The Spell Ranks System Is Better, Here's Why

[@Kshaadoo]

2 levels in Tanaris or somewhere is about 6-7 hours. Going back to civilization and safety to learn new skills feels so good.

[@Finlandiav0dka]

I think that having to return to the capital after every few levels is great for another reason as well, that you get an opportunity to have a break from often monotonous leveling. You can level up your professions or check the AH for some upgrades or crafting materials. You can meet other people of different levels or hit up a conversation with someone (this is wishful thinking in modern age, but still). If a player had zero reasons to return to the capital at any point during leveling, I think it would burn out a lot of people and make the game feel more grindy. In the later expansions leveling takes less time and you get to change zones a lot faster, so it doesn't matter that much, even though leveling in retail feels much more of a chore still.

[@PrimordialNightmare]

glad to see that I'm not hte only one that hinks that system was good for pacing.

[@МиланПиперски]

exactly, returning to capital feels like a small pause from monotonous leveling, I also like seeing people walking around the town doing their own bussines. It makes the world feel more alive.

[@TundrousOfficial]

Mop is my favourite exp but my issue is a lot of levels gave you... nothing. The old system made each talent, each level and rank more impactful and meaningful to your journey.

[@CrixGuides]

YOU'RE A LEGEND. I love spell ranks.! Also, side note to wrath, not a big fan of how WOTLK changed the mana cost of the downranks.

[@aeparaflux]

Yup. Downranks add depth and more tactics to Classic PvP as well as mana efficiency for healers (especially Druids).

[@einheit02]

As a healer from Classic MC through Ulduar, I preferred being able to down rank my spells in order to be more efficient when max rank heals aren't needed, or to apply procs on the tank before a pull

[@krusokat]

they should just have put class trainers in major towns like Crossroads, Southshore, Astranaar, Lakeshire etc etc. so you wouldn't have to travel all the way to the capital city, just the nearest major town. Perhaps make it like your 10,20,30+ etc. spells had to be leveled in capital cities, but the rest in-between could be learnt at class trainers in major towns.

[@TundrousOfficial]

This change would make the towns more of a "reset" hub, kinda like returning to town after a dungeon in Diablo.

[@justjprobably5226]

yeah good middle ground

[@pate7816]

another thing they could do it add profession trainers in SOME random inns across the map, they already do this here and there but if they expanded slightly it would make it nice

[@zlien5888]

Me personally I don't get it like cool my heroic strike does 50 more damage then my lower rank one but hey that's just me

[@TundrousOfficial]

ABSOLUTELY. Thank you.

[@capriccz]

You didn't mention downranking spells at all

[@kristagaro]

It depends on how you play the game. I stopped power levelling and started enjoying the journey of levelling up. I always look forward to going back to main cities every two levels, sometimes every level. It gives me that sense of feeling that I have accomplished something and time to take a rest from questing and do other stuff like learning new skills, AH, and profession levelling. There is actually a lot of things you can do in the game aside from getting max level fast and raiding. (I'm talking about classic up to wotlk).

[@jmac28083]

As a healer main of 14 years about half of that has been wow classic / vanilla private servers. Downranking combined with at least a few hundred healing power stat makes a big differene if you know what you're doing & know how to apply it well. To hold the scales of hps & hpm seperates a decent healer from a great one. I also really really liked keybinding and downranking gives me an excuse to have moar keys!

[@rattlehead999]

Don't confuse learning spells with spell ranks. Learning new spells is great, spell ranks aren't. I think Cataclsym had it best, you learn the spell once and you are good to go. The problem is that spell ranks cause you to go way too often to cities to train. Back in the day of Vanilla/TBC there were very few items while leveling up(most likely due to budget constraints), so they needed a different way to have character progression and they went with spell ranks. It also helped with gold sinking before level 60. I'd rather have progression through gear(and other stuff like gems, glyphs, talents), or have spell ranks be unlocked for free automatically at certain levels, but not going back to a city to learn the same spell again. The other option would be if they just put more trainers around the world.

[@laszloszabados5884]

I never had a problem with what you are describing here, I actually loved that I could choose what spell ranks I spend money on, what I need most for leveling and the feeling of having enough gold later on to train everything I hadn't before I don't think you had to return to a main city too often, felt right to me. I guess everyone loves a different pacing.

[@TheCursedProsecutor]

It depends on whether or not you like the RPG elements of your MMORPG. Which is why I like Classic and TBC the most, before they begin weaning those elements out.

[@mohastgridlock]

Downtime is an important part of gameplay. If you add up all the little qol changes that seem like no brainers, you end up with modern wow.

[@Syssn3ck]

Inconveniences make the journey more memorable.

[@MrSiciro]

YES. Was experiencing this over the weekend

[@huntermontana]

Spell ranks helped a lot with healers not taking agro

[@aeparaflux]

Spell Ranks literally add more spells to the game. As a Druid main, we all have multiple Healing Touch ranks for certain damage situations to be mana efficient. We use rank 1 Moonfires and Faerie Fires for stealthers/Mob Tagging/totem killing. I even will have Rank 1 Rejuvinations and Mark of the Wilds/Thorns at times to bait dispels/purges from opponents. Rank 1 Hurricanes for trying to tag a stealther. It adds depth and customization to the game.

[@leelangley3705]

As a healer, ranks were great and it added to the skill element. I could happily keep a tank alive with little but constant heals, makes the game far more engaging

[@Loug522]

Especially considering how quickly you can go oom in fights that are slightly more intense, that's also something I love about vanilla priests, you can either chose a race for the tiny bit of potential extra dps or go for the heal racials.

[@Rinavani]

Classic is just better. It showed a little bit in wrath where everything was getting diluted. Classes got to the point where they just weren’t different enough.

[@Lampaluile]

I love spell ranks

[@Deathinacann]

dont gotta go back every 2 levels, only go back when it's worth it. plus, getting the rank up doesnt give that much more dps until youre a few levels past it since the ranks scale with your level

[@Babaganoosh69]

Agree 100% with this take. Trying to level on cata, mop, retail, etc feels incredibly boring imo compared to Classic Vanilla or even tbc. I think the character progression during leveling is a big part of it

[@silentsnooper3307]

Having to go train spells also helps keep the world feeling bigger.

[@TheRealCHIMShady]

To me all the different systems don't make that much of a difference, the only thing that stands out is in classic I would go back to town every 4-6 levels, I think that's the only thing that's good for me and not neutral

[@steffengooo]

TBC hpal downranking is a must. And so much fun!

[@Specuh]

I like ranking for healing, but for damage, not so much.

[@Fabriciod_Crv]

i strongly disagree, i think you should get ranks of existing spells as your character levels up, it makes alot more sense in an RPG context and that's how it worked in the Warcraft 3 whenever your hero leveled up, you should still go to a trainer in order to get NEW abilities that your character hasn't learned before, because let's face it, there's absolutely minimal difference between Rank 1 wrath and Rank 7 wrath, it's all damage modifiers or a slightly shorter cast time, the spell still stays fundamentally the same, shouldn't need a trainer to learn a ''stronger'' version of it.

[@izurukamukura221]

Felt more like a chore back in the day but maybe that’s just me 🤷‍♀️

[@yayotone3252]

Agreed!

[@ZapatosVibes]

Too much convenience = boring, heartless and soulless. Then again its possible to go too far in the opposite direction but modern MMOs are so ridiculously over-convenient it removes all meaning and feeling of progression.

[@quarteratom]

No.

[@tehjamerz]

Everything about vanilla was better, simple as