Buffs & Debuffs

Hello there!

I have been referred to ask this on the forums instead of on the discord as this perhaps is a bigger topic that needs to be dealt with eventually anyways.

My previous discord question was: "do you guys know yet if buff/debuff slots will be a thing on targets? If so, will it be clearly visible which ones are yours and which aren't, and will people be able to see other people's debuffs/buffs?"

But since it's a forum topic I can express a bit more thoughts regarding this and my concerns, which aren't really big concerns, it's more to see what type of combat design will be in the game.

Buffs and Debuffs Pros
So the pros are obvious here, it allows another variant of spells to exist as just "direct damage" can be boring when it comes to debuffs and also allows more spells for support classes. I do not mean to say that there has to be these things, but they simply open up a whole new book of things that can be done. Allowing to differentiate

Buffs and Debuffs Cons
The moment you have to pay attention to tracking something, you will need some sort of more focus toward your target frames and this is most likely where most player's min maxing kicks in and says "I want something more visible in the middle" which leads to people wanting to have either addons or customizable unitframes.

Another thing is that if everyone can see everyone's debuffs there will be people nitpicking "why didn't you..." etc, which from what I've understood there will be no combat-log API support for addons and hence no recount/skada/details/damage-meter alike addon, neither built in the game, which has its pros and cons as well.

My opinion
I think that opening up the "book of buffs & debuffs" are far better in terms of value toward a more variant combat gameplay. There's just that much you can do to spice things up. So with that being said, will we be seeing buffs and debuffs (dots or hots) and will they be visible for everyone to see?

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Comments

Noaani

Hansrutger wrote: »

do you guys know yet if buff/debuff slots will be a thing on targets?

This is the only actual question here.

Yes, the game will have both buffs and debuffs.

Will it function in a way where there are slots for these? I sure as hell hope not, that aspect of it is stupid and lazy design.

Leiloni

We have an entire class dedicated to buffs/debuffs. yes we will have them. As for addons, it's unnecessary if they can design a quality UI from the get go, along with obvious visual cues (this is equally as huge) so people know when a buff is cast on someone.

Another thing is that if everyone can see everyone's debuffs there will be people nitpicking "why didn't you..." etc

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I've played a ton of games that didn't allow addons and the lack of them was never a problem. In fact I'd say it made people more relaxed because they didn't have an abundance of information at their fingertips with which to point fingers and assign blame. If you succeed, people are happy. If you don't, the group comes together to discuss how to change to succeed next time. And if you have a guy that is difficult and argumentative and doesn't want to be helpful, well then he'll develop a server reputation for that and nobody will want to group with him.

Wandering Mist

Will there be buffs and debuffs in the game? Sure, I don't see why there wouldn't be. Do I need to see the debuffs that other people put on a target? No, not really. Unless it's a debuff that I can act upon there is literally no point in me seeing it, and all it does is contribute to information overload.

As a side note, one of the reasons why I hate the default WoW UI is because it gives you a ton of information that you simply don't need in combat, making it so much harder to find the information you DO need.

Leiloni

Wandering Mist wrote: »

As a side note, one of the reasons why I hate the default WoW UI is because it gives you a ton of information that you simply don't need in combat, making it so much harder to find the information you DO need.

And then people are conditioned to think they need that information.

OnibakaEX

Leiloni wrote: »

We have an entire class dedicated to buffs/debuffs.

(New guy here, sorry if I'm asking something obvious to everybody.)

Which one is the dedicated debuffer?
I used to play/live as an Orc Overlord back in my L2 days and having an enemy-annoying debuff skillset might be something I'd love to re-experience.

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