I think abandoning borrowed power is a huge mistake

[Schmilblick]

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.

Tier sets without creation catalyst system will be another shitshow.

[korijenkins]

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. Than they abandoned them and gave us Azerite, which felt worse as you lost a huge junk of your power and never really got it back. On top of that, BfA didn't even gave us cosmetics with it's borrowed power system. Once they announced Covenants we already knew that they would abandon them with 10.0, so people never really got invested with them. Why should I care for something that's get thrown in the trash anyways? This game needs more evergreen content like transmog, not more borrowed power crap.

I always remember thinking that artifact power and levels should've just straight up replaced traditional leveling, yet Legion still upped the cap to 110. It wouldn't have been hard at all for the questing zones to reward traits and artifact levels instead of actual experience, but alas.

Borrowed power is a bad concept though. It's always been a bad concept. Pouring resources into systems just for them to be wiped out and replaced immediately is horrible design. Think of how much money they've spent designing all the gimmick features that immediately get abandoned after an expansion ends. What kind of foolishness is that?

[Goatfish]

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.

Frost nova before the comet storm so it crits? It's pretty dang good on aoe even though most mages don't track the CD to potentially take advantage of it.

Maybe you should think of how the game looks without staring at your dps meter all day dude. The game is pretty visually appealing in a lot of ways, and your "absolutely massive damage" is talking about 5-10 second scenarios when the stars absolutely align and that many monks are going to do on accident with the bonus anyway. It's just a bad example, and if you think otherwise you're in the absolute minority.

I'm all for things being more complicated, it's the whole reason I stopped playing ice lance simulator. What I'm saying is that the difference between playing around it and not is relatively minor except at the absolute highest end of play that most people don't give a flying fuck about. It's definitely not a huge game changing difference like an Ebonbolt/Glacial spike mage vs ice lance spam forever.

I would rather have more options that actually change how I play, like maybe fixing some of our talents so they aren't full on damage losses (looking at you Serenity) that are available to trade out at will, rather than a borrowed power that is balanced to be better than everything else solely because it's forced upon you, which is then obviously going to get dumbed down so that everyone can use it because it was forced upon them. What I specifically want is borrowed power in an optional manner so that people can make those risk-reward options of their own volition. If you want to attack me for pointing out the obvious reality then feel free, but know it only makes you look thin-skinned and inexperienced.

[Triceron]

Which sounds great but I'm not sure about the vagueness of all this: how is it not going to be either a) less player options or b) borrowed power in all but name. It sounds very much like we are going to let you have your cake and eat it somehow.

The only real difference is whether the powers you gain will be carried over to the next expansion or not. 'Borrowed Power' merely implies they are gains that exist solely for the present content, and you could consider even Tier set bonuses to be borrowed power that doesn't really get carried past the next tier. And as far as we can assume, Legendaries and Tier Set bonuses are still going to be part of the game.

The Talent system is meant to replace the need for Covenants. How well of a job it does is really something we just have to wait and see. I doubt it will be as varied and flexible as Covenants, but I'll say the way they're handling this to be modular for future expansion looks like it has room to expanded.

[klaps_05]

Borrower power has never been the problem, the implementation and obtaining said borrowed power was. Unfortunately blizzard is incapable of implementing a good borrowed power system, so they just scrap it instead.

borrowed power also allowed for each expansion to let classes play differently and for blizz to experiment as just having the same classes each expansion is boring.

[Sluvs]

They nailed with Legion because it came entagled with PRE-EXISTING class fantasy.

It had cosmetic rewards, it had relevance to your class and it was awesome.

That being said, having played through legion I can tell you that they had trouble keeping it up in the following patches and not everybody liked it back then.

Now, they had 2 chances to expand upon it. And they screwed it up both times.

I think its good that they are leaving it behind. It was clearly problematic for them and when it worked it wasnt a 100% thing.

Corruption on the other hand i think its cool. I honestly think it worked well, visions of nzoth was an amazing piece of content and I still think that it can work if they treated corruption like gems or something.

Some aspect of borrowed power will always be present in the game, but I think they made the right decision when you take a look at their history.

[Berndorf]

It was time to do away with it. Everyone wanted a break including Bliz.

[Zantos]

Uh no, it was a horrible idea to begin with. The issue comes into trying to balance how a class plays when it has certain borrowed powers or abilities. Take artifacts for example, they gave classes entirely new abilities. It fleshed out some rotations very well. But by a certain point, you had all of the abilities and it really started to turn into a balancing act for them. Next expansion hit and BAM, powers and abilities gone. Now they had to rebalance everything since core abilities in some cases were just removed. Demon Hunters became a hot mess. A brand new class suddenly had some of the abilities that it relied on just gone. They felt highly incomplete at that point.

Then Heart Of Azeroth. That mess was exactly that, a mess. Had to be reworked to the core once just to get it to function right. Then you had to balance all around Those abilities. Some were just better then others as a result. Some of them you wanted, others you ignored.

They tossed in corrupted armor for a patch with that crap show and really made things a mess. That one at least came down to a numbers game since. Again though, some were good while others basically ruined the ability to use gear. Get a higher ilevel but with a junk effect? Well that lower gear with a much better effect will be kept. That was a really common complaint.

Its better for everyone and everything if they don't have to balance a class around some temporary power boost or an ability they'll only have for that one expansion.

[Battlebeard]

To summarize my opinion:

Borrowed power is good.
Grinding it is bad.

I love borrowed powers as long as you don't have to grind and can raidlog.

[Alroxas]

Tier sets without creation catalyst system will be another shitshow.

So then back when we had tier sets previously was always a shitshow? I think we had something like 20+ tier sets?

[Garymorilix]

So then back when we had tier sets previously was always a shitshow? I think we had something like 20+ tier sets?

Yes it was.

I remember not being able to change my normal gloves for like 1.5 month because the one boss that dropped it never actually dropped it on a higher diff for me.
Horrible feeling. Always was.

I was pretty against the idea of tier sets ever returning but the Creation Catalyst is actually a very sound solution.
You can get lucky in the first few weeks but you will eventually guaranteed to have your sets without having to farm 1 exact boss.

[Lady Atia]

Tier sets without creation catalyst system will be another shitshow.

They said they will do something similiar, prolly through the new crafting system. No worries =)

[Garymorilix]

Frost nova before the comet storm so it crits? It's pretty dang good on aoe even though most mages don't track the CD to potentially take advantage of it.

Maybe you should think of how the game looks without staring at your dps meter all day dude. The game is pretty visually appealing in a lot of ways, and your "absolutely massive damage" is talking about 5-10 second scenarios when the stars absolutely align and that many monks are going to do on accident with the bonus anyway. It's just a bad example, and if you think otherwise you're in the absolute minority.

I'm all for things being more complicated, it's the whole reason I stopped playing ice lance simulator. What I'm saying is that the difference between playing around it and not is relatively minor except at the absolute highest end of play that most people don't give a flying fuck about. It's definitely not a huge game changing difference like an Ebonbolt/Glacial spike mage vs ice lance spam forever.

I would rather have more options that actually change how I play, like maybe fixing some of our talents so they aren't full on damage losses (looking at you Serenity) that are available to trade out at will, rather than a borrowed power that is balanced to be better than everything else solely because it's forced upon you, which is then obviously going to get dumbed down so that everyone can use it because it was forced upon them. What I specifically want is borrowed power in an optional manner so that people can make those risk-reward options of their own volition. If you want to attack me for pointing out the obvious reality then feel free, but know it only makes you look thin-skinned and inexperienced.

I don't know what the argument here actually is...
You are trying to represent some imaginary group of people out of pure empathy saying that it's bad that you have to play the game optimally to achieve good results?

Talent balance and borrowed power balance are two very different topics and you are just bringing this up as a "you think this is bad...", standard whataboutism.

I prefer agency, that's it. Whether it's hard to execute or not it doesn't matter. Fully passive effects are boring and sometimes downright disruptive.
Like look at demo lock 2/4. It's just a passive effect that gives you another dreadstalker.
This simple passive effect single handedly destroys any other playstyles for the spec while adding no actual gameplay.
The 4/4 is a fully passive damage increase also. Nothing changes and demo is not the most complicated spec in the world, they coulda added something there.

Maybe I want to play the game and I'm not amazed by the same comet storm visual for the 12 millionth time anymore.
I occasionally play my ele shaman for the lightning sounds cuz it's very good to listen to but when I push my keys I prefer actually playing the game and when I get an upgrade after 2-3 weeks that simply tells me "you do x% more damage now" without any added gameplay it's disappointingly boring.

[Venziir]

I don't mean to be snarky, but that is a really low bar to set your standard by. I liked the artifact weapon system better, but that's because it was tied in to class halls and quest chains. But if you removed the actual borrowed power from the artifact weapons, the artifact weapon system would be just as good. I will say that I do consider Netherlight Crucible to be a good borrowed power system. It wasn't ridiculous and all encompassing, just gave you some little bonuses. It wasn't some massive increase that you would be sore from losing.

Well it was the first proper example of borrowed power, so it makes sense to set the bar here. I honsetly forgot all about the NL Crucible, so yeah.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

TF and WF wasn't proper progression though, since both were pure RNG.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

Don't know who "people" is. I quite enjoyed it, it made sense and it was fun to level your artifact. Besides each week or so, your research would net you more AP, thus making it even faster - to a ponit where it was just hilarious. Never felt like a grind to me honestly - unlike the AP for the HoA which was a super-duper grind or ashes from Torghast.

[Goatfish]

I don't know what the argument here actually is...
You are trying to represent some imaginary group of people out of pure empathy saying that it's bad that you have to play the game optimally to achieve good results?

What a horrible misrepresentation of what I was saying. Why do I have to represent some group of baddies to say that I think your example of a good borrowed power is bad. My whole point on it is that it's unsatisfying and that playing around it is a trap for players and is generally not that useful to focus on in the scheme of overall damage. This isn't even a contentious view with any other monks I've talked to or seen talk about this.

I think we actually agree on the broader issue, in that if you wanted to take the more difficult option to edge out another 1% overall dps I also want there to be a less complicated option for people to pick. We can see this in WW's first talent row, or the third talent row for mages. I care less about trying to make people learn the most complicated meta thing to do well, and more about being able to pick a playstyle that I enjoy and be at least competitive. When things are designed badly or the tradeoff is too high as we see in a lot of current talents, I'm not a fan. This is why I'd rather have just a passive damage increases on tier sets, or at least things that are highly visual, direct, and even potentially activatable like the Mistweaver 4pc (though I do find that one a little annoying as well).

Talent balance and borrowed power balance are two very different topics and you are just bringing this up as a "you think this is bad...", standard whataboutism.

It's not a whataboutism. It's saying that if you want these things that make the class more complicated, I'd prefer them in the form of talents that people can pick if they want to. Like choosing between Incanter's Flow or Rune of Power, Eye of the Tiger or Chi Wave/Burst. If you want to fight for those elitist 100% parses with specialized playstyles, fine, have that as an optional thing rather than something thrown on a tier set that tricks people out of the ABC (always be casting) rule. I obviously don't want the most passive playstyle to be the absolute best, I thought I made that clear after saying I was tired of Ice Lance Simulator. I'd much rather be playing Ebonbolt/Glacial Spike like I did back in Legion, but it's horribly under-tuned. On the other hand, I'd rather not have to deal with potential needlessly complicated stuff forced on me. I'm not in a RWF type guild like I was back in BC and Wrath for a reason, I'd like to chill a bit.

The visuals also matter. Unless you set up a weakaura to track your 4pc, good fucking luck managing it. If I see a comet storm I can just have the clock running on my screen to know the next one is in ~20 seconds. I don't need my screen to look like this.

[Garymorilix]

What a horrible misrepresentation of what I was saying. Why do I have to represent some group of baddies to say that I think your example of a good borrowed power is bad. My whole point on it is that it's unsatisfying and that playing around it is a trap for players and is generally not that useful to focus on in the scheme of overall damage. This isn't even a contentious view with any other monks I've talked to or seen talk about this.

I think we actually agree on the broader issue, in that if you wanted to take the more difficult option to edge out another 1% overall dps I also want there to be a less complicated option for people to pick. We can see this in WW's first talent row, or the third talent row for mages. I care less about trying to make people learn the most complicated meta thing to do well, and more about being able to pick a playstyle that I enjoy and be at least competitive. When things are designed badly or the tradeoff is too high as we see in a lot of current talents, I'm not a fan. This is why I'd rather have just a passive damage increases on tier sets, or at least things that are highly visual, direct, and even potentially activatable like the Mistweaver 4pc (though I do find that one a little annoying as well).


It's not a whataboutism. It's saying that if you want these things that make the class more complicated, I'd prefer them in the form of talents that people can pick if they want to. Like choosing between Incanter's Flow or Rune of Power, Eye of the Tiger or Chi Wave/Burst. If you want to fight for those elitist 100% parses with specialized playstyles, fine, have that as an optional thing rather than something thrown on a tier set that tricks people out of the ABC (always be casting) rule. I obviously don't want the most passive playstyle to be the absolute best, I thought I made that clear after saying I was tired of Ice Lance Simulator. I'd much rather be playing Ebonbolt/Glacial Spike like I did back in Legion, but it's horribly under-tuned. On the other hand, I'd rather not have to deal with potential needlessly complicated stuff forced on me. I'm not in a RWF type guild like I was back in BC and Wrath for a reason, I'd like to chill a bit.

The visuals also matter. Unless you set up a weakaura to track your 4pc, good fucking luck managing it. If I see a comet storm I can just have the clock running on my screen to know the next one is in ~20 seconds. I don't need my screen to look like this.

I'm not sure how picking something active equals being elitist in any way.
Elitism, by defition, is picking the absolute best, which can even be the dumbest shit there is (look at BfA outlaw or DH).

I don't talk about talents. They are clearly designed in a way that offers between passive and actives traits (sometimes I use the passive ones on some specs just to have less hotkeys too).

But when it comes to limited mandatory power upgrades (like Legendaries/Extra abilities or tier sets) I would like to see them actually use some creativity or dont do them at all.
This could mean such a simple thing as passively buffing an otherwise unused ability. Boom, now your rotation changes which is an appropriate feeling for a power upgrade.
If the passive buff is literally just "well your X spell does most of your damage already, it now deals 10% more" then that's bad. I don't want to see this kinda power.

This isn't BC or Wrath anymore. Most specs don't even work if you don't track their abilities/procs/buffs/whatever.
How would you play a hunter, wlock, even mage without having weak auras for procs and buffs and such? I mean, you can, very unoptimally, but then again we can't gimp our creativity just because half the players can't even press an interrupt correctly.

There are simply playstyles that don't fit certain players and they have to accept that. I always loved Affli locks, tried them three times, even got Curve on it in 8.3 but it just never clicked with me. I was bad at managing it so I dropped it.
Playing WW isn't different, some people are just not fit. WW isn't even the most APM heavy specs out there, it rewards muscle memory much more than mage or warlock specs for example where you actively have to watch for procs or dots and such.

[llewllew]

I agree with OP. The phrase "borrowed power" became a meme without people even knowing what they are saying.

[Thelxi]

Don't worry they will replace it with something else to keep you hooked.

[Hctaz]

Not really a fan of bowered power.

It leaves classes feeling barebones until you unlock new abilities and powers. They reuse a lot of the old ideas as well. There was a lot of stuff in BfA that was literally just something we had in Legion. Legendary item effects came back a lot of the time as an Azerite trait.

Limited bowered power is fine. It's literally what every patch and expansion does. You grind up gear that will be replaced next patch so you can farm up more gear next patch that will be replaced the next patch so you can farm more gear in the next patch that will be replaced when the new expansion comes out.

The difference is that you aren't adding or removing entire mechanics from your class, you're just gaining or losing crit chance and strength and whatnot. It doesn't feel so shitty as when you just lose all of these cool abilities you had before.

I'm also not a fan of having these unlimited grinds. The best way I could see them using a system similar to borrowed power would be to just replace the leveling system altogether with.. essentially just a boring replacement that doesn't feel as boring.

Imagine if instead of needing to actually level your character in Legion, the only thing keeping you held back from progressing through the expansion was your artifact level. Not even arbitrarily as well. Like you literally could walk to Suramar if you wanted to, but the mobs would have too much health and hit you too hard for you to do anything there. As you leveled up your artifact you gained offensive and defensive values that made you able to complete content more reliably. I think it would at least make the leveling process more interesting. You wouldn't feel like you're rushing to level 70 just because the game said you need to in order to complete that content. It would be fun if you could walk into the new raid from Day 1 except you were so pathetic and weak that you wouldn't stand a chance. Gives you an actual incentive to level up instead of just "because I need to be level 70 to enter this content."

Other than that, I really don't think actual class abilities should be available for these limited time options, and they also have to come up with so many new abilities every expansion that we're bound to just constantly get repeated stuff which just feels bad. Like why take away all these things from us if you're just going to give us back the EXACT SAME THING?

[oland138]

Why have borrowed power when they can bake everything into a permanent system? Artifact weapons are basically another covenant that we can't switch back to no matter how much we liked them.