This AoE cap has got to go..

[Sfr528]

I like the AOE cap and hope it stays. I guess players who did massive amounts of AOE damage might feel cheated now that they might have to actually compete with others not endowed by Blizzard with ungodly uncapped AOE damage ... but that is a good thing in my book. I was doing a M+20 last night with a hunter and DH and something amazing happened... our overall DPS was within a percent of one another. Prior to this change the hunter and DH would've been way, way, way above me in overall DPS... so the AOE cap is a great balance change... Also, I actually agree with Blizzard... pulling huge packs of trash and burst AOE'ing them down kind of sucks.

As for farming old content with the AOE cap... I honestly didn't see a difference at all in the amount of time it took. It probably was slower, but it was such a small change in the pace that I didn't even notice. That being said, if they decided to remove the AOE cap for older content I wouldn't complain... it's not like that stuff matters anyway, I doubt anyone decided who to main by how fast they can clear a past expansions raid/dungeon content...

[Xecetoz]

Well they just gave us the Cap to fast..

its fine they remove corruption in Prepatch.. but the Cap should first be at lunch so you kinda Grow up with in. during lvling.

right now it just feel like a Big Nerf.. its the End of BFA.. and you got the gear to be OP.. do tings fast!. and then slow..

used to pull anything in a Wing during visions.. then kill it with CD's and move on.. now with the 5 Cap I can't and the Run now takes longer.. and when Time is something you don't have to much off.. its annoying.

so they should remove the Cap until SL goes Live.. and right now we do not even have a date..

[Alanar]

I think it's a good change. Pulling the entire dungeon at once shouldn't be a legitimate strategy.

It plays fine with the cap. Having 20 mobs arround you with stacked names was never a good part of those pulls imo.

I also think its a good change and just set of changes and rules for everyone, adjust and addapt or gtfo is my opinion here.

There is no reason to qq over this? The only argument I had before was that old content becomes slower to clean.. I mean thats not a good argument.

It slows down the aoe which was already rediculous so what are we losing here??

- - - Updated - - -

Well they just gave us the Cap to fast..

its fine they remove corruption in Prepatch.. but the Cap should first be at lunch so you kinda Grow up with in. during lvling.

right now it just feel like a Big Nerf.. its the End of BFA.. and you got the gear to be OP.. do tings fast!. and then slow..

used to pull anything in a Wing during visions.. then kill it with CD's and move on.. now with the 5 Cap I can't and the Run now takes longer.. and when Time is something you don't have to much off.. its annoying.

so they should remove the Cap until SL goes Live.. and right now we do not even have a date..

Why would this feel like a nerf? I feel like most specs play like something new or something else and I completely forgot that shit corruption. Idk man its a you problem to me. The cap is realy not that big of a deal. You will get used to it afther dungs or so.

[Raugnaut]

idk if you know but the Aoe cap was a thing in the game since TBC, it was only recently it was removed, then being re-added with shadowlands casual.. that's what people want apparently, more "classic" stuff.

- - - Updated - - -



it was implemented back in TBC to counter just mass pulling with a lot of healers/tanks and then quickly aoeing stuff down, which became quite the worry, and was only recently removed, and then well not re-added.

Umm, no. We've had the AoE cap since TBC - It was originally added in TBC as a 10 target "soft" cap, in which each extra mob beyond 10 split the AoE damage, so your DPS would cap at 10 targets. It was upped to 20 targets in MoP due to Challenge modes, in which you HAD to pull gargantuan groups and AoE/Stun them down to get Gold times. It's remained there ever since. Do keep in mind that in TBC they gave Prot warriors excellent AoE, and Prot Paladins solid tanking capabilities along with AoE, so uncapped Warlocks and Mages started to quickly dominate.


Overall though, I feel the AoE change is pretty bad for the following reasons.

Reason A: No benefits. The way Blizzard worded the reasons for the change, those affected by the AoE cap would do MORE damage to a small group of targets compared to classes and specs who had NO AoE cap. That isn't the case at all - Mages deal more AoE then melee even up to 8 targets, at which point Mages just get better and better (Similar case with other uncapped casters). Most melee either A) Just suck at AOE in general now (Feral, Survival), or B) Can just keep up with Mages in small packs.

Reason B: Mechanics. Despite the fact that Arms has had incredible burst AoE throughout the expansion, you almost never see Arms in higher M+, because Arms doesn't have the survival tools needed. Both DH and Outlaw had not only amazing AoE, but also excellent defensive mechanics (Needed to survive the up-close AoE of 20+ mobs) and utility (Needed to stunlock keymobs as well as the group as a whole). Casters do not NEED to worry about random melee-range AoE in trash packs, only about what gets tossed at them. Melee need to somehow see the AoE on top of a clusterfuck of visual clutter.

Reason C: Target. This change is predominately targeted at M+ - There are only a handful of raid boss fights in each expansion in which you want to AoE down more then 8 mobs at a time anyway. However, this also affected old raids in which you could easily pull up 40-60 mobs in a single go - Except now melee have to take 10-20 seconds to AOE everything down, and even then only select melee. It's also highly likely that we will STILL see those uber-large half-the-dungeon pulls, except you'll have 0 melee and no warrior tank doing it.

Reason D: Tanks. Tanks should NOT have been affected by the AoE cap at all. Even with that, only Warriors were truly hit by it - Vengeance was only moderately hit by it as they still have IS and IA for keeping up with the casters uncapped AoE. Blood was barely touched, as Consumption is a shit talent that only scrubs take, Bonestorm is mainly used for the self-healing which is untouched, and they didn't actually change the Heart Strike AoE cap, just reworded it. Hope everyone who tanked M+ loved BrM, because that's going to be the major M+ tank moving forward!


AoE cap should either be for EVERYONE, or nobody.

[Schizoide]

Umm, no. We've had the AoE cap since TBC - It was originally added in TBC as a 10 target "soft" cap, in which each extra mob beyond 10 split the AoE damage, so your DPS would cap at 10 targets.

Indeed, and that's how it should work today. Even if it was still capped at 5, splitting damage would just plain feel better.

[Nobleshield]

I like it. Teach people to not try to rush through everything. That's a good thing IMHO.

[FelPlague]

idk if you know but the Aoe cap was a thing in the game since TBC
it was implemented back in TBC.

Umm, no. We've had the AoE cap since TBC

yeah....
that is..
that is exactly what i said...

[HoodKazekage]

Simple. Because before the meta idea of a dungeon was: "Pull 5 groups and burst aoe them with Time Warp before your Tanks CDs run out"

In the extreme cases of MDI there were entire areas pulled at once and then kited into the boss for absurd levels of damage. This kind of play might be fun for the dps who reach new levels of absurdness on the meter, but for Tanks it's super frustrating and stupid, especially if you are not of the god-tier tanks that can shurg off any damage and deal 100k dps themselves (Warrior) or survive anything without doing much (Monk). As a Death Knight it's extremely stressful, since your life spikes up and down like crazy in such a pull and one messed timing will spell your doom and the groups right after.

But that should be left to the player... If you're with a not so a smart team, switch groups? I understand its frustrating but to make a change just to limit player mistakes is crazy. Players should be able to make mistakes and "learn" from them.

[Raugnaut]

yeah....
that is..
that is exactly what i said...

I more meant towards the later part, in which you stated it was removed. It hasn't been.

[FelPlague]

I more meant towards the later part, in which you stated it was removed. It hasn't been.

The Aoe cap was eventually removed, but has now been added back in is what i was saying.

[Zenfoldor]

I was and still kinda am against it. AoE was one of the few really fun, if mindless, gameplay things in WoW. Kinda feels like a "if you didn't bring enough gum for everyone, no one gets any." That said, I also see why, on a timer, one would always prefer AoE over single target in mythic+. Too vital, if it existed in the game, instant meta.

Will any classes have spells that are completely unaffected by this? If so, will that class be best at AOE? I would figure something like a mage would still have almost full AoE and perhaps this would give fire/arcane mage a nice niche, if unaffected?

If they make anything less fun, they have to increase fun somewhere else, because this game kinda lacks fun compared to some others.

[HitPoint]

I actually like the AOE cap, makes you have to think about who to target instead of just mindlessly spam 2 buttons to cleave/aoe everything. You have to tab target now to split damage now on big pulls.

[Grubenwolf]

I think the problem arises when you're farming old dungeons and raids. Instead of being able to pull multiple rooms of mobs you'll only be able to fight one single group at a time which will make farming for mog and whatever else a pain in the ass since it will take longer and just be plain annoying that you cant kill more than 5 at a time (I think that was the limit).

I think it's an unnecessary change as it won't make the game any more enjoyable or better in any way.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I would imagine design going forward into SL will make it not as bad of a problem. Right now the whole game is designed around get as much as possible and AOE it down. If that isn't the case in SL than it probably won't matter as much. It is just odd that it yoyo'ed so hard from all out to major cap to which I will image in the next expansion will be "middle grounded" in some sort. Just seems to be how they design the game now. They see something they (notice they, not me, not you, not us, but they) consider a problem and then knee jerk the holy fuck out of it to the other side of the map.

[xmirrors]

I think it has been a great change. Removing systems like this and PvP scaling that add more and more calculations the server has to run has cleared up lot of lag problems. Love or hate the guy, one of the best examples I can give is this:



Imagine trying that pre-pre-patch.

[Raugnaut]

The Aoe cap was eventually removed, but has now been added back in is what i was saying.

If you mean the original, blank, everyone-is-affected AoE cap, that has never been removed - It was upped to 20 targets back in MoP, and has been left untouched

[BananaHandsB]

Because it lead go "degenerete" gameplay to use Ions own words. Too often people just rounded up 10 mobs, giving the healer heart attack and aoed everything. Its fun once and a while but when people try it all the time and it causes wipes in dungeons for the sake of boring gameplay then I think its a good change.

Not exactly. They didn't cap AoE because ppl were wiping because they were pulling too much. That's part of the game. Pull more than you can handle, you die, and you learn (hopefully). Blizzard didn't overhaul AoE abilities to circumvent a simple L2P lesson.

They capped AoE abilities because ppl were pulling huge groups and NOT wiping, making certain comps exponentially better than others at the high levels, to the point where at the high levels, only a few comps were really competitive. Despite this only being a problem at the highest levels, the mentality that those comps were the only competitive ones trickles down, and leads to a community that restricts people based on those comps even in content where very specific class min-maxing isn't necessary. That's the degenerative gameplay he was referring to.

Do I agree with the decision? I need more time to test it out, but at first glance I think there were better ways to solve this problem, but those methods would have required much more dev time and I think Blizzard took the easiest solution to fix a problem they realized fairly late into the xpac's development.

[Schizoide]

That's simply untrue, as soft-capping and splitting damage past that cap was in the game 10 years ago.

[bloodmoth13]

from a RP pov it doesnt make sense, if my warrior holding 2 axes starts spinning doing a whirlwind hes gonna hit all around him, but i guess aoe should also hit friendly targets then

Yeah and unless you are using a lightsaber your whirlwind should bite into the first target, then again if the blade passes through that target it should kill them instantly.
Perhaps they need to employ that square root formula a little more for things that visually hit everything. Keep the total damage the same but split it between everything, that would feel better for most content.