With The War Within, spells in World of Warcraft function quite differently than before. This leads to a lot of frustration and new problems.
With The War Within, a lot has changed in World of Warcraft – and most of it is receiving plenty of praise. But there are also features that are not well received by the community. Especially the adjustments to spells and abilities of enemies currently cause a lot of frustration and contribute to certain classes feeling useless. Because those who do not have a “true” interrupt effect can hardly venture into dungeons anymore.
What is the innovation? With “The War Within,” Blizzard has changed how a large portion of the spells and abilities of hostile creatures work.
Previously, interrupting an enemy spell – be it through an interrupt effect, a stun, or a push – would result in the spell being canceled and triggering the cooldown of the spell. It would take some time before that spell could be used again.
With The War Within, however, this has been changed in many cases. If you prevent a mob from casting with a stun or push effect, the mobs can nearly immediately cast their spell again. Only actual interrupt effects (“kick”, “strike”, or “counterspell”) ensure that the cooldown of the interrupted spell is triggered.
What problems does this bring? The problems that result from this are manifold. Primarily, correctly interrupting spells and abilities has become even more important. Especially at high “Mythic+” levels, a failed interrupt can easily lead to several characters meeting their demise.
It is all the more frustrating when you “lose” your own interrupt because, for example, another character just applied a stun. Then the mob can immediately cast again after the stun ends, without you being able to counter it.
This leads to the conclusion that especially classes capable of interrupting frequently are favored. This especially affects melee characters or shamans. Some classes and specializations, like the Holy Priest, find themselves in a particularly bad situation here.
This is how the community discusses it: In the WoW Subreddit, this change has been actively discussed for several days, and slowly but surely the frustration is boiling over. Many are dissatisfied with the changes. Because those who want to help the group here may inadvertently cause damage.
- “Man, this change to the spell sequence really annoys me. You interrupt a caster outside the group, and they just stare at you for 3 seconds and then start casting again.” – madatthings
- “I believe the problem is the exaggerated dependency on interrupts to increase difficulty. Interrupts are a great mechanic, but too much of it harms the game when it shifts from ‘catching the ball’ to ‘finding the one mob in the huge group that needs to be interrupted.’
I think we need new mechanics that enhance interrupts.” – thekingofbeans42 - “It’s so damn frustrating. I can’t keep count of how many “Necrotic Wake” keys have been ruined because someone stuns a mage to interrupt a barrage and at the same time, two DPS characters waste their kick for it.
Sure, that’s not a problem in a premade group with prior discussion, but in PUGs, it’s just a big clusterfuck. People with good intentions do what they can to help the group and end up causing the dungeon to fail.” – EmperorsGalaxy
This also explains, for example, why shamans are currently experiencing a real peak as healers in “Mythic+” and are almost considered mandatory in high-level dungeons. The numerous interrupts from the shaman are simply too powerful to forgo.
