This week I've been: Getting stuck in to World of Warcraft: Midnight.
Last week I was: Playing Crimson Desert, which I've got lots of opinions about.
World of Warcraft: Midnight's lack of UI mods—called addons—has been a point of contention since the pre-patch. I said I was grateful for the peace and quiet back then but, as someone who has to keep my thumbs in the pies of several MMOs at once (please help me, my grim work is never finished) I figured I'd have to play around a bit to form a complete opinion.
I can't speak to high-level play—gimmie a second, I'm still level 87—but not having to have some version of Deadly Boss Mods installed (with its claxons and sirens and mandatory victory noise after every boss kill blaring in my ears) to keep track of enemies is really nice. I especially like the fact that high-priority enemy casts have their own visual effect on the nameplate, too.
That's not to say things are perfect, mind you. There's a solid amount of fiddling you can do with these nameplates, but there still ought to be more if you're looking to replace the functionality of UI mods entirely. Also, and this might just be a personal preference thing—I don't like having to play nameplate whack-a-mole whenever I want to swap targets and kick something.
Blizzard could benefit by lifting something from Fellowship and letting us set an "interrupt target" if it wants us to go completely vanilla with this stuff. But on the whole? I'm pleased as punch. Then again, I am one of the gentry, because my current class was only really made better by the trimming changes.
Outlaw Rogue feels really good at the moment. Roll the Bones, which I shamelessly solved with a UI AddOn anyway, now has a linear progression between "god damnit, I rolled a one again" and "hell yeah, Jackpot". I've got some cosy little debuffs between Slice & Dice and Blade Flurry to keep up, and getting to prolong my big boy rolls with Keep it Rolling feels satisfying.
I can't say the same for the Fatebound hero spec, mind, which doesn't have my cool custom Weakaura anymore and thus fades entirely into the background, but I've got enough going on that I'm not starved for choice.
Do I miss my Vanish-based burst windows? Maybe a little, but I certainly don't miss playing de-aggro roulette whenever I'm out in the open world, so I'm happy for my big boosts to come from Adrenaline Rush. My APM's a little lower but I'm having to pay more attention to my buffs anyway, so it all evens out. Basically, I'm having a good time.
Others aren't, though—just in my own class, Subtlety Rogue is apparently about as exciting as a slice of dry bread without any butter on it, and Assassination is, to hear other rogues talk about it, suffering in the deep.
If you're having problems, I don't think you're wrong to be miffed. Just the other day, I had a friend tell me they'd bounced right off their usual main, Priest, because they'd returned to find it gutted. My heart goes out to you, and it's clear Blizzard's got some major work to do before these pruned classes are up to snuff, though it's waiting on how players chew on them with Apex Talents in the mix.
But a mixed bag is still mixed, and I'm blessed to be among one of the winners—and hopefully with time, and a little bit of elbow grease, Blizzard can bring every one of its dozens of specialisations up to proper snuff. Or you can just reroll Outlaw. Join us. Our cleave is very good and you get to shoot people.
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