Two expansions with target cap, how do you feel?

[ZazuuPriest]

its certainly a way for them to control the meta and easily make certain specs useless when they want to

[Relapses]

Poor Rogues not getting invited to high keys. Except they did, there's several S3 rogues in the 4k-3.8k range, just not Outlaws. More than, let's say DPS DKs, Shamans or any other traditionally "off-meta" spec. Sure, they didn't absolutely dominate the meta, but the target cap really didn't change anything at all. You still pull big packs in M+. It just feels bad.

Because Rogue utility is still super good if you can fill in the deficit of damage it does with something like WW Monk or Destro lock... which is precisely what the groups with Rogues did. Many Rogue mains I watched in S3 had either a WW or SV Hunter alt which they'd swap to in keys where the Rogue utility wasn't needed. (Rogue could also play either Venth or Necro, two Coves that can be hard to find with a traditional "meta" push group.) That's not to say that it was totally bad -- I didn't mean to imply it was -- though I can see how you'd get that from my reply. My main point was just that the target capping of Outlaw specifically really hampered its effectiveness.

[Sinured]

If you think the engine is still exactly the same thing it was 20 years ago you're probably dellusional. And the correlation between saving money and 2022 you made, makes no sense. Saving money will be saving money in 2050 as well.

na, he is right thou, the only one delusional is you.
i emulated my own servers, from vanilla to legion, the engine is pretty much the same,
thats why the game still is clunky af.

[Mestalis]

I hated it when it had a hard cap, now that it's a sharp decrease after a certain quantity, it's fine. Not as OP as before, but I don't really notice at this point.

[Revamp Man]

it felt bad in bfa
it feels bad now

thats my opinion anyways
they made a change that solved nothing and have done more work trying to fix the problems the change created

[Kalisandra]

The version that stopped moves from damaging more than 5-8 things at a time can fuck off, but the version that splits the damage between mobs above the hit limit is fine.

AoE is still pretty buckwild even with the damage being spread out.

The funny thing is that back in MoP they introduced a cap where damage was capped at 10 targets (I think it was 10), and above that many targets the damage for 10 targets was split over all targets, like the current split target model. At some point afterwards they did away with that, only to re-introduce it.

I'm fine with that cap, but the hard cap blows, especially the 5 target cap that they seem to like for melee so much.

- - - Updated - - -

I really think it was one of those talking points that specific people latched onto but did not really change much for the broader playerbase even after the change, not including MDI but your average KSM style puggery.

You notice it in big Torghast pulls. Takes the fun right out of them.

- - - Updated - - -

I really don't think the processing power required to determine whether a target hits one or one infinity targets is all that intensive. Target capping is intended as a balancing measure first and foremost. Writing it off as "Blizzard just wants to save money" is so far into the realm of whacky conspiracy theories that I have a very hard time believing a real life human being is able to think like this. Yet... here we are.

Especially when you consider that the hard cap means the server has to decide which 5-8 mobs get hit with damage each and every time a capped ability is used, so it's not saving much processing. For soft caps it has to calculate damage, check how many are in the effect, then divide the damage up, and then apply it to each mob, so that's actually more work than is required for an uncapped ability.

The last time they made changes to ease server burdens it was to cut down on the number of DoTs, removing and consolidating a lot of incidental DoTs, and then increasing the tick times so that rather than 1s or 2s ticks most went to 2s or 3s ticks.

[cparle87]

And this is exactly why I think the aoe cap limits and gcd changes were meant to low server calculations, of course it would improve performance, but mainly to save money. People think there are no technical challenges or limitations for games nowadays, but there sure are.

I also think that's why they cut down on procs a bit. We've far fewer of them now than we did in the era of azerite gear and corruption, which some theorized was part of what contributed to the aforementioned insane lag in Vale during the WB. 100 people fighting a WB, fine. 100 people fighting a world boss having dozens of procs, many with visual effects, per minute, too much.

[Makaloff]

Still feels bad

this, not to mentioned it surpassed some speccs to the trashbin due being limited to 4-5 targets hardcap in M+

[Jastall]

I don't mind the current incarnation. Frankly it affects to so rarely anyways that I bare even consider it.

Yeah, outside of niche pulls (mass Murlocs in Gambit for instance), the vast majority of groups really don't want to engage that many targets anyway.

Maybe it's me as Fury speaking since outside of Bladestorm our AoE has been 5 target capped for the longest time. It's actually better in SL than in Legion/BfA, at least with Merciless Bonegrinder-enhanced Whirlwind, Spear of Bastion and more frequent Bladestorms we can get some decent mass AoE. Never gonna be on the level of Destro locks but that's to be expected.

[rrayy]

And this is exactly why I think the aoe cap limits and gcd changes were meant to low server calculations, of course it would improve performance, but mainly to save money. People think there are no technical challenges or limitations for games nowadays, but there sure are.

It has zero to do with saving money.

[vian]

No effect at ull

[sponge5307]

The version that stopped moves from damaging more than 5-8 things at a time can fuck off, but the version that splits the damage between mobs above the hit limit is fine.

AoE is still pretty buckwild even with the damage being spread out.

agreed! Either remove AoE cap for all class and AoE abilities or soft cap every class and spec and AoE abilities to 6 targets. The mess they have now means some class will always be pick for M+ since they have uncapped AoE.

[Tentim]

It didn't really solve anything or improve groups. Heavy cleave is still king. I would argue it was a waste of time and resources.

[Soon-TM]

It didn't really solve anything or improve groups. Heavy cleave is still king. I would argue it was a waste of time and resources.

Not only this, but also it has had some really odd side effects, namely making trash mobs far more dangerous than bosses.

In their anxiety for stopping the AoE meta of M+ in Legion, Blizzard went into full "fun detected" mode in BfA and added several highly damaging skills to trash mobs. The tread went on with SL, and it also included a partial rework of affixes this time, with the result that bosses in M+ are complete pushovers in non-Tyrannical weeks, while trash can be quite threatening even during non-Fortified weeks (at the intended gear level).

And even so, the meta hasn't budged even an inch away from mass AoE at higher keys, go figure...

[crusadernero]

If we can attack everything around us the game would just crash. Thats why we dont have big wpvp battles anymore. The game cant handle it! kek

[Lucetia]

Target cap feels just stupid and forced as all #$&%, much like the added GCD on many cooldowns at the beginning of BfA. If devs really think that mass AoE is to be discouraged, they could have set a WC3-like cap, where AoE does full damage when hitting =<5 (or it was 6?) enemies, and does progressively less damage the more targets it hits.

Because the current iteration is just trash, there are still classes with uncapped AoE while others get to struggle every time it becomes necessary, while offering nothing in particular to offset that weakness.

You do realize that is the system that has been in place since 9.2 maybe 9.1 too, can't remember for certain but definitely has been in since 9.2 where you hit all targets but past X targets it does reduced damage now.

[Soikona]

I honestly don't know how to respond to this. I can't believe you're seriously thinking that they're target capping to save money on server processing. That's... I don't know. I think I need to log off the internet for awhile.

I don’t think many would complain

[Skildar]

I was really glad target cap was introduced as it moves against doing crazy pulls in m+
They should double down on the lost of spell efficiency after 8 targets for every specs, the way it is right now does make for a nice design.

[Algorath]

I don't mind it if all the classes followed the rules. Can't have class A doing 30k dps AoE and class B doing 420k.

[Relapses]

I don't mind it if all the classes followed the rules. Can't have class A doing 30k dps AoE and class B doing 420k.

If all classes did the same amount of damage in all situations then instead of bitching about "balancing" we'd be bitching about how much cooler Warrior's color on the DPS meter is than Rogue's.