Retail wow - has combat lost its punch?

[ZeroTool]

That is absolutely true. Healers are even worse. In Wotlk Classic it often takes me one Nourish cast to top a player's HP.

In classic Healing Touch can literally top a player's HP from 1% to 100% in one cast, if it crits.

In DF it sometimes takes 6-7 Regrowth to top a player's HP.

Even if you have a lot of Hots on a target and your Regrowth crits, it still heals for about 25% HP in DF.

Feels awfull.

Yes you have more abilities in DF but you have to press 5 buttons to get the same (or even worse) result as one button does in Classic. On top of that Raids and M+ in DF are overdesigned and bloated with mechanics, so you constantly have to move, almost every second there is some mechanic happening.

Dungeons and Raids in DF, after all that, they feel annoying. Not even hard but annoying as FK. You have to press 5 buttons to do minimal amount of heal/damage, at the same time whole floor is filled with void zones, whole room is flooded with adds and also am Elemental spawns that will wipe your group if don't manage to CC it while you trying to heal and not die at the same time.

Playing retail is not fun.

[Thundering]

They pruned a lot, then players complained and they unpruned. Like so many "bad design decisions" it's something that stems from "player feedback".
I'm still baffled people like the new bloated talent trees.

How hard is too understand that people like to customize their character and play they way you want, if you are not a top raider etc you dont careeeeeeeeeeee if end up losing like 2%dps due to you are not using the meta talent setup.

With the old talent tree they could just as well removed the talent system it was terrible.

[Fitsu]

One of the issues is how absurdly high APM retail WoW rotations are. You're activating an ability every 0.75 seconds so animations are being interrupted before they complete. Another issue is that WoW does not have fluid transitions between animations like in GW2, so again animations do not complete and it looks like you're swinging wet noodles rather than heaving a heavy weapon around.

And the ironic thing is, this doesn't even lead to the game being "harder" because people end up feeling overwhelmed by the 12 button rotation that requires a decision based on 3 procs, 2 buffs, the amount of mobs, the health of the mob, the stage of the encounter, mechanics that are occuring etc. That they just download an addon like Hekili to tell them what button to press.

MoP had IMO the best feeling rotation. It had enough downtime that you could make decisions without feeling overwhelmed but enough APM that you felt like experience/skill actually mattered.

[potis]

Playing retail is not fun.

Yeah cause waiting for the an auto-attack in 2023 is fun, or casting a Healing Touch for 2.5 seconds because you are a noob and you dont downrank.

Tis cute how you expose yourselves though when you make these posts.

Cause god forbid if most classes didnt have buttons to self-sustain and help the healer right?

But we dont do that here, "LOOK MOM I DIDNT DODGE THE 1 MECHANIC IN CLASSIC AND THE HEALER IS TO BLAME" is such a great gaming experience.

Anyway, to the OP, during Bloodlust at certain gear levels hitting so much haste, sometimes combat feels weird, not because its bad, but the button mashing tends to get weird, especially when it ends and it feels sluggish.

Thats the only complain i have about combat, how sluggish some classes feel when you go from main/higher play to an alt and you wonder why the fuck the abilities are not going off.

There is a reason some do +20s the first week and most of you are on here complaining a +3 is hard and the timer needs to be removed to allow CC and it aint the healers.

Frankly i dont understand why Haste hasnt disappeared and GCD scaled down to 1 second now since most classes are basically "Get 20% haste to get ~1.1 sec GCD"

[deenman]

It's called bloat, in Classic we have fewer abilities, but they're meaningful, while in Retail a single skill doesn't mean that much.

its not bloat,the abilities simply dont feel punchy anymore,auto attacks are like a fart

[Algorath]

It's a weird love/hate thing for me.

I absolutely loved the combat in vanilla-tbc-wotlk era, because of the chunky effect of pushing a button. Boom Mortal Strike and a juicy yellow number to activate the neurons.
The skillcap was just -ssssoooo- low, which of course is a bad thing.

On the other hand, now you need to finger-dance 3-5 buttons and weave in cooldowns, which of course has a higher skill cap, but is also pretty boring.

Personally, I think I would prefer to play TBC'ish character design with modern era raid mechanics. Hard raids with lot's to think about, while maintaining a fairly simple rotation.

[Delever]

>People complaining about bloat in DF.
>People constantly praising MoP as the best class gameplay in WoW where abilities reached the peak of being bloated.

Never change MMOC

[babyback]

That is absolutely true. Healers are even worse. In Wotlk Classic it often takes me one Nourish cast to top a player's HP.

In classic Healing Touch can literally top a player's HP from 1% to 100% in one cast, if it crits.

In DF it sometimes takes 6-7 Regrowth to top a player's HP.

Even if you have a lot of Hots on a target and your Regrowth crits, it still heals for about 25% HP in DF.

Feels awfull.

Yes you have more abilities in DF but you have to press 5 buttons to get the same (or even worse) result as one button does in Classic. On top of that Raids and M+ in DF are overdesigned and bloated with mechanics, so you constantly have to move, almost every second there is some mechanic happening.

Dungeons and Raids in DF, after all that, they feel annoying. Not even hard but annoying as FK. You have to press 5 buttons to do minimal amount of heal/damage, at the same time whole floor is filled with void zones, whole room is flooded with adds and also am Elemental spawns that will wipe your group if don't manage to CC it while you trying to heal and not die at the same time.

Playing retail is not fun.

While I agree that new raids has kinda gone out of hand when it comes to boss abilities, it's not like classic/vanilla raids or whatever you call it are very engaging. There are two fights that are fun and that is Thaddius and Heigan. The rest is just a snooze fest. They were boring even in 04-06. Hence I don't have an interest play Classic again.

[Jaggler]

While I agree that new raids has kinda gone out of hand when it comes to boss abilities, it's not like classic/vanilla raids or whatever you call it are very engaging. There are two fights that are fun and that is Thaddius and Heigan. The rest is just a snooze fest. They were boring even in 04-06. Hence I don't have an interest play Classic again.

Yeah, some levelling dungeons have more intricate mechanics than classic raids.
Most of the "challenge" of these raids was the preparation (attunements, resistances via gear etc.) rather than the mechanics. Once you are in there properly prepared, you basically almost cleared the raid, you just have to not stand in the fire for too long.

[czarek]

>People complaining about bloat in DF.
>People constantly praising MoP as the best class gameplay in WoW where abilities reached the peak of being bloated.

Never change MMOC

Exactly. MoP was way more dull than DF wise gameplay.

[kranur]

Lost it's punch? Nope. It's just different .. more based on rotational and setting up, especially some specs.
Instead of an ability every x seconds, now it's 2-4.
Imo classic was too little and DF is too much.

[Glorious Leader]

No, sorry this is ridiculous, and yet another case of "smug forum poster blames Playerbase for Blizzard's Bad Decisions."

The ability prune was bad because of which specific abilities were pruned. The new bloat is bad because of the spells, gameplay styles, etc. that growth occurred in.

Sorry, I wanted Heroic Strike and Cleave back. I don't really care to deal with things like "Raging Blow" or "Breath of Sindragosa" and the like.

As someone who curated many threads on the official forums regarding this matter, I can safely say that many of the complaints centered around "My Class doesn't even resemble what it used to be" after pruning, and frankly that criticism is just as true today as it was during the prune.

Oh cool you got it back along with:

Ms
Bladestorm
Avatar
Rend
Thunderclap (to spread rend)
Sweeping strikes
Execute
Whirlwind

And thats just for aoe.. The prune was correct and if anything didnt go far enough. Theyve effectively undid it now with the changes to talents. Casual friendly expansion my asshole.

[Wildberry]

Oh cool you got it back along with:

I played Fury, not Arms.

And thats just for aoe.. The prune was correct and if anything didnt go far enough. Theyve effectively undid it now with the changes to talents. Casual friendly expansion my asshole.

You're totally misidentifying the problem. I'm not demanding "Classes should take a PhD to play properly!" I am just annoyed that the classes I play are now completely different from how they were when I started playing these Characters, to the point where my formerly favorite specs are unrecognizable.

Be less disagreeable next time.

- - - Updated - - -

>People complaining about bloat in DF.
>People constantly praising MoP as the best class gameplay in WoW where abilities reached the peak of being bloated.

Never change MMOC

"Some people have one opinion, other people have a different opinion. I am going to pretend the elements of both of these opinions that are mutually exclusive are coming from the same person. I am very smart!"

How long have we been doing this routine?

Actually, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that this person you've just imagined actually exists. Perhaps there's actually a valid reason they actually enjoyed MOP "bloat" but dislike DF "bloat?" Is that really so unimaginable? Is it that difficult to have actual nuance?

[Luck4]

its not bloat,the abilities simply dont feel punchy anymore,auto attacks are like a fart

The more abilities you have, the more the damage will be spread among them.

It's not rocket science.

[Delever]

I played Fury, not Arms.



You're totally misidentifying the problem. I'm not demanding "Classes should take a PhD to play properly!" I am just annoyed that the classes I play are now completely different from how they were when I started playing these Characters, to the point where my formerly favorite specs are unrecognizable.

Be less disagreeable next time.

- - - Updated - - -



"Some people have one opinion, other people have a different opinion. I am going to pretend the elements of both of these opinions that are mutually exclusive are coming from the same person. I am very smart!"

How long have we been doing this routine?

Actually, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that this person you've just imagined actually exists. Perhaps there's actually a valid reason they actually enjoyed MOP "bloat" but dislike DF "bloat?" Is that really so unimaginable? Is it that difficult to have actual nuance?

It is difficult to have actual nuance when the guy is making a case about the combat being less punchy than classic, a version of the game that for most of the time you stare at your character slowly auto-attacking or spam the same spell over and over and over again for as long as your resource allows.

Thats not to say vanilla is not enjoyable but to say the combat felt more punchy is a bit of an overstatement.

[WowIsDead64]

Abilities in retail WoW don't seem to have much punch like they used to in Classic. For example in retail wow, the abilities of ret paladin all are animated to look as if they hit hard, but they don't seem to feel that way.

For example, mortal strike in classic feels like you're actually hitting the target with a hard hitting ability, but in retail wow, it just feels like another regular attack.

I think the reason is because in classic, most of your damage was in auto attacks, and you pressed spells occasionally like mortal strike that did a lot of damage.

Whereas in retail wow, most of your abilities come from inter-weaving spells in a rotation, so each individual spell feels less impactful.

Any thoughts?

It's not first time, when it happens. First time was in Cata. First "permanent" nerf was in MOP. You're healer? You cast HOT on other player? But you don't even feel it, because this HOT heals 0.1% HP per second, so it isn't even noticeable on HP bar? Yeah, it's MOP. It was time, when we had abilities, that were usable during long 10min boss fights only and were useless in all other cases.

Any game should be responsive. Player should feel feedback from it. When he uses some ability - he should feel it. Unfortunately for us Blizzard tend to overtune things, when they try to make game more "challenging". This makes some abilities useless.

[deenman]

The more abilities you have, the more the damage will be spread among them.

It's not rocket science.

dude,it doesnt matter if i have 100 abilities or 2,if all those 100 feel like a fart vs those 2 that feel like a chainsaw,are you joking or trying to be cute?

[Rageonit]

In classic, you had abilities on CDs that could hit hard; in retail, you have (or should have) damage windows when you do a lot of damage. That is because the "rotations" are more involved; and the skill/talent/cd interactions more sophisticated. Same with healing - there are very few skills that feel super impactful on click, but you can setup huge healing combos with several skills/CDs. I like it more, because I believe it's more fun when setting up that big hit (whether it's damage or healing) involves actual player skill and not just clicking a single big button.

[LordVargK]

Play Ele shaman. You feel like you've rained hell upon everyone standing in your way!

Then you look at your DPS meter and begin to cry.

But at least it feels very good.

[Echocho]

In retail every class plays like the vanilla rogue, lots of small hits that slowly trickle your health down. It's very boring, formulaic and every class ends up having high APM. I much prefer the diversity of Classic where you could find a playstyle that you liked. In retail the biggest difference between the classes is how the abilities look, they all feel very similar and it bores me to tears.