I think abandoning borrowed power is a huge mistake

[kamuimac]

Right now I'm having more fun in wow than I can remember. I can switch between multiple interesting creative and visually spectacular abilities in Oribos and try out new builds in every battleground or raid, and do crazy shit I've never done before.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I don't think it is borrowed power that is the problem. That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying you want less abilities, less choice, from wow? No. Do you want every ability from every expansion to remain in your arsenal?-no, that would leave you with a thousand different buttons to press.

I think what happened here is a small number of streamers, who have very annoying fans who tend to repeat everything they say verbatim, a) have been playing wow far too long and just end up whining about everything because they are commercially obligated to play wow forever and b) confuse the excessively grindy and repetitive mechanics involved in obtaining the borrowed power with the fun of the borrowed power itself. In 9.2 that grind no longer exists.

So I suspect what will happen is this: Blizzard will put much less work into offering the players diversity of options in Dragonflight, because that's essentially what we asked for and its cheap. Then the players will whine about it like they didn't cause the situation in the first place. That happens a lot.

Does no one else see these train wrecks coming?

(Cue lots of guys talking about wow in a retrospective, creepy way as if it were an ex-girlfriend that dumped their ass years ago.)

plenty of people see it coming but you will be as hated as people who seen that removal of TF from game was collosal mistake which costed them huge chunk of casual players.

the transition will be super brutal . people will have full gear through m+ on week 2 and will relaise that have literaly nothing to do in game 2 weeks after launch .

but they have even bigger tranwreck incomign which will be complete failure of wolk classic if they do not revert removal of lfd from game as majority of people wont even touch it if lfd is removed

basicly future of wow looks extremly grim

my advice ? swap to FF14 now and save yourself disspointemnt in future. wow has no future untill Ion and whole "raid or die design squad" is getting fired from blizz

the only people happy will be top 1 % of raid loggers who dont care about anythign but log in raid log out .

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I don't "hate" borrowed power...but kinda need a break from it. Will see how they do with the new talent system

what do you need to see ?

i can tell you what your gameplay will look like - you will go to wowhead copy bis build for your class and forget talent tree exists.

because bis will be always mathematicaly bis .

its literaly 3 minutes of gameplay per tier if they rebalance stuff mid expansion

[Flaim]

plenty of people see it coming but you will be as hated as people who seen that removal of TF from game was collosal mistake which costed them huge chunk of casual players.

the transition will be super brutal . people will have full gear through m+ on week 2 and will relaise that have literaly nothing to do in game 2 weeks after launch .

the only people happy will be top 1 % of raid loggers who dont care about anythign but log in raid log out .

so which way is it?
casuals quit due to lack of TF, despite them not being affected by it, as they couldn't reach those thresholds due to playing too little to be affected by it,
or people being geared in 2 weeks because they were the ones affected by the removal of the TF carrot-on-a-stick, but somehow not being the ones leaving? just...what?
can't even make your strawman arguments consistent if your life depended on it, but nothing else was expected coming from your trolling account anyways.

[Lollis]

Right now I'm having more fun in wow than I can remember. I can switch between multiple interesting creative and visually spectacular abilities in Oribos and try out new builds in every battleground or raid, and do crazy shit I've never done before.

And now do it with a new character. Oh you cannot.

The underlying issue isn't the borrowed power itself so much as the requirement to collect all that power, again, and again, and again. And in every implementation these systems have directly hindered you by forcing you to stay in certain specs or classes if you want to remain on the curve.

The Heart of Azeroth Essence system is the only form of borrowed power, in three expansions, where you are not punished for choosing a specific role, because the essences were available to you in all specs as soon as you picked them up. I do not class corruptions as a real borrowed power because you were able to collect many pieces relatively quickly.

Wanted to switch role or class in Legion? Artifact Weapon fucks you until you catch up.
Wanted to switch role or class in BFA? Azerite Traits fuck you until you catch up.
Wanted to switch role or class in Shadowlands? Covenant choice fuck(ed) you until you catch up.

[Coldkil]

-snip-

They literally said the talent trees are going to be the place where they're gonna add those new fancy spells and abilities. Which makes sense, since if it works it can be kept indefinitely without having a system designed around it which has to be ditched every new expansion. And borrowed powers will actually remain, as tier sets, as they were always in game from Vanilla.

The issue from Legion onwards was the fact that while the Artifact weapons were cool and all, they weren't made to last after Legion. So the first time it was cool, but not as fun the second and especially the third. Plus, classes were balanced and designed around the presence of these systems, and once removed many were just gutted and unplayable. It's simply not feasible in the long run, they cannot just reinvent the wheel - and all because they gutted the original talents, made them even more boring and cookie-cuttery and left them there replacing them with those systems.

It's a good move. I can understand the critique around the talent trees and how they don't really tackle the "problem" of cookie cutter builds. However they really don't need to. People will just keep going into sites and discords and copy builds made for them. What they only need to do is to add more situational choices so you can adapt the core of your playstyle on specific fights and tasks.

[Amariw]

I respectfully disagree.

You illustrate an example where borrowed powers allow choices, but thats exactly what the new talent system allows in greater depth, and blizz admitted they will use previous powers (SL legendaries and covenants for example) as talents when it makes sense.

Borrowed power originally came about as a way to solve the lack of power progression after endgame. But it never really did a great job at this. What we got, mostly, was an endless grind of some currency (artifact power), for extremely minimal gains such a buffed azerite trait or legion artifact trait.
Legion and SL legendaries did a better job at this as it did actually feel meaningful when you got one. I do think the SL version could have cut the choregast portions and been a good addition to the game, but by its very nature of being borrowed power it runs into some other problems.

Those problems are that your design changes, sometimes drastically, each expo. That's good for the first month of excitement, but unless the new design is spot on you're not likely to love it more then the previous.

Having a consistent design that's iterated on, with room for costumization, is better until the point there's too many abilities on the action bar. Blizz admitted this is a problem they'll have to tackle later, but there's no reason not to allow a good system that can hold for 2-3 expansions.

As for the sense of attaining a new legendary, its indeed a price to pay, but honestly a small one. Especially if they manage the task of actually allowing real choices in talents, even in the non dps/output related ones.

[Lurker1]

I have mixed feeling about borrowed power only time i liked it was during BFA.

[Kithelle]

snip

Because borrowed power was totally different? I mean it's not like you chose the best covenant for your spec and went with it

[Aydinx2]

Borrowed power has always been taken to be something it isn't. The nature of an expansion is that there is a power budget for when it starts and when it ends. The complaints about 'borrowed power' are mostly about how that power is distributed. Power resets all the time and especially with the start of a new expansion. It's all borrowed in that sense. Blizzard gives it to you as you play through an expansion and then takes it away at the start of a new one. They've just put new skins on it the last few expansions. Even if they had kept Legion legendaries as active weapons after the end of Legion they would have reset either the power of the item or reset all of the effects around it.

People keep saying this but it really isn't true.
Up until Legion, classes remained mostly the same unless something warranted a rework or they wanted to try out something new.

Yes your gear got effectively reset, but losing stats does not change your playstyle/balance the way losing an artifact ability or azerite necklace does.

The only reason we're once again seeing a massive balance change in Dragonflight is because we're losing legendaries, covenant abilities and they're re-doing talents. If the expansion after Dragonflight does not add/remove borrowed power or change a game-wide system, then we will see balance remain largely the same.

[schwank05]

Right now I'm having more fun in wow than I can remember. I can switch between multiple interesting creative and visually spectacular abilities in Oribos and try out new builds in every battleground or raid, and do crazy shit I've never done before.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I don't think it is borrowed power that is the problem. That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying you want less abilities, less choice, from wow? No. Do you want every ability from every expansion to remain in your arsenal?-no, that would leave you with a thousand different buttons to press.

I think what happened here is a small number of streamers, who have very annoying fans who tend to repeat everything they say verbatim, a) have been playing wow far too long and just end up whining about everything because they are commercially obligated to play wow forever and b) confuse the excessively grindy and repetitive mechanics involved in obtaining the borrowed power with the fun of the borrowed power itself. In 9.2 that grind no longer exists.

So I suspect what will happen is this: Blizzard will put much less work into offering the players diversity of options in Dragonflight, because that's essentially what we asked for and its cheap. Then the players will whine about it like they didn't cause the situation in the first place. That happens a lot.

Does no one else see these train wrecks coming?

(Cue lots of guys talking about wow in a retrospective, creepy way as if it were an ex-girlfriend that dumped their ass years ago.)

NO! I want loot to be loot and drop off bosses, I want Legendries to be just that Legendary. I don't want to get some new neat ability that I loose each expansion or they have to just bake into the class to try and keep players. I am looking at Apocalypse for UH DK's now a base part of the class just like if Abomination Limb is not there for good I couldn't play the class anymore. I just want to go back to Wow at its peak which I think was MOP, but they did do some pretty crappy things to a few classes I loved in CATA, (Blood DPS). I just want to go kill a boss and loot the body and see 3-5 pieces of loot laying there to be distributed as a guild amongst each other. I love getting loot, but I love when someone else gets loot as well and helps me get more loot easier the next kill. I guess this is the reason I play Classic servers almost exclusively now and definitely will be in Wrath.

[Caprias]

They literally said the talent trees are going to be the place where they're gonna add those new fancy spells and abilities. Which makes sense, since if it works it can be kept indefinitely without having a system designed around it which has to be ditched every new expansion. And borrowed powers will actually remain, as tier sets, as they were always in game from Vanilla.

The issue from Legion onwards was the fact that while the Artifact weapons were cool and all, they weren't made to last after Legion. So the first time it was cool, but not as fun the second and especially the third. Plus, classes were balanced and designed around the presence of these systems, and once removed many were just gutted and unplayable. It's simply not feasible in the long run, they cannot just reinvent the wheel - and all because they gutted the original talents, made them even more boring and cookie-cuttery and left them there replacing them with those systems.

It's a good move. I can understand the critique around the talent trees and how they don't really tackle the "problem" of cookie cutter builds. However they really don't need to. People will just keep going into sites and discords and copy builds made for them. What they only need to do is to add more situational choices so you can adapt the core of your playstyle on specific fights and tasks.

Not like it's needed right now or for the next 2 expansions really, but I do wonder how they want to combat ability bloat, so they will have to prune or stretch that talent tree eventually.

[Unholyground]

I just hope we get a ton of major class reworks, the specs are getting stale again.

[Glorious Leader]

Of course, there will always be some people who like different things, but in this case you are a clear minority.

I won´t argue your tastes but no, it is not a mistake, it is the right thing to do

I love people who have no idea what they're talking about speak with such authority. Its great. No you.

[Lurker1]

MORE POWER not less imho!

[Coldkil]

Not like it's needed right now or for the next 2 expansions really, but I do wonder how they want to combat ability bloat, so they will have to prune or stretch that talent tree eventually.

One thing they said, that they want to go more horizontally with the talent trees instead of vertically. I assume the right place for new skills/spells is the "choose your own" talent slots so more abilities introduced doesn't automatically become more buttons to press but more options for players.

This way they can easily change/prune/rework major skills without affecting the whole tree. It's not even needed that we have new skills/spells each expansion - in terms of purely offensive ones - we may get more utility or tools that may be useful depending on fight and composition. For example, i think the current raid buff design is terrible - some classes are the only ones providing certain buffs/utilites, and that's bad. I feel that having the possibility to choose between a personal dps buff and a raid wide one (which may end in less personal dps but more raid dps) is a good thing to have.

[Lolites]

the biggest benefit of gear based borrowed power is that you naturally want to leave it behind you, because the new stuff simply becomes stronger, instead of external factors FORCING you to remove it/taking it away.

didnt they literaly have to "turn off" set bonuses bcs they were powerfull well into the new content despite having far less stats on gear pieces?

[Twdft]

didnt they literaly have to "turn off" set bonuses bcs they were powerfull well into the new content despite having far less stats on gear pieces?

Yeah, that always happens when a set bonus provides +% damage since that bonus gets bigger and bigger when your other gear gets higher ilvl.

This problem was actually the reason BC introduced crit etc rating. Vanilla gear had rings with +2% crit which would have been bis for quite some time.

[Kalisandra]

But rotations change basically every xpac.

Some specs get their rotations changed up each time, and some (like Warlocks) get rebuilt fairly often. Others, however, have stayed much the same for multiple expansions - Ret Pally's current rotation would be recognisable to someone from late Cata, and it hasn't really changed since WoD in its fundamentals. Some talents have changed or been replaced, but it behaves basically the same.

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Oh cool now I need a different 30+k gold legendary too.

Count yourself lucky - top-end legendaries run over 100K for some slot/armour combos on my server.

[Annihilas]

right now i'm having more fun in wow than i can remember. I can switch between multiple interesting creative and visually spectacular abilities in oribos and try out new builds in every battleground or raid, and do crazy shit i've never done before.

Correct me if i'm wrong here but i don't think it is borrowed power that is the problem. That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying you want less abilities, less choice, from wow? No. Do you want every ability from every expansion to remain in your arsenal?-no, that would leave you with a thousand different buttons to press.

I think what happened here is a small number of streamers, who have very annoying fans who tend to repeat everything they say verbatim, a) have been playing wow far too long and just end up whining about everything because they are commercially obligated to play wow forever and b) confuse the excessively grindy and repetitive mechanics involved in obtaining the borrowed power with the fun of the borrowed power itself. In 9.2 that grind no longer exists.

So i suspect what will happen is this: Blizzard will put much less work into offering the players diversity of options in dragonflight, because that's essentially what we asked for and its cheap. Then the players will whine about it like they didn't cause the situation in the first place. That happens a lot.

Does no one else see these train wrecks coming?

(cue lots of guys talking about wow in a retrospective, creepy way as if it were an ex-girlfriend that dumped their ass years ago.)

We get KEPT POWER with the new talent system.

[Kalisandra]

At the start of gearing a tank. Just using all stats to get to DEF cap was little bland imo. BUT. When the better gear came out and the def cap was easier and easier to get. I very much enjoyed stacking one of the mitigation stats. Back in Wotlk i loved playing as a Blood DK and tanking with the blood shield and parrying in ICC

I actually quite liked the Hit cap/Defence floor minigame. It made getting a new piece of gear much more interesting than the current set-up where unless it's very close in ilevel it's going to be better even if it has terrible stats. Because of gems and enchants (and in MoP reforging) you could generally manage to hit the cap, and then as your gear got better you could move points into other stats as you saw fit, work on getting the socket bonuses, and so on. Sure, a lot of people would just slavishly follow what Elitist Jerks said, and there were addons to automate it, but that's the case for everything and should not be an argument for not having these systems in game. I hate the current enchants and gems, where the enchants are completely mindless (and annoying if a utility enchant you want happens to be on the slot your primary stat enchant is on), and even having gem sockets is a matter of luck for most items (until you've currency to burn on sockets, and then it's just a matter of having the currency).

From BC to MoP we had all those wonderful gem sockets, and it was so much more fun.

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Most covenant abilities are simply not, they are kinda passive.
Which shouldn't be the case. Give players big flashy moments.

Agreed.

Divine Toll is a good covenant power - it's probably going to fill up your Holy Power bar, so you want to use it when you'll get use out of that, etc. The Shaman Venthyr power, Chain Harvest, was a bad example with no interaction for Resto and Elemental until 9.2 - now it gives maelstrom to Elemental, but more importantly the convenant legendary (too weak to be worth taking as your only legendary) makes it much more useful and it now interacts with your rotation - and for Elemental it also interacts with your tier bonuses.

All the powers should be like these.

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Issues with BP is the classes get pared down to nothing and never change. All the classes are essentially the same as their Legion rework counterpart, unless they've had major reworks done to them. Still the classes are incomplete without borrowed power and that's a huge problem. It's not the class that has the power, it's this crappy system, when the system gets stripped away we are all left playing a weak empty class.

Legion wasn't nearly as bad for this as BfA and SL - in Legion the core classes and specs weren't nearly as hollowed out as they became in BfA, and you started building your power immediately. BfA had hollowed out specs, turned off the Legion legendaries halfway through levelling making for a huge power drop, had terrible stat decay, and you got only a couple of crappy azerite powers before hitting level cap. SL is better in some ways (you get your covenant power right away), but just as bad in others (skeletal core class/spec, no soulbinds and conduits until level cap).

I'm so glad Dragonflight is going to ditch this. I was really dreading levelling my Shaman with the borrowed power stripped off, because it's just not really functional without it (BfA levelling was a nightmare).

[Nymrohd]

There really is nothing stopping them from adding more talent points at max level btw. That would give you the exact same effect with borrowed power and all they'll have to do is grow the tree. At any point if permutations get unwieldy and you want to soak some points you can introduce a strong early passive that everyone will want all the time and the extra choice gets removed