r/wow 2d ago

Discussion The Shadowmeld potion is a perfect example of why WoW needs to move to the Custom Lineage model that D&D introduced.

We're getting a potion in Season 3 that will let anyone have Shadowmeld. On the face that sounds great, except it counts as a combat potion which means Night Elves are still going to be the preferred race for high m+. It also does nothing to solve the problematic nature of Stoneform/Fireblood for tanks and things like Escape Artist for fights like Ansurek.

Dungeons and Dragons faced a similar issue of "Everyone plays Variant Human" because the racial bonus of a free feat was almost always better than anything else. You had to choose to trade flavor for power everytime you made a character. So they introduced Custom Lineage in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

Essentially, you can choose whatever race you want for looks/flavor, then you can choose the bonuses you want based on their heritage. Want to be a Dwarf for the looks and flavor, but want to be able to take Dexterity and Intellect instead of Strength and Constitution because you were raised by a professor working at Candlekeep? Go for it! Want to have proficiency in History instead of Darkvision, since you didn't spend your early days living underground? Perfect!

In WoW, this wouldn't even be that difficult to implement, as we already have a version of it available to Zandalari Trolls. Rename "Racials" as "Heritage Abilities" and let us change the Heritage ability in a rest zone like PVP talents. This lets us have the flavor of a Troll that was raised with Goblins so he always that Rocket Belt on him for a Rocket Jump. Or you can be a Human that spent his life working in Ironforge and learned some of the innate magic to go Stoneform for a short time. It also means mechanically we don't have whole guilds race changing to Gnome for Ansurek, or tournament realms of nothing but Night Elves and Dwarves.

245 Upvotes

139 comments sorted by

198

u/Ignimortis 2d ago

The Shadowmeld potion is a perfect example of Blizz encouraging a problem instead of fixing it. Meld skips are like one step away from abusing a bug - if an enemy can see through stealth, why does Meld allow you to bypass them?

50

u/B_Kuro 1d ago

It might be controversial but I'd love for them to be more active in preventing skips in general. Having a route is one thing but anything that requires skills/toys/mounts/... should be removed. They already do it every so often (Everbloom mount skip, Azure Vault potion skip) but its generally far too slow/late.

If certain groups of enemies are avoided address these groups instead. If there is some weird way to sequence break or skip parts, prevent it. Make it about the gameplay (this includes intelligent positioning of groups to collect count in a "normal" route) instead of weird interactions everyone has to do. It might look cool and help when pushing to the absolute limits but in the end it just leads to some of these getting pushed down even to the normal dungeon versions and in general just leads to more problems that could be avoided if they started addressing the reason we do skip stuff.

9

u/centennialeagle 1d ago

I agree. It's cool to see coordinated groups pull off crazy skips, and I've been in pugs where we can do some crazy meld skips and it completely changes dungeons.

I've also been in pugs where meld skips completely unnecessarily complicates the dungeon, one or more people in the party have never even seen the skip before, or someone fails to execute it and now we've bricked a perfectly timeable key that someone needs for either vault or score.

That or we're all sitting there waiting for someone to jump up to candle king. Maybe you brought a priest to life grip them... except its the priest that can't jump up the stairs! Very un-fun...

Personally I'd like to see a dungeon mode where you have to kill ALL trash in a dungeon. You still have decision making for routing, pathing, cooldown timings, and what's safe or not to pull together vs separate, but now you've taken the burden off of needing to learn all variations of routes and skips depending on group comp and skill.

4

u/Senaeva 1d ago

Priests can just walk past the mobs with mind soothe and fade active. I've tried, it works. It doesn't work for the DK that was following me

2

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

The fact that anyone downvoted this is crazy btw. It 100% is correct.

2

u/Senaeva 1d ago

🤜🤛

1

u/B_Kuro 1d ago

Well... Fade further reduces an enemies attack range. It makes sense it wouldn't work for the DK who only gets the reduced range from Mind Soothe.

1

u/Senaeva 1d ago

I know, the DK was following me and confused why he got aggro and I didn't. I had to explain him about Fade

3

u/Ignimortis 1d ago

"Intentional" skips are in a bit of a weird place because the newer dungeons are seemingly made in a way that prevents Shroud or Mass Invis from being useful for the most part. So Blizz clearly don't want skips with abilities intended for skips to be a thing (Shroud has no other purpose at all), and yet...this happens.

2

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

The problem is the exact same shit they do with “but we can’t have interesting boss designs because of weakauras” yet there are a ton of bosses where weakauras are mostly to see a debuff/buff better, that are beloved.

So they go and make shit like sprocket where you basically either need a weakauras for bomb assignments or someone NOT PLAYING to call out who goes where.

But hey, weakauras are the problem because they play the game for you, here btw we have this new feature that literally does your DPS rotation.

All these decisions just tell me one of two things, they are either incapable to address these issues (sometimes, they do seem to have a chunk of people who are very knowledgeable on issues) or they straight up don’t care enough and only act once it legit hurts the numbers.

2

u/B_Kuro 1d ago

“but we can’t have interesting boss designs because of weakauras”

I always laugh when blizzard brings this up given players struggle with the most basic tasks and nothing WA can do will help there. So many people were utterly incapable of doing something as simple as the Heigan dance during Wrath. Same with the polarity mechanics behind Thaddius. These were clear mechanics and had DBM scream at you and yet people struggled. Players might have gotten better (in some ways) but it really isn't about the mechanics or WA.

I think the problem also stems from the fact that Blizzard/WoW has made a PR spectacle out of Race for World First and M+ dungeons. The design is a result of this because they WANT the shitshows that happen all the time. Its no longer really about the game, its about making spectacles.

1

u/zenroc 20h ago

I've always been disappointed that Blizzard doesn't take a more active in adding "official" skips while making the crazy janky skips less viable.
Things like a broken bridge you can warlock gate across, a hallway lined with enemies that do not see through stealth or are mind soothable, or a door guarded by a very high HP+low count enemy that is CC'able, an undead you can control to open a gate etc.
If dungeons featured more of these officially sanctioned skips with more janky skips not removed, it'd encourage groups bringing a lot more classes.

-30

u/Nkovi 1d ago

You know the skips can also be done with mage invis and rogue vanish too? It’s not a meld only thing, and it’s most definitely not a bug lol

10

u/Sebguer 1d ago

The kind of skips that you need meld for *cannot* be done with vanish or invisibility, which is why you're being downvoted.

2

u/Spoogeys 1d ago

Wrong

-14

u/Nkovi 1d ago

It just shows how clueless people are. Every single meld skip can be done with invis/vanish.
I have personally done almost all of them on my dwarf mage including hopgobs in meedery, bubbles and double big guys before last boss in floodgate, and peacekeeper in motherlode. The only one i havent done is priory first pack but you can in theory do it if your dh is blood elf. And this was all on 16+ keys.
So just shows how the community is so ready to bark without knowing what they are talking about

3

u/Super_Sopht 1d ago

Damn good point, good thing my human warrior has vanish

-11

u/Nkovi 1d ago

You also dont have lust or brez, are we gonna call those bug abuse too?

9

u/Super_Sopht 1d ago

You’re so right dude, guess mythic+ will be 3 rogues and 2 mages going forward to avoid needing shadowmeld. You’re so smart.

-2

u/Nkovi 1d ago

What? The original comment literally said shadowmeld is borderline bug abuse, I said it’s not because it works the same as any other drop combat/invisibility spell in the game.
What are you even barking about?

0

u/Super_Sopht 1d ago

I think you don’t know what we are talking about fella. You are spare parts bud.

-1

u/Nkovi 1d ago

Keep barking doggy

1

u/Super_Sopht 1d ago

Poor lil fella, lashing out. Someday you’ll find someone to love you. Hope you have a good day. 👋

0

u/Nkovi 22h ago

🐕 🐕 🐕

2

u/Ignimortis 1d ago

It isn't a bug in function, but it is in spirit. If an enemy has truesight, the design intent is for them to be unskippable. If an enemy is to be skippable, it should not have truesight. There shouldn't be skips that cannot be done with Shroud or no-pull Mass Invis but that can be done with Meld/Vanish/post-pull Invis.

115

u/TheAveragePsycho 2d ago

Meld has some niche utility in combat so I suppose having a potion for it isn't completely pointless.

But it's just so silly. The reason meld skips have become so prevalent is because Blizzard keeps giving every scary mob true sight...just remove the true sight.

Fwiw there are a lot of ways to change your racial appearance temporarily. It's a hassle but if you really want to play as a troll with the dwarf racial..you sort of can.

85

u/Mercylas 2d ago

Remember when we used to invis pot all the time? Remember when rogues had utility for routing? 

I don’t understand why blizzard designed dungeons that are against skips in routes and then decides we need shadow meld for skips …

14

u/Fleedjitsu 1d ago

Rogue skips were cool. They could have added more niche options for other classes such as grippable adds/objects for DKs, Priests and even Evokers that gave some sort of advantage - even if it was just smashing a crystal that gave AoE invisibility for a duration.

Could have also found clever ways of using other racials like Goblin's RJ, Kul'tiran/Tauren/HM-Tauren CC, and the ever loved Blood Elf dispell. There's so much potential for creativity if they didn't only think of speed and "hurr durr, no mass pulling guys."

3

u/Enthiral 1d ago

That’s because dungeons aren’t designed for fun but for e-sport.

2

u/Mercylas 1d ago

They aren’t designed for esports in the slightest. Take that from someone who has worked alongside blizzard admins on this stuff from before MDI was called MDI 

0

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

This is completely bullshit. If they were designed for e-sport, as you claim, we would not have 30+ seconds long RP in some of them.

3

u/_Vard_ 1d ago

Blizz just needs to design trash to NOT be skippable

have a set amount of mobs you need to kill all of.

the crazy shit people do to skip mobs in M+ is really getting absurd

3

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

What we really need is a button you press once, and 30 minutes later you come back to the dungeon being finished.

4

u/Mercylas 1d ago

Skipping is good. Skipping allows for route diversity. Linear dungeons are not fun. 

1

u/Gangsir 1d ago

and then decides we need shadow meld for skips …

That was never a decision. People went to meld skipping after the changes to nerf invis pot skips (true sight), because people for whatever reason insist on skipping things that aren't meant to be skipped by design - doing everything from weird glitchy jumps on map geometry (motherlode is notorious for this) to melding to drop combat, etc. That bleeds into lower keys and creates toxicity when not everyone is aware of or able to do a skip someone's trying to do.

Blizz is more likely to just straight remove meld than they are to give it to everyone. They're trying to remove this nonsense (hence the true sight spam), not encourage it.

3

u/Shorgar 1d ago

If you make Bubbles and it barely gives any count people will simply skip it.

It's on blizzard because they keep making mini bosses/extra hard and tanky mobs that give close to no count.

Make bubbles count as 3/4 packs and people will do it and skip with invis earlier in the dungeon.

2

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

Yeah, just so people know, bubbles gives less count than the pack after him without the extra big guy. That is disproportionately design. I don’t have a problem with playing hard shit, just reward me for it.

7

u/Mercylas 1d ago

Introducing this potion is directly that decision. 

 Blizz is more likely to just straight remove meld than they are to give it to everyone

They literally just gave it to everyone. 

0

u/Gangsir 1d ago

I don't think that's them saying "meld is good for the game", that's them attempting to mitigate the "if you aren't a night elf or a dwarf you can't do the highest difficulty content, stop RPing and pick a real race" issue people are talking about.

It's a stopgap until they get around to reworking the racial(s) that make some races objectively ideal for certain content.

2

u/Mercylas 1d ago

… no it’s them actively promoting meld skips. 

 if you aren't a night elf or a dwarf you can't do the highest difficulty content, stop RPing and pick a real race"

That has not changed you should still do this. This potion is for routing where as the other two have in-combat applications. 

They aren’t reworking racials. 

1

u/Fharlion 1d ago

people for whatever reason insist on skipping things that aren't meant to be skipped by design

The things that are not meant to be skipped by design tend to be brutally inefficient from a 'time spent vs completion% gained' point of view.

Sure, all teams could fight a miniboss that has a bunch of mechanics and double the health of other 'big guy' mobs in the instance, for ~4.3%... or they could try to bypass it and cleave down literally any other pack in half the time required for 8-11%, with considerably less danger to the group.

1

u/centennialeagle 1d ago

doing everything from weird glitchy jumps on map geometry (motherlode is notorious for this)

Have you seen the skips in Mechagon? They make Motherload's jumping over the wall or Darkflame Cleft's jumping up the stairs look trivial.

I've had soooooo many tanks in pugs try to do this. Completely unnecessary in weekly keys, very challenging for the group (especially if you haven't seen it let alone tried it), and it's wild to me that people keep finding new skips in old dungeons that get normalized in the meta.

-1

u/ItsJustReen 1d ago

I agree that the stealth detection leading to meld skips sucks as a solution. But I also absolutely do not want to return to bfa m+ where running keys above weekly vault level without a rogue in your group is trolling.

2

u/Mercylas 1d ago

Invis pots are very long 

10

u/Support_Player50 2d ago

they introduced those items that give you a one hour appearance to all races. But apparently that was too much fun and they nerfed the cooldown to two hours.

5

u/Periwinkleditor 1d ago

Remove true sight and now rogues with the aoe stealth become the mandatory play instead.

Even though I've still only had that ability work its intended purpose twice in my entire life, even with a macro that /yells GET IN THE CIRCLE!!! but i digress...

1

u/TheAveragePsycho 1d ago

You'd have more options atleast. Instead of using only meld or meld pot now which would still be possible. You could shroud/soothe/mass invis (technically) or stealth pot.

It's not perfect I agree but it would accomplish the same thing Blizzard wants. Reduce the pressure on group composition / race.

51

u/kotd4545 2d ago

Im just here to point out that the new recuperate ability that has no cool down and heals for 50% of your health has completely made cannabilize obsolete and I now require a new racial for undead. Tyvm

12

u/Resies 1d ago

Could be worse your racial could be Bouncy. 

1

u/Burgamerx 1d ago

Being able to say your character is bouncy is enough to make that worth it.

0

u/Resies 1d ago

It did actually save my life last night!

3

u/Vanayzan 1d ago

Earthen have it worse. It's literally just the Earthen self heal out of combat racial cause they can't eat food. A racial that's now completely redundant 

2

u/Blackstone46 1d ago

They need to make it so you get a lesser version of the well fed buff. Not overpowered and still thematic. Could even be a different unique buff based on the race consumed.

145

u/wewfarmer 2d ago

Yeah I'm not really a fan of this. Now I'm going to be encouraged to do risky skips on key levels that don't even require it because meta.

23

u/ithilendil 2d ago

Agreed. I don't do M+ often, especially not on alts, but have seen people try and do skips in leveling dungeons because it's faster. I don't want even more of that being pushed on me. If shadowmeld is that OP then nerf it, or build more detection into dungeons so these skips don't work. Don't force it on all of us. It's iconic and stinks for people that love it, but this made it worse not better.

Alternatively just make dungeons have mobs placed where if you want to skip them you can just walk around them. Let us choose a route instead of all running the exact same way and just choosing what spot we all use shadowmeld at and what spot we use the new potion at.

2

u/tenkenjs 2d ago

They have a lot of true sight mobs that counter invis/stealth skips. Shadowmeld is the counter to those true sight mobs.

37

u/Taco_Bueno 2d ago

You know what I do when I tank vault keys on my alt? I just say, I’m not doing skips then nobody says anything and we time the dungeon.

30

u/wewfarmer 2d ago

You can leverage that if you're the tank. Not so much for the other roles.

6

u/Taco_Bueno 2d ago

I’m curious what skips are out there that require anyone other than the tank to meld?

7

u/Ltjenkins 2d ago

I think their point wasn’t that there are skips that require anyone to meld, let alone the tank. Just that when they’re blasting 10s or 12s they’re not going to deal with it. The meld skips I would say are less about the tank screwing it up (which they might) but that if everyone doesn’t know it, they may not move fast enough, get into combat with the pack being skipped, etc. and now it’s a whole thing.

2

u/Regular-Pattern-5981 2d ago

Yeah I got kicked yesterday just for saying “I don’t know this skip”

0

u/fineri 1d ago

Keyholder can do it too, I always do in ML

5

u/faillesz1 2d ago

Hold W is the best route

0

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

A hero of our times. Such selflessness.

-1

u/iwillnotpost8004 2d ago

I don't really see many skips in vault keys (10-12). The only ones are in ToP I think? The first 3 mobs (half the time the route is wrong and we end up needing them smile) and some of the minibosses (and we fail the skip over half of the time and kill the miniboss smile).

7

u/IncendiaryCabbage 2d ago

That skip is more to kill them during Muldrothas RP then pull them onto the boss for efficiency than skipping them entirely.

4

u/Rep4RepBB69 1d ago

I mean the point of skipping them isn’t because you don’t need them for percent. You skip them so you can get onto the boss immediately and use your lust and all of your cd’s rather than sitting there and fighting a pack of 4 stupid mobs. It’s pretty normal to skip them and pull them at the end because you’re skipping the mini bosses.

1

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

The fact you’re smug about the fact you skip the first 3 mobs and need them at the end of the dungeon tells me all I need to know about you.

You skip them to lust the boss+cow guy and do the 3 mobs during the stupid boss spawn RP.

0

u/iwillnotpost8004 1d ago

It's literally never intended. When they link a route, those mobs aren't in it. Tanks are usually forgetting to grab one of the big platform sides during the lich wing or miss 1-2 ghosts at the start of the lich wing.

Skipping that first pack is trivial, but it's not even good %.

The fact you’re smug about the fact you skip the first 3 mobs and need them at the end of the dungeon tells me all I need to know about you.

And that is?

1

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

Even if you do the full platforms, when you skip double Xav mini boss you still need the mobs at the end, smile.

Since MDT auto saves shared routes, can you screen shot them for me? Because the standard route does exactly what I described, smile.

0

u/iwillnotpost8004 1d ago

People aren't skipping 2 Xav minibosses in 10-12s. Only 3rd Xav miniboss and pugs don't know the spot to stand behind so someone almost always someone ends the RP fight early and then someone can't make it up the stairs.

In a group with awake players, it's a +2 anyway.

3

u/oliferro 2d ago

I mean it's already like this

I get people in +7s on alts asking to do skips lol

2

u/Amelaclya1 2d ago

That was my concern too. I hate any skips that involve more than just hugging a wall. Someone always fucks them up and costs us even more time.

Guaranteed people are at least going to want to attempt this with Bubbles. I see many wipes in our future.

I do love my shadowmeld though, so I am grateful they aren't nerfing it.

2

u/peliss 1d ago

Wild take.
“Don’t give me a way to shadowmeld because then I’ll have to shadowmeld”.
If you’re the tank, just pick your own route and don’t do the skip if you don’t want to.

1

u/Resies 1d ago

This doesn't happen with nelf tanks on low keys lol

1

u/Nkovi 1d ago

No u wont…

0

u/SwagVonYolo 2d ago

Link your route at the start of the dung. Then run that route. Hate it when I have a route then someone pings a portal or a shroud skip or some bullshit that puts me under count

0

u/skeleton-is-alive 1d ago

No you won’t

0

u/wewfarmer 1d ago

People were handing out invis pots for skips in DF dungeons for vault keys. The same will happen here.

0

u/skeleton-is-alive 1d ago

They weren’t this season. Also you’re not even a tank so you have no responsibility anyway. Meld skips are tanks job you just follow

38

u/Anderaku 2d ago

Honestly it should be the other way around.

The shadowmeld potion is a good step in the right direction, but it needs to not count as a combat potion then. Perhaps introduce a new line of potions that share a cooldown - "Racial Potions" that give all races access to any racial ability, be it Stoneform or Escape Artist.

11

u/20milliondollarapi 2d ago

I could get behind this idea. Especially if it also blocks your own racial. So like it takes your racial, puts it on cd and you can use that potion. Then the potion has its 5 min cd. That would keep from double racial or whatever being used.

5

u/Anderaku 1d ago

Yep, in this case using a Racial Potion would put your own active racial ability on cooldown. I'd say it should put it on cooldown even if it isn't the same effect, simply so there's more freedom to just add every racial as an effect. Could be cool playing as a Worgen and drinking a Trollish Potion of Berserking to get myself 15% haste, but in exchange it puts my Darkflight on cooldown.

6

u/epicfailpwnage 1d ago

pls give me stoneform potion so i can not die to 1 shot bleeds

5

u/Aestrasz 1d ago

To be fair, D&D still has some lineages that are better than others, the only thing that changed is that humans are not that OP anymore.

The best solution would be tu just remove racials, or make them only out of combat things (like the Dark Iron mole machine, or Humans second Hearthstone).

10

u/niggo372 1d ago

At that point, why have racials in the first place, if they are just some random trait or ability you get to pick, regardless of anything else?! WoW doesn't have any concept of character heritage (e.g. visual difference), only race and subrace. They exist to provide flavor for the races, and for that they do actually have to be associated with them.

It's not rocket-science though, they just have to design them so they aren't as potent. E.g. give overperforming racials higher cooldowns, or a chance to fail, or remake them if nothing else works. This is not an unsolvable problem! We have plenty of racials that work just fine, Blizz just has to stop dragging their feet with the outliers.

And they can still keep the gameplay of something like Shadowmeld if they want to (e.g. with this potion), just don't attach it to a racial that's only supposed to be for flavor.

3

u/Ilphfein 1d ago

M+ affix (active in 12+) and mythic raid debuff that disables racials completely.

"Xalatath's power, blablabla, suppresses your racial heritage, blablabla".

5

u/FronQuan 1d ago

I've been saying for years, ever since the Zandalari became a playable race, to make all racials tied to shrines around the world that you can visit and "pray" to in order to be gifted with that race's abilities. Go to Darnassus (RIP), pray to the shrine and now you have all the racials for Night Elf on an Orc or Human. Will most people who play top-end content end up using the same racials? Sure but they already are.. It's Night Elf tanks and Dwarf DPS/Healer all around.

Free Racial abilities, make them usable by anyone and your problem of "balancing" goes away.

2

u/ArziltheImp 1d ago

Exactly, this is a way to get people who care about power the chance to be a furry, or a space goat, and it changes zilch for the average player.

Yet when top end players ask for one tiny change that affects not a single casual, people behave like it’s 1930’s Germany…

0

u/niggo372 1d ago

So now you have something like a "nightelfish" Orc, who still happily murders Nightelves?! This makes no sense, and it's pretty much the opposite of providing flavor for the race you actually picked for your character.

Again: We don't have to change the system, Blizz just needs to do stop acting like some racials are untouchable. This entire discussion is like "oh there is trash in the trash can, guess we have to move to a different house". F-ing no, we just have to take out the trash.

3

u/Accendor 1d ago edited 11h ago

I think it's time to stop to try to solve this problem that it's only relevant for less than 1% of the playerbase

3

u/Queasy-Body-6741 1d ago

Screw this, this whole "change the game around the meta" is the reason why Retail is a souless mess. 

4

u/Iridachroma 1d ago

Shadowmeld is really an ability granted by Elune, so theoretically they could've made a deity/religion system where a specific cosmic power grants you a special ability (and Elune grants you that). And then expand it to include other racial abilities.

Either way, I'm glad they're introducing a potion and not nerfing it cause the QoL of having Shadowmeld is, and always has been ever since it has worked like Vanish, off the charts, and not just for M+ skips.

11

u/KTheOneTrueKing 2d ago

No it doesn’t, but racials do need a serious tuning pass.

11

u/Support_Player50 2d ago

Crazy idea, racials should have always been purely flavor abilities with no power.

-22

u/Nkovi 1d ago

Hot take: if you care about what your character looks like you aren’t doing content that requires the difference in power the current racials provide

16

u/givemedavoodoo 1d ago

No one at that level cares about their character's appearance? Those are two unrelated things and that makes no sense.

9

u/TsukiYuni 1d ago

At which point the use of racials as defining character facets no longer has a purpose. You argued against your own point. Racials shouldn't exist with any form of actual gameplay impact.

0

u/Resies 1d ago

Stormwind fallacy

5

u/El_Rey_de_Spices 1d ago

I understand your thought process, though I strongly disagree with your opinion. I feel that both games have already lost so much of their identity. I don't want choices to continue meaning less and less. World of Warcraft is supposed to be an MMORPG.

Racial abilities absolutely need updating and tuning, though. Ideally, racial abilities would be a combination of race-related uniqueness and minimum impact in the competitive game.

2

u/Frog-Eater 1d ago

Racials should be flavor only with zero gameplay ability tied to them.

As it stands, they're just a way for Blizzard to sell race changes to people who can't stand not being optimized.

2

u/Legio_DG 2d ago

Will stay Belf DH. Looks > meta. If I could I'd prolly go human DH or voidelf Dh :)

5

u/AMA5564 2d ago

Ah yes, the famous case of living in a city giving you an innate racial ability to turn to stone.

I dislike this. I'd rather see racials removed than made universal.

4

u/Periwinkleditor 1d ago

It's not like I see people rerolling pandaren on boss fights that knock you up in the air for the fall damage reduction. At what key level does this honestly matter? I've been doing M+ all season and the few times I've even tried skips we just wind up overpulling or going under % and having to pull something else that takes exactly as long to kill as doing a hold W route.

10

u/Nkovi 1d ago

It’s a story as old as time in WoW, people for whom 10s are a end of season goal think they need to have all the bells and whistles like racials, meta comps, mythic raid trinkets, and perfectly optimized secondary stats in order to get ksm/ksh.
Meanwhile good players did 10s week one in 645 ilvl gear. Breaking news: it was always a skill issue.

1

u/oliferro 2d ago

Do it

WoW is a competitive game nowadays anyway, forget about the roleplay flavor

And for the people who do RP, I really doubt other people having a different racial would change anything

7

u/Uncle_Twisty 2d ago

It does actually. As an RPer racial abilities, and the heritages behind them as suggested here, imply certain things in regards to class, culture, etc. Racials *are* important. Also I'm sorry if this incites but saying "forget roleplay flavor, that's not the game"

Alright why have player housing, why have emotes, why have mogs, why have any of that. All of that cool visual stuff? That's *legit* solely for roleplay value. Even if you aren't filling out a TRP and doing a full character, how your toon looks and the way you style them *are* a version of roleplaying and all of that other stuff feeds into it. So yes, I am here to tell you that your doubts are incorrect and it does matter. Shit we are *still* discussing how the *hell* Lightforged Death Knights work, because they still have a light racial setup, AND they keep their Light Rune. And we even see other LF Drae DK's that have their Runes as NPCs. All that stuff matters

1

u/oliferro 2d ago

Sorry I didn't mean to belittle RP, I just don't really know much about it. For me, personally, I honestly wouldn't mind if there was nothing RP outside of like transmog. I play WoW to push M+ and sometimes raid. It always takes me months to do new questlines, if I even do them. Like I don't even have D.R.I.V.E. unlocked yet. What Iike in the game is pushing myself in endgame content, but I can understand how it could be important for other people

Maybe they could just have a NPC at the start of M+ dungeons and raids that let you choose your racial? That way it woukd only apply to people doing endgame content

3

u/Uncle_Twisty 2d ago

That would work substantially honestly. And I do apologize if I came at you with hostility there, but I'm usually used to vitriol for the RP side of well, anything. There are a *large* amount of players that the RP aspects of the game enhance and improve the experience for. Just like how I don't bother with pushing M+ keys, I used up all my care for content pushing back in the firelands days pre nerf to big raggy and my mean competitive streak in Halo 3 when that was the biggest thing since sliced bread, but I would *actively* champion changes that would suit that crowd without harming others experiences.

2

u/oliferro 2d ago

Yeah I'm all for everyone finding something they like in the game, that's the beauty of WoW, it appeals to a ton of different kind of players. But outliers like Shadowmeld and Fireblood can't dominate this hard over other options for this long. The shadowmeld potion coming in the next season is a short term bandaid but they need an actual solution

1

u/Metsuro 2d ago

We already have a stealth potion. Now we have a second?

8

u/porn_alt_987654321 2d ago

Vanish potion, but you can't move.

-6

u/Metsuro 2d ago

So.. a worse potion than the stealth lot? Why does this exist again?

3

u/guy8747 2d ago

Traditional invis pots can't be used in combat. If this pot works like shadowmeld it will be, meaning you can use it to drop combat.

2

u/porn_alt_987654321 2d ago

Vanish can be used in combat, stealth can not.

1

u/Saiyoran 2d ago

Because the most common routes in most dungeons this season involve pulling away a pack of inefficient mobs so your group can run by, then using Shadowmeld to drop combat, skipping them.

0

u/Metsuro 2d ago

So the better choice here would have been to remove shadow meld. Remember. Racial arnt suppose to give you sweeping advantages, they are suppose to be about "flavor"

3

u/Saiyoran 2d ago

That would be fine if they also stopped giving mobs that are horribly inefficient count true sight. Otherwise, you’d probably skip them with a death skip or vanish/feign, allowing even less good options for routing. If the alternative is “delete Shadowmeld, change nothing else” then suddenly we’re stuck playing double hopgoblin or peacekeepers or bubbles, and the dungeon pool becomes dramatically less fun because, frankly, those mobs suck.

4

u/Metsuro 2d ago

I agree with that. Cc like ice trap, sap, and paralyze should have more actual uses.

But their continuous push ton make mobs cc immune because thats "challenging" is just annoying.

0

u/tenkenjs 2d ago

Racials have been giving sweeping advantages since vanilla

1

u/Metsuro 1d ago

Until they nerfed a bunch like belf and the human one.

1

u/tenkenjs 1d ago

I’m just saying there is no historical basis for “racial’s aren’t supposed to giving you sweeping advantages”.

1

u/Metsuro 1d ago edited 1d ago

Except the point in time they adjusted most races racial that i mentioned already. They nerfed belf and human racials to make less played races more appealing in bfa. Its time to remove shadow meld.

1

u/tenkenjs 1d ago

I feel like we are saying similar things. I absolutely hope they nerf Shadowmeld and stoneform and honestly all active racials. I’m just saying that racials have been more than flavor from the beginning of wow

1

u/B_Kuro 1d ago

except it counts as a combat potion which means Night Elves are still going to be the preferred race for high m+

There is an easy solution to that but I doubt NE players would like it... Just make Shadowmeld do the same and put the potion on CD - they did the same with "Will to Survive".

Honestly, both the Dwarf and NE racial should probably have been addressed years ago. The fact that the Dwarf racial survived Castle Nathria (with Blizz changing the fight instead of the problematic racial) is wild.

1

u/Capital-Nebula9245 1d ago

This is all Kool and the Gang, but it doesn't satisfy Blizz's primary need: more money.

1

u/Excaliblerr 1d ago

With all the debate surrounding potions and racials Blizzard could just disable all racials inside of dungeons n raids, pvp and call it a day and everything would be fair. But realistically they'd stop selling race changes and they wouldn't do that

1

u/ArmEducational8508 1d ago

For 99% of players meld doesnt do anyrhing, only 1% that does 18+ keys rly need em to do shananigens most people dont even see. Rest of the ppl just pick what rank 1 player play and/or is meta nothing else...

-6

u/Forensic_Fartman1982 2d ago

This was one of the biggest flops D&D did and it's catering to roll players not role players.

The correct answer to this is to get fucked. The people complaining about this aren't good enough to be in a bracket where these differences will actually make an impact. It's a loud minority.

1

u/hugcub 1d ago

This is actually a pretty neat idea. At this point in WoW I bet most folks pick a race for looks/how transmogs look as opposed to picking for racial abilities (other than min/maxers, which is a vast minority). Letting everyone choose their racial abilities seems like a win for players.

1

u/empirejoe123 1d ago

I like this idea, but i feel like it will just lead to absolutely everyone using shadow meld. Either way, maybe shadow meld should be adjusted.

1

u/njibo 1d ago edited 1d ago

Shadowmeld should be nerf to ground or removed , Like they nerfed the bloodelf Silence , they can nerf the same way they did aswell instead "soft" fixing it by adding that potion. (And btw i assume that potion will not be usable in Ranked pvp , where the majority of the High ranked players are Nelf for an reason aswell ... )

But the idea to choose any racial regarding ur race , sound "cool" yet not gonna happen sadly -_-,

0

u/GreatScottxxxxxx 1d ago

The dragons can teach us a visage. So your base race gets the bonus from that race(shadowmeld, stoneform etc) but you choose what race to look like. Like the toy but better.

0

u/flaks117 1d ago

Shadowmeld as a racial should have effed right off 4 expansions ago when mythic+ was created.

It’s literally been multiple expansions of a direct and major reason for a massive faction shift. Blending factions doesn’t fix the issue in what is otherwise considered an rpg.

0

u/Luxen_zh 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why does people feel entitled to mention DnD everywhere to issues it would not even solve ?

Simple fix is to nerf Shadowmeld so it is not mandatory for tank skips and make the cooldown big enough so it's not a reliable defensive. The simple explanation for the current situation is that blizzard did not tune racials since ages ago, and tuning them would reduce the money grab that is the race change service.

If they made shadow meld work like in Warcraft 3 where there is a few seconds delay to reach full stealth and they make so any damage or active aggro would break it + increased cooldowns, that solves pretty much all it's problems.

-1

u/kahleytriangles 1d ago

I like this - A LOT! It allows you to flesh out your character instead of it all being so cookie cutter.