. A big reason my druid and shadow priest were some of my most raided-on characters is I liked minmaxing the "lower potential" classes and finding value beyond raw DPS.

There will always be a mathematical best and worst, it's impossible to avoid. I think the best way to make the RPG part feel good is to have the worst bring something that the best need or at least very much want.

[Fkiolaris]

Anyone who asks this question is 99% a person that only like to show up in a raid, do their dps rotation only, collect loot and call it a day. I mean you can't think why you would want spells from a different school of magic for PvP? Or why would you want abilities with different secondary effects? Or in general situational abilities for situational scenarios in order to enhance (using Blizzard's own PR lingo) "player agency"? No folks, you are only supposed to do your dps rotation and call it a day