Do you think borrowed power is good or bad for the game?

[Varolyn]

While borrowed power has always existed in wow, (tier sets, the legendary items from MoP and WoD), since Legion, borrowed power has become more influential than ever in terms of gameplay. In fact, I would go on to say that things like artifacts, leggos, azerite, etc. have been essential in terms of how classes play in their respective expansions.

On the one hand, borrowed power means that the player is always working for something. Almost everything they do will build up on their character, and there really aren't moments, at least in theory, where there is nothing to work for because of it. Moreover, some of these effects from borrowed power have been quite cool, and have had positive gameplay changes for certain specs.

On the other hand however, you could argue that these borrowed power systems often make the base specs feel a little bare. Worst case scenario, some specs don't even play properly without these systems. Moreover, some players may not like all the work that has to be put in to maintain their borrowed power. Finally, these systems mostly just exist for one expansion, so you may feel a big loss when these things go away in the following expansion.

So what do you think, do you think borrowed power is bad? Can blizz hit a middle ground with these borrowed power systems? Would you prefer if such systems were gone entirely>

[PenguinChan]

Borrowed power isn't inherently bad (Even corruption), it's the way Blizzard designs (Or lack there-of) them. A lot of legion artifacts were very enjoyable and used abilities that I found, and many others seemed to as well, to use. But they were taken away by and large - some permanently, others made talents, very few baseline. Some passives were rolled in with abilities, or put onto a talent with a previous one, etc.

That's both the pros and cons of borrowed power. You'll have a way the classes play and feel great doing it, but the moment it's taken away and most of it is thrown to the side you can be potentially left stranded with a more basic gameplay loop that you were used to. Honestly borrowed powers are a great way to push the boundaries of class design and keep what worked really well around and reinvent the other playstyles that didn't do so hot in the next go-around.

The major downside to all this is that you can lose a playstyle that you enjoyed for 2 years, because of loud whiners and / or not a lot of people actually using those builds.

[loras]

Borrowed power isn't inherently bad (Even corruption), it's the way Blizzard designs (Or lack there-of) them. A lot of legion artifacts were very enjoyable and used abilities that I found, and many others seemed to as well, to use. But they were taken away by and large - some permanently, others made talents, very few baseline. Some passives were rolled in with abilities, or put onto a talent with a previous one, etc.

That's both the pros and cons of borrowed power. You'll have a way the classes play and feel great doing it, but the moment it's taken away and most of it is thrown to the side you can be potentially left stranded with a more basic gameplay loop that you were used to. Honestly borrowed powers are a great way to push the boundaries of class design and keep what worked really well around and reinvent the other playstyles that didn't do so hot in the next go-around.

The major downside to all this is that you can lose a playstyle that you enjoyed for 2 years, because of loud whiners and / or not a lot of people actually using those builds.

This basically.

[SimithDAEN]

I think borrowed powers, this amazing forum warrior term is just another “something” that people whine in the forums about.

Before that we had thunderfury,Legendary staff, ICC strength axe and other “borrowed powers” that where given to specific classes.

After MoP blizzard started giving borrowed powers to everybody as an expansion feature and an easier way for them to balance out classes.

No matter what, people will whine about everything.
I see people that barely did +10 mythic and normal raid whining about their character loosing “powers” whislt they did not care to obtain the power their character can acquire throughout all the expc.

Just another reason for forum warriors to draw attention and whine about nonsense.

When people whine about “borrowed powers” it makes me laugh, now if people whine about the RNG behind such needed powers such as legion legendries there we have a point.

[darklogrus]

Spec specific it kinda works, the problem is trying to give the player borrowed power thats shared across 36 specs. Something thats never going to work when the fundamentals of class design are broken at its core..

[hulkgor]

I like it.

However, i understand how it can feel a bit disappointing losing some of those powers at the end of an expansion, even if some parts of it get implemented into the game going forward (like a lot of Legion legendaries, for example). Especially on build altering\enabling ones that make the gameplay more enjoyable.

[trapmaster]

I like it.

However, i understand how it can feel a bit disappointing losing some of those powers at the end of an expansion, even if some parts of it get implemented into the game going forward (like a lot of Legion legendaries, for example). Especially on build altering\enabling ones that make the gameplay more enjoyable.

Legendaries from legion are useless right now since it has been disabled. If you think it would be useful for timewalking for extra stats, go for it.

[hulkgor]

Legendaries from legion are useless right now since it has been disabled. If you think it would be useful for timewalking for extra stats, go for it.

I don't think you understood what i wrote.

Some of the powers from Legion legendaries ARE now included in the game via talents... Like Lady and the Child (now Twin Moons talent), in Balance Druids case, for example. Every class has those situations.

[pfbe]

Yes and no.

It's ok for the game because, the way it's been implemented so far, it gives you something to do, gives you a sense of progression.

on the other hand, it masks a dearth of innovation. Once you're done progressing through the borrowed power system, you can't help but notice you're pretty much playing the same character you were playing a year ago, except they moved some stuff from window A to panel B, and vice versa.

[Overlord Anrakyr]

As long as it's not button bloat, I really don't care.
Unfortunately Blizzard doesn't seem to grasp the concept of "too many buttons". They think we all click on the actionbar and no one does PVP, so to them there are no situations where it could be a problem having to access a lot of buttons in a rapid manner.

[WowIsDead64]

While borrowed power has always existed in wow, (tier sets, the legendary items from MoP and WoD), since Legion, borrowed power has become more influential than ever in terms of gameplay. In fact, I would go on to say that things like artifacts, leggos, azerite, etc. have been essential in terms of how classes play in their respective expansions.

On the one hand, borrowed power means that the player is always working for something. Almost everything they do will build up on their character, and there really aren't moments, at least in theory, where there is nothing to work for because of it. Moreover, some of these effects from borrowed power have been quite cool, and have had positive gameplay changes for certain specs.

On the other hand however, you could argue that these borrowed power systems often make the base specs feel a little bare. Worst case scenario, some specs don't even play properly without these systems. Moreover, some players may not like all the work that has to be put in to maintain their borrowed power. Finally, these systems mostly just exist for one expansion, so you may feel a big loss when these things go away in the following expansion.

So what do you think, do you think borrowed power is bad? Can blizz hit a middle ground with these borrowed power systems? Would you prefer if such systems were gone entirely>

My opinion stays the same. Idea behind borrowed power is good, but implementation is bad. Overall, back in old days I noticed, that players do 5ppl dungeons properly, if... mob kills grant them EXP. Since EXP goes away - people start to try to skip as much, as possible, because since that moment only boss kills matter and mobs are useless waste of time. So I suggested to implement some endgame EXP-like system. Plus people had been asking for return of talent trees for a very long time, cuz talent trees felt more RPish, than perks. But Blizzard claimed, that while talent trees were good for leveling, they were bad for endgame. So, they could have been returned only as borrowed power system. And they tried to do it with artifacts back Legion.

But negatives are way too big. When baseline classes/specs are made way too weak in order to make room for borrowed power system - it's way too terrible. Especially when extremely long time-gated grind is involved. It hurts alts and new players, who join game in later patches, too much. This is whole reason, why BFA was so bad for me. I joined it in patch 8.2, when flying returned, and struggled way too much with catching up, that killed my desire to continue playing this game.

[sephrinx]

Borrowed Power is literally the worst possible thing to ever put into a game.

It's absolutely terrible.

The only "borrowed" power should be the gear you get.

[Twdft]

I think you should go at it from theother side: the goal of game development is to change classes every expansion, so they don't stay the same and everyone has to play something new even if they keep playing the same class.

How do you achieve that?

"Borrowed power" seems to be the answer Blizzard has come to and if you agree with my first sentence being good then so is borrowed power. Question is if Blizzard does it right.

Personally I thought attaching it to tier sets was great. You had something new every raid tier. Obviously that's great for raiders, sucks for pvp players. So to have something new for everyone Blizzard invents things everyone uses.

[Itori]

Id much rather have interesting forms of borrowed power that could also function as a catchup mechanic that is easy to start and can be achieved through decent work.

A set of main armor peices (head, chest, gloves, legs, and boots) and a weapon for the spec of your choosing. You can get the base pieces by starting the quests and after doing the grind of kill x world boss x amount of times, x rare, and complete x dungeon on x difficulty you receive the associated piece that has base stats for your class, but has several gem slots, and you can have stats and effects forged onto it for your liking.

The downside? It wont be as powerful as high mythic gear but as the game progresses and higher raid content drops you can do more quests to enhance it up to just below high mythic. Also a good thing is as nerfs and balancing comes you can change the gems and buffs you put on the gear to better fit your class meta stats.

[aceperson]

borrowed power isn't inherently bad OR good. we've seen borrowed power done well with things like 7.2+ legion, and legendaries from pre-mop. the issue with borrowed power is two fold. first, if the borrowed power isn't balanced (see azerite, legiondaries, soon to be covenants and counduits), then that just breeds hate to the system just like hate was directed towards the borrowed power of legion artifacts when legion started.

the second issue is when borrowed power is used too often. people no longer feel like they are playing a class. they feel like they are playing an unfinished template that is only completed with the borrowed power. that doesn't make for a fun experience. borrowed power can be fun but blizzard has a bad history of balance and has used it for their third expac in a row.

heck, diablo 3 is a really good example of borrowed done badly, then good. the original d3 classes felt weak and incomplete. then ros released and legendaries started getting more niche powers to expand on a finished kit instead of making a finished kit. the blizz devs need to make complete classes again. then they can try borrowed power as long as that borrowed power only changes how the complete class works.

[saixilein]

I dislike them in everyway. I want to have my CLASS (not my spec), leveling to new max level and want to be "done". Just farming some Gear, grab some fun Trinkets/Tiersets that boost my Output SLIGHTLY. Its cool to farm a legendary, but it should be what it called: Legendary. And that means for me that just the best of the best should obtain it. And its effect should be disabled in rated pvp, always.

All the grind sh1t like AP for artifactweapons, essences, traits, the 20 "legendarys" i need so m class is playable are just annoying. Cause if you dont have them (or picked the wrong ones) your class output is super bad and playstyle feels clunky/incompleted.

Tiersets are fine and should boost dmg just slightly aswell.

Im so done with this BP that are 75% of my Output. (Hello Corruptions)

And the worst thing about it that u cant just play and have fun, like everything before legion.

In WoD i played Shadow, MW Monk, Arms, Holy Paladin, Resto Shaman, Fire Mage and Hunter in PvP, some just on 1,6k+ like Hunter/Firemage, some on 2k+ Like Holy Pally & MW Monk and some on 2,2k+ like Shadow and Arms... and today u cant do this, cause you have to do endless grindes, making a "mEaNiNg FuLl ChOiCe" that makes you good in a but bad in b. And without BiS shit today you will stuck on 1,8k forever in pvp. And when you stuck on 1,8k you have like 50:50 w/l, you wont find many (good) teammates and you dont have fun.

If BP boost output just slightly i would ignore them for the most of my chars/specs... cause i just dont have the time/motivation to do the same grinding shit with multiple Classes... or no, today its for multiple Specs. Cause all the grind is worthless, when u changing spec... lol

[Kralljin]

Fundamentally, no.

But Blizzards insistence to tie it into character progression is rather problematic.

A lot of SL's issues would vanish if Blizzard just gave the unpruning / class changes, covenant abilities and legendaries.
Soulbinds & Conduits however on top of that? Oof.

[Orby]

I am mixed, I would like a return to 'character progression' rather than a 'progress and reset' every expansion. I love gaining new abilities and moving on with them, gaining something to move on with, rather than giving it and taking it away.

[StillMcfuu]

I think the current iteration of borrowed power is unhealthy for the game, and the dev teams are struggling with it as we speak. I don't hate the idea, but it needs to have a limited implementation. Classes need to grow and evolve naturally, but we can still have some borrowed power systems too. We can't have all the class growth piled into these systems as we've had since Legion revamp, because we are still struggling with the issues of broken classes that were fixed by artifact weapons that were ripped from us and the functionality of the classes went with them.

[wysimdnwyg]

I don't like it at all.

Now, I don't view things like tier sets and their set bonuses as "borrowed power". Nor do I see things like Corrupted items that way (although I understand the argument). I'm looking at things like the Legion Artifacts, where we spent the entire expansion building them up and using the new spells/talents that came with them, only to have them flat out removed at the end of the expansion. Imagine you spent Vanilla working your way up to clearing Naxx, then the day BC comes out Blizzard took away your Atiesh. In reality, players with that incredible staff were able to use it for several levels (likely all the way up to 70 and even into Kara). But with "borrowed power" as they have it today, there comes a point in time where it's just... gone. We lost all of the extra benefits of using our Artifact weapons at the end of Legion. We even lost the bonuses from the Legiondaries as soon as we dinged 116. That never felt good, and now that seems like it's part of the design.

It's not, "my awesome T3 gear is replaced by quest greens on BC day one" (which it wasn't). It's "my awesome borrowed power item that doesn't just buff my stats, but completely alters my gameplay was suddenly made just another piece of gear, and I not only feel worse, I have to alter my gameplay again".