I think abandoning borrowed power is a huge mistake

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I don't think it is borrowed power that is the problem. That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying you want less abilities, less choice, from wow? No. Do you want every ability from every expansion to remain in your arsenal?-no, that would leave you with a thousand different buttons to press.

Yes, we want every ability from every expansion to remain. That has been the main complaint about borrowed power since it was tested in WoD with the "Draenor perks" and introduced for real in Legion with the Artifacts and Legiondaries.

Blizzard introduces a new system that's shit in the beginning of a new expansion, keeps on making small changes and finetuning it until it's a decent system that actually works at the end of the expansion, then scraps it again when it finally works, only to release some broken shit system at the beginning of the next expansion, and the cycle continues...



Cata and MoP was the objectively best expansions for classdesign (yes, if you disagree with this, your opinion is wrong ). Why? Because we had fully working modern classes WITHOUT ANY EXTERNAL BUFFS OR ABILITIES. Cata and MoP classes were designed to have their full toolkit once you hit maxlevel.

That's a massive contrast to the Legion/BFA classes that were absolutely broken and simply didn't function properly without the borrowed power from their respective expansion. SL reintroduced a bit of pruned stuff and made the base classes a bit stronger, but they are still nowhere close to as complete as they were in Cata/MoP.

In a perfect world, all the stuff we got from the borrowed powers in WoD/Legion/BFA/SL should have been added to the base classes instead. Redesigns/changes between expansions will naturally prevent ability bloat from becoming a problem. MoP was the height of ability bloat, and it was nowhere close to being a problem then.



Also, stop taking stuff that used to be baseline in previous expansions, and reintroducing it as a fucking talent in the new expansion. This has been such a huge problem that it wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard took Fireball away from Fire Mages and made it a talent instead...

Any one can whine about stuff, you have to offer a better alternative.

Come up with an idea for something new and cool for the next expansion, but instead of adding it as borrowed power, they should... wait for it, here comes the revolutionary idea... add it to the base classes instead!

Which is exactly what we have been asking for ever since it was announced that the cool Draenor perks would not be baked into the base classes at the end of WoD.

[Aydinx2]

The game is extremely boring without some form of progression system, like AP & Titanforging. Gear is not enough of an incentive, especially considering how boring it is and how quickly you reach a pretty high ilvl these days.

A lesson they learned back in Mists of Pandaria when they introduced Warforging.

Yet somehow the game had the most active players during the periods before Borrowed Power systems or Warforging (with maybe Legion being an exception, except that was also the first time we had Borrowed Power).

[MoanaLisa]

But the problem is that Blizzard never continued a system/borrowed power. If they would have introduced a new set of artifact weapons with new skins for each new Expansion, the Legion system would have worked much better. It would still felt weird to grind a new weapon each time though, so they would have to trim down on the artifact power part over time, switching it over to a campaign system similiar to what they did with Soulbinds in Shadowlands. Actually, Soulbinds could have been used as talent trees for Shadowlands Artifacts instead.

Borrowed power has always been taken to be something it isn't. The nature of an expansion is that there is a power budget for when it starts and when it ends. The complaints about 'borrowed power' are mostly about how that power is distributed. Power resets all the time and especially with the start of a new expansion. It's all borrowed in that sense. Blizzard gives it to you as you play through an expansion and then takes it away at the start of a new one. They've just put new skins on it the last few expansions. Even if they had kept Legion legendaries as active weapons after the end of Legion they would have reset either the power of the item or reset all of the effects around it.

So what we get are different methodologies for player power distribution. Some of them click with the population, others don't. The fact is that how they handle player power as part of an expansion is primarily shifting deck chairs around into slightly different systems with prettier names and spell effects (which are visceral and important on their own).

[Cosmic Janitor]

Borrowed power as alternative endgame progression can work if you actually put decent effort into it. The weapons were an example of that. The moment you try to half-ass it by sharing as much as possible between classes, you stuff it full of random proc shit that has nothing to do with your class and you just treat it as an excuse for a treadmil, then it's obviously going to fail. If you then make a system that actively limits your character's choices on top of it you stand no chance.

But even if you manage to make the system better each time, it would still suffer during the reset periods, so it's good that it's going away. Blizzard is incapble of making it constantly better and they make the trasition as awful as possible as well, so we are better off without it.

[OrangeJuice]

WoW is shit and will never not be shit. They don't give a fuck what you like.

[Motorman]

I would accept another Legion style borrowed power that involves weapons but this time with a lot more transmog model options and not just 4-5 basics with 4-5 recolors for an entire expansion. Borrowed power like "level a necklace", "craft a legendary and then upgrade it" these are horrible. Something versatile and active gameplay is welcome.

[Karawaka]

I miss the days where once I got a toon to max level, all I had to do was gear it up and it would be set. I could jump into dungeons or raids, grind rep, work on end game story, or do old content for pets/mounts/mogs/achieves and not miss anything. Now once I get a char to max level and not be a detriment to group content I need to make 2 legendaries, grind out conduits, grind renown so I can use more conduits and upgrade them, and still grind out a full set of gear. And if you want any of this current xpac vanity items you gotta farm a massive amount of anima too. Sure, it's a little easier now that you can send some of this stuff from other characters, but what about new players. What do they do if they start now, get a character to 60, and instead of going right into content you gotta do your covenant campaign, and korthia quests to clear the eye, and torghast for legendary crafting reagents. And then do the zerith mortis quests. Oh, sorry, you also picked the wrong covenant so your damage/healing is going to suffer bad.

[Alroxas]

No, abandoning borrowed power is the best change they ever did. It worked in Legion because we didn't know it was borrowed power. Back when they announced it we thought we would keep these awesome artifact weapons / get new ones each Expansion which felt great and like a real rpg.

Wait back up here. Did you not remember the WoD - Draenor Perks? Those were also borrowed powers that went away as soon as we got the pre-patch for Legion.

Sure some perks did become baseline with the class but in that same fashion so did some abilities from Legion Artifacts turn into baseline for BFA.

- - - Updated - - -

Now instead of having borrowed power you just have all your powers all the time.
Borrowed powers give you no choice. At least not in SL, where there's usually one strictly superior Covenant, Legendary and Soulbind.
Infact you get less choice, since you have to choose one spec of your class at the start of the expansion and then stick with it for at least one, more often two patches. Or live with the fact, that you have one good performing spec and two suboptimal ones.

Eh but the current alternative isn't better either. Now that you can "freely" switch between covenants means the extra step of going back to Oribos every time you're changing from one content to another... Oh here's the covenant for M+ but for raiding I should be this other covenant.

So the benefit of having all the choices means that players have less reason to level up every covenant to 80 renown and switch as often as necessary.

Early SL did make you pick and since switching had such a higher cost, players had to chose whether they could live with the handicap of a weaker covenant in one area so they could be stronger in a different one.

Was the earlier system better than current live? Maybe not but Blizzard is learning from it and we're being promised that "renown" for DF is going to progress equally for all the flights so at the very least it won't be as much of a grind.

[Yooginava182]

I kinda agree. Kinda.

I really liked artifacts, I thought the HoA/Azerite was "meh" and the Covenant abilities were a mixed bag. So borrowed powers done right is great, borrowed powers done wrong is not. Though in the long run I'll probably miss something like it in DF, though I'll probably enjoy messing about with my dragon and maybe they'll introduce some BP later on.

People have forgotten how shitty legion artifact grind was at the start. Of course we only look back on the last patch of the systems do we praise it.. Similar to how OP post is. It honestly just seems like anyone who thinks that barrowed power is good, could be done right, has forgotten how shitty these systems are for the first year of the expansion.

[enigma77]

Yet somehow the game had the most active players during the periods before Borrowed Power systems or Warforging (with maybe Legion being an exception, except that was also the first time we had Borrowed Power).

Yeah because the gaming market was different then. It had nothing to do with borrowed power systems.

[Lady Atia]

Wait back up here. Did you not remember the WoD - Draenor Perks? Those were also borrowed powers that went away as soon as we got the pre-patch for Legion.

Sure some perks did become baseline with the class but in that same fashion so did some abilities from Legion Artifacts turn into baseline for BFA.

Oh damn, I actually forgot about these. Maybe because the Draenor Perks were so boring that it didn't matter that it was borrowing power and no one missed them?^^

Really, Draenor Perks were more on a level of Glyphs, which were changed like 2 or 3 times in the history of WoW. Also you didn't had to grind anything for them, which is quite different from propper Legion-Shadowlands style Borrowed Power.

[Alroxas]

I want ways to advance my character. What I definately don't want is for everything to be reset each expansion.

But think about that... If things don't reset, how behind would you be if player A has been playing since Day 1 and you're just now returning after a hiatus? Or how does it feel for a new player to be at power level 1 when everyone else is at power level 10,000?

Catch up mechanics can help that new/returning player speed through the earlier progression but it's still progression that they have to do.

[Garymorilix]

Do you actually play either of these classes? The WW rotation is so ridiculous you generally don't have time to think about the set bonus. I mean you're talking about a class with an 11 button rotation where you can't use the same ability twice in a row without gimping yourself. This means the set bonus for WW often turns out to be something you completely ignore or just find an add-on that tells you what to do, but there is no thinking about it. For most people who use this, it's essentially random extra damage sometimes with no animation, just slightly bigger numbers. To quote every guide on this 4pc:


Not saying the frost mage one is better interactively, but it FEELS a lot better because you actually see something happen. Yea, sometimes it feels bad because it procs in the middle of nowhere on that one mob that jumped out of the pack, or on something that just died. I'll take that any day over both relatively random and unimpactful visually.

Wdym actually play these classes?
To me it looks like you are really bad with WW.

You don't need to constantly hit the increase on major abilities. On AoE burst tho? Absolutely crazy having a bonedust brew + empowered fist + empowered dragon punch with ghosts.
And it's pretty consistent if you can just plan ahead slightly. See, here is the difference between someone playing a class and someone doing WQ's trying to be smart.

The mage one is literally the random one, the monk one is not random at all.
If visuals are more important to you then gameplay then idk what to tell you. Grow up?

[Alroxas]

Azerite gear offered customization. Just like reforging and meaningful gems/sockets. Which also got removed somewhere along the way.

Uh not really? You looked for the best Azerite combo traits you could get at the highest ilv and you were done. Additionally, it was really bad that you could get higher ilv of the same Azerite armor (say shoulder piece) but because your HoA wasn't high enough, the higher ilv item was "weaker" because not all the rings were unlocked.

Reforging is a bad system. First it was necessary because of hit/expertise system. Second, it only provided marginal gains on a bad piece of gear. (Remember only 40% of a bad stat could be converted leaving you still with 60% of the bad stat). Third, it was a very messy system requiring third party addons or website to "properly" handle reforging.

Customization via gems/sockets also broke WoW because of how crazy specs could get with high amounts of X stat. Just look at corruption stacking in late BFA for a more recent example. Granted now with diminishing returns, we shouldn't see that happen as much.

[mojusk]

what i think people dont like about borrowed power, is the endless grind attached to it (which isnt bad shadowlands tbh).
but also that baseline specs are slow boring without all the borrowed power bells and whistles.

[Larry Gungus]

Right now I'm having more fun in wow than I can remember. I can switch between multiple interesting creative and visually spectacular abilities in Oribos and try out new builds in every battleground or raid, and do crazy shit I've never done before.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I don't think it is borrowed power that is the problem. That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying you want less abilities, less choice, from wow? No. Do you want every ability from every expansion to remain in your arsenal?-no, that would leave you with a thousand different buttons to press.

I think what happened here is a small number of streamers, who have very annoying fans who tend to repeat everything they say verbatim, a) have been playing wow far too long and just end up whining about everything because they are commercially obligated to play wow forever and b) confuse the excessively grindy and repetitive mechanics involved in obtaining the borrowed power with the fun of the borrowed power itself. In 9.2 that grind no longer exists.

So I suspect what will happen is this: Blizzard will put much less work into offering the players diversity of options in Dragonflight, because that's essentially what we asked for and its cheap. Then the players will whine about it like they didn't cause the situation in the first place. That happens a lot.

Does no one else see these train wrecks coming?

(Cue lots of guys talking about wow in a retrospective, creepy way as if it were an ex-girlfriend that dumped their ass years ago.)

We saw it in the data in the very first patch of Shadowlands. The vast majority of players chose the best Covenant because it was mathematically better. There were only a few specs that had real options, but wouldn't switch because it's a pain to do so.

Simple answer is yes, fucking get rid of it. I want my class to be my damage, not some random bullshit. And I want real borrowed power that has existed (Tier Sets) that alter how I play my class patch to patch. Same with leggos, which have only sucked because Blizz can't handle giving us a good method of acquisition.

Artifact weapons are the only other one anyone can name that were good because again, it altered how your class played. They've been dead for four years.

[FanaticDreamer]

Correct me if I'm wrong here but I don't think it is borrowed power that is the problem. That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying you want less abilities, less choice, from wow? No.

Heck no. But that's why they're implementing a system that will give you more abilities and (hopefully) a lot more choice.

Do you want every ability from every expansion to remain in your arsenal?-no,

Yes. Unpopular opinion probably, but yes. I like having choices and options. I don't understand the people who NEED to have every single ability on their bars. You can organize depending on what you want to do. There are addons to add more bars. You can also scroll between your current action bar which is nice.

that would leave you with a thousand different buttons to press.

Not a real problem, IMO. This is an MMO**RPG** I expect there to be choices and options.

[Goatfish]

Wdym actually play these classes?
To me it looks like you are really bad with WW.

You don't need to constantly hit the increase on major abilities. On AoE burst tho? Absolutely crazy having a bonedust brew + empowered fist + empowered dragon punch with ghosts.
And it's pretty consistent if you can just plan ahead slightly. See, here is the difference between someone playing a class and someone doing WQ's trying to be smart.

The mage one is literally the random one, the monk one is not random at all.
If visuals are more important to you then gameplay then idk what to tell you. Grow up?

I'm not saying it isn't potentially strong, but pretending everyone is playing one of the most rotationally complex classes in the game while counting the number of abilities they use and managing cooldowns while not running out of energy, maintaining the right amount of chi, AND not using the same ability twice in a row is just absolute nonsense. For the overwhelming majority of WW players it's just a passive damage boost at effectively random intervals, and every guide says to basically ignore it because for most people, trying to play around it is actually a damage loss.

The mage one is random, but has a pretty high proc chance and a set cooldown so there is some ability to play around it, though granted not much. The difference is that it actually feels good because you can see the effect directly and know you are doing more damage, whereas with WW you can basically pretend it doesn't exist and be perfectly fine and competitive up to +20 keys.

I'm just saying it isn't the amazing use of borrowed power you claim it is. I'm in the top 11% of PvE monks in the world playing casually and I'm telling you straight up that it's meh. I mained frost mage in CN and SoD and still play it as an alt pretty frequently, and I can tell you for sure that the free comet storms feel better and more impactful even if they are relatively random and sometimes frustrating. They would have been better off making a more visually stimulating and less complicated set bonus rather than something maybe 1% of monks are actually going to track and care about to min/max a statistically insignificant amount of overall damage.

[Garymorilix]

I'm not saying it isn't potentially strong, but pretending everyone is playing one of the most rotationally complex classes in the game while counting the number of abilities they use and managing cooldowns while not running out of energy, maintaining the right amount of chi, AND not using the same ability twice in a row is just absolute nonsense. For the overwhelming majority of WW players it's just a passive damage boost at effectively random intervals, and every guide says to basically ignore it because for most people, trying to play around it is actually a damage loss.

The mage one is random, but has a pretty high proc chance and a set cooldown so there is some ability to play around it, though granted not much. The difference is that it actually feels good because you can see the effect directly and know you are doing more damage, whereas with WW you can basically pretend it doesn't exist and be perfectly fine and competitive up to +20 keys.

I'm just saying it isn't the amazing use of borrowed power you claim it is. I'm in the top 11% of PvE monks in the world playing casually and I'm telling you straight up that it's meh. I mained frost mage in CN and SoD and still play it as an alt pretty frequently, and I can tell you for sure that the free comet storms feel better and more impactful even if they are relatively random and sometimes frustrating. They would have been better off making a more visually stimulating and less complicated set bonus rather than something maybe 1% of monks are actually going to track and care about to min/max a statistically insignificant amount of overall damage.

So you don't like the set bonus because you actually have to play with it?
Yea, no wonder we get boring passive % increases all the time with this mentality.

Even if most monk players won't use it to its full potency it's basically a passive dmg bonus to them.
For players who care and not doing DH levels of braindead gameplay they can get some absolutely massive damage from it.

With the mage one what can you do? It doesnt matter if youre good or bad, the effects the same every time.
That's boring.

I dunno what you are talking about having "no visual" feel good moment.
Have you noticed the dps meter? That 60k+ aoe burst is enough of a visual fuck yea for me. Results > pixels my man.

[LedZeppelin]

tier sets are where the borrowed power should stop and end. tier sets are a way to shake up a specs main play style, rotation, etc in a small but interesting manner. Does it suck when you have only 3/4 of the set? yeah. but with the 2 piece providing decent bonuses, it can be made smoother.