Colossal Prune Confirmed

[Deleted]

i feel so sorry for mages and warlocks.

soon its going to be borderline skyrim style absolute dull and boring magic class game play. SPAM FIREBALL.... AND MORE FIREBALL... FOLLWED by more fireball..... even if you're conjurer... at least skyrim had mods with this we're stuck with it. and whats sad is that it's almost like that all ready with the MORE FIREBALL spam.

i really don't like this. i'm tired of this nonsensical purging and all blizzard is doing is alienating a player base even more that has already highly alienated.

like it or not but a lot of us actually like walking up hill both ways. we like a challenge, even if all that challenge that's provided to us is micro management.

unless these 15 abilities are the next best thing since slice bread, except more sub loss. i mean we had a sub loss just from no flying till 6.2.

You mean like it used to be a while ago ?

[Sylvestra]

I don't like this pruning at all, but I guess people that aren't good at games like it.

[Deleted]

Yeah so awesome having half your spellbook gutted.

Wait, you USED all those spells in your spellbook.

Nah, I don't believe you.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't like this pruning at all, but I guess people that aren't good at games like it.

Ooooor... you're just shit.

I'm good at this game. I don't mind a little bit of ability pruning. Wasn't using every single spell in the spellbook anyway.

[melodramocracy]

I don't like this pruning at all, but I guess people that aren't good at games like it.

It's not a question of how good a person is at a game really. Pruning elements in this particular game limits your options in how you might approach various situations. Granted, it may not drastically change the raiding side of things, where an opener is typically static from one boss to the next, but raiding is just one slice of the game.

The GW2 comparisons are also a bit off-base because that games combat also works on an evasion and aoe system that really isn't present here at all. Those elements add to combat, to make up for an individual players rather limited in-combat abilities.

[Deleted]

This is such an idiotic argument and I'm beginning to get annoyed seeing it in this thread.

Do you understand that MOBAs are a different genre? Different mechanics in place that differentiate them from MMOs? No, you don't, you're clueless, and wouldn't have made your post if you weren't.

Fucking hate this website.

You obviously didn't read my previous post, you just home in on the ones you can talk shit about apparently. I'll link it for you as you're obviously too smart to waste your time looking for it

"I know it's a silly comparison, but there's SO many great games out there that feel good with less buttons. LoL / Dota / HOTS, yes, I understand they're a COMPLETELY different genre. But all of these games feel great to play, the simplicity is actually nice and it doesn't take anything away from having a complex style of game that results in an extremely high skill curve. "

You seem to be one of the few people here who actually care about the skill prune, talking trash about those who do, calling them bad etc. You're probably in the 1700 margin in arena rating, no leading in world first bosses etc, so why do you think you're better than anybody else here..?

If you're so angry about the fact there's going to be a few more skills missing, don't play the game when it comes out? You have literally been posting the same thing now for 9 pages at this point...

[muffinss]

- Battle Stance
- Defensive Stance
- Victory Rush
- Hamstring (Arms/Prot only? Not sure)
- Taunt (Prot only)
- Shield Barrier (Gone?)
- Spell Reflect (Prot only)
- Intervene (Prot only)
- Die by the Sword (Arms only talent)
- Battle Shout ('merged' into Recklessness)
- Commanding Shout ('merged' into Rallying Cry)
- Shattering Throw (unless it's now a PVP talent)
- Not to mention tons of other active abilities which no longer exist as talents, such as Vigilance, Bloodbath, Ravager, etc.

I noticed this too on every class I tried out.

My spell book was only 1.5 - 2 pages long including passives....

I only had about 5 or 6 real things to put on my bar.

Made me feel kinda bored. After a 100 levels and many hard fought battles, my character only knows a few spells? C'mon Blizzard... enough is enough.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20043464936

one of the alpha testing made a thread about it. seems like its really getting noticed now.

[Delana]

The rotations now are orders of magnitude more complex than they were in TBC and Wotlk. Moreover, they reward perfect play much more than they did before. This is actually a bad thing in a social raiding game. It makes the raid scene more and more exclusionary, pushes people from the game, and leads to guild death when you encounter a boss that is, numerically, entirely beyond your player skill.

Raid bosses used to be about communication and coordination. The DPS/HPS numbers were secondary. Now, it's much the opposite.

I personally saw players who I raided with for years, who showed up every night, and legitimately loved the game just not have "it" to raid at a high level in MOP. It was a really rough position to be in as a GM to have to sit them...for what? What is the purpose of punishing dedicated players because they aren't top 1%? I'm not talking about wanting to be a world ranked guild...I'm saying that sitting good, dedicated, smart, responsible players was necessary to progress at a consistent pace (clear end boss before next tier sort of pace). The very same players that Killed Yogg 1, sarth 3d, Heroic Nefarian, etc. as core raiders.

The solution is that the delta between good dps and great dps needs to be about 10-15% or so. The best players and guilds still win the "race", but the game becomes way less about the perfect rotation and more about coordination, strategy, and teamwork, as it was in the past, and should be again. (For reference right now it seems to be ~35% or more glancing through warcraftlogs between the 50th and 95th percentile in mythic.) That is, to say, that a raid of 95th percentile players can lose 3 or 4 guys (6 or 7 with rez's) over the course of a mythic encounter and still win...

There weren't many raidboss fights where hunters had to trap anything in BC. So I'm not sure what's your point.
Most classes had primitively easy "rotations" in BC, yet it was the best expansion.

As a raid leader (prot warrior) in TBC, a good hunter was a pillar of the raid group. Getting through trash efficiently was a huge part of the game...nit the snoozefest it is now. Our hunter marked the pull, MD'd, double trapped, etc. As a tank you had to work with your hunter to make sure the (trash) pull went properly. Any mistake on the pull was often a wipe.


That sort of depth is what wow has lost... It needs it back.

[Deleted]

As a raid leader (prot warrior) in TBC, a good hunter was a pillar of the raid group. Getting through trash efficiently was a huge part of the game...nit the snoozefest it is now. Our hunter marked the pull, MD'd, double trapped, etc. As a tank you had to work with your hunter to make sure the (trash) pull went properly. Any mistake on the pull was often a wipe.


That sort of depth is what wow has lost... It needs it back.

The crucial thing I'm taking from this post is that a raid seemed to almost require a hunter.

I mean, if none of me and me 12 mates want to play a hunter, are we fucked?

Vanilla was even worse when it came to this issue, that certain classes were absolutely needed, rather than played and enjoyed just because the person wanted to play and enjoy them.

No, the model today is MUCH, much better. Miles ahead of TBC. Bring the player, not the class was a huge step in making this a much better game.

[Baconeggcheese]

Maybe, I'm not against pruning in general but will this be too much?

Considering 15 buttons is still way the fuck more than most classes currently press on a regular basis, no.

Considering the game is way healthier and intuitive for new players when it has less buttons, while still having depth for veteran players by having all this choice in talents etc...

No, this isn't too much. It's removing a ton of fluff.

[Manabomb]

15 active abilities is plenty. Having so many buttons to push is too many. Frankly, I think 10-12 rotational abilities, including cooldowns, is the sweet spot. So many abilities are redundant. The game has gotten so out of control to the point that add-ons are practically mandatory just to track your buffs, CD's, abilites, etc. We even need add-ons to tell us to move out of the fire because we have to stare at the UI so intently to manage our 20+ abilities that we don't have time to actually look at our toon.

I'm just hoping that with the separation of PvP and PvE that we will actually see a return of cool, meaningful abilities, and a move away from the "every dps spell is a dot" crap that has plagued the game since Wrath.

So wait. It's too hard for your tiny little brain to keep track of whether or not your character is in fire and whether or not you should move?

That sounds like excuses from bad players trying to make a simpler game sound better because it only benefits them. It was not hard to play this game at a maximum level now, or before when we had so many buttons in vanilla or TBC when it was far more redundant. These changes simplify what was already pretty watered down into a series of candy crush saga esque mini games you tap at your keyboard to win.

It could be argued that they are doing this in favor of making boss encounters far more difficult while also trying to open up the game to players of the MOBA and other fast paced markets, but I don't see the appeal of abandoning what it means to be an MMORPG (skillful play, social activities and a learning curve).

[threads]

not a fan of pruning in general but if i have more than 4 buttons in my rotation then it's atleast better than WoD

[Mlz]

Considering 15 buttons is still way the fuck more than most classes currently press on a regular basis, no.

Considering the game is way healthier and intuitive for new players when it has less buttons, while still having depth for veteran players by having all this choice in talents etc...

No, this isn't too much. It's removing a ton of fluff.

Choice in talents? You're delusional. I expect topics like this become quite frequent aswell, as the next step towards making the game more "accessible"

[Baconeggcheese]

Choice in talents? You're delusional. I expect topics like this become quite frequent aswell, as the next step towards making the game more "accessible"

Your argument is clear and concise with strong backing and is very compelling.

[DrMcNinja]

Well, in my opinion some games with few abilities have as much, if not more, depth than a game with 1000 spells. It's all about implementation. We'll see where this ship takes us to.

[DeadmanWalking]

OP didn't complete his spec talents, didn't get to max level in alpha, didn't fill out the artifact weapon tree, complains not enough buttons. Sounds like a legit MMOchamp thread, now if only we could blame 'filthy casuals' and it would definately be a mmochamp thread.

[Yuyuli]

The pruning isn't as massive as people think.

It looks massive if you not only ignore Talents but also the PvP Talents. Our normal talents no longer have talents that are PvP oriented, so Basespells + Talents + PvP Talents + the 1-2 or something spells from your Artifact.

[americandavey]

Nothing wrong with pruning TANKING abilities from a DPS(Fury) spec. Heck PRUNE Healing and tanking abilities from DPS Hybrids.

My "wannabe Fire mage" Warlock has 3 pages in the ability book, 2 spaces in the third page is Passive, the not so filled up 4 page is nothing but passives.

Not include utility, defensive CDs and Trinket. How many abilities is my lock my really using EVERY TIME?

[DrMcNinja]

OP didn't complete his spec talents, didn't get to max level in alpha, didn't fill out the artifact weapon tree, complains not enough buttons. Sounds like a legit MMOchamp thread, now if only we could blame 'filthy casuals' and it would definately be a mmochamp thread.

Only a filthy casual would say this.

/thread

[Gheld]

I mean, it appears we're looking at a blood DK here.

What's missing?
Icy Touch? Unholy Strike? Soul Reaper? Super exciting abilities that rarely get used if at all.

And I see several extra abilities you could have talented in but didn't.

[Dizzeeyooo]

while still having depth for veteran players by having all this choice in talents etc...

I will never for the life of me understand why so many people seem to think that picking an aoe talent for an aoe fight, then picking a single target talent for a single target fight, then picking a movement talent for a movement heavy fight constitutes "depth" and "choice"

previously, we had every single one of those abilities available for use all the time, and used all of them when it was appropriate to do so - now, we are permanently locked out of using 66% of our available buttons, and pick whichever option results in slightly better performance - where is the choice in any of that lol