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  1. #101
    holy power is fine, as having a rotation of hard hitting abilities is better than a seal of casino (so long as blizzard doesn't want mechanics that add extra attack swings) but the art of war and blade of justice should probably hit and/or scale better amongst other things to help deal with the sluggishness of it currently; simple solution would be make it holy dmg all the time

    auras and seals, sure; GREAT start. but as i iterated before, they need to be thrown on the drawing board. a return to passive cast and forget wont make the class more fun or interesting.

  2. #102
    Pandaren Monk Demsi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Palapop View Post
    Brought to you by "Legion". Start of dawnfall of class design and balances. Pre legion? Warriors used to sit full roots and craps while paladins would just freedom, or dispel them self and move on...
    Freedom is just going to be dispelled, and emancipate sucked against any class with no cd on their slows (wich there were lots of).

    charge and leap is wayy better than anything paladin has or have had in terms of mobility, outside and inside of pvp.

  3. #103
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    Auras is the ONLY thing i'd want from classic. It's very strange they brought back buffs for priests,warriors,mages but not paladins.

  4. #104
    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    The reason it's boring is because it has no impact on the game itself. Choices and flavor matter, and that iteration is simply a talent instead of a switchable passive aura that you can vary depending on the situation.

    I hate current iteration of Devo aura because it's not a choice, or even really anything. It's a tiny range reduction buff with diminishing returns which you never interact with. It's not an option out of multiple, it's not something people appreciate existing, it's just there. I strongly remember actually wanting Devo aura specifically for physical-heavy AoE fights in the past before it was changed for some heroic encounters.
    As much as you may dislike the current version of Devotion Aura, a lot of the criticisms you're leveling at it also apply to Classic Auras too. Outside of selecting the appropriate one for the content, you never interact with them either. In MC and Ony for example, you will be running Fire Resist Aura almost exclusively. Naxx you may have switched between Frost and Shadow, but never during the same encounter. You picked one before the fight and stuck with it. You still have a choice of three different Auras in Retail, Devotion, Sacrifice and Mercy, although Devotion is the clear winner most of the time.

    As I outlined above the power of Devotion Aura is significant yet it still goes largely unnoticed and unappreciated by players because it's effects are completely invisiable. That criticism also applies to the older versions of both Devotion and Resistance Auras. You really have no way to tell just how effective they are without logging and number crunching. That takes place outside of game, not during a raid.

    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    I mean, I'd be totally cool with it being a "Blessing of Retribution" instead, tbh. I just personally miss paladins feeling and being beneficial to the party in ways that make you want specific classes in a party.
    I'm not against the idea of it being a Buff of some kind. The issue there is that it would be almost a carbon copy of a Druids Thorns buff. Blessing of Sanctuary was similar, but only worked on blocked attacks.

    The downside to such buffs however is that their effectiveness drops as gear improves. The more hits your tank avoids, the less damage you're getting from them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    If every buff is mandatory for a raid group, in my eyes that's good design. You should think to yourself "Shit, we don't have a paladin, let's find a paladin for x buff". That's why this wasn't a problem in the past and why it wouldn't be if it was brought back. Mandatory buffs can and should exist IMO.
    I'm sorry, I cannot agree with that kind of philosophy. It may work in the very top end Mythic guilds, but I expect most guilds are smaller and less strict with their requirements. Having to cancel a raid night because your only Paladin can't make it and you *need* those buffs feels completely awful. Having to force someone to play their Mage or Hunter or whatever because you require some of the buffs they bring is an equally horrible situation to put players into.

    In the past, Blizzard has tried to solve that problem by giving multiple classes access to the same buffs. However that was met with extreme pushback and eventually outright rejection from the playerbase. If they can't ensure that almost every raid will have access to the buffs they need to beat the content, then removing those buffs is the most logical course. It allows the content balance to be on point no matter what the group makeup looks like.

    Blizzard have acknowledged that it was a problem in Wotlk with their "bring the player not the class" philosophy. Just because players haven't liked the solutions Blizzard have implemented to try solve the problem doesn't alter the fact that it is still a problem.

  5. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by StrawberryZebra View Post
    As much as you may dislike the current version of Devotion Aura, a lot of the criticisms you're leveling at it also apply to Classic Auras too. Outside of selecting the appropriate one for the content, you never interact with them either. In MC and Ony for example, you will be running Fire Resist Aura almost exclusively. Naxx you may have switched between Frost and Shadow, but never during the same encounter. You picked one before the fight and stuck with it. You still have a choice of three different Auras in Retail, Devotion, Sacrifice and Mercy, although Devotion is the clear winner most of the time.
    I don't think you really get what I mean by "interact". Yeah of course they're not interacted with in combat any more than like, PW:F isn't interacted with. But the fact that you'd for example have FR aura for MC as opposed to another dungeon is why I personally enjoyed them. Paladins had a versatile but exclusive effect that allowed them to be more valuable in some situations, and then have the basic stuff like Devo and Ret when they didn't need those more specific options.

    I'm not against the idea of it being a Buff of some kind. The issue there is that it would be almost a carbon copy of a Druids Thorns buff. Blessing of Sanctuary was similar, but only worked on blocked attacks.

    The downside to such buffs however is that their effectiveness drops as gear improves. The more hits your tank avoids, the less damage you're getting from them.
    I mean, the obvious solution is to have them scale better with gear than they did previously, not remove them.


    I'm sorry, I cannot agree with that kind of philosophy. It may work in the very top end Mythic guilds, but I expect most guilds are smaller and less strict with their requirements. Having to cancel a raid night because your only Paladin can't make it and you *need* those buffs feels completely awful. Having to force someone to play their Mage or Hunter or whatever because you require some of the buffs they bring is an equally horrible situation to put players into.

    In the past, Blizzard has tried to solve that problem by giving multiple classes access to the same buffs. However that was met with extreme pushback and eventually outright rejection from the playerbase. If they can't ensure that almost every raid will have access to the buffs they need to beat the content, then removing those buffs is the most logical course. It allows the content balance to be on point no matter what the group makeup looks like.

    Blizzard have acknowledged that it was a problem in Wotlk with their "bring the player not the class" philosophy. Just because players haven't liked the solutions Blizzard have implemented to try solve the problem doesn't alter the fact that it is still a problem.
    Yes and I honestly think "Bring the player, not the class" in an MMORPG setting was one of the most idiotic moves Blizzard has done in their history of WoW's development. Right after WotLK and their removal of many synergistic buff effects, a group of almost entirely druids downed heroic Nefarian, proving exactly what happens when you redesign the game to not encourage buffs.

    I don't really know what game you played but honestly I never once had an issue of a raid group being doomed because we didn't have one of multiple raid buffs. Shit happens, you may not always be able to have an optimal raid group but that's fine. Nobody's forcing anyone to play a class they don't want to and realistically nobody ever did that except cutting-edge guilds. Just because there are outliers who do extreme shit to complete content as optimally as possible doesn't mean the game should be designed around them, because if you do that then you're doomed to find at least one class who is better at something than another. See the beautiful triple rogue M+ comps of 8.2 as proof of this.
    Besides, honestly most raid groups I've been a part of in recent memory have naturally had all twelve classes or extremely close to it in the raid anyway.

    But the great thing is that I'm not trying to convince you of my own personal opinion. You're the one who replied to me, and I'm explaining why I don't think auras were useless or boring as a game mechanic. Yes in modern WoW they don't have a place with every class being homogenized to shit but that's easily changeable in a future expansion.

  6. #106
    seals, but not just as added procs to our attacks but ability modifiers for our rotational abilities.
    auras, although devotion and retribution should be the one and the same on tanks, magic resist auras could be holy's side-gimmick in addition to their healing ones, and ret could have sanctity aura back as a mastery buff.

    reckoning could come back as a proc instant auto melee as pure holy dam on parry or chance on hit with melee attacks based on mastery, generating holy power(both for prot and ret).
    that along with wrath's art of war reseting exor's replacement blade of justice(now pure holy damage) would allow paladin's to scale resource gen on something other then haste stacking.

    which if you'll remember the removal of which led to the haste-whoring in later expacs that many specs resorted to.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by StrawberryZebra View Post
    Blizzard have acknowledged that it was a problem in Wotlk with their "bring the player not the class" philosophy. Just because players haven't liked the solutions Blizzard have implemented to try solve the problem doesn't alter the fact that it is still a problem.
    no, they haven't.
    because it wasn't.

    it wasn't in wrath and it wasn't in MoP, just because you're a bad player rolling an OP class shouldn't automatically earn you a raid spot to luke-warm.

  7. #107
    Herald of the Titans Daffan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Theoris View Post
    I wouldn't mind if Blessing (more than the two we have now and not just for ret) made a return; or Auras.

    Oh, and Sense Undead.
    Auras are nice.
    Content drought is a combination of catchup mechanics and no new content.

  8. #108
    Legendary! SinR's Avatar
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    Divine Intervention
    We're all newbs, some are just more newbier than others.

    Just a burned out hardcore raider turned casual.
    I'm tired. So very tired. Can I just lay my head on your lap and fall asleep?
    #TeamFuckEverything

  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by DotEleven View Post
    Because they were flavorful and brought life to the class that made each spec feel connected. Right now with pretty much every class you don't feel like for example a paladin that specialized in holy for healing. You feel specifically like a holy paladin as if you had no connection to the other paladins. As a hunter, I feel no real connection or class camaraderie between me as a beast master hunter and someone else as a survival hunter or marksmanship hunter.
    I agree with what you're saying.

    Seals can come back, provided they don't overly disarray the good things we have going for us right now in our specialized roles.

    I personally think that while meleeing for damage isn't really a given part of the holy paladin arsenal, Seal of Light in particular should just be a short range AoE heal for a very minor amount, comparable to most other healer's HoT spells, which transfers via beacon, and is punished by stopping when the paladin hard casts heal spells. More of the toolkit should be about the Paladin standing with the melee while they heal, even if it's not specifically for damage, swinging and participating in the fight IS part of the Holy Paladin class fantasy, you're watching over your little melee buddies, and seals and flavored judgments being a part of that is just a given.

    Prot is in a great place, and I don't really know that seals need to be brought in to prop it up, but Light for Healing and maybe Blood for high risk DPS payoff would be a nice touch, 1 tank encounters or situational DPS checks are perfectly valid reasons to justify a tank hurting themselves.

    Ret feels pretty great to me right now, and I think Seal of the Crusader is already sort of present in spirit via the talents Zeal and Inquisition, and why those talents aren't simply referred to as Seals is a little silly from my perspective of having used the classic SotC/SoR/SoC. I don't think they need to be a major part of the rotation, but as basic class components there to augment the spec and make it more flavorful in function without donking up the good rotation system we have now, they'd be wonderful.

    Honestly, a lot of other classes are in worse need of flavor/fantasy tuneups than Paladins, even if it was what I played in Vanilla.

  10. #110
    I am Murloc! FlubberPuddy's Avatar
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    Seals that work like this: Give a minor buff on CD, Have active special effect that goes on CD if Judging. This way you don't have to do a sort of constant "reapplying" which I would say is the only negative of Seals. As well as the OOMing but Paladins don't use mana for many abilities these days (I think it's mostly just heals).

    Auras for every Paladin would be nice and not just stuck to Holy. It would be nice to have back again an "always on buff", I think it feels cool.

    Also I'd like more Blessings other than Might/Wisdom (or is it Kings? I can't remember) to return. Just like how Mages/Warriors/Priests got their buffs back.

    Would be cool to add specialized Blessings for say Secondary stats, this way instead of just Wisdom on a healer, and Kings on the Tank, I could say put a Crit Blessing on a Rogue/Mage or Haste on another Pally etc etc.

    Just don't make them 5 min durations, that was honestly stupid. 30 min like the others would fix this.

    We're told to "buff up" with food/elixirs/etc before pulls anyway and I always like how in Wrath and before you'd see a lot of buffs up before entering a boss fight.

    This is all I can think of for now. Really enjoying Classic and actually liking not having to play at 5000 APM like my Paladin on retail.

  11. #111
    My personnal wish list to what we could get from old school (and not classic because it kind of sucked) :

    >Auras
    >Divine Intervention
    >Seals

    Why ? Because the aura gave you no true gameplay change, but it instead gave the paladin a way to adapt, just like seals did. For Divine Intervention, I think it should be a true paladin utility. Even if we don't have to walk back in the dungeon, it's still a good thing to have since it has a unique flavor. And it would be cool to see divine intervention strats in MM+.

  12. #112
    I think Burning Crusade had the best iteration of Ret as far as seals and auras. Seal of Blood twisting into Command just felt really good. Having a few separate judgements also felt right. Didn't have to do some odd seal swap to get a buff going. I've always hated the fact that Blizzard decided to remove Auras and Seals. Over time paladin started to feel less and less like a Holy Warrior and more like a regular Warrior with flashier visuals. Partially, because Blizzard keeps going back and forth on what moves should deal Holy damage and which should deal Physical and mostly because their skill set mirrors a hybrid of a Rogue and Warrior.

    That said, I think having Divine Storm in Wrath was also a great addition, but seal twisting started to fade away. Exorcism change was by and far needed back then.

    I would say when they changed Blessing of Protection and Freedom to Hands, that was a player request so they wouldn't override other important buffs, in I believe Cata that was the right idea. People just didn't like the sound of "Hand of Freedom" after it became a thing.

    Protection was fun when you had more control over your survivability (and tanking in general). They've gone back and forth of it being the tank's job or the healer's job. When it is the tank's job, they are really sturdy and hard to kill, but do no damage. When it's the healer's job, they tend to be more feeble but with deal reasonable damage. I get the trade off, but I think tanks should be sturdy.

    Holy paladin has always been either too powerful or too weak. In Wrath, I nearly solo healed 25man Archivon's Vault (there was another waaay under geared healer in there doing next to nothing). I couldn't run out of mana. Every Holy Light was like a Lay on Hands. It was both glorious and ridiculous at the same time. Burning Crusade was probably the only example of a time when Paladin healing was so bad they were just used to buff and log into an alt. I do not like Legion or BFA Holy Paladin. My last real go with it was in WoD and I was Mythic raiding. It felt like Holy was in a decent spot. Still behind on real strong AOE healing, but single target was still ahead.

  13. #113
    Some of you are genuinely arguing that you want auras and blessings back, but don't care if they don't do anything. Like you just want to see the ability/buff on your bar, even if the tooltip is blank. I'm being marginally hyperbolic here, but the point is still accurate. If something is fire and forget and offers no impact on gameplay it's useless.

    Now mind you, I'm not opposed to bringing in some themes from vanilla, but leave their implementations back in the past where they belong. By all means if you have any ideas how to make say auras, blessings, or seals interesting from a modern gameplay perspective I'd love to hear them.

  14. #114
    I am Murloc! FlubberPuddy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wrecktangle View Post
    If something is fire and forget and offers no impact on gameplay it's useless.
    Yet they brought back Warrior/Mage/Priest fire and forget buffs. Your logic doesn't follow. If we were to follow your logic then those buffs wouldn't have made their way back, therefore it shows Blizzard doesn't agree with that type of logic.

    Also, we already mash so many buttons every few secs (despite it being the same 2-5 buttons) that the game could use more abilities that doesn't need to be activated every few secs or mins.

  15. #115
    Quote Originally Posted by FlubberPuddy View Post
    Yet they brought back Warrior/Mage/Priest fire and forget buffs. Your logic doesn't follow. If we were to follow your logic then those buffs wouldn't have made their way back, therefore it shows Blizzard doesn't agree with that type of logic.

    Also, we already mash so many buttons every few secs (despite it being the same 2-5 buttons) that the game could use more abilities that doesn't need to be activated every few secs or mins.
    My logic follows perfectly. That doesn't mean Blizz needs to agree with it, nor does it mean they're correct (or that I am). I simply cited my reasoning to explain how I arrived at my conclusion. You're welcome to take a stance so I can better understand where you are coming from though.

    Do you think fire and forget buffs are good design? In what ways? Do you think there might be better alternatives?

    Regarding your bit about mashing buttons, I'd agree that Ret (I can't speak to any other specs) could use a few more buttons although I'm not in agreement with the part about "every few minutes". We have PLENTY of those already.
    Last edited by Wrecktangle; 2019-09-11 at 03:15 PM.

  16. #116
    I am Murloc! FlubberPuddy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wrecktangle View Post
    My logic follows perfectly. That doesn't mean Blizz needs to agree with it, nor does it mean they're correct (or that I am). I simply cited my reasoning to explain how I arrived at my conclusion. You're welcome to take a stance so I can better understand where you are coming from though.
    I mean I could logically state why WoW should make a battle-royale whether anyone else or Blizzard agrees with it or not, and regardless of if I'm correct too. But that's not really the point.

    There's just no point really to say "this game should this" or "this game should not do this" if it's very clearly not (or is) on the agenda of the developers.

    That's why I brought up the buffing by Blizzard being brought back. Obviously they think it has a place, as well as many players liking that it is back, and Blizzard even going so far as to say that they now do understand that your character having some permanence to new abilities between expansions has a place, along with admission of over-pruning.

    So your post then starting with basically saying "fire and forget abilities are useless" doesn't really have merit because Blizzard just brought some back, so obviously they think there is a place a for it (because it was already gone for so many years). It's basically pointless to say because it looks like those kind of abilities are here to stay, if anything we will see more going forward - not less.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrecktangle View Post
    Do you think fire and forget buffs are good design? In what ways? Do you think there might be better alternatives?
    They have a place, just like how we have food buffs/flasks/potions etc. I explain it in my post above, before the one where I quoted you. Simply put, I don't agree that every ability needs to be pressed every few secs or few mins otherwise it is "worthless".

    There's lots of people that love the aspect of just buffing someone else in a small way. There's great enjoyment to be had there, and in Classic you can see this often with random passerby just buffing one another if they're playing a class that can do so. People even meme about it on the Classic WoW subreddit.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrecktangle View Post
    Regarding your bit about mashing buttons, I'd agree that Ret (I can't speak to any other specs) could use a few more buttons although I'm not in agreement with the part about "every few minutes". We have PLENTY of those already.
    I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. I am saying that there's already a lot of button pressing to do with Ret specifically as an example. You have these 8 sec/10 sec cd windows with judgement and crusader strikes where you have to fit in blades of justice/templar's verdict/divine storm - then if you talent into hammer of wrath that as well. All the while juggling Holy Power to make sure you don't overcap HP thus wasting a few charges.

    Then you have your 2 min cd like Wings, or 45 sec Wake of Ashes, combine that with your azerite essence abilities/trinkets and you have very little downtime during seconds at a time.

    That's what I'm saying when I mean there's a lot of button mashing already, and the class could use some abilities that you didn't have to press every few secs or few mins.

    Situational abilities like BoF/BoP/LoH aren't the abilities I'm talking about when you first mentioned "fire and forget" abilities. So if you're including utility abilities like those three I just mentioned, then I guess we have different definitions of "fire and forget" abilities.

    To me "fire and forget" stuff is like buffs like Blessing of Wisdom or Arcane Intellect. Or even in Classic with Paladin Auras. Those are the types of abilities I'd like to see return again and it's explained in my post above.
    Last edited by FlubberPuddy; 2019-09-11 at 04:00 PM.

  17. #117
    Have seals that operate kinda like laws (d3 crusader)- passive self buffs with CDtied to them that provides an aoe effect.

    seal of light: ppm chance to heal yourself/ Aoe: the ppm heal becomes AoE healing aura and more potent for a short duration (1min cd)
    seal of wisdom (holy only?): ppm chance to restore mana/ Aoe: restores resources of up to 5 players near the paladin. (1min cd)

    seals are shared CD, so you can swap seals if you want, but you can only use the aura mechanic once a minute.

  18. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by Niroshi View Post
    Seals and Auras need to return at a minimum.
    Auras still exist for hpals, blizzard just destroyed aura of sac and mercy is meh, so everyone uses devo. They just need to be improved.

    BFA pally is way more fun than classic. I've played a pally since WOTLK, and figured I'd go pally for classic even though I played a warlock back then. But classic pally is just too damn boring. Rerolled to warlock already. Honestly, there's really nothing I want from classic pally. Seals really aren't fun, and no iteration of them throughout the years was great. If anything, divine intervention is the one thing I'd want back, but it's such a minor thing I don't really care.
    Last edited by BananaHandsB; 2019-09-11 at 07:05 PM.

  19. #119
    Quote Originally Posted by FlubberPuddy View Post
    I mean I could logically state why WoW should make a battle-royale whether anyone else or Blizzard agrees with it or not, and regardless of if I'm correct too. But that's not really the point.

    There's just no point really to say "this game should this" or "this game should not do this" if it's very clearly not (or is) on the agenda of the developers.

    That's why I brought up the buffing by Blizzard being brought back. Obviously they think it has a place, as well as many players liking that it is back, and Blizzard even going so far as to say that they now do understand that your character having some permanence to new abilities between expansions has a place, along with admission of over-pruning.

    So your post then starting with basically saying "fire and forget abilities are useless" doesn't really have merit because Blizzard just brought some back, so obviously they think there is a place a for it (because it was already gone for so many years). It's basically pointless to say because it looks like those kind of abilities are here to stay, if anything we will see more going forward - not less.
    Regardless of Blizz's intent - I'm arguing that fire and forget buffs are functionally useless. If it doesn't have a visible gameplay impact or opportunity for a decision tree then I believe it's poorly designed. Setting Fort or blessings up are one and done affair. They're not dynamic or interesting IMO.

    They have a place, just like how we have food buffs/flasks/potions etc. I explain it in my post above, before the one where I quoted you. Simply put, I don't agree that every ability needs to be pressed every few secs or few mins otherwise it is "worthless".

    There's lots of people that love the aspect of just buffing someone else in a small way. There's great enjoyment to be had there, and in Classic you can see this often with random passerby just buffing one another if they're playing a class that can do so. People even meme about it on the Classic WoW subreddit.
    Which goes back to my original example where I joked about tooltips being blank. It's not the ability that people cherish, it's the act of collaborating. I have to believe there are far more interesting ways to accomplish this dynamic than with bland inconsequential buffs.

    Regarding - food/pots/flasks I honestly don't think they're good design either. I look to a game like MHW that does consumables in a much more interesting manner, but it's a slightly different genre so there's that.

    Situational abilities like BoF/BoP/LoH aren't the abilities I'm talking about when you first mentioned "fire and forget" abilities. So if you're including utility abilities like those three I just mentioned, then I guess we have different definitions of "fire and forget" abilities.

    To me "fire and forget" stuff is like buffs like Blessing of Wisdom or Arcane Intellect. Or even in Classic with Paladin Auras. Those are the types of abilities I'd like to see return again and it's explained in my post above.
    Agreed - I apologize for confusing you there. I do not consider them fire and forget abilities. You had mentioned about "mashing buttons" and that you think Ret needs more abilities that are pressed every few minutes or so. While I agreed that we could use a few more buttons, I didn't want any more abilities with long cooldowns. I think that's one area where Ret is fairly well tooled.

    To expand on what I'd like out of these classic elements (seals, auras, blessings) and how I'd make them more interesting/dynamic... Maybe I'll make a separate post to put a build together. If you comb through my post history (look at the started threads) you can find a few other builds I put together over the years for fun.
    Last edited by Wrecktangle; 2019-09-11 at 08:51 PM.

  20. #120
    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    I don't think you really get what I mean by "interact". Yeah of course they're not interacted with in combat any more than like, PW:F isn't interacted with. But the fact that you'd for example have FR aura for MC as opposed to another dungeon is why I personally enjoyed them.
    Your idea of "interactive" is setting and forgetting. You clicked it once at the very start of a raid and left it alone.

    Or as was more common in later expansions, left Crusader Aura on for most of the run without realising and changed it towards the end when someone finally noticed and pointed it out to you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    Paladins had a versatile but exclusive effect that allowed them to be more valuable in some situations, and then have the basic stuff like Devo and Ret when they didn't need those more specific options.
    Outside of encounters that deal exclusively Nature or Arcane Damage the Paladin had an aura for every situation. They weren't only valuable in "some" situations, aura's were universally beneficial in quite literally every practical scenario imaginable. Not even situationally, they were just blanket buffs that were good all round in all content.

    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    I mean, the obvious solution is to have them scale better with gear than they did previously, not remove them.
    Whose gear though? The spell casters is probably the easiest to add direct scaling to. Scaling up the damage with the tanks gear is probably not going to achieve much though. As tank gear improves, the number of hits they take drops so the less effective the buffs would be. That's the real problem. The less a tank gets hit the less damage Thorns type buffs deal, and that is a factor that is completely out of the control of the spells owner.

    The only situation it would really shine in is having a poorly geared tank and a massively geared Buff on them. That kind of inverse scaling relationship is bad design. The caster wouldn't get any feedback outside of a damage meter as to how effective the skill is.

    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    Yes and I honestly think "Bring the player, not the class" in an MMORPG setting was one of the most idiotic moves Blizzard has done in their history of WoW's development. Right after WotLK and their removal of many synergistic buff effects, a group of almost entirely druids downed heroic Nefarian, proving exactly what happens when you redesign the game to not encourage buffs.
    If I recall, the group of mostly Druids did Nefarian to abuse Rebirth, not buff stacking. Having a massive supply of combat ressing on hand gave them a lot of leaway with mistakes. It's why shortly after there was a patch that limited the number of combat resses your raid had available at any one time, as well as allowing DK's to combat res allies.

    Given how that was in Cataclysm, Druids across all specs brought: +5% all Stats and 140 to all resistances, +5% Melee crit, +5% Spell Haste, +30% Bleed Damage, +4% Physical Damage, +8% Spell Damage and -12% Boss Armour.

    Those are a lot of buffs for a single class, if anything it demonstrates the opposite of what you're advocating. That having strongly syngergistic buffs creates a feedback loop that promotes stacking classes that benefit the most from them rather than diversifying. That's actually a good thing, it allows you to build a highly effective raid group by doubling down on bringing the right buffs.

    Cata was really the height of the "Bring the player not the class" design. You could bring a 10 man raid of whoever and be pretty much gaurenteed to cover all the buffs you'd need. Buffs weren't removed until much later on in WoW's life cycle.

    Quote Originally Posted by Irian View Post
    Besides, honestly most raid groups I've been a part of in recent memory have naturally had all twelve classes or extremely close to it in the raid anyway.
    Where the guys I've been raiding with recently have 3 Hunters, 2 Paladins, 2 Mages, a Druid, a Rogue, a Monk and a Shaman. That's really not a wide spread of classes at all. We're able to hit DPS checks because we always bring a stack of Battle Shout Scrolls, if we weren't able to get it from a Scroll we'd struggle more than we already do with fights like Ashvane that are heavy on the DPS requirements. If that option wasn't available to us we'd be almost forced to find a Warrior to add to the team from somewhere.

    Your situation does not mirror everybody elses.

    Quote Originally Posted by Malikath View Post
    it wasn't in wrath and it wasn't in MoP, just because you're a bad player rolling an OP class shouldn't automatically earn you a raid spot to luke-warm.
    Having a buff that is essential or otherwise convenient to raiding success ensure a spot no matter how bad the player is. My guild in Vanilla had a Dwarf Priest who didn't speak a word of English, barely even knew what the hell he was doing and had no concept of standing away from Whelp pits. His healing was limited to casting a Flash Heal every now and then and maybe a renew if he felt like it.

    He was with us all the way through until Naxx simply because he was one of our only Dwarf Priests and would Fear Ward the tank.

    It was Wrath that finally did away with that kind of design and let you bring good Players to fill up a raid rather than good Classes. It was spreading buffs like BoK and BoM to other classes that was responsable. You could ditch the deadweight and load up your raid with the best players you could find. As a Raid Leader at the time it was simply glorious.

    The problem was players complained about all the homogenisation. And that kind of pushback has lead us to where we are today - Where most buffs have gone because they're a balancing nightmare. You either assume everyone has all of the buffs and balance acordingly, or you assume no one has any of the buffs and balance acordingly.

    Players have rejected the first option of practically every raid group imaginable having all the buffs they need, which has forced Blizzard to take the second option. No one gets any buffs at all.

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