Anyone else getting sick of the lack of utility in this game now?

[Neostarwcc]

I'm curious, does anyone else hate that the utility of raiding is gone? It used to be, every class had something unique to bring to the raid so, ret paladins didn't get left out of raiding because the raid needed at least one for the replenish. Every single class and spec had unique buffs too. Like, blessing of wisdom and might. Now all of the buffs are combined into one basic stat sleezy ineffective system and they're all shared. Our talent systems were also much more detailed instead of "pick one of 3 buttons. Only, one button is completely useless in almost every situation so really you only have two choices." Instead of actually being able to make various different specs in different trees.

Now? It doesn't matter what you bring into the raid short of mythic. You can bring a group of full paladins or full druids or full monks and still clear heroic raids. And even mythic has no utility. Don't get me wrong, mythic raiding is fantastic. But part of the appeal of the hard mode and heroic raiding in wotlk and parts of cata was that every class had something unique to add to the roster. You actually had to plan out your raid guilds. Now, make a guild full of paladins it really doesn't matter.

There's also the problem of, mythic raiding is really the only method of raiding worth doing anymore. Let's face it guys, heroic just isn't challenging past like 2 weeks (We had some good fights though like blast furance, maidens & Blackhand that were fun for a while though) and normal is pretty much just like LFR with small mechanic tweaks. Mythic is the only challenging raid difficulty. And, I don't know about you but, I have to have a full set of characters to even have fun anymore raiding. Because, you can't just roll one main character and full heroic gear him in like a month and a half. I mean, for those who don't want anything to do with mythic why would they only roll one character to gear them in a month and a half and then never log on them again?

If you run a single main you pretty much HAVE to do mythic.

It seems the only thing they did right about raiding this xpac was the raiding system itself and the new group finder. It's nice to have scalable raids so that, you can make a guild of 8 people or 30 it doesn't really matter. I mean, while I do miss the old 10/25 & 40 man raiding systems, I feel like what they did in warlords fixed that problem. And, even if it didn't, the lack of utility is a larger problem for me than doing 40 mans.

[Manstus]

While there has certainly been some homogenization of abilities and buffs, there is still considerable utility from many classes and this was showcased all expansion long. While you don't need much of this utility in normal/heroic, a guild progressing on mythic had many tools at their disposal for their first kills.

Death Knight's mass grip continues to be a quintessential ability for several encounters, namely Mannoroth and Xhul'horac, and was also relevant in previous tiers on Thogar and Ko'ragh (which were challenging bosses when they were relevant).

Brewmaster monk statues were incredibly useful on both Ko'ragh and Imperator Mar'gok (in the cho'gall phase) for rounding up adds, despite much of the statues functionality being removed (not casting guard on random raid members).

Rogues and Boomkins were virtually required for the first hundred mythic blackhand kills to soak P3 smashes with cloak and handle balconies. Aspect of the Fox existed at this time and it was similarly a requirement in early kills in P1.

Many bosses have phases of high damage that make vampiric embrace and rallying cry very powerful.

Mages could use evanesce for a few bosses to great effect - like soaking cavitation waves so prevent them hitting people or pillars. Or ice block soaking wrath of guldan on Mannoroth. Or invis on iron maidens to drop a penetrating shot.

On that note, paladins with the clemency talent were very powerful on many bosses with double hand of protection.

Warlock portals remained very useful. Tyrant was incredibly difficult without them to sacrifice the edict target at the end of P2/start of P3. They were useful, though not required on many other bosses.

You needed a priest to actually do mythic blast furnace. Not an "it'd be nice to have" but a strict requirement.

I think there's still a great deal of utility available. I'd agree its less than almost any other point in the game, but to suggest that it's virtually gone is to discount entirely how cutting edge guilds use every advantage they can to get those kills. You may not *need* some of these tools if you're getting kills months later, but that doesn't discount their existence.

[Deleted]

Totally agree with you about the utility thing.
But you make it sound like there was no utility at all. There are still things like Massgrip for example (one of the reasons I love playing DK!)
But most classes have nothing or almost nothing that really sets them apart from each other, and if, than only small thinks like Demonic Leap for Blackhand Mythic or Rogue/Druid sprint in some situations. Could be more.
And yes, nHc and HC are very fast outgeared, and are pretty much faceroll by now.

At first I had problems with the talent system, but I got used to it. There are still enough situational talents to keep things interesting. It feels way more rewarding to get a new talent every level tho.

[Sierra85]

i'd rather go back to each spec, or class, having their own niche and pure classes doing 5% more damage than hybrids.

[Wilderness]

I'm curious, does anyone else hate that the utility of raiding is gone? It used to be, every class had something unique to bring to the raid so, ret paladins didn't get left out of raiding because the raid needed at least one for the replenish. Every single class and spec had unique buffs too. Like, blessing of wisdom and might. Now all of the buffs are combined into one basic stat sleezy ineffective system and they're all shared. Our talent systems were also much more detailed instead of "pick one of 3 buttons. Only, one button is completely useless in almost every situation so really you only have two choices." Instead of actually being able to make various different specs in different trees.

Utility isn't gone. There have been quite a few fights throughout WoD that either needed a certain class (ok, just Blast Furnace with priests) or were made much easier with them (mages evanesce, hunter's fox, boomkins on BH, DK grips, warlock gateways, and so on). Shamans got a fight where grounding totem is useful, rogues continue to be able to cheese mechanics. There is plenty of utility out there, and its very helpful to practically mandatory in some cases. I have no interest in going back to needing almost every class/spec in your raid to have full raid buffs. I don't want a shaman in every party just to have lust.

I also don't understand your bit about only mythic not requiring planning or prepping your roster. Comps have been just as important as they ever have, throughout this whole expansion. Just look at the couple of threads on the 1st page of these forums asking about Mannoroth without DKs. Or the million threads that popped up about boomkins, rogues, and hunters on Blackhand. Your point about not mattering what you bring to non-mythic raids - how is that different? You think comp and buffs mattered in normal ICC? The difficulty levels below the hardest (whether that was heroic or mythic) has never required maximizing your group.

We used to have a lot more talent points, that's true. But way less variety and actual usefulness. I change my spec and talent choices almost every fight in HFC. Prior to WoD I changed my spec when a patch hit or nerfs/buffs took place and all of a sudden certain talents were better or worse. I wasn't flipping around talents regularly to min/max certain encounters because there was basically only one best option. Yeah, I had 71 talent points in wrath. And once I picked my spec and decided if I was going PVE or PVP then there was practically only way to go. I'm not saying that now there are tons of equal choices, because there's always going to be mathematical best options, but now we have the ability to tailor our talents to specific needs: AoE, single-target, burst damage, cleave, etc. That's more flexibility than we had in previous talent choice systems.

[freddy090909]

I prefer not having classes be required for fights (see: DKs being almost necessary for Xhul and Manno). I'd much rather have players be brought for their own skill instead of being brought to fill some quota. That said, if Blizzard is not capable of mantaining proper class balance, I guess I'd prefer they force diversity over seeing something like 5 hunters in a raid group.

[Spotnick]

i'd rather go back to each spec, or class, having their own niche and pure classes doing 5% more damage than hybrids.

Checks our raids logs... see rogues, warlocks and mages on top on every fight.

Opens warcarftlogs to verify, sees rogue, warlocks and mages top dps overall on mythic.

So.. I'm not so sure pure dps have issues right now, hunters are below, but they can freaking move while casting.

[Deleted]

The utility of hybrids is being hybrids. You probably missed the whole "2 DKs required to make it 50% easier" lately. Then again, they are hybrids, so I guess they thought DKs needed a bump.