I think abandoning borrowed power is a huge mistake

[Kalisandra]

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.

Whereas I think corruption was terrible. It was completely random in how you got it for quite some time. It seriously advantaged some specs over others (warriors, for example, did hugely well because the beam did damage based on character health and warriors have substantially more health than other melee DPS). The means of getting it (running visions) also favoured some specs over others. Oh, and because you had to run visions over and over to amp your cloak up so you could run them at the harder levels, if you fell behind it was very, very hard to catch up until it got to the point where everyone had all their stuff so they weren't a moving target any more (but it was still seriously time consuming).

On a more personal note, the visions were effectively timed content, and mythic+ runs are quite enough timed content for me, thanks - I'm not a fan of gogogogo or content that requires it. The only good thing was that friends could drag under-equipped mates through the content and help them out a bit, though in doing so they'd be spending their time on runs that were easier than they'd probably prefer, so even that wasn't wonderful.

I cannot look back on corruption and visions favourably.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

Once the stat rot had set in, say halfway through levelling in BfA, Resto Shamans did more DPS than Elemental, because all bonus effects that gave them damage were gone and Resto's basic attacks did (and still do) more damage than Elemental's.

- - - Updated - - -

I think this hate against the "borrowed powers" is just stupid.

Plus, I don't think the talent trees, as they appear right now, even solves the "problem". It can't. It's safe to assume abilities are going to part of the talent trees, and not just passives, right? So how the hell is that going to work, without shit getting all kinds of bloated down the line? Modify the talent trees every now and then, so the abilities are further apart, not all easily grabbed after an expansion or two? We've not gone anywhere, just shuffled the furniture around. It's just as "borrowed powers" as it have always been.

Leave enough room, that the bloat is not going to be a problem for many expansions? You are going to run into the problem of your spec feeling incomplete. Like you need to unlock tires on your car, but can't, until the next expansion.

Solve it by not giving any talent points after each expansion, and not have any kind of growth on your powers, at all? What do you call that, "stagnant powers"?

Give out the new shinies as a mixture of new top-end stuff, and new options in old slots (with the old options staying there). That means a lot of the new 'power' is growth in breadth (choice) rather than in depth (raw output).

[KayRule]

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.

Yeah and guess what dude, next expansion, if it did have a Borrowed Power system, you wouldn't have those choices anymore.

It's almost like everything you find interesting about it is being baked into a new evergreen system called "talents", that won't become invalidated the immediate next expansion.

[Kalisandra]

didnt they literaly have to "turn off" set bonuses bcs they were powerfull well into the new content despite having far less stats on gear pieces?

They didn't start doing that until relatively recently when they (and a small but loud part of the playerbase) decided that it was terrible for people to be wearing their old peak-endgame gear when they finished leveling the new content. Now, WotLK was probably a bit excessive (you didn't need to replace T5 or T6 gear until you were raiding Naxx for T7 pieces), but there should be no need to turn off set bonuses. One problem was that the end-tier bonuses were getting really over-strong. A bit of moderation there and it won't be a problem.

Another 'problem' some people complain about is being 'forced' to keep a set bonus from one tier into the next. Again, unless it's so strong that you're wanting to keep a 4-pc bonus from the old tier, or even 2-pc + 2pc over the new 4pc bonus, I don't see the problem. Nothing wrong with keeping your previous tier over new non-tier whilst you work on those new tier set I reckon.

Now, one thing that did happen that wasn't great was in LK where some of the purchasable (with heroic dungeon/raid currency) trinkets and some of the Darkmoon trinkets from the beginning of the expansion were BiS for some specs until the final raid (Icecrown Citadel). It's a bit silly when i200 trinkets are still current in i250+ content.

[Glorious Leader]

They didn't start doing that until relatively recently when they (and a small but loud part of the playerbase) decided that it was terrible for people to be wearing their old peak-endgame gear when they finished leveling the new content. Now, WotLK was probably a bit excessive (you didn't need to replace T5 or T6 gear until you were raiding Naxx for T7 pieces), but there should be no need to turn off set bonuses. One problem was that the end-tier bonuses were getting really over-strong. A bit of moderation there and it won't be a problem.

Another 'problem' some people complain about is being 'forced' to keep a set bonus from one tier into the next. Again, unless it's so strong that you're wanting to keep a 4-pc bonus from the old tier, or even 2-pc + 2pc over the new 4pc bonus, I don't see the problem. Nothing wrong with keeping your previous tier over new non-tier whilst you work on those new tier set I reckon.

Now, one thing that did happen that wasn't great was in LK where some of the purchasable (with heroic dungeon/raid currency) trinkets and some of the Darkmoon trinkets from the beginning of the expansion were BiS for some specs until the final raid (Icecrown Citadel). It's a bit silly when i200 trinkets are still current in i250+ content.

It wasnt that long ago. The resto druid bonus in nightwell was out weighing the next tier.

[Sluvs]

Whereas I think corruption was terrible. It was completely random in how you got it for quite some time. It seriously advantaged some specs over others (warriors, for example, did hugely well because the beam did damage based on character health and warriors have substantially more health than other melee DPS). The means of getting it (running visions) also favoured some specs over others. Oh, and because you had to run visions over and over to amp your cloak up so you could run them at the harder levels, if you fell behind it was very, very hard to catch up until it got to the point where everyone had all their stuff so they weren't a moving target any more (but it was still seriously time consuming).

On a more personal note, the visions were effectively timed content, and mythic+ runs are quite enough timed content for me, thanks - I'm not a fan of gogogogo or content that requires it. The only good thing was that friends could drag under-equipped mates through the content and help them out a bit, though in doing so they'd be spending their time on runs that were easier than they'd probably prefer, so even that wasn't wonderful.

I cannot look back on corruption and visions favourably.

- - - Updated - - -


Once the stat rot had set in, say halfway through levelling in BfA, Resto Shamans did more DPS than Elemental, because all bonus effects that gave them damage were gone and Resto's basic attacks did (and still do) more damage than Elemental's.

- - - Updated - - -


Give out the new shinies as a mixture of new top-end stuff, and new options in old slots (with the old options staying there). That means a lot of the new 'power' is growth in breadth (choice) rather than in depth (raw output).

Yeah, The acquisition was bad, and the massive amounts of effects was also a con IMHO, but I think if they fix those 2 things it would be very good.

The visions on the other hand I simply loved them. While It is kinda timed, on later runs it values more skill than speed, that is how I felt at least. Visions is the sort of content that I wished WoW had a decent level sync system just so i can do it again

[Kalisandra]

It wasnt that long ago. The resto druid bonus in nightwell was out weighing the next tier.

They've actually trimmed back tier bonuses a number of times because of that, but they didn't turn them off, at least not way back when, they just nerfed them a bit (or a lot, it being Blizzard and moderation not really being their style back then).

[neik]

Agreed, it adds a lot of flavour and for some people it's the only flavour why they play the game to begin with.

The only grievances I have had is the abandonment of coolest abilities that has ever been invented in this game. Currently it would be a global scale disaster if they decide to remove shadowlands covenant abilities when they move forward with this game. But seeing convoke in the expansion preview the hope isn't fully lost I suppose.

[Short]

if we don't abandon borrowed power it won't be borrowed power.
though, if you talk about the system of borrowed power itself, I mean, technically, we will always have that system.
cause it is what most RPGs progression is based on, your level only amounts to a small portion of your overall strength.
most of your strength comes from gear, which could be considered borrowed power.
all the abilities and tools available to your class, such as skills and the combat system specific to your class, should rarely, if not never, be bound to a temporary piece of gear or story relevant faction that will be replaced or become irrelevant later on.

a new piece of gear is just a stats upgrade. a new ability is a game changer.
that combined with the amount of work and attachment you gain for your borrowed power means that having that taken away not only feels bad, but makes subsequent borrowed power systems less appealing.
we're not playing a seasonal round of fortnite here. though the game does seem to be going towards that route more and more.

now, what they did with legion artifacts abilities for the most part isn't terrible.
most classes got their artifact ability as an outright ability or rolled into an existing ability or talent.
but every other part of that system just felt bad, lazy or hypocritical from a design perspective.

"can't get enough of leveling? here's an additional 50 or so levels to grind out once you're max level, that we're going to gate so hard it'll make the classic 1-60 leveling speed look and feel like a speedrun, o and we'll make all your hard work irrelevant because of catch up mechanics once the next mayor patch hits. did we mention we're going to take all your hard work away from you at the end of this expansion?"

"we got rid of tier sets because they were to difficult to balance properly! here's Azerite armor, which is even more difficult to balance properly!"

"hey we streamlined the talent system because most people just went for the cookie cutter build anyway. here's a covenant system that is basically the old style talent trees system because we thought that wouldn't make us look like a bunch of apple idolizing hypocrites."


at this point it's just another nail in the coffin but still... i'd rather see more evergreen systems added to WoW then this hot contemporary style garbage.

[Palapop]

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.)

In 9.2 that grind no longer exists?!
Wtf are you talking about?

Do you even realize what 1 person has to do if they ding to 60 now?

- complete full story line (9.0, 9.1, 9.2)
- grind renown to max
- grind 16 wings of Choreghast
- grind legendary rec
- grind mats for legendary item
- grind gold for legendary item
- grind conduits

Gz. Now you can enjoy the max lvl content.


Implementing borrowed power system was huge mistake, instead. Its where all subs started bleeding.

Artifacts, artifact power, rng legendary items, azerite gear, essences, corruptions, soulbdins, conduits, legendaries......

All of these could be replaced with MOP GLYPHS!
Techically these are nothing more but 1 extra button in your ability bar. Or extra % dps or rotation.
Which means A LOT.

Yet, they were hidden behind HUUUUUUGE TIME WASTE grindfests.

Thank God were getting rid of that!

[Biomega]

In 9.2 that grind no longer exists?!
Wtf are you talking about?

Do you even realize what 1 person has to do if they ding to 60 now?

- complete full story line (9.0, 9.1, 9.2)
- grind renown to max
- grind 16 wings of Choreghast
- grind legendary rec
- grind mats for legendary item
- grind gold for legendary item
- grind conduits

Gz. Now you can enjoy the max lvl content.

Do you mean an entirely new player? Because alts skip most of that. Story before 9.2 is all skippable; renown starts at what, 50 now? and is abundant everywhere; Torghast currency is easily available from various sources now; and Conduits you get for basically free from ZM rep.

But the gold does suck :P I give you that.

[Palapop]

Do you mean an entirely new player? Because alts skip most of that. Story before 9.2 is all skippable; renown starts at what, 50 now? and is abundant everywhere; Torghast currency is easily available from various sources now; and Conduits you get for basically free from ZM rep.

But the gold does suck :P I give you that.

Entirely new player, yes.

And even alts have to do most of it too.

[k0nker]

Entirely new player, yes.

And even alts have to do most of it too.

I just leveled three alts with Threads of Fate. Story was skipped, conduits were easy to nab, and I was renown 80 before I dinged 60 on two of the three and 79 on the other because of the 500g Renown level heirloom. Legendary was a little bleh but much much easier to plow through than the renown and story grind.

[Nymrohd]

if we don't abandon borrowed power it won't be borrowed power.

When the concept was introduced back in Legion it was pitched as max level progression. We did not know it would be borrowed. Many other games have max level progression and they don't get wiped every expansion/season. Really, Warcraft's approach to that was bery unique.

We can still have max level progression outside just ilvl without that being borrowed power.

[Delever]

You may not remember, but there were times in the game when there wasn't one obvious choice and you had to balance various stats, often through gems and reforging. Hit cap and defense cap meant one did not simply stack one stat.

and you may not remember but there was an addon that everyone was using that auto calculated the best possible reforge for what you wanted to do so you can stay on hit cap and maximize the secondary stat you wanted. And most classes did not have a choice in this

- - - Updated - - -

In 9.2 that grind no longer exists?!
Wtf are you talking about?

Do you even realize what 1 person has to do if they ding to 60 now?

- complete full story line (9.0, 9.1, 9.2)
- grind renown to max
- grind 16 wings of Choreghast
- grind legendary rec
- grind mats for legendary item
- grind gold for legendary item
- grind conduits

Gz. Now you can enjoy the max lvl content.


Implementing borrowed power system was huge mistake, instead. Its where all subs started bleeding.

Artifacts, artifact power, rng legendary items, azerite gear, essences, corruptions, soulbdins, conduits, legendaries......

All of these could be replaced with MOP GLYPHS!
Techically these are nothing more but 1 extra button in your ability bar. Or extra % dps or rotation.
Which means A LOT.

Yet, they were hidden behind HUUUUUUGE TIME WASTE grindfests.

Thank God were getting rid of that!

Why would a new player have any problems doing that? Its literally content. What should be done for a new player? Skip literally everything except Zereth Mortis?

[Necromantic]

When the concept was introduced back in Legion it was pitched as max level progression. We did not know it would be borrowed. Many other games have max level progression and they don't get wiped every expansion/season. Really, Warcraft's approach to that was bery unique.

We can still have max level progression outside just ilvl without that being borrowed power.

I knew it was going to be wiped from the start. WoW wipes everything every expansion. Same way people spent all the time getting legendary weapons (I own Fangs) and by next expansion, they were as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

[Nymrohd]

I knew it was going to be wiped from the start. WoW wipes everything every expansion. Same way people spent all the time getting legendary weapons (I own Fangs) and by next expansion, they were as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

Good for you. Does not change the fact that this was not how they were introduced. It was obviously a serious concern among the community because as you've said we all had seen that behaviour by blizzard but it was not clear or certain that everything gained would be wiped out.

[Necromantic]

Good for you. Does not change the fact that this was not how they were introduced. It was obviously a serious concern among the community because as you've said we all had seen that behaviour by blizzard but it was not clear or certain that everything gained would be wiped out.

They never gave any indication that what we had would stay. This had never been the case in any of the previous 5 expansions that came before it so there was no reason to ever think this would be any different.

On the other hand, I can see how some would be confused by this and have high hopes.

[Karawaka]

didnt they literaly have to "turn off" set bonuses bcs they were powerfull well into the new content despite having far less stats on gear pieces?

Another issue was as recently as WoD some specs would start the fight with old tier on because they could proc the bonus pre-pull and then swap gear at the last second and min/maxers felt bad cause pull timers were going for over a minute so everyone could prep right

[Makaloff]

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.)

yes its so fun being shoehorned into a specefic covenant thanks to all the others being trash. its so fun going from strong to extremly weak as soon as every expansion releases. Its so fun to having to grind for crap systems only for them being taken away. Not to mention absolute stupid ideas like corruptions that were a pain to farm, broke classes left and right and punished you aswell.

Hell, thanks to borrowed power we dont even get good class design beacuse "oh just wait until you have your borrowed power and its gonna feel good". i dont want to wait half a expansion for my class to feel good, i want it to play good from start without having to rely on hamsterwheel systems.

Only borrowed power should be tier sets, nothing else. I dont even wanna experience the crapshow BFA was, nor legion or SL for that matte ever again.

[simalina]

I agree that abandoning borrowed power is the best change that ever did