Doesn't reducing utility and mobility mean less interesting encounters?

[Krazzorx]

Except that maximising DPS hasn't been a thing since Garalon. They just accepted there and then that wiping to an enrage despite beating the mechanics was lame. And it is.

This only applies to normal though. Many heroic fights still have tight dps checks on heroic. Certainly when not overgeared at least. Thok, Paragons, Durumu, Dark Animus are a few examples.

- - - Updated - - -

The vast majority of non-raid defensive CDs are remaining. Interrupts are still a thing, BoP still exists, etc.

The problem is currently that what normally would be "healing checks" are handled by dps raid CDs. Things like Iron Juggernaut Shock pulses, Dark Shaman Falling Ash recovery, etc. which should be the "healer" phase of the fight are handled by dps now. That doesn't really make sense.

Having only healers having healing Raid CDs is just common sense. Its like tanks topping dps checks (being fixed) and healers topping dps checks, the current situation.

Non-defensive utility is remaining.

Reducing mobility is to balance ranged vs melee.

[Deleted]

Except that maximising DPS hasn't been a thing since Garalon. They just accepted there and then that wiping to an enrage despite beating the mechanics was lame. And it is.

Yeah on normal mode, or when clearing HC encounters much later with 20+ more ilvl then they were tuned for.For example Lei Shen HC on 25 was the definition of min maxing and using class utility to the fullest in his prime,obviously this doesn't apply when you kill him 5+ months later.

Likewise, Mythical will be tuned to be extremely difficult, to have people min max dps/mobility/utility/class/skill. But this will apply much more towards guilds hungry for progress that already cleared Siege last year then to guilds that haven't killed Garrosh HC yet.

P.S Warlocks at least needed massive utility/mobility nerfs. The class as a whole in WoD has been more overpowered for progression then most other classes can dream of.

[Bullettime]

Both Celestalon and Watcher have said on Twitter and elsewhere that movement DPS will continue to be present in WoD raiding; you'll simply be expected to use filler instants etc. to deal with that. They're very much trying to bring ranged DPS back in line with melee DPS.

Except ranged and melee are already in line with each other power wise if top end outliers were brought down a hair (Affliction, Arcane.) If you browsed things like raidbots and looked at the averages, it's a healthy mix of melee and ranged from top to bottom.

Overall though, Jessicka has a point. We'll have to see how the encounters are designed but they simply can't hack everyone's mobility and keep designing encounters like they did in MoP. Encounters like Dark Shaman, Durumu, Thok, Animus, Juggernaut, or Siegecrafter simply can't exist in an environment where healers can't heal on the move and ranged DPS can't do effective damage when dealing with constant movement or frequent twitch movement.

[Flutterguy]

Nobody wants a truly interesting boss encounter because..

"I want to play my class, not [insert vehicle mechanic]."
"I want to play my class, not [insert class specific ability needed to complete encounter]."
"I want to play my class, not move around all the time because my class only does well when standing still for long periods of time."

Bring the player, not the class has limited much of what a raid encounter can be, but that's the price for allowing people to play the classes they want and still progress.

It's not an easy problem to resolve. How do you make an encounter interesting and still make it so that any class can succeed on it?

[Aboubacar]

you guys must have forgot about heroic rag and all of t11. Should be fine w/o mobility. I have the same concern though, I doubt there could be another fight as interesting as heroic lei shen in WoD, it just wouldn't work

[Wyrt]

The last bossfight in which people had to use their class utility was High King Maulgar. I didn't notice any specific bossfights in MoP that required polymorphing, spellstealing, fearing, hamstringing, enslave demon, seduce, interrupt, sprint, tremor totem, or anything else. The warlock tanking required during TBC on some bosses (Leo and Illidan) was pretty cool too.

Really? Because as a ret paladin I use almost all of my utility spells in SoO.

[IxilaFA]

When they first announced 20 Mythic as the new singular format for high end raiding, they said the reasoning was to be able to make much more use of class utility to make encounters more interesting because in the larger format you'd be more likely to have said utility available, and I was pretty excited and very possitive about it. Yet now with the new announcement of class ability pruning, they've directly said that they want to reign in class utility to the lower base, rather than expand on those with little utility by offering them more. It seems like they're trying to "fix" a problem in class design, that already stopped existing with the change to the raiding model.

On top of this, they're aiming for reduced mobility for ranged classes and healers; and with encounters designed around the toolkits available, this kinda suggests that actually ranged and healers won't really be expected to move much either. So if we don't need to move, and don't have any tools left (Warlock utility is particularly passive - as strong as it is, it actually requires the other players to click it); we're not left with not a lot to do beyond DPSing stuff. Where are those moments for you to let your class 'shine' going to come in, that 20 Mythic was supposed to be all about?

Blizzard said they want to make movement a penalty, not take it away entirely. Nowadays, movement heavy fights don't really matter to most classes. Oh you're an Ele Shammy on Shamans? Not an interesting fight, no cost to move away from storms, etc. It will be cool to see how they make people move and manage their rotations effectively. DPS that can manage their movement and rotation the best will shine over those who are poor at moving and DPSing.

BC had some of the most creative boss fights despite limited mobility for almost every single ranged class and healer (except Druids, of course). Shamans back then didn't even have an instant cast heal, Holy Paladins had a very weak Holy Shock, etc. Mythic allows them to try all sorts of different things because now the expectation is there that you'll have at least one of every class. We could see spell-stealing fights, fights that focus on Amp Magic's utility, Warlock portals, etc.

So far as creativity goes, MoP fights weren't very high up there. Siegecrafter, Lei Shen, Dark Animus and Paragons are probably the only interesting fights that actually require an out-of-the-box strategy, perfect combinations of movement, perfect raid coordination, etc. Everything else was "Don't stand in bad, heal through the burst phases, use cooldowns."

[Pennoyer]

Making specs harder to play naturally makes encounters more interesting. It's difficult to design interesting encounters when everyone has an "I win" button for every situation.

Easy gameplay = boring game.

[PrairieChicken]

Less utility means that you will have to get the full grunt of the abilities lots of times instead of having millions of stuff to get away with it. Should be more brutal and fun. Doing dances all the time isn't only "fun" that raids can offer.

Furthermore nerfs to ranged mobility? It is job of melee to move around freely not casters. Needed nerf anyway

[Tehterokkar]

It will only be better for the game to remove DPS on the move. You did it like this in Vanilla, TBC and Wrath(also partly Cata too), can't see why WoD would be any different.

I wouldn't be surprised if they hit Kiljaeden's Cunning with a nerfbat(reduced movement speed again?) sometime after beta starts for Warlocks, then there is still Fire Mages with their Scorch and Hunters as a whole.

Hunters will finally get something special that defines them, which is, full DPS on the move. Although I expect that if you want best single target damage, you'll have to pick Snipe(3 second cast, can't be cast while moving) from the T100 talents which forces Hunters to stand still again, which is fine for fights where you aren't interrupted all the time(Juggernaut/Malkorok both have mechanics that "interrupt" casting randomly).

Without being biased as I play Hunter for my main, this will make the game better, the amount of instant attacks, instant CC and CD stacking in this current state of the game is pretty stupid. Everyone remembers BM Hunters from the first month of the expansion in Arena literally killing any class within 3-4 seconds(Stampede -> BW+Lynx Rush -> KC -> Readiness+KC).

[Tharkkun]

But that's the other issue here: They're trimming back class/raid utility which means there's less scope for this too.

Not exactly. They are separating utility into specs and removing instant CC type abilities that have little effect on PVE.

[Bosen]

Maybe it's being set up this way to slow the pace of dungeon runs. No more GOGOGO.

[Bullettime]

It will only be better for the game to remove DPS on the move. You did it like this in Vanilla, TBC and Wrath(also partly Cata too), can't see why WoD would be any different.

I wouldn't be surprised if they hit Kiljaeden's Cunning with a nerfbat(reduced movement speed again?) sometime after beta starts for Warlocks, then there is still Fire Mages with their Scorch and Hunters as a whole.

Hunters will finally get something special that defines them, which is, full DPS on the move. Although I expect that if you want best single target damage, you'll have to pick Snipe(3 second cast, can't be cast while moving) from the T100 talents which forces Hunters to stand still again, which is fine for fights where you aren't interrupted all the time(Juggernaut/Malkorok both have mechanics that "interrupt" casting randomly).

Without being biased as I play Hunter for my main, this will make the game better, the amount of instant attacks, instant CC and CD stacking in this current state of the game is pretty stupid. Everyone remembers BM Hunters from the first month of the expansion in Arena literally killing any class within 3-4 seconds(Stampede -> BW+Lynx Rush -> KC -> Readiness+KC).

Movement allowed them to make more interesting encounters. Axing mobility on everyone will require us to go back to predominantly tank and spank style encounters like we saw a lot in classic/BC or garbage encounters like Ra-den. Encounters like Lei Shen, Malkorok, Dark Shaman, Siegecrafter, or even things like Animus would not be able to exist in the new environment.

[Dreyen]

I honestly never got a vibe that blizzard was reducing utility... raid cooldowns were severely getting out of hand, to the point where i can honestly say raid CDs were getting quite skilless, thok being an absolute abberation...

There will still be tons of utility, unique stuff to each class, I really don't feel like it's being toned down. theres still lots of stuns, silences, knockbacks, slows, taunts, defensive cds... to be use by all the different specs that you will be able to strategize around it. Blizzard plans to have more of this since theres no more 10man in mythic, so you might see lock and mage tanks again, BoP being part of the strat instead of a bonus, etc.. Not to mention new boss mechanics overall.

As a far mobility goes, it only goes for ranged players, everyone wil have something to do on the move, but in the end it'll all be about efficient movement. This is also meant as a balance point between ranged and melee. It will be a way to differenciate skill between ranged players and healers.

[IxilaFA]

Movement allowed them to make more interesting encounters. Axing mobility on everyone will require us to go back to predominantly tank and spank style encounters like we saw a lot in classic/BC or garbage encounters like Ra-den. Encounters like Lei Shen, Malkorok, Dark Shaman, Siegecrafter, or even things like Animus would not be able to exist in the new environment.

They can exist just fine, the only difference will be that DPS numbers need to be adjusted. You might not be able to do as much damage on Siegecrafter without mobile casting, but that's the point. You have to get to the point where you're not moving to maximize your DPS. A good raid will have the perfect positioning where their players only have to move every once in awhile. A bad raid won't.

[melodramocracy]

Pre-MoP: increased mobility will allow us to make more interesting fights.
Post-MoP: decreased mobility will allow us to make more interesting fights.

Once WoD starts, you'll observe the almost certain storm of complaints about one ranged class having more mobility than another, thus being preferred in various encounters.

[theburned]

not sure how adding a cast time to WG will make us not jump in the air and do 360's, as long as we are still using rejuvenation as our most used spell.

[Sunseeker]

There isn't a whole lot of mobility available to most classes, just one or two abilities and I question how often they're used. As for "utility" I also question how much utility actually is useful in the average boss fight.

[Paula Deen]

Elemental shines most, in my opinion on heavy aoe and or light movement fights. Blackfuse, Spoils, Galakras, and Norushen are some of my personal favorites. If we are still talking about elemental and its "good" elements.

[Koreche]

Movement allowed them to make more interesting encounters. Axing mobility on everyone will require us to go back to predominantly tank and spank style encounters like we saw a lot in classic/BC or garbage encounters like Ra-den. Encounters like Lei Shen, Malkorok, Dark Shaman, Siegecrafter, or even things like Animus would not be able to exist in the new environment.

yes they can, you just wont be able to pop a sprint every time something looks at you funny.