Posting on World of Warcraft boards.

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So, this is supposed to be just a small suggestion but I’ll add some general comments to explain why I’m asking for something different.

I consider the last patch tweaks as a huge nerf. You don’t usually see me ranting about class skills because I like to discuss the design from a more general level but this time there’s an exception. A “nerf”, as I intend the term, isn’t when the game and the skills are tweaked for balance. A nerf, a real nerf, is when a change wipes out a part of the game (that may or not be unbalanced) resulting in a different way to play that is felt as less fun than the previous one.

I dislike the current changes to the “Charge” ability not because before I could kill more monsters. That’s not the point. I dislike the changes because the charge was fun to use and it helped a lot to play in different situations. It was a nice “tool” that could be used creatively in many situations (I used it to flee, for example). And it was crucial because it offered a wonderful way to face the casters, trying to minimize the impact of the distance and offering warriors a chance to play even during situations that don’t fit with the class (like when two big groups are fighting at a range and warriors can just sit and watch). I understand that the changes were done because the ability was too powerful but the solution took away a good chunk of fun.

So the point is that Blizzard nerfed the most fun skill that my character had. Not powerful. Fun. I’m not asking back the power, I want back just the fun.

As I said the “Charge” was the only creative skill because the rest of the game is more or less about pressing keys along a “fixed” optimal algorithm. The “game” becomes just about pressing keys in the right order when the skills are available with little to no involvement. This means that as the time goes on, the game looses more and more the little tactical depth it had before and it’s becoming just another boring keypressing.

The point is that you can add 100 different styles, but if I’m forced to use them in a fixed order from 1 to 100, you could as well just remove the other 99 because the game doesn’t change at all. Right now the new “Charge” is exactly that: a one-time style that you can use when starting a fight. That’s all, its relevance from a strategical point of view is zero now. The skill was nerfed right into its most important part, the creative and varied use in different situations to become an “opening style” with a fixed use.

So what I ask is what I would have done if I was in charge at Blizzard:
Instead of nerfing the “fun” of the skill, I would have nerfed its power.

But despite all the words wasted by devs on PR stuff about developing the classes to have them all fun and balanced at the same time, the result was completely different:
They noticed a skill too powerful and they nerfed it to a no-use.

So, my conclusion is really simple. Instead of removing the usability of the skill (which makes it fun), I’d nerf its power. The power is that the skill builds your rage and stun the target, the fun is that you can use it when you want. This is how it worked.

This is how it should work to continue to be fun without being powerful:
Since the fun relies on the skill being “always” usable, this should remain unchanged. Instead we affect the power. The skill has three effects, it builds the rage, stuns the target and works as a fast teleport to reach the target.

Of these three effects I’d simply remorve (completely) the stun component. So we’ll basically have a skill always usable that builds the rage and allows you to get closer to enemies.

This way the skill isn’t anymore unbalanced and it keeps all the basic parts that made it fun.

But I’m wasting words as always. The developers of mmorpg, for some unknown reason, seem just able to ruin their games progressively.