Why Does WoW Not Have A -Range Debuff?

[Ferocity]

I don't feel this adds to any compelling gameplay, rather it forces unnecessary work on the afflicted caster. If it's easily removed or on short duration, then it's nothing more than a minor CC ability. Ultimately it doesn't offer any real gameplay changes and would be more of a frustrating mechanic than a beneficial game-changer.

Try to play melee, and you will see how many frustrating moments they have to deal with. Standing closer to boss/mob than usual wouldn't be something gamebreaking. Heck, from my own experience I know that casters ignore 95% of danger from most of world mobs simply because they can always outrange most of their abilities.

Also such debuff would benefit melee in many areas. Especially if it could be applied to yourself (e.g., buff: all ranged offensive attacks have reduced range against you). PvEwise, now many mobs tend to ignore what seems to be wall (los) and nuke straight through it, or stand in middle of heavy AoE refusing to move (like those Mogu rares). it could be useful and nice in such situations as well.

Casters are not supposed to be up close by any means, and that's a given because they avoid melee classes like the plague.

Because playing melee in current WoW is extremely frustrating. Having such abilities would make their lives more bearable in many circumstances, meanwhile casters still wouldn't have to deal with horrors of playing melee.

[Heywoods]

Pretty much all debuffs exist to counter a buff. In WoW, a "-range" debuff doesn't really make sense, since there is no "buff" that this "debuff" would be countering.

I would argue that counters to a -range debuff already exist in several fashions. It isn't as obvious as a +range buff in the game, but rarely are any debuffs matched with a direct inverse buff.

A lot of debuffs in this game are dispellable. It would still cost the healer a GCD & an 8 second CD if they wanted to remove the -range debuff. Tons of classes have immunities to silences, stuns, etc. I don't see why they wouldn't take this -range debuff under their fold.

Just as you would preemptively throw up a HoT or a Shield before that rogues kidney shot or garrote lands on you, you would preemptively HoT or Shield your ally before you are CC'd with this -range debuff. Or your teammate has Heroic Leap, ShadowStep, blink, Demonic Gateway, the list goes on with the # of abilities that get your teammate in range of you or vice versa.

I think the idea of adding +range boosts or sniper-esque abilities to the game is a fun idea that hasn't really been explored since the Hawk Eye ability for hunters.

[Rucati]

From a PvE perspective, this would be 100% pointless.

From a PvP perspective, this would be 100% broken.

If melee could make ranged classes forced to be in melee all the time it would be *literally* impossible for the melee to lose, with the possible exception of Hunters. Casters would never get a cast off, every single one would be interrupted. Not to mention this would be an ability that had zero impact at all on melee, and existed only to hurt ranged. The other issue with this is the fact that if someone is casting say Chaos Bolt, and you don't have an interrupt, all you'd have to do is back up three steps and you essentially got out of line of sight, because then the person can't hit you. It would be completely retarded in a PvP environment, and would make melee supreme in every single situation.

[Heywoods]

If melee could make ranged classes forced to be in melee all the time it would be *literally* impossible for the melee to lose, with the possible exception of Hunters. Casters would never get a cast off, every single one would be interrupted.

I never said this hypothetical debuff ability would reduce the range to 0. Read my post & example spells again. Why would melee have to be given this ability? Why not give it to a ranged class to force some interesting synergy with melee. Make the ability dispellable, etc. There are tons of ways to balance a mechanic like this. If smoke bomb works then this concept does too. You are thinking too narrow-mindedly about this I am afraid.

Not to mention this would be an ability that had zero impact at all on melee, and existed only to hurt ranged.

Really? You can't see how it would be beneficial to apply this debuff on a DK so his deathgrip range is reduced who is chasing after your flag carrier in WSG? Or on the ret paladin so his repentance or HoJ can't reach your healer who is keeping your butt alive? Pretty sure there is a use case for every melee class.

[Deleted]

Smoke bomb is already in the game, and it's already been nerfed before as well as being taken off preparation. Adding another sort of similiar cooldown or an easily appliable similiar debuff to the game will screw up class balance even further.
The more new abilities that are being created by Blizzard each expansion, the longer it takes them to somewhat balance the game again after hitting that 'reset' button. Personally I prefer if they don't add change a lot each expansion, but keep it simple instead.

Regarding boss fights there are already tonnes of boss fights already where casters are ranged restricted. Any fight that require your raid to stack up, some of them while kiting the boss as a whole raid, is already range restricting, and there have been plenty of those boss fights in the game. The problem however is that not all casters can deal with movement very easy without affecting their dps output, whereas all melee classes are unaffected, so it's not really fun for everyone when you don't have any buttons to press during this process.

[Thimagryn]

Try to play melee, and you will see how many frustrating moments they have to deal with. Standing closer to boss/mob than usual wouldn't be something gamebreaking. Heck, from my own experience I know that casters ignore 95% of danger from most of world mobs simply because they can always outrange most of their abilities.

I play mostly melee, so I'm not speaking wholly from a caster perspective. Yes, it is a pain to get into melee range, but you also factor in that there are no casted melee abilities. Casters are balanced by the fact that a big chunk of their DPS comes from standing and casting. When you cut the range of these casted spells, you're essentially spell-locking the player from dealing any competant DPS. If this is a debuff that is not easily cleared or is applied often, it means Casters who do not have instant casts will be forced to move dangerously close just to deal any damage. It's essentially considered silenced/cc'd for the duration.

I apply this to PVP, where it matters most. PVE is never an issue. It could be completely OP on PVE Mobs, and not work on Raid bosses (for obv balance reasons). It's a moot point discussing its use in PVE.

If anything, I see this sort of debuff working in a game like Guild Wars 2, where there are not many channeled or casted spells. You cast everything on the move, and it's a matter of always keeping mobile in fights. In a highly mobile combat situation, reducing range could become an interesting mechanic.

[Surfd]

Try to play melee, and you will see how many frustrating moments they have to deal with. Standing closer to boss/mob than usual wouldn't be something gamebreaking. Heck, from my own experience I know that casters ignore 95% of danger from most of world mobs simply because they can always outrange most of their abilities.

What world mobs would these be? Cause if you are referring to world Bosses, there are NONE off the top of my head I can think of where a ranged has an easier time avoiding dangerous things then a mele does (and please dont say Nalak, because I kill him every week on two mele toons, and his hitbox is so damn huge, mele can dps him from like 5 yards off the edge of the Nova, and simply walk backwards and be out of it. Of course, most mele i watch on that fight stick their heads right up the dragons arse and then wonder why nova kills them.)

Pretty much every world mob in the game is designed in such a way that both mele and ranged have different things to watch out for.

Now, if you are referring to PET based ranged classes (locks / hunters) that is a different story (and seperate issue) all together. They are just easymode for pretty much every world mob rare because they get the full benefit of having the mob focus beating on another target while they dump damage into it with impunity. Imo, world rares should either ignore pet taunts, or get a massive +damage modifier vs pets.

[Deleted]

I dont see why there is so much negativity to this idea... i think the OP has a good point.

It is strange that abilities/buffs/debuffs/talents dont affect range in any meaningful way. Maybe there is a perfectly good programming issues which only a dev could answer?

Or maybe Blizzard just havent looked into this area at all...

There are plenty of ways to balance out the penalty of reducing attack range with a positive side effect. Maybe an offensive spell which halves your casting range and yet boost damage by 20%, effective for 10 seconds.

Or as a debuff, reduces victims range abilities by 50% but your pets become more deadly...

I think its a perfectly good new area to play around with

[RicardoZ]

I think it sounds like a pretty good idea, but Blizzard tends to favor casters so I doubt we'll see anything like this in the game. Besides, the QQ from the PvP department would just be legendarily painful.

[Alhoon]

Yes, it is a pain to get into melee range, but you also factor in that there are no casted melee abilities. Casters are balanced by the fact that a big chunk of their DPS comes from standing and casting.

Funny. WW Monks have to do more hard casting than probably any ranged class these days. But it's okay you can't remember we exist, Blizzard doesn't either.

[ItachiZaku]

Cascade does more damage the farther away you are.

[Deleted]

Its because it would require a 3rd party add-on to properly track what range you are now limited to.

[Kuniku]

the amount of people that aren't getting this is shocking!

I think its a really interesting idea, to keep things simple I'd suggset the debuff just halves the range of all the targets abilities. So 40 yard becomes 20 yards, 20 yard becomes 10 yard etc. Could make for some really interesting game play in PvP. Either by making raged players have to decide "do I close the gap and carry on nuking? or do I stay safe and keep my distance?" Likewise if you can seperate a healer from their team mates, get the debuff on the healer and hard switch to the team mates the healer then has to make a mad rush to close the gap to get heals in etc.

As to what classes I'd give it to... thats a tricky one! unless it was a ranged attack giving it to melee classes might not be all that useful - in pvp it would only last 8s -DR anyway, and if they had to apply it in melee range the target would just take their usual measures to escape the melee range and by the time they're 'safe' the debuff has worn off and they can carry on as normal.

So giving it to ranged classes could be more interesting. A Hunter could put the debuff on his target, meaning the target has to get closer to their target to dps, which also puts them in range of being jumped by the melee on the hunters team etc.

Would also be interesting on healers...

[melodramocracy]

It's actually an interesting idea, and a great one for pvp applications.

Having a soft ranged nerf would also be interesting (ie, at 40 yards you do 10% less damage than you do @ 20), as you could build fights around this sort of thing as well.

[Spl4sh3r]

A range-debuff will potentially force casters (and hunters) into melee range..

If people wated to be in melee range, they would not roll a caster..

And yet people can kite melee when they stay out of their range. It is basicly the same thing but the other way around. So melee are "kiting" the ranged.

[FrenchReckon]

that would require tons of reworks to make this one small idea happen

[fangless]

that would require tons of reworks to make this one small idea happen

Wut?

Change the spell ranges to -X, done?

[Jackielope]

While potentially interesting, it's also potentially gamebreaking or at least unhinging to the point of not wanting to bother with it.

The first thing that would happen is all ranged classes would demand a rangefinder within the game. Blizz could do it, but they've been trying to move away from tracking such abstract stuff because in their eyes (and in many players' eyes) it takes away something from the game. And it's one more thing to track among a sea of other things to track in PVP.

Second, the classes are specifically designed around having that buffer zone. Yeah, it's annoying for melee most of the time, but all melee have ways of closing the gap and are rewarded by usually getting to smash face since the casters have fewer defenses against melee. Blizz would have yet another thing to balance the "perfect storm" of things where a melee can simply pop a ranged.

It'd be too much work to balance and not enough gain at the end of the day. Sure, it could make things more interesting overall, but is it worth it? I don't think so.

Why doesn't WoW have this implemented? Because it's very likely the dev team has thought over it and decided it's not worth it, especially when they have enough problems as-is balancing classes. Each added ability makes it harder to find the sweet spot, if it's even possible.


Speaking of sweet spots, the idea that ranged have their own sweet spots for spells and the like wouldn't work too well in WoW because there's really no basis for it with the actual spells and such, plus it's not compelling gameplay and they'd have a harder time balancing encounters. There would also be a sizable number of people who would simply opt out of a ranged class with that mechanic because they don't want to keep track of the sweet spot, especially in chaotic fights. There would also be people who wouldn't sacrifice their DPS for pretty much anything, so they'd stand in the fire (more so than many DPS already do) or something despite the raid telling the to GTFO. Let's not forget the raid leads who would tell the classes to stand in the fire for more DPS too despite the player not being comfortable with it.


By the way, have you posted on the official forums about this idea? Or are you just testing it here on MMO-C?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

A range-debuff will potentially force casters (and hunters) into melee range..

If people wated to be in melee range, they would not roll a caster..

It would be a good way to FINALLY balance casters in PvE.

[Jackielope]

It would be a good way to FINALLY balance casters in PvE.

It would also be a mandatory debuff for any PVP team because of how powerful it is. They can't give something like that to just one or two classes though, or else they couldn't say "bring the player, not the class." Remember, Blizz balances on 3v3 because they've found that's where they can do the most reasonable job. If it was only given to hunters, for example, practically every single intelligent PVP team would have a hunter in it just for that debuff. It's not good game design to do that kind of thing, and I wouldn't call it balanced at all if it necessitated bringing the class because it's so powerful. Why do you think Bloodlust et al can't be used in arena anymore? It's too powerful, both on its own as a burst tool and as a whole to give to a lot of classes. If they can't give such power like that to enough classes to keep variety among arena teams then it defeats their goal of wanting the players to matter the most, not the class.

At least Bloodlust et al have great use in PVE. A range debuff though? Not really. And if they can't have a primarily PVP ability used in PVP because of how powerful it is, then they might as well not even put it into the game.