This AoE cap has got to go..

[Schizoide]

There are a bunch of ideas even in this fairly short thread, any of which would be a huge improvement.

- It's only an issue in M+, so special-case AE in M+.
- Split damage meteor-style
- Increase the cap to 10, to allow for some risky behavior without incentivizing pulling the whole dungeon

[JemiS]

Even flavor wise it makes more sense for melee to be capped: I don't care how strong you want to imagine your character is, your blade loses energy every time it hit a target, the idea that you can just slash through 20 guys in front of you is silly (and as a plus this even opens up the opportunity for certain items or weapons to affect target cap: a blade of legendary sharpness that gives some/all your abilities +2 more targets and things along those lines).
This doesn't mean there won't be some abilities that make no sense with/without a cap, but it certainly moves the majority into a more sensible place in my eyes.

I feel like this argues for a softcap (capped total damage) not a hardcap (capped number of mobs hit).

If I spin in a circle with a blade, it's not going to randomly hit 5 out of the 10 things around me. It is, however, going to hit all 10 of them a lot more weakly than it would have hit 2 or 3.

The old method (cap damage at 5xST damage, split between all mobs hit) provides more consistency while stopping the damage from scaling infinitely with number of mobs. It also feels a lot better, and doesn't have as many detrimental effects in old content.

[Toby451]

Could you explain why instead of making a reactionary comment?

Because his rogue/DH is not double the dps of casters anymore.

[Drusin]

the idea that you can just slash through 20 guys in front of you is silly

Let's not pick and choose what we consider silly in a video game.

[trapmaster]

AOE is so fucking fun that i have to slowly aoe effective in IE island while gathering mobs+stacking the mobs and shouted, "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? AOE CAP PARTIES TAKING TURNS?" I do not like it but i have to suck it up cuz that's blizzard fucking vision of what they want us to play. Some Fucking Mythic+ meta esport MLG bullshit right there.

[Velerios]

I'm perfectly fine with an AE cap, but the way they implemented it sucks. Instead of only allowing abilities to hit 5 targets, they should split damage meteor-style past 5. So:

1 target = 100 damage
2 targets = 100 damage each * 2 = 200 total
3 targets = 100 damage each * 3 = 300 total
4 targets = 100 damage each * 4 = 400 total
5 targets = 100 damage each * 5 = 500 total
6 targets = 83 damage each * 6 = 500 total
7 targets = 71 damage each * 7 = 500 total
...
11 targets = 45 damage each * 11 = 500 total
...
27 targets = 18 damage each * 27 = 500 total

This way you won't have mobs taking damage unevenly and tanks will be able to maintain AE threat. You still wouldn't benefit from pulling more than 5 mobs at a time, but at least it wouldn't be a huge pain in the butt.

This isn't exactly a groundbreaking stroke of brilliance on my part. It's how AE worked in previous expansions. I believe Cataclysm did it this way and it worked perfectly fine.

Exactly this. Instead of a hard cap that makes even older content more annoying, make it as said above. Since the damage in older content get scaled up, you can still kill as fast as before the aoe-cap (probably). Would not fix farming current content, but is a step in the right direction!

[Chromeshellking]

monkeys paw wish granted since you didnt mention where it has to go we made the cap 4 targeta

uko that was very selfish of you!

[Toybox]

It's the one thing going into Shadowlands that I truly despise.

Shadowlands seems to be tripling down on the idea that dungeon trash has to be more mechanically involved, which is something I'm not fond of at all. Sure, Legion had the odd mob you knew you had to be weary of for various reasons (like the Powershot mobs in Halls of Valor), but overall, trash felt like trash, and pulling off a big pull felt great. Now looking forward, we'll be chaining pack into pack into pack instead, dealing with simple yet annoying mechanics with every other group without the satisfaction or even potential to be able to push beyond a certain limit.

If there was no AoE cap but they still decided trash needed to be involved, the challenge would be interesting, & trying to play around it would no doubt lead to some great successes & failures. As it stands, it just feels like Blizzard have not only designed the dungeons with their idea of what players should do in mind, but have gone as far as imposing it as a ruleset on them, & that's not something I'm a fan of in the slightest.

[Short]

So it's bad to change it for casuals as you imputed in your reply to the other poster and it's bad to change it for 'pros' as you indicated in your reply to me. Are you imputing the game should solely be designed and balanced around whatever demographic you explicitly fall into?

I mean don't get me wrong I'm no fan of the change but you're burning the candle at both ends here my man.

i think he's implying the game should be based around a core design philosophy rather than the actions of a select few of it's players.
actions which, mind you, have little to no impact on the vast majority of the player base. yet, the changes they implement because of this small subset of players does have an impact on the vast majority of the player base. sometimes positive, though mostly negative.

same shit with the loot changes in Legion, the vast majority was unaffected either way. but all of it was to stop split raiding. something that so few guilds actually partook in it's akin to dropping a Moab on your house because you thought you heard someone say that they saw a spider in a neighboring town.

[PickleballAce]

Because his rogue/DH is not double the dps of casters anymore.

Yeah these threads can pretty much be summed up by "melee hoes mad"

[BeepBoo]

To me, the AoE cap was sort of a bar of skill. You couldn't brut-force and do badass things like round up and AoE if you weren't coordinated enough, didn't have the gear, and didn't have the support to back up the inevitable mistakes.

Anything that separates goods from bads and can be used as a discriminating factor is good for the game IMO. Stop putting ceilings on skill.

[ro9ue]

Feels like shit in old content when you're surrounded by 20 gray mobs and you hit your AOE and only a few die at a time lol. Not sure why people like the cap. I can see some abilities being a few targets hit and not infinite, but there should be some just pulse aura style AOE where it fits the animation.

That would be the primary thing I think... if the animation is like a whirlwind or nova and physically hits every enemy... every enemy should be hit. Feels weird has hell to cast something that visually hits everything but doesn't actually.

[Icelin]

Well I am happy to find some people are actually complaining about this somewhere. I was concerned it might just be that dead in WoW atm. I haven't played patched yet, so I would be unaware how much mobs suck now.

[styil]

It's a bandaid 'fix' because the developers have realised that people actually speed run when the devs design speed run dungeons, and the devs are incapable of an actual solution.

[ro9ue]

It's a bandaid 'fix' because the developers have realised that people actually speed run when the devs design speed run dungeons, and the devs are incapable of an actual solution.

They strayed from the EQ / early WoW model of having to CC mobs. The result is AOE gogogo runs. Instead of trying to go back to what worked they did this.

[mrsohta]

Feels weird to me to be honest. And I might've been screwed over by that change while levelling 1-3 times when I pulled a lot of quest mobs together. It actually feels super weird, yeah

[arkanon]

They strayed from the EQ / early WoW model of having to CC mobs. The result is AOE gogogo runs. Instead of trying to go back to what worked they did this.

I have mentioned a few times this was my biggest disappointment with the iteration of M+ we got. Before i go any further, i am NOT saying it was the wrong way to go, its clearly a very popular system how it is. But when it was first announced i imagined dungeons starting off as chain pull farm mode, and as you increased the level CC became more and more important, and controlling mobs etc would be the focus, rather than speed.

I personally would have LOVED that, and still would, but again, i cant complain that they went the way they did, its just not for me.

[Toybox]

They strayed from the EQ / early WoW model of having to CC mobs. The result is AOE gogogo runs. Instead of trying to go back to what worked they did this.

Trash mobs in BfA & Shadowlands have more mechanics than the entirity of some Classic dungeons. People are just much better at dealing with them nowadays to the extent where those speedy runs become possible. Besides, CC & offensive dispels are still regularly used at high enough levels.

I have mentioned a few times this was my biggest disappointment with the iteration of M+ we got. Before i go any further, i am NOT saying it was the wrong way to go, its clearly a very popular system how it is. But when it was first announced i imagined dungeons starting off as chain pull farm mode, and as you increased the level CC became more and more important, and controlling mobs etc would be the focus, rather than speed.

I personally would have LOVED that, and still would, but again, i cant complain that they went the way they did, its just not for me.

Big pulls now are probably the most coordinated CC chains have ever been. It's a lot more interesting than "Sheep Moon until X is dead" in my opinion.

[BeepBoo]

They strayed from the EQ / early WoW model of having to CC mobs. The result is AOE gogogo runs. Instead of trying to go back to what worked they did this.

CC setups were just an additional 5 seconds of thought at the start of every pull that ultimately didn't add any actual depth to combat. THey were just set and forget.

Now, say they made CC into a one-time deal with a long ass cooldown and you had to pick and choose your mobs very carefully, or you could sacrifice it to stop some big dangerous cast or something if you timed it right... that might be more interesting.

[ro9ue]

CC setups were just an additional 5 seconds of thought at the start of every pull that ultimately didn't add any actual depth to combat. THey were just set and forget.

Now, say they made CC into a one-time deal with a long ass cooldown and you had to pick and choose your mobs very carefully, or you could sacrifice it to stop some big dangerous cast or something if you timed it right... that might be more interesting.

Trash mobs in BfA & Shadowlands have more mechanics than the entirity of some Classic dungeons. People are just much better at dealing with them nowadays to the extent where those speedy runs become possible. Besides, CC & offensive dispels are still regularly used at high enough levels.



Big pulls now are probably the most coordinated CC chains have ever been. It's a lot more interesting than "Sheep Moon until X is dead" in my opinion.

Right but you're referencing a 20-yr old iteration of that. Imagine taking all of the new stuff from the last 20 years and making a really good CC / tactical style dungeon.