Originally Posted by
Raugnaut
If done right, this change could have been good. If classes with an AoE cap deal damage on 5 targets, with uncapped classes needing 10 targets to equal said damage, then it would be good.
But this is not the case. It's not anywhere NEAR the case.
First, it's essentially uneven across range and melee - Every SINGLE melee is now capped to a few targets, with some exceptions. However, for range, Hunters are capped, Frost Mages have Frozen Orb capped, Destro Locks have Felstorm capped. That's it. Basically every single caster has uncapped AoE.
Following this up is the damage difference - Casters are currently just as effective at fighting 5-8 targets as melee are. But as soon as you add that 9th target, casters begin to pull ahead until they hit the final AoE cap of 20 targets (At which point damage dealt is split between every new target added).
Then there is the mechanical difficulty - In large groups, melee are always at risk of being gibbed by whatever mechanics the mobs have. Not only do you have significant visual clutter going on, but there are so many AoEs in the game based in a short distance around the mob that you have to get out of or you just die, and when you have 4-5 of those mobs in a large part of 20+ mobs, melee are at significant risk of just dying.
The funny thing is that in raiding this is essentially a change that will only matter on maybe 3-5 bosses the entire expansion.
Overall this just helps to indicate how far removed the Blizzard development team is, not only from their playerbase, but from their understanding of the actual game itself.
What's even worse is that the AoE cap is only applied to 3 of the tanking classes. And even then, it's only brutally applied to Prot (Who won't be able to do M+ at high lvls because of this change), decently applied to Vengeance (While Vengeance has other AoE tools, Soul Cleave is still a significan portion atm), and just barely applied to Blood (Predominately Bone Storm picks - Not that it matters).
So, yea - Hope all the tanks like BrM and Guardian, because that's likely all you'll be able to play in high-end M+ next expansion!