With WoW: Shadowlands, many old, long-lost abilities return. It’s not that great, finds and explains Cortyn from MeinMMO.
The next expansion of World of Warcraft is highly anticipated by players. However, it will probably take another six months before we can venture into the live version of the Shadowlands. One feature that particularly excites many veterans is the return of many “old” abilities that specializations have lost over the years.
But is this really so great? Is it really something that will make World of Warcraft better? I think: no, it’s not, and I’m happy to explain why I see it that way.
When the announcement came at BlizzCon 2019 that many old abilities would return with Shadowlands, I was initially positive. I found the basic idea good that classes would share a few spells across all specializations, thereby creating a “common” class identity. After all, it also troubled me somewhat that my fire mage could no longer cast Frostbolts, or that my shadow priest apparently forgot how to cast a Flash Heal.
However, I was in the Shadowlands Alpha for a few days and could test the return of old abilities. I must honestly admit: it’s really not that great.
I’ll take two examples from classes I enjoy playing. These are the mage and the death knight. Both receive a number of spells and abilities back and suffer from different issues.
Death Knight becomes more boring, everyone can do everything
Let’s start with the death knight. This class regains the ability to summon a ghoul as a companion in all specializations. In recent years, this was mainly reserved for unholy death knights, who had a pet because of it.
Blood and frost death knights can summon the ghoul every two minutes for one minute (so only 50% of the time), but they have gained an interesting, new damage cooldown. As a result, the ghoul of the unholy death knight automatically feels less interesting.
This is basically a step towards “every specialization can do everything” and causes a specific specialization (namely unholy) to automatically appear more boring. At least for me.
Mage has spells he will never use
For the mage, the return of abilities creates a whole different problem. Now I have a series of spells on my bar that I basically will never use.
All mages get access to the following four abilities:
- Fire Strike (an instant-damage spell)
- Frostbolt (a spell with cast time that deals damage and slows the target)
- Frostward (a protective spell that absorbs frost damage)
- Fireward (a protective spell that absorbs fire damage)
Let’s look at the whole thing from the perspective of an arcane mage.
As an arcane mage, Fire Strike serves no purpose. A direct damage spell that deals “solid” damage, I already have one. I can cast Arcane Explosion or fire Arcane Barrage, depending on the distance. Both spells fulfill their role better.
Even less useful is Frostbolt. Sure, it’s nice to have a slowing effect as a mage. But as an arcane mage, I already have that. The spell “Slow” is an instant cast and serves this role better than Frostbolt.
These two spells serve no purpose at all for an arcane mage unless one concocts super-specific scenarios, such as in PvP.
Sure, there are a few niche moments where Frostward or Fireward might make sense as a complement to the Barrier. But those situations will be so rare that the buttons actually just take up space. If I want to absorb damage properly, I already have my specialization-dependent Barrier. It absorbs more damage of every type and is more effective while granting bonus effects, like reflected damage.
The end result here is that my mage simply has 4 “new” spells on the bar that will almost never be used. And spells that are hardly ever used have rightfully been removed from specializations.
However, there are exceptions
Of course, there are a few returning abilities that are really cool. One example of this is “Mind Control” from the priest. For those who don’t remember: the priest can cast this spell on humanoids and dragonkin, who then have a reduced aggro radius. This should be particularly cool in times of “Mythic+” dungeons and is a meaningful addition. It’s something unique that makes the class more versatile.
The Arcane Explosion that all mages also receive can be considered quite useful.
Also, the fact that hunters again receive the Eyes of the Beast and can directly control their pet again is certainly cool. This will rarely have any gameplay use, but it makes up the “fluff” of the class and is just a nice little gimmick.
One step forward, two steps back: Shadowlands brings many innovations that I find interesting and meaningful. Even though the covenants are already criticized by “min-maxers”, I think the idea is good. Four different factions that bring a whole set of smaller and larger buffs, abilities, and benefits.
For every class, there will certainly be an optimum, but it should only differ by a few percent. For me, it looks like a great selection with a lot of freedom that really “advances” the game in a cool direction, trying something new.
This makes it all the more surprising that Blizzard is bringing back many class abilities. Because this return would only make sense if the spells also have a real use. Having a full spellbook just for the sake of it helps no one.
Except maybe for a few nostalgic players who are thrilled to finally cast a Frostbolt as a fire mage again to revive memories of their old “Molten Core” raid days.
Or how do you see the whole thing?
