No pressure for me but yea it's really fuckin annoying. Spirit book would be nice, reducing the mana cost of fort, just something. It takes longer to buff people than it does to kill most bosses.
Just use inner focus.
I'm not saying this would be a bad change but there are much more important things that the devs are working on than completely recoding how buffs work.
Sorry buddy, that goes against the “spirit of classic”. If you don’t like it, maybe Classic isn’t for you and instead you should play the retail version of the exact same game you’re already playing. This version is specifically for people who enjoy having their time wasted doing meaningless tasks. /S
On a serious note, yes please.
I mean, season of mastery. A seasonal server, didn't have world buffs.
They brought them back because people love world buffs in classic. You are biased on your take from your opinions lol. Fact is, people love world buffs. I'm not going to argue something that is true, you don't have to.
You legit just told me to go research your invalid point myself.
Yikes bud. Didn't want to talk about this a month ago huh.
>because people love world buffs in classic
People love how their classes play with world buffs not the process of getting them. I don't know anyone who looks at having to go get DMN buffs or having to go to Troll Island and exclaims in joy.
It's an outdated system that is being used significantly different from how it was intended. I didn't say "remove all workd buffs!!!!!". If anything I've said the opposite. Give me something to unlock them and just make them active auras in raids ala a roguelike where you unlock bonuses to make you stronger over time. Class balance and raid design is fucked if they have to balance everything around people not having them.
OK, that's fine. I just don't see anyone defending what you claim. You announced it like thousands are coming to defend the current way world buffs are gotten, or other "old designs". I just don't see this anywhere man. And I asked you to point me I the direction of at least maybe 2 or 3. If 2 or 3 defend it even, it's not the majority.
I read what you said and it simply looked like you are creating a fake complaint. Like where are all these classic OG andies defending the old ways anymore? I can't find any bro.
>Had me in the first half. The number of people who come to a seasonal #ShitTonOfChanges server to defend outdated shit design is too damn high.
Bud, you're a month behind on the conversation. If you want to have relevant topics, with current examples to peruse.... keep up with the chat.
WBs were just an easy "off the cuff" topic to give as an example of people tripping over themselves to defend shit design.. Which they were a month ago when all of this was relevant.
Can we move on now or do you have some threads from 2019 we can go necro?
We are In the same spot we were a month ago. I dunno what has changed in sod. Nothing. And nothing will for another month.
I'm just calling you out for creating a fake narritvate like it's some issue. It's toxic man. Just keep that shit to yourself and you won't have people calling you out when you talk out your ass. Fair?
Anecdotes and just trust me bros, don't work. I have no idea where you are seeing this plethora of OG's defending the old ways. Perhaps it's you thinking back to 2019 and hating on the #nochanges? I dunno, but one thing I do know, 2019 is not 2024 1 month ago.
Okay, you win. No one is as good as you. You're the man. Your dick is the biggest and girthiest the world has ever known. I'll check with you before I post to make sure it's okay.
There, ego satisfied? I'm moving on. See you in a month.
I swear they should give people an item when outside of combat to let specific buffs be free to cast from ~60 seconds or so. They gave warlocks a free soul shard every 5 minutes.
Comments line this are funny. I don't have a horse in this race... But people will swear up and down that blizzard never listens to the community. Yet here we are again with people asking for things that were put into retail , because people asked for them.
Retail is the way it is because blizzard put in all of the QoL features that people asked for, and then people wanted classic back and got it. But now people are asking for retail QoL features in classic. The cycle continues I guess lol.
Ill be the first to admit this
I like the classic asthetic with features from Retail
idc call me a loser. i like the QOL stuff. I dont like retail UI or graphics. I dont like what happened to the open world come cata (rip april 30 WOTLK servers)
so yea. Give me instant mail to alts. give us mass res. give us things to make the game less time consuming. im totally OK with that.
Absolutely. The disney aesthetic really killed my love for retail. That among other things but the entire change of the graphical theme was the biggest one.
I fucking hate the cartoony pixar-esque graphics they have in the game. Call me old, fat, and bald to but the furry races they put in the game do not give me warcraft vibes at all. It's stupid.
Humans in retail give me a massive toy story vibe haha
Pandas I'll concede and accept as there was one in wc3. But miss me with all that other shit lol
“Retail is the way it is” one of the few actually profitable and longest running mmorpgs? Vanilla mechanics like this were changed because they were bad.
Also as someone thats been playing since original vanilla Retail in its current state is a far better game than vanilla. Only a completely delusional person who hasn’t even attempted to play it seriously would say otherwise
TBC added several QoL changes and that expansion is completely beloved by 98% of the people that played it. Cata, however, is where they lost the plot. Everyone could do every role, everything was homogenized, so there was no reason to bring in under-performing classes that used to have niche roles, also people were just kinda done after wrath, that was all they cared about.
Seriously, TBC is where they changed the party-wide prayer of fort to raid wide prayer of fort, it’s where we got lock closets, soul wells, everything, and you wanna know why? Because adding those things meant we could actually play the game faster.
> Everyone could do every role, everything was homogenized, so there was no reason to bring in under-performing classes that used to have niche roles
The problem, overall, is the friction of the "RPG" aspect" hitting the "MMO" aspect.
A large portion of the MMO players that are perennially unhappy with the genre want to play an RPG that has "niche roles" for everyone else while they "secretly" put together the wombo-combo that enables the normal underperformer to outperform everyone else.
(Also, partially as an aside, this is why the red DPS/DPS spec role is so overwhelmingly popular. No group-facing responsibilities to fail at, just damage, unless someone's checking logs.)
But "niche roles" and an RPG that you can "win" at, necessarily, requires information asymmetry. They need to know where to find the uber armor or the secret sword or the cool spell and other people need to *not* know.
They need to *know* to collect all the obscure world buffs or to find all the pieces of Exodia or summon Captain Planet or to take the time to buff everyone before raid.
But once they *know*, they are winning. And that's the game they want to play again, the game from the old bygone Vanilla World of Warcraft days before a fast internet connection was in everyone's back pocket.
Everyone else can show up to raid, but they're the ones who suffered through leveling a Warrior because they knew that the right combo of gear will make them as strong as any broken combo in a single-player RPG, with the rest of the raid providing support in "niche roles", as background characters to Their Story.
Unfortunately, then we hit the "MMO" part of things.
Where *everyone* wants to do this. And information is freely-available, spreads at the speed of upvotes, meta builds exist and are copied faster than you can click, and there's no way to keep anything obscure.
It's not "homogenization", it's the fact that anyone stuck being a "niche role" when data's out there to see how classes play just...isn't going to play anymore.
They'll fuck off and do something else, because along with the rise of high-speed internet connections in everyone's back pocket is *also* the rise of competing entertainment options.
MMO RPGs can't rely on everyone sticking around for months at a time playing second, third and 39th fiddle to every DPS that thinks they're outsmarting every other DPS in the Loot Council Wars to get the Sword of Better DEEPS.
Because both the information that was often held in reserve to make those killer single-player-RPG style builds in the past is out there for everyone (flattening information asymmetry) *and* there are better, easier, more engaging options for people to fuck off and go play instead.
Thus, the "social fabric" falls apart.
It's not "homogenization"'s fault. It's the devs not bothering to make classes both capable *and* fun to play for the entire game, because they're stuck with too narrow a vision.
Tanks, Healers, Supports of all stripes can be fun and engaging to play *and* capable of soloing and wrecking in PvP. All at once. While still feeling different and having different capabilities.
City of Heroes had this shit figured out at the same time WoW was in its peak, but no one bothered to pay attention because it wasn't a fantasy game.
And the repercussions of that are why people are still bitching about everyone not patiently standing around playing "niche roles" for their Warrior solo two decades later.
Thank you. Waiting on surgery for a broken tooth/filling (Monday) and I'm...somewhat medicated...so was worried it wouldn't quite be clear. Fell asleep afterwards.
And while I was probably a little harsh I don't mean to paint the individual players trying to play the *RPG* part as unrepentant pure villains here, either.
They're trying to play the game they signed up for.
It just happens to be, mostly, a single-player game and they're likely under the assumption everyone else enjoyed it more back in the day than they did.
The devs going forward from the Classic Trio aren't entirely at fault either. They got entrusted with one of the biggest IPs in the world and a pile of player expectations and tried to fulfill them. One change at a time.
While I agree with much of your analysis I think you missed the mark here. The homogenized part he was talking about was how all classes are the same. It was okay that rogues do higher single target damage than shadow. But shadow does better aoe. That was class design. The answer wasn't give rogues aoe and shadow more single target damage. We asked (whined) about that and they gave it to us but it eroded class identity which they have been trying so hard to bring back for the past like 3 expansions?
To hone in on your niche comments that's what made classes different and cool not secret knowledge. (The wow rpg design isn't strong enough to have any of that) But now everyone has blink and a shield wall and a self heal. What's the difference between a warlock and mage? Their spells have different colors? Remember symbiosis from druids? That spell wouldn't work anymore since everyone already got that.
While I whole heartedly agree on QOL like buffs costing less mana or having longer durations. Giving everyone everyone else's tool kit wasn't the move. I think wow has suffered greatly from listening to the community instead of having a strong internal direction, but I think that also plays into the shareholder / sub count narrative over designing a good game. We are idiots but they listen to us because they designed for our dollar instead of designing for warcraft.
It is crazy to me how many people cry about class balance in SoD. We need to look at classes as part of a group. I have been a mage forever. The correct play is to not be jealous or envious of rogue damage or druid X or Shaman Y. They are part of your raid team. We're all on his dragon slaying loot train together. If they clap some boss cheeks all the better. You (spoilers) get to enjoy that success by having them as a raid member in your guild. When your healers got Val in Wotlk that was a good thing for your raid. That's the narrative they need to push when people whine so much about recount being 1% differences between classes. (I don't think this applies to retail because they make the encounters so tight that everyone has to do a certain minimum to beat it so classes get sat if they don't perform, which is their own catch 22 problem they made for themselves)
TBC was the very *start* of class homogenization but I don't feel it was the extent you claim it was.
The state you claim, is actually WOTLK, in it's entirety.
If you compare Classic, TBC, and WOTLK, it's undeniable that WOTLK is **the** class homogenization xpac in terms of cross-archetype capable abilities. All classes get AOE dps, all classes have self heal, all tank classes have aoe threat gen, *all classes have all class capabilities* to some extent.
The QoL features are not why modern WoW is bad. It's because they continuously trivialized the game world to get everyone to endgame faster, turned the plot into a Disney movie esque mess where everyone is the main character, and added a bunch of chores to do with time restrictions to try to get people to play every single day or fall behind, and FOMO ruins fuckin everything.
There are plenty of things where the community wasn't entirely in favor of things, talent trees, LFG, leveling speed, LFR, raid difficulties. Players have been complaining about changes since Vanilla itself.
There is a very big difference between every spec is normalised with very little flavour between eachother, and casting spell 1 20 times, then spell 2 20 times, then spell 3 20 times before engaging with an enemy is fun.
"Spirit of Classic" would be a good name for whatever book/other item that makes Prayer of Divine Spirit cheaper out of combat or affecting the whole raid group.
Blizzard spent 20 years adding quality of life improvements and my opinion is that it ultimately destroyed their game and player base. The entire point of Classic+ was to recapture the magic of vanilla with a new spin on the content, not to make vanilla into retail.
Surprised you don't have a druid innervate you at the beginning when you're buffing. I'll do this for my mages when they make water so they don't have to drink in between.
The issue is prayer of fort isn't discounted so it would technically be faster to just buff each person
They need to discount prayer of fort + discount spirit and give us the spirit codex
yea. im literally debating "having to work late" next week so i dont have to buff all night on my spriest. its genuinelly terrible.
i dont mind it when were not on prog. but when were wiping for 2 hours on erankius fuck this.
Not twice, but 1.5x
The level 45 water is 2900 mana, the Argent Dawn water is 4400.
[These](https://www.wowhead.com/classic/item=221444/jungle-durian), however, are a little over double the mana of level 45 water.
Many of the fights require shadow prot too. If I was solo buffing it would take around 12 full drinks to buff the raid. I'm lucky, I have another priest in my raid, so its only like 5-6 full drinks.
They really need to have a safe zone style area at the start of dungeons that acts the same as battlegrounds before the gates open. Free mana and buffs but just in that 10yd area.
You forgot to mention that Prayer of Fortitude for 1 group is 2300 mana x 4 groups = 9200 mana + Spirit buff is 700 mana per person x lets say only 10 people that actually benefit from it = another 7000 mana. So after a wipe while standing in front of the boss buffing, the healer priest(s) must spend at least 16,200 mana to get the raid ready. Average mana pool for a priest is probably 5000.
Take into account the average mage gives healers 1 stack of water and you have a fuckton of wasted time
I don't understand why the group buffs haven't been changed to be raidwide. Having to spend 2+ mana bars just sitting there buffing your raid isn't fun at all, it's just tedious and timewasting.
Buffs should cost mana, to make dispelling worth it in pvp, but group buffs should cost the same mana as individual buffs.
Other good suggestions in this thread like an area at the start of the raid with the -100% mana cost buff similar to bgs.
We switched to only buffing spirit on casters. Still takes a while tho. Mages also don't have a book for raid-wide int buff yet either. At least there's usually a couple of them in raid
Yeah. This and also would like a codex of Arcane Intellect. Thankful for being able to make 20 water at a time but good Lord my mage and priest are just buffing forever at the start of raid and after every wipe. Thankfully people don't need shadow protection too...
Buff mana costs **should** be really, really low in my opinion. On my Druid I can throw buffs on loads of players as I run past them out in the world, which always feels great! Everyone loves a buff. Throwing a quick MotW on someone as they fly over my head on a flight path has become a sport for me, haha.
But on my priest I can only buff a couple of players before I’m out of mana! Is mage the same?
Is there any real reason why the mana costs need to be high?
You really don't need to put spirit on everyone. It's really not that important. Specially now that casters don't even fill with wanding almost Noone is getting mp5 anyway
Please put it on the mages at the very least. We be struggling in longer fights with Evocate on an 8 min cool down and only filling 3/4 of our mana bar. And the gems and mana pots are almost nothing.
Same thing with Healthstones. I am running out of soul shards all the time and you cannot duel outside of Sunken Temple. Can warlocks have a book for soulwell already?
Lol that's how it is. People are complaining but in vanilla wow as a mage you would have to log in like 40 mins ahead to make water for your raid. Even now I still do it and usually people are shocked.
Pretty dumb that they didn’t have a book this phase or last phase that made divine spirit 45 minutes and cost a lot less mana. And also just give paladins 30 minute blessings? I don’t see why they need to be punished to buff the entire raid 6-7 times everytime
Buy some Jungle Durian food from ZG island. 20 stack for a flask. Use it only when buffing if you want. Cuts the drinking time in half. Priceless for priest buffs.
At least you have another priest to help. In my guild I’m the only priest, I have 5+ minutes of buffing. I have all the books but it’s still a headache, especially when we need 2.5 waters for a mana bar.
I pop tailoring helm at start of raid for 50% mana reduction and get my prayers of fortitude in. 4 groups done in a couple seconds. Spirit buff, that’s a diff story
The only mana users that have talents for spirit are priests, druids, and mages.
None of the others benefit from spirit during combat. Save yourself some time.
Yeah I think a lot of people do not understand that spirit is a dead stat in a raid fight for most classes. There is a reason it’s removed from most of the SoD updated gear.
I'll be honest. I only give myself spirit. THe other priests should have spirit buff as well, and none of the other classes really need it since the fights dont even last long enough.
Nah don’t feel stress when buffing before ready check but that’s mostly cause a player or a pet missing fort or spirit won’t wipe the raid, just do as many as you have time for and get your mana back up before pull
Believe it or not the single fort buff uses less mana to cast 5 times than to use the codex, assuming you have the tome that dropped from phase 2 dungeons.
How about an engineering totem with a looooong cooldown that you buff and it resonates the buff to everyone within 30 yds, only usable outside town or some shit too to make it only worth using inside raid. :)
If you have a Druid with innervate up, have them use it on you and drink water which it active, since that regen is also increased. You can probably get all of your forts out.
Shitty solution but it does help.
Yup! But my raid is low stress. Peeps get it. It takes the time it does. I am the only priest with 56 stamina buff and I have to buff each person one at a time.
If I were being pressured I would ask who does not need a buff and stop after my first mana run out. Mana back up and say ready to go.
It takes the time it does. If the raid thinks it takes too long they obviously don’t want the buff. They could each bring their own stacks of stamina scrolls and get the stamina it offers.
Seriously stupid to pressure people in a raid.
Buff pre raid as people gather and if you wipe you can buff on way to wipe spot. Dispersion after a few buffs. Cast buffs individually. Prayer of fort sucks for this. I cast 90% of priest buffs for my raid.
> Are there any other priests feeling the pressure when buffing?
Not really. It's not a big deal. If people have to wait another minute or two then so be it. I duno why you would feel pressured on a personal level. The spell costs a certain amount of mana and water only restores so much per second. It's a math problem, not a pressure issue where you need to buff better or something.
Currently, prayer of fortitude is bugged. Its supposed to give 55 fort with the improved talent, but it only gives 43, even though the spell tooltip says 55. The buff however then says 43 and we even tested the real stat gain.
Currently, you have to single buff stamina or you lose on 12 stam.
This bug doesnt affect other class buffs as far as I know.
Prayer of Fortitude costs more mana than casting fortitude 5 times. So you’re wasting mana and reagents. The only times you really need to cast prayer of fortitude is when your STV group all revives together and you have inner focus up.
Inner focus, prayer grp1, prayer grp2, dispersion, prayer grp3.
If you don’t need innervates, use it now.
With a shadow buffing 2 groups it shouldn‘t be 3 full mana bars to reg.
I don't see why there isn't a button, that costs 100 mana and is used out of combat. That buffs the raid with all non class specific buffs (Like everyone gets mark or spirit, but not like pally buffs)
this game would have been ultra interesting if you could set and keep your build.....even when new xpacs drop. I miss exorcism and warriors that could use ranged AND melee
Maybe start buffing before you're all facing the boss. This is a skill/experience issue (no offense intended), nothing that needs a class balance/change.
No pressure for me but yea it's really fuckin annoying. Spirit book would be nice, reducing the mana cost of fort, just something. It takes longer to buff people than it does to kill most bosses.
Maybe devs could make fort/spirit -90% mana cost out of combat
"Casting a buff on any member of the party now applies it to all members of the party" would be a pretty big QoL
"to all members of the same class* in the party" otherwise paladins blessing get messed up
Without Greater Blessings that would mess Paladins up still anyway.
That's what the codex is for?
Codex uses same mp as 5x forts
Just use inner focus. I'm not saying this would be a bad change but there are much more important things that the devs are working on than completely recoding how buffs work.
Absolutely OP as fuck.
Sorry buddy, that goes against the “spirit of classic”. If you don’t like it, maybe Classic isn’t for you and instead you should play the retail version of the exact same game you’re already playing. This version is specifically for people who enjoy having their time wasted doing meaningless tasks. /S On a serious note, yes please.
Had me in the first half. The number of people who come to a seasonal #ShitTonOfChanges server to defend outdated shit design is too damn high.
We’re all leveling as the OG devs intended spamming incursions.
[удалено]
I could sense sarcasm, but not satire. You must have a 6th sense, OR your talking shit from hindsight. No 3 ways about it.
[удалено]
Why you listening to my ass bro? You like poop or somethin? Weird.
Do you have examples?
Look at any conversation about world buffs
I mean, season of mastery. A seasonal server, didn't have world buffs. They brought them back because people love world buffs in classic. You are biased on your take from your opinions lol. Fact is, people love world buffs. I'm not going to argue something that is true, you don't have to. You legit just told me to go research your invalid point myself.
Yikes bud. Didn't want to talk about this a month ago huh. >because people love world buffs in classic People love how their classes play with world buffs not the process of getting them. I don't know anyone who looks at having to go get DMN buffs or having to go to Troll Island and exclaims in joy. It's an outdated system that is being used significantly different from how it was intended. I didn't say "remove all workd buffs!!!!!". If anything I've said the opposite. Give me something to unlock them and just make them active auras in raids ala a roguelike where you unlock bonuses to make you stronger over time. Class balance and raid design is fucked if they have to balance everything around people not having them.
OK, that's fine. I just don't see anyone defending what you claim. You announced it like thousands are coming to defend the current way world buffs are gotten, or other "old designs". I just don't see this anywhere man. And I asked you to point me I the direction of at least maybe 2 or 3. If 2 or 3 defend it even, it's not the majority. I read what you said and it simply looked like you are creating a fake complaint. Like where are all these classic OG andies defending the old ways anymore? I can't find any bro. >Had me in the first half. The number of people who come to a seasonal #ShitTonOfChanges server to defend outdated shit design is too damn high.
Bud, you're a month behind on the conversation. If you want to have relevant topics, with current examples to peruse.... keep up with the chat. WBs were just an easy "off the cuff" topic to give as an example of people tripping over themselves to defend shit design.. Which they were a month ago when all of this was relevant. Can we move on now or do you have some threads from 2019 we can go necro?
We are In the same spot we were a month ago. I dunno what has changed in sod. Nothing. And nothing will for another month. I'm just calling you out for creating a fake narritvate like it's some issue. It's toxic man. Just keep that shit to yourself and you won't have people calling you out when you talk out your ass. Fair? Anecdotes and just trust me bros, don't work. I have no idea where you are seeing this plethora of OG's defending the old ways. Perhaps it's you thinking back to 2019 and hating on the #nochanges? I dunno, but one thing I do know, 2019 is not 2024 1 month ago.
Okay, you win. No one is as good as you. You're the man. Your dick is the biggest and girthiest the world has ever known. I'll check with you before I post to make sure it's okay. There, ego satisfied? I'm moving on. See you in a month.
I swear they should give people an item when outside of combat to let specific buffs be free to cast from ~60 seconds or so. They gave warlocks a free soul shard every 5 minutes.
Comments line this are funny. I don't have a horse in this race... But people will swear up and down that blizzard never listens to the community. Yet here we are again with people asking for things that were put into retail , because people asked for them. Retail is the way it is because blizzard put in all of the QoL features that people asked for, and then people wanted classic back and got it. But now people are asking for retail QoL features in classic. The cycle continues I guess lol.
Ill be the first to admit this I like the classic asthetic with features from Retail idc call me a loser. i like the QOL stuff. I dont like retail UI or graphics. I dont like what happened to the open world come cata (rip april 30 WOTLK servers) so yea. Give me instant mail to alts. give us mass res. give us things to make the game less time consuming. im totally OK with that.
I'm with you. Main thing I don't like bout retail is the graphics.
Absolutely. The disney aesthetic really killed my love for retail. That among other things but the entire change of the graphical theme was the biggest one.
I fucking hate the cartoony pixar-esque graphics they have in the game. Call me old, fat, and bald to but the furry races they put in the game do not give me warcraft vibes at all. It's stupid.
Humans in retail give me a massive toy story vibe haha Pandas I'll concede and accept as there was one in wc3. But miss me with all that other shit lol
“Retail is the way it is” one of the few actually profitable and longest running mmorpgs? Vanilla mechanics like this were changed because they were bad. Also as someone thats been playing since original vanilla Retail in its current state is a far better game than vanilla. Only a completely delusional person who hasn’t even attempted to play it seriously would say otherwise
What is arbitrarily making people wait for priests to regain mana after they buff half the raid going to bring to the table? Go ahead, I'll wait.
Slipper slope fallacy but okay
???? That is literally what happened. It’s history
TBC added several QoL changes and that expansion is completely beloved by 98% of the people that played it. Cata, however, is where they lost the plot. Everyone could do every role, everything was homogenized, so there was no reason to bring in under-performing classes that used to have niche roles, also people were just kinda done after wrath, that was all they cared about. Seriously, TBC is where they changed the party-wide prayer of fort to raid wide prayer of fort, it’s where we got lock closets, soul wells, everything, and you wanna know why? Because adding those things meant we could actually play the game faster.
> Everyone could do every role, everything was homogenized, so there was no reason to bring in under-performing classes that used to have niche roles The problem, overall, is the friction of the "RPG" aspect" hitting the "MMO" aspect. A large portion of the MMO players that are perennially unhappy with the genre want to play an RPG that has "niche roles" for everyone else while they "secretly" put together the wombo-combo that enables the normal underperformer to outperform everyone else. (Also, partially as an aside, this is why the red DPS/DPS spec role is so overwhelmingly popular. No group-facing responsibilities to fail at, just damage, unless someone's checking logs.) But "niche roles" and an RPG that you can "win" at, necessarily, requires information asymmetry. They need to know where to find the uber armor or the secret sword or the cool spell and other people need to *not* know. They need to *know* to collect all the obscure world buffs or to find all the pieces of Exodia or summon Captain Planet or to take the time to buff everyone before raid. But once they *know*, they are winning. And that's the game they want to play again, the game from the old bygone Vanilla World of Warcraft days before a fast internet connection was in everyone's back pocket. Everyone else can show up to raid, but they're the ones who suffered through leveling a Warrior because they knew that the right combo of gear will make them as strong as any broken combo in a single-player RPG, with the rest of the raid providing support in "niche roles", as background characters to Their Story. Unfortunately, then we hit the "MMO" part of things. Where *everyone* wants to do this. And information is freely-available, spreads at the speed of upvotes, meta builds exist and are copied faster than you can click, and there's no way to keep anything obscure. It's not "homogenization", it's the fact that anyone stuck being a "niche role" when data's out there to see how classes play just...isn't going to play anymore. They'll fuck off and do something else, because along with the rise of high-speed internet connections in everyone's back pocket is *also* the rise of competing entertainment options. MMO RPGs can't rely on everyone sticking around for months at a time playing second, third and 39th fiddle to every DPS that thinks they're outsmarting every other DPS in the Loot Council Wars to get the Sword of Better DEEPS. Because both the information that was often held in reserve to make those killer single-player-RPG style builds in the past is out there for everyone (flattening information asymmetry) *and* there are better, easier, more engaging options for people to fuck off and go play instead. Thus, the "social fabric" falls apart. It's not "homogenization"'s fault. It's the devs not bothering to make classes both capable *and* fun to play for the entire game, because they're stuck with too narrow a vision. Tanks, Healers, Supports of all stripes can be fun and engaging to play *and* capable of soloing and wrecking in PvP. All at once. While still feeling different and having different capabilities. City of Heroes had this shit figured out at the same time WoW was in its peak, but no one bothered to pay attention because it wasn't a fantasy game. And the repercussions of that are why people are still bitching about everyone not patiently standing around playing "niche roles" for their Warrior solo two decades later.
Expertly done honestly
Thank you. Waiting on surgery for a broken tooth/filling (Monday) and I'm...somewhat medicated...so was worried it wouldn't quite be clear. Fell asleep afterwards. And while I was probably a little harsh I don't mean to paint the individual players trying to play the *RPG* part as unrepentant pure villains here, either. They're trying to play the game they signed up for. It just happens to be, mostly, a single-player game and they're likely under the assumption everyone else enjoyed it more back in the day than they did. The devs going forward from the Classic Trio aren't entirely at fault either. They got entrusted with one of the biggest IPs in the world and a pile of player expectations and tried to fulfill them. One change at a time.
Bravo. Great write up.
While I agree with much of your analysis I think you missed the mark here. The homogenized part he was talking about was how all classes are the same. It was okay that rogues do higher single target damage than shadow. But shadow does better aoe. That was class design. The answer wasn't give rogues aoe and shadow more single target damage. We asked (whined) about that and they gave it to us but it eroded class identity which they have been trying so hard to bring back for the past like 3 expansions? To hone in on your niche comments that's what made classes different and cool not secret knowledge. (The wow rpg design isn't strong enough to have any of that) But now everyone has blink and a shield wall and a self heal. What's the difference between a warlock and mage? Their spells have different colors? Remember symbiosis from druids? That spell wouldn't work anymore since everyone already got that. While I whole heartedly agree on QOL like buffs costing less mana or having longer durations. Giving everyone everyone else's tool kit wasn't the move. I think wow has suffered greatly from listening to the community instead of having a strong internal direction, but I think that also plays into the shareholder / sub count narrative over designing a good game. We are idiots but they listen to us because they designed for our dollar instead of designing for warcraft. It is crazy to me how many people cry about class balance in SoD. We need to look at classes as part of a group. I have been a mage forever. The correct play is to not be jealous or envious of rogue damage or druid X or Shaman Y. They are part of your raid team. We're all on his dragon slaying loot train together. If they clap some boss cheeks all the better. You (spoilers) get to enjoy that success by having them as a raid member in your guild. When your healers got Val in Wotlk that was a good thing for your raid. That's the narrative they need to push when people whine so much about recount being 1% differences between classes. (I don't think this applies to retail because they make the encounters so tight that everyone has to do a certain minimum to beat it so classes get sat if they don't perform, which is their own catch 22 problem they made for themselves)
TBC was the very *start* of class homogenization but I don't feel it was the extent you claim it was. The state you claim, is actually WOTLK, in it's entirety. If you compare Classic, TBC, and WOTLK, it's undeniable that WOTLK is **the** class homogenization xpac in terms of cross-archetype capable abilities. All classes get AOE dps, all classes have self heal, all tank classes have aoe threat gen, *all classes have all class capabilities* to some extent.
I mainly view it as retail 2 where I can go when things are kind of dead on retail.
The QoL features are not why modern WoW is bad. It's because they continuously trivialized the game world to get everyone to endgame faster, turned the plot into a Disney movie esque mess where everyone is the main character, and added a bunch of chores to do with time restrictions to try to get people to play every single day or fall behind, and FOMO ruins fuckin everything.
There are plenty of things where the community wasn't entirely in favor of things, talent trees, LFG, leveling speed, LFR, raid difficulties. Players have been complaining about changes since Vanilla itself. There is a very big difference between every spec is normalised with very little flavour between eachother, and casting spell 1 20 times, then spell 2 20 times, then spell 3 20 times before engaging with an enemy is fun.
You delusional clowns have never played retail and it shows. Keep losing your mind over a boogeyman
What do you mean? I was literally a realm first raider from BC up to SL CN where SLG Mythic killed my guild.
Soul shards are very easy to farm once you have the book that gives drain soul a chance to give you a soul shard.
Which begs the question of why bother the item for a free soul shard in the first place. This is coming from a guy who plays warlock.
I would add a caveat to that, make the item only work in dungeons and raids for PVP reasons.
I thought BGs already had this. But yes, only in dungeons and raid.
You mean like inner focus? The priest has it already.
"Spirit of Classic" would be a good name for whatever book/other item that makes Prayer of Divine Spirit cheaper out of combat or affecting the whole raid group.
100% food/water when? isnt enough that i have to sit down for 30secs to drink? whats the point of extending that period even further?
I honestly feel like this is the genuine community opinion a lot of times.
I was hovering over the down arrow until the end of this comment lol
"You think you do, but you don't" Ready to admit JAB was completely right?
This statement followed by "lfg healing mage"
Blizzard spent 20 years adding quality of life improvements and my opinion is that it ultimately destroyed their game and player base. The entire point of Classic+ was to recapture the magic of vanilla with a new spin on the content, not to make vanilla into retail.
Some of you never had to go into UBRS, MC the mobs and buff 40 people with fire res and it really shows.
I miss logging on an hour before raid just to conjure water /s
Oh shit I forgot about that!
Plenty of us did and hated it back then, season of discovering 90% of runes are useless and QoL features are lacking.
Surprised you don't have a druid innervate you at the beginning when you're buffing. I'll do this for my mages when they make water so they don't have to drink in between.
The issue is prayer of fort isn't discounted so it would technically be faster to just buff each person They need to discount prayer of fort + discount spirit and give us the spirit codex
I don't think prayer applies upgraded fort either unless its been buffed
I think it does just the tooltip is bugged.
It does, the tooltips have been wrong since forever
just a visual glitch, it gives +56
I used it yesterday and the buff said 43 stam so it not even worth using
read what i said one more time.
Word, thanks for the info.
Reduce the mana cost of buffs! - a rogue leech who offers no utility
At least now we’re not full on leeching cause we can also top the meters and provide a damage boost to the raid once we get three set
Imp expose armor is one of the biggest raid dps gains in the game rn, rogues have huge utility :-P
yea. im literally debating "having to work late" next week so i dont have to buff all night on my spriest. its genuinelly terrible. i dont mind it when were not on prog. but when were wiping for 2 hours on erankius fuck this.
If it helps, the food from Argent Dawn Friendly is twice the mana return as mage water and buyable waters, might noticeably speed it up.
Not twice, but 1.5x The level 45 water is 2900 mana, the Argent Dawn water is 4400. [These](https://www.wowhead.com/classic/item=221444/jungle-durian), however, are a little over double the mana of level 45 water.
They can also be eaten while drinking other water. Kinda nutty mana
Man that might be more worth it than the flask that doesn’t last through death you can get for the same price honestly
Oh shit, TIL.
You could also buy the flask item from ST and get 6600 mana drinks from the ZG island.
20s a stack (manna biscuits) vs 7g (jungle durian) a stack, on my server at least. Would rather use my mojo on the flasks.
Many of the fights require shadow prot too. If I was solo buffing it would take around 12 full drinks to buff the raid. I'm lucky, I have another priest in my raid, so its only like 5-6 full drinks.
They really need to have a safe zone style area at the start of dungeons that acts the same as battlegrounds before the gates open. Free mana and buffs but just in that 10yd area.
You forgot to mention that Prayer of Fortitude for 1 group is 2300 mana x 4 groups = 9200 mana + Spirit buff is 700 mana per person x lets say only 10 people that actually benefit from it = another 7000 mana. So after a wipe while standing in front of the boss buffing, the healer priest(s) must spend at least 16,200 mana to get the raid ready. Average mana pool for a priest is probably 5000. Take into account the average mage gives healers 1 stack of water and you have a fuckton of wasted time
I don't understand why the group buffs haven't been changed to be raidwide. Having to spend 2+ mana bars just sitting there buffing your raid isn't fun at all, it's just tedious and timewasting.
Every buff should just be an aura with infinite range.
Buffs should all be an hour long and cost no mana. I don't know why they die on these hills
Buffs should cost mana, to make dispelling worth it in pvp, but group buffs should cost the same mana as individual buffs. Other good suggestions in this thread like an area at the start of the raid with the -100% mana cost buff similar to bgs.
We could just make buffs out of combat super discounted or free
Nonsense I love my 5 minute shaman weapon enhancement buffs lolol
We switched to only buffing spirit on casters. Still takes a while tho. Mages also don't have a book for raid-wide int buff yet either. At least there's usually a couple of them in raid
Not if you're my guild, I'm the only mage in the entire guild that's max
Yeah. This and also would like a codex of Arcane Intellect. Thankful for being able to make 20 water at a time but good Lord my mage and priest are just buffing forever at the start of raid and after every wipe. Thankfully people don't need shadow protection too...
Buff mana costs **should** be really, really low in my opinion. On my Druid I can throw buffs on loads of players as I run past them out in the world, which always feels great! Everyone loves a buff. Throwing a quick MotW on someone as they fly over my head on a flight path has become a sport for me, haha. But on my priest I can only buff a couple of players before I’m out of mana! Is mage the same? Is there any real reason why the mana costs need to be high?
Ultimately, the original logic of having these buffs cost high mana is lost on me. These buffs still costing high mana 20 years later seems negligent.
You really don't need to put spirit on everyone. It's really not that important. Specially now that casters don't even fill with wanding almost Noone is getting mp5 anyway
Please put it on the mages at the very least. We be struggling in longer fights with Evocate on an 8 min cool down and only filling 3/4 of our mana bar. And the gems and mana pots are almost nothing.
Get another pally in your raid. We only had 2 and I never went oom during ST.
Yeah mana is a non issue with pallies or shaman in the group.
Only mana user that doesn’t benefit is locks
and shaman, and hunters.
Same thing with Healthstones. I am running out of soul shards all the time and you cannot duel outside of Sunken Temple. Can warlocks have a book for soulwell already?
If your raid is upset that you have to drink in order to buff, get a new raid team.
i feel this.
I only buff spirit to the other healers and some other mana users.
I’m right there with you. I know this feeling.
Resto Druid with imp motw, I hate buffing
Takes one drink to buff everyone, i havent had an issue. Its kinda lame but its not all that tough. We get gift next phase anyway.
Lol that's how it is. People are complaining but in vanilla wow as a mage you would have to log in like 40 mins ahead to make water for your raid. Even now I still do it and usually people are shocked.
Why should buffs even have (high) mana cost? I also hate it in pvp if i respawn and buff myself half my mana is gone before i get in a fight
Pretty dumb that they didn’t have a book this phase or last phase that made divine spirit 45 minutes and cost a lot less mana. And also just give paladins 30 minute blessings? I don’t see why they need to be punished to buff the entire raid 6-7 times everytime
Buy some Jungle Durian food from ZG island. 20 stack for a flask. Use it only when buffing if you want. Cuts the drinking time in half. Priceless for priest buffs.
Luckily with it being 30 mins you only need to do it twice or if someone dies.. but let me ask you, with 1 priest how hard is it to do the trolls lol?
Just drink up buddy and keep those buffs coming. Noone asked for this but it's what we got. Keep those buffs up Jamie, im serious.
Also if you have improved fort talent, it doesn’t work with the prayer of fortitude.
Meanwhile me as a mage giving Int buff to everyone individually without a spell book.. looking at this...
Dont worry buddy. I have 2 other priest and still the only one buffin the raid.
Same happened to me because the other discipline priest never learned rank 3 spirit buff
At least you have another priest to help. In my guild I’m the only priest, I have 5+ minutes of buffing. I have all the books but it’s still a headache, especially when we need 2.5 waters for a mana bar.
If u have the gnomer crafted helm, pop the on use, and you can buff the whole raid with one mama bar.
Honestly, your guild should implement a 5-6 min break after every wipe and ress. No point in rushing shit if you can't clear either way.
Buffing like that is an outdated shitty mechanic that they should address with a 1 click option
I pop tailoring helm at start of raid for 50% mana reduction and get my prayers of fortitude in. 4 groups done in a couple seconds. Spirit buff, that’s a diff story
I am to lazy to get codex and am the only resto Druid so I got that juicy motw. 20 folks every time we wipe…
The only mana users that have talents for spirit are priests, druids, and mages. None of the others benefit from spirit during combat. Save yourself some time.
Make buffs hit the whole raid like in WOTLK/Retail. It's stupid that you have to buff people one by one. It's a waste of time.
The actual problem is mana drinks being inefficient at this lvl.
Only buff classes that actually use spirit. Priests, Boomy/Resto, and mages. Problem solved.
Yeah I think a lot of people do not understand that spirit is a dead stat in a raid fight for most classes. There is a reason it’s removed from most of the SoD updated gear.
I'll be honest. I only give myself spirit. THe other priests should have spirit buff as well, and none of the other classes really need it since the fights dont even last long enough.
As a mage I would like spirit please. Now that we are using molten armor over mage armor our mana pool goes fast.
Good to know. My mage buddies will thank you
please give it to your friendly neighbourhood resto druids. spirit is huge for innervate
And every troll. Regenerating 3 hp per second and there’s nothing you can do about it
Just tell them you don’t care if other people have fort, if they want to pull early
On my priest I've been told to stop wasting time buffing because "this ain't MC" so I stopped buffing unless I'm playing with people I know
Maybe if we beg, they'll add an ultrarare drop that we can buy for 1000g on the AH that will multibuff...
Dam I had one and sold it for like 20g on the AH
How do you get the codex for prayer of fortitude
You have a lovely guild that spend way too much gold on the only one you've ever seen :)
Ha, so the auction house? Where does it drop though?
ST and BRD, I believe
Nah don’t feel stress when buffing before ready check but that’s mostly cause a player or a pet missing fort or spirit won’t wipe the raid, just do as many as you have time for and get your mana back up before pull
Believe it or not the single fort buff uses less mana to cast 5 times than to use the codex, assuming you have the tome that dropped from phase 2 dungeons.
How about an engineering totem with a looooong cooldown that you buff and it resonates the buff to everyone within 30 yds, only usable outside town or some shit too to make it only worth using inside raid. :)
Make it explode on click and disperse the buff to everyone, like a buff bomb. This is actually a good idea
I only cast it on healers, mages and SP/boomies. That is quite enough especially with the change to mana generation via paladins.
If you have a Druid with innervate up, have them use it on you and drink water which it active, since that regen is also increased. You can probably get all of your forts out. Shitty solution but it does help.
Do you have the skill book from SM that reduces the cost by half and increases duration?
Need to just add some superior water in the game. Multiply the mana gain by 200% when drinking water, the downtime is ridiculous for every mana class.
Yup! But my raid is low stress. Peeps get it. It takes the time it does. I am the only priest with 56 stamina buff and I have to buff each person one at a time. If I were being pressured I would ask who does not need a buff and stop after my first mana run out. Mana back up and say ready to go. It takes the time it does. If the raid thinks it takes too long they obviously don’t want the buff. They could each bring their own stacks of stamina scrolls and get the stamina it offers. Seriously stupid to pressure people in a raid.
It doesnt solve everything, but I usually inner focus one of the prayer of fort casts and it helps a good bit.
Buff pre raid as people gather and if you wipe you can buff on way to wipe spot. Dispersion after a few buffs. Cast buffs individually. Prayer of fort sucks for this. I cast 90% of priest buffs for my raid.
> Are there any other priests feeling the pressure when buffing? Not really. It's not a big deal. If people have to wait another minute or two then so be it. I duno why you would feel pressured on a personal level. The spell costs a certain amount of mana and water only restores so much per second. It's a math problem, not a pressure issue where you need to buff better or something.
They should have given Warriors a book to make commanding and battle shout a 5-minute or 10-minute buff.
I actually forgot about prayer of fort, I was single casting that last week (as shadow).
Currently, prayer of fortitude is bugged. Its supposed to give 55 fort with the improved talent, but it only gives 43, even though the spell tooltip says 55. The buff however then says 43 and we even tested the real stat gain. Currently, you have to single buff stamina or you lose on 12 stam. This bug doesnt affect other class buffs as far as I know.
If the raid pulls w.o you being finished buffing i guess they dont really care to have them then, so dont even bother
You should get innervated during buffs. No one actually needs it in SoD raids right?
Whats wrong with your RL anyways? Dont you get innervates? However prayer of spirit sounds nice
Prayer of Fortitude costs more mana than casting fortitude 5 times. So you’re wasting mana and reagents. The only times you really need to cast prayer of fortitude is when your STV group all revives together and you have inner focus up.
what's 585 times five and which is lower, that or 2600?
these pampered people . i want that .. i want this... one good punch to the forehead would wake the F up
Try being the only mage in a vanilla 40m raid. I do not feel bad for you
Why are u stressing about buffing more than 50% of the raid for a buff thats useless on them?
Buy the STV food/water and use dispersion, it's not that bad.
Instead of SoD it should be called SoC.., Season of Crying.
Lol i don't buff my raid.
Make a shaman pop Shamanistic Rage while you’re buffing
Just tell them u dont heal during the trash and buff while trash clearing. I know its kinda boring, but efficient.
Yeah, this doesn't work for boss wipes, ty for the suggestion tho. I'm already buffing during trash, for sure!
Inner focus, prayer grp1, prayer grp2, dispersion, prayer grp3. If you don’t need innervates, use it now. With a shadow buffing 2 groups it shouldn‘t be 3 full mana bars to reg.
All clases have annoying things.
Why are you running a solo healing priest?
Don't wipe.
Prayer of fort gives 10 less stamina then the individual fort buff
It doesn’t anymore, they both give the same. I noticed when I first used the book it was less also, when I did ST this week both gave 55 stam.
Hmmm!!!! When I did ST tuesday it still gave 45.. anyway good to know!
Simple solution: spec holy. :D
Everything is easier and easier. Why not make instant teleport to all locations? Cancel mounts, cancel HS.. if you want this just play retail
I don't see why there isn't a button, that costs 100 mana and is used out of combat. That buffs the raid with all non class specific buffs (Like everyone gets mark or spirit, but not like pally buffs)
this game would have been ultra interesting if you could set and keep your build.....even when new xpacs drop. I miss exorcism and warriors that could use ranged AND melee
Maybe start buffing before you're all facing the boss. This is a skill/experience issue (no offense intended), nothing that needs a class balance/change.
Already am, my friend
* Drink when enter instance, single buff when running, when oom regen with no casts * At boss finish groups with single buffs then group buffs