Are you tired of borrowed power?

[Powerogue]

It worked OK in legion because I still felt my character grow in power over time.

It worked horrendously in BFA because any "upgrade" was actually "this azerite item is much weaker than your existing gear due to you not grinding enough AP/this azerite item doesn't have the right dps traits on it/this item has the right dps traits on it, but the wrong defensive trait, making the enemies scale up to your increased damage and make you feel weaker/you're really not sure plus they might retune that trait so you stuff it in your bank with your other 50 and by the time you actually could use it to its full potential you've got 7 more/you finally get a piece with the right corruption but you can't use it without killing yourself for another 8 weeks so you likewise shovel it into the bank with the others and encounter the same problem again."

TL;DR Legion good BFA bad borrowed power system.

[GodHunter]

Yes and no. In the past it was simply new spells or a row of talents as well as flavour from set bonus'. But we know that cant continue to do that for every xpac without inflating our bars to the point of just bloating all over again. When I look at it I just see the game would have gone stale long ago. Changing up how your class plays a bit each xpac with this borrowed power helps keep your class core but with some different playstyles. I for one like the borrowed power but how they execute it is kinda shit.

[Kehego]

I agree. I feel like it breaks immersion of any sort of character progression.

that's the point cus every expansion is a reset

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Guess what, your description has still happened ever since classic. Your reasoning says it only counts as borrowed is if it is a new ability, but guess what Azerite Armor, Artifact Weapons, Soulbinds, Convenants have abilities in them that are some variation of our old talents, trinkets, set bonuses, etc.

old set bonuses and trinkets were god awful so people didn't notice.

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It has just become out of control. It worked in Legion because they fully commited to it. The problems started with the entire removal of those powers. BfA was never able to catch up to previous class design and even with Azerite and Essences lacked the "completeness" of former class design. Shadowlands, once again, is doubling down on that and I can already tell you that it's going to fail in that regard as well (maybe less than BfA though).

The thing is, what are they going to do after Shadowlands? It's obvious that these borrowed powes that are so tied to the Covenants make absolutely no sense without them, e.g. they are being removed in the next expansion (?). This already causes problems and just shows how bad this system in general is.

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Your assumption is false in that regard that class design was never centered around borrowed powers. Class design was always complemented by that. Replacing class design by borrowed powers came first into the game with Legion and continued in BfA and now in Shadowlands.

Opinion.

You don't need horseshit spells like hunter's mark and elemental curses.
Class design has always been relatively solid, what people do is compare last tier of the previous expansion to first tier of the new one.
That lack of "completeness" is your brain not understanding that a new expansion is a new start

[Palapop]

TL;DR Legion good BFA bad borrowed power system.

I dare you to say that legion was good to someone who got their bis "legendaily" in late Antorus.

It was dog-shit.

[Evaddon]

The only problem I have with it, is Leveling up an item, after leveling my character. It should be one or the other, not both. OR they could scrap the grind/leveling process altogether of borrowed power and think of a better system instead of a infinite fucking grind

[hulkgor]

It seems that ever since Legion, BFA and now Shadowlands, we are getting some form of borrowed power that wont exist next xpac.
(Legendary Items/Artifact passives/actives)
(Azerite,Essences,corruption)
(Covenants, Soul Binds, Conduits)

Im honestly tired of this bullshit
Losing borrowed power is always a shitty feeling
Hopefully, they dial it back a bit next xpac

Nop. Not at all.

Makes total sense, and most of the times it's awesome. Legion Legendaries, Azerite powers and now corruptions were all amazing, fresh and super exciting, making the game more fun.

They should just keep 'including' the most successful ones into the classes baseline, or specific specs.

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I dare you to say that legion was good to someone who got their bis "legendaily" in late Antorus.

Gotta agree with you there. Having the bad fortune of getting the bad legendaries, and seeing people running around with their bis ones from the get go was extremely frustrating.

Had they implemented the 'buy a specific legendary' system earlier or even from the get go and it would have been stupendous, but yea, on its form it was prone to extreme disappointment and unbalance.

[InfiniteCharger]

It sucks because it contradicts the core concept of progression. Progression in any game means getting more powerful and stronger as you go.
Progression is fundamental to the DND ruleset and MMOs are generally based off of DND.

That said all these issues are simply because of decisions made from the beginning of WOW.
There never was a lot of agency given to players in builds for their characters.
That is why the original talent system was so lackluster and classes "unbalanced".
But most people liked it because they got new levels of power, talents and abilities every so many levels.
And that is core to any DND MMO progression system. You don't "lose" abilities as you grow.
That is simply nonsensical.

A system where you have "artifacts" that grow with you such as a staff or cloak have always been part of WOW lore.
But prior to Legion those were never implemented for the players to use. A weapon that you can add new traits to over time.
Legion introduced artifacts to the game for players but, as usual, in the typical Blizzard fashion, removed any actual agency.
Everyone got the same "build" pretty much by the end of the game bar some minor exceptions. And of course, that weapon was
gone at the end of the xpac. There is no "lore" for this as all of those artifacts were based on actual weapons held for many years by powerful NPCs. But for the players they go limp after one go round.

Sorry, but this borrowed power system is simply a gimmick to guarantee grinding and really isn't necessary.
Grinding isn't the problem but grinding for abilities and talents that go away is an issue. They could have easily added one new ability
or a boost to an existing ability or a few talents that could be earned over time as part of your permanent class.
But that is player agency and Blizzard has never really supported that.

[Kehego]

The only problem I have with it, is Leveling up an item, after leveling my character. It should be one or the other, not both. OR they could scrap the grind/leveling process altogether of borrowed power and think of a better system instead of a infinite fucking grind

like what?
Also, the grind for azerite was pretty much non-existant after the third week. Unless ofc, you do 1 quest a day and log out

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It sucks because it contradicts the core concept of progression. Progression in any game means getting more powerful and stronger as you go.
Progression is fundamental to the DND ruleset and MMOs are generally based off of DND.

That said all these issues are simply because of decisions made from the beginning of WOW.
There never was a lot of agency given to players in builds for their characters.
That is why the original talent system was so lackluster and classes "unbalanced".
But most people liked it because they got new levels of power, talents and abilities every so many levels.
And that is core to any DND MMO progression system. You don't "lose" abilities as you grow.
That is simply nonsensical.

A system where you have "artifacts" that grow with you such as a staff or cloak have always been part of WOW lore.
But prior to Legion those were never implemented for the players to use. A weapon that you can add new traits to over time.
Legion introduced artifacts to the game for players but, as usual, in the typical Blizzard fashion, removed any actual agency.
Everyone got the same "build" pretty much by the end of the game bar some minor exceptions. And of course, that weapon was gone at the end of the xpac. There is no "lore" for this as all of those artifacts were based on actual weapons held for many years by powerful NPCs.
But for the players they go limp after one go round.

Sorry, but this borrowed power system is simply a gimmick to guarantee grinding and really isn't necessary.
They could have easily added one new ability or a boost to an existing ability or a few talents that could be earned over time as part of your permanent class.
But that is player agency and Blizzard has never really supported that.

every expansion is a reset and you progress every expansion i don't get your point

[Depakote]

Guess what, your description has still happened ever since classic. Your reasoning says it only counts as borrowed is if it is a new ability, but guess what Azerite Armor, Artifact Weapons, Soulbinds, Convenants have abilities in them that are some variation of our old talents, trinkets, set bonuses, etc.

That's not true. You're calling things that have existed since the beginning of the game the same as the weapons/gear we gained and then subsequently lost in Legion and Bfa the same thing when we clearly have access to old weapons and some unpruned abilities while we lost the artifact weapon's full functionality and we don't know what will happen to azerite armor but i think it's safe to say it won't work/exist in Shadowlands.

[Lucetia]

That's not true. You're calling things that have existed since the beginning of the game the same as the weapons/gear we gained and then subsequently lost in Legion and Bfa the same thing when we clearly have access to old weapons and some unpruned abilities while we lost the artifact weapon's full functionality and we don't know what will happen to azerite armor but i think it's safe to say it won't work/exist in Shadowlands.

Azerite Armor works in Shadowlands expansion, but only in areas that it was relevant in BFA (Zuldazar/Kul Tiras/dungeons/raids, etc).

It looks like you are referring more to "Items that grant abilities" than you are the powers themselves. Even in that case it would still apply with Set Bonuses / Trinkets that we lose every expansion / tier. Same with talents that existed and then are removed and don't make a return. Heck, even some of the abilities on Artifacts / Azerite Armor is making a return in Shadowlands.

[oplawlz]

Yes and no. In the past it was simply new spells or a row of talents as well as flavour from set bonus'. But we know that cant continue to do that for every xpac without inflating our bars to the point of just bloating all over again. When I look at it I just see the game would have gone stale long ago. Changing up how your class plays a bit each xpac with this borrowed power helps keep your class core but with some different playstyles. I for one like the borrowed power but how they execute it is kinda shit.

The problem is they're not really doing that. They're just taking power away and giving them back at some cost. Half the new legendaries are just azerite traits - and not the good ones.

[Vlaid]

I imagine anyone who has experience with what WoW was like before borrowed power and after is sick of it.

The main problem is they use borrowed power is almost their entire toolkit for iterating on classes and specs. If this goes on another expansion we'll have been playing almost the exact same specs in some cases for 3-4 expansions.

[Destinas]

From Vanilla-Cataclysm we had legendaries that were either drops or quests that we never really used again.

MoP and WoD had legendary questlines to create a powerful item to defeat the big bads of that expansion that were never mentioned again.

Not to mention all the gear, special weapons, and sets that we got. In lore most of these things would be very powerful, like Mar'gok's staff, the Thunder King's helm, or the Hammer of Twilight.

They just streamlined all of that into one questline that took over the entire expansion, and with Legion/BfA it was an item that stayed with us from day 1.

I think it's less of a lore issue for me and more of a balancing/mechanics issue. There have always been problems with balancing classes, and some specs get abilities that people want to carry forward, but they can't implement it. There were artifact abilities/powers that I really liked that went away completely, and there were Legion legendaries that were really fun. I always felt more weak and lame the next pre-patch when all that stuff went away.

But as far as lore and expansion features, I don't mind at all.

[Toybox]

Borrowed power is fine unless it exists to patch an underlying problem with a class.

Which is why Arms is in such a shit state in Shadowlands currently - it's had all the band-aids removed.

I'm fine with borrowed power so long as it's interesting, isn't used to cover up base-class deficiencies, and still offers an element of choice. Using Arms again as an example, Test of Might is interesting enough, but it's covering up the cracks, & there's no real choice on offer given how absurdly powerful it is compared to absolutely everything else.

Shadowlands borrowed power looks... Eh. The soulbinds are boring, akin to one of those talent points you spend on the way to the interesting ones in the old talent system. The legendaries are mostly dull, as is their method of acquisition. The covenant abilities are (mostly) pretty cool, but only getting to play with one out of four because "meaningful choice" takes the shine off of it a little bit.

Legion done it better than BfA, SL is looking to me to fit somewhere inbetween the two as far as execution goes. It's alright, but irrelevant if they don't fix the classes before hand.

[Ygg]

No, I like it.

[Nyel]

Opinion.

You don't need horseshit spells like hunter's mark and elemental curses.
Class design has always been relatively solid, what people do is compare last tier of the previous expansion to first tier of the new one.
That lack of "completeness" is your brain not understanding that a new expansion is a new start

Even if it’s an opinion, it’s shared by the overwhelming majority of players. Stale and boring class design has been the major complaint of BfA.

Class design in BfA was just abysmal. With or without Azerite and Essences. The problem is, many parts of the class design were shifted towards Azerite and Essences, that’s why it inarguably felt worse than in earlier expansion.

In Legion we started with the artifact weapon, e.g. class design started at 110 and not at max level. In BfA it only started effectively at max level and then not even really good at that because it was so incredibly restrictive. In Legion max level added more layers on top of the artifact weapon (Legendaries, T-sets), which worked out well (not talking about Legendary acquisition here). In BfA you grew significantly weaker the closer you got to max level. Losing your Legendaries halfway felt horrible because there was nothing to compensate for it.

And I am not comparing first tier vs final tier. In expansions prior to Legion there wasn’t this issue even except for stats, classes were designed in their own regard and not with borrowed powers in mind. That classes are so inherently different from patch x.0 to x.3 in Legion, BfA and Shadowlands is due to Blizzard fixing a system (borrowed powers) that’s broken from the start.

[Schattenlied]

Right so if a new row is vertical as opposed to horizontal, it’s okay? Lol. Borrowed power is good. It keeps the game fresh, while allowing things to come and go. If everything stayed, do you know how much stuff we’d have? Far too much.

A new horizontal addition adds a new set of buttons, it adds more things active in gameplay at any given time. This is the complained about "bloat" on the action bars.

A new veritcal row adds new buttons, but it does not add more things active in gameplay at any given time. This does not add any more things you need to hotkey, because they are just new choices on talent rows you already had... Instead of having 3 things to choose from on each talent row you'd now have 4.

Not everything needs to stay, only thing important things that actually alter gameplay.

[Kehego]

Even if it’s an opinion, it’s shared by the overwhelming majority of players. Stale and boring class design has been the major complaint of BfA.

Class design in BfA was just abysmal. With or without Azerite and Essences. The problem is, many parts of the class design were shifted towards Azerite and Essences, that’s why it inarguably felt worse than in earlier expansion.

In Legion we started with the artifact weapon, e.g. class design started at 110 and not at max level. In BfA it only started effectively at max level and then not even really good at that because it was so incredibly restrictive. In Legion max level added more layers on top of the artifact weapon (Legendaries, T-sets), which worked out well (not talking about Legendary acquisition here). In BfA you grew significantly weaker the closer you got to max level. Losing your Legendaries halfway felt horrible because there was nothing to compensate for it.

And I am not comparing first tier vs final tier. In expansions prior to Legion there wasn’t this issue even except for stats, classes were designed in their own regard and not with borrowed powers in mind. That classes are so inherently different from patch x.0 to x.3 in Legion, BfA and Shadowlands is due to Blizzard fixing a system (borrowed powers) that’s broken from the start.

and a lot of players love tbc bm and destro where you literally press 1 button ad nauseum

opinions can be and are often wrong. Don't harp about class design when classes were 1 button shitfests until cata for most classes.

In Legion we started with the artifact weapon, e.g. class design started at 110 and not at max level. In BfA it only started effectively at max level and then not even really good at that because it was so incredibly restrictive.

Do you understand how progression works? every expansion is a fresh start. are you gonna complain about not having your entire toolkit at level 1, too?


let me ask you this, how is leveling the artifact any different from say, grinding resistances/+hit? its still progression you have to do to make your character useful to other people. The whole "borrowed power" debacle are people clinging on to buzzwords for pretty much nothing

[Nachtigal]

A new horizontal addition adds a new set of buttons, it adds more things active in gameplay at any given time. This is the complained about "bloat" on the action bars.

A new veritcal row adds new buttons, but it does not add more things active in gameplay at any given time. This does not add any more things you need to hotkey, because they are just new choices on talent rows you already had... Instead of having 3 things to choose from on each talent row you'd now have 4.

Not everything needs to stay, only thing important things that actually alter gameplay.

Okay, so they add that. What happens next expansion when they don’t add anything? Do we complain that they didn’t add another vertical row? At some point it has to stop.

[Tesshin83]

"Borrowed power" has existed since there were set bonuses, weapons, and trinkets with unique effects. The major differences are: the game reached a point where adding new permanent abilities every tier/expac was unsustainable, and there weren't youtube clickbait artists relying on buzzword-driven outrage to get views.

This sums up everything quite well.

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The only thing I am tired of is that every time I go on to any forum to share my enthusiasm for the game I am constantly met by forum posts which is about the new thing to complain about.

Borrowed power has been a thing always. Why is this an issue now? It never was in the past. At least no one complained about it.