What is the actual impact of returning old niche abilities?

[Alcsaar]

A lot of people seem to be praising Blizzard for a massive directional change on class development.

All we've seen at Blizzcon is that they're re adding a bunch of pruned abilities to classes.

Abilities that were pruned for a reason because 99% of the time you never had a reason to use them.

In addition, they're giving some cross-spec abilities back as base line.

Lets look at mages for example. Let's say Frost mages get access to Fireball again. What reason does a frost mage have to actually cast a fireball? Their talents and masteries don't impact fireball at all. It would just be a straight dps loss. As a result, it is still never going to get used and may as well continue to be spec locked.

Blizzard would have to completely redesign masteries, stats, and talents in order to promote the use of abilities that don't currently benefit from your stats or specs. Yet, they've made no indication of doing so at Blizzcon. Not examples, not even (from what I recall) a statement saying they're reworking this stuff.

So what gives? What is so special about returning old abilities that still won't see use with out other major changes?

[spalernTJ]

Eye of the beast baby, biggest impact on the game since it was removed.

[CrawlFromThePit]

A lot of people seem to be praising Blizzard for a massive directional change on class development.

All we've seen at Blizzcon is that they're re adding a bunch of pruned abilities to classes.

Abilities that were pruned for a reason because 99% of the time you never had a reason to use them.

In addition, they're giving some cross-spec abilities back as base line.

Lets look at mages for example. Let's say Frost mages get access to Fireball again. What reason does a frost mage have to actually cast a fireball? Their talents and masteries don't impact fireball at all. It would just be a straight dps loss. As a result, it is still never going to get used and may as well continue to be spec locked.

Blizzard would have to completely redesign masteries, stats, and talents in order to promote the use of abilities that don't currently benefit from your stats or specs. Yet, they've made no indication of doing so at Blizzcon. Not examples, not even (from what I recall) a statement saying they're reworking this stuff.

So what gives? What is so special about returning old abilities that still won't see use with out other major changes?

Well, my first point is yes you are right Blizzard should entirely redesign talents and stats, not just for putting pruned abilities back in, but just because it's extremely bland right now.

For some classes this is a much bigger change, if I understood well every DK spec is getting the Ghoul back and hunters are getting killshot back so that's something. But the main reason that people are happy is mostly because that moves makes them feel like they were right and blizz was wrong. It's a moral victory more than anything else. Unless Blizzard entirely changes the talent system and makes these abilities useful in every spec, it's mostly useless in many cases like you said.

[bullseyed]

Lets look at mages for example. Let's say Frost mages get access to Fireball again. What reason does a frost mage have to actually cast a fireball?

The low IQ types of people who whine about stuff probably will be casting fireball all the time as a frost mage. Because that's what happens in LFR.

- - - Updated - - -

Eye of the beast baby, biggest impact on the game since it was removed.

Eyes of the beast has no purpose with PVP flagging removed in favor of war mode.


They should refactor it to allow the hunter to teleport to their pet, giving hunter + cat = solo shroud.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, my first point is yes you are right Blizzard should entirely redesign talents and stats, not just for putting pruned abilities back in, but just because it's extremely bland right now.

For some classes this is a much bigger change, if I understood well every DK spec is getting the Ghoul back and hunters are getting killshot back so that's something. But the main reason that people are happy is mostly because that moves makes them feel like they were right and blizz was wrong. It's a moral victory more than anything else. Unless Blizzard entirely changes the talent system and makes these abilities useful in every spec, it's mostly useless in many cases like you said.

Of course Blizzard wasn't wrong, though.

Hunters getting killshot back for example is pretty dumb. Only warriors should have execute. They had already added other "execute-like" abilities for BM and MM hunters as well (which presumably will be removed).

[Phabulous]

It makes players happy. In this instance, potentially a whole lot of players.

That's something Blizzard could sorely use right about now.

[Soon-TM]

A lot of people seem to be praising Blizzard for a massive directional change on class development.

All we've seen at Blizzcon is that they're re adding a bunch of pruned abilities to classes.

Abilities that were pruned for a reason because 99% of the time you never had a reason to use them.

In addition, they're giving some cross-spec abilities back as base line.

Lets look at mages for example. Let's say Frost mages get access to Fireball again. What reason does a frost mage have to actually cast a fireball? Their talents and masteries don't impact fireball at all. It would just be a straight dps loss. As a result, it is still never going to get used and may as well continue to be spec locked.

Blizzard would have to completely redesign masteries, stats, and talents in order to promote the use of abilities that don't currently benefit from your stats or specs. Yet, they've made no indication of doing so at Blizzcon. Not examples, not even (from what I recall) a statement saying they're reworking this stuff.

So what gives? What is so special about returning old abilities that still won't see use with out other major changes?

In its current implementation, it makes no sense at all. They should massively revert all specs to at least a pre-Legion (preferrably pre-Cata) state for this "unpruning" to be something more than a couple of old skills being added back in a vacuum.

[brt2pp]

literally no impact whatsoever, all buffs will be pointless because game will be designed with them in mind, every single other ability will be used by rp'ers and noone else. i'm waiting to see what they will actuall do with classes, not just add pointless abilities that do nothing

[Rendark]

Because removing shamans totems was fucking lame as shit. I play Enh most of the time and i loved my searing totem.

[MoanaLisa]

Doesn't that depend on what they are and how they are balanced? Second thread I've seen from this account centered around the assumption that since the developers didn't say much about class changes at Blizzcon that not much is going to change.

[Segus1992]

Not everything has to be a part of the DPS rotation. Yeah, Fireball for non-Fire Mages is useless (was that even a thing though?) but Frostbolt for non-Frost Mages isn't.

[Puthred]

Not everything has to be a part of the DPS rotation. Yeah, Fireball for non-Fire Mages is useless (was that even a thing though?) but Frostbolt for non-Frost Mages isn't.

the dot against stealth classes

[Segus1992]

literally no impact whatsoever, all buffs will be pointless because game will be designed with them in mind, every single other ability will be used by rp'ers and noone else. i'm waiting to see what they will actuall do with classes, not just add pointless abilities that do nothing

By this logic we should all just have one button with 40y range, no cast time, and X damage. Because the game will be balanced around it anyway.

[Dimsum84]

"What is the actual impact of returning old niche abilities?"
Getting people excited for old things they took away xD

they just cleaned a dirty car and passed it off as new features. (dont get me wrong, sweet that they are coming back, but i know what the spells do already..hopefully they add some flair to these returning spells)

[Segus1992]

the dot against stealth classes

I meant it as in was that a thing they said they're bringing back? They didn't mention Fireball having the DoT, which would be strange seeing as the Fire version doesn't.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Of course Blizzard wasn't wrong, though.

Hunters getting killshot back for example is pretty dumb. Only warriors should have execute. They had already added other "execute-like" abilities for BM and MM hunters as well (which presumably will be removed).

Paladins are getting their execute back. Spriests still have their own but it's a talent. I don't see in whose ass you pulled that "only warriors should have execute" literal bullshit from.

What other execute like abilities hunter had? The fuck you talking about?

[Soon-TM]

Not everything has to be a part of the DPS rotation. Yeah, Fireball for non-Fire Mages is useless (was that even a thing though?) but Frostbolt for non-Frost Mages isn't.

It was an actual DPS increase (against non-fire immune things ofc) in Vanilla/BC, but it was terrible when it came to DPM though.

[brt2pp]

By this logic we should all just have one button with 40y range, no cast time, and X damage. Because the game will be balanced around it anyway.

buffs were removed for a reason,and the reason was, they were meaningless, and they will still be, they add nothing to gameplay, they just bloat skillbook, most players doesn't even have them in actionbar, they just caste them off spellbook so rarely it's needed

[FlemmMinis]

Realistic answer?

People will cry they got the wrong abilities back.

[Puthred]

I meant it as in was that a thing they said they're bringing back? They didn't mention Fireball having the DoT, which would be strange seeing as the Fire version doesn't.

Oh yea, they removed it. My point is, it had its uses at one point.

[shoegazing]

A lot of people seem to be praising Blizzard for a massive directional change on class development.

All we've seen at Blizzcon is that they're re adding a bunch of pruned abilities to classes.

Abilities that were pruned for a reason because 99% of the time you never had a reason to use them.

In addition, they're giving some cross-spec abilities back as base line.

Lets look at mages for example. Let's say Frost mages get access to Fireball again. What reason does a frost mage have to actually cast a fireball? Their talents and masteries don't impact fireball at all. It would just be a straight dps loss. As a result, it is still never going to get used and may as well continue to be spec locked.

Blizzard would have to completely redesign masteries, stats, and talents in order to promote the use of abilities that don't currently benefit from your stats or specs. Yet, they've made no indication of doing so at Blizzcon. Not examples, not even (from what I recall) a statement saying they're reworking this stuff.

So what gives? What is so special about returning old abilities that still won't see use with out other major changes?

The point you are missing is that other players have playstyles that use those buttons way more often than you think.

As a Rogue, when I play PvP my dps rotation is often secondary to controlling the battlefield.

Gouge, Shiv, and Poisons? Those are my bread and butter as a PvP Rogue. I use them to kite other players, to create space for restealthing (get more stuns and burst openers that way, which matters more than throughput that is measured on the meters), to protect my teammates. They were pruned by PvE experienced designers who didn't fully understand the impact they were making on PvP by removing those abilities.

The impact of returning these abilities? It means everything to me and to other players like me.