Soulbond is in a strange place now after the buff rework. Let's look at how the buff rework changes the act of buffing and how Soulbond can better fit into that.
One of the main changes to gameplay with the buff rework is now the need (especially in raids) to constantly recast buffs as people die, as you can only soulbond a single buff at a time, and as people join / leave the raid, you end up having to recast buffs a lot. It is tiresome to constantly have to go back and forth between buff spells memmed and normal spells memmed, and recast all your buffs (save perhaps for 1 if you're fortunate enough to have everyone in the raid have it soulbound) whenever someone in the raid dies or switches out.
Since there is a maximum number of buffs and certain people don't want certain buffs in raids where buffers are constantly re-buffing, raiders find themselves constantly looking through their buff list to click off buffs they don't want at the time. These are buffs they don't necessarily want to block permanently, but at that time for their class they aren't as useful as other buffs so they are clicked off to keep the buff slots from being full.
Having to constantly have buffers go back to their spellbook and rebuff the entire raid whenever anyone dies, and the raid having to recheck and click off their buffs every time this happens boils down to tedious gameplay. Fortunately this has a relatively simple solution.
Make Soulbond a Passive Ability
With most buffs being 10 minute buffs, Soulbond makes more sense as a passive ability that affects any buff rather than a 1hr 10min recast for a single 10 minute buff. It also fixes the issues of having to constantly rebuff the raid whenever a single person dies, and takes pressure off people to constantly keep an eye on their buffs and click off the ones they don't want at the time.
As a side note to this, pets have also been hurting since the buff rework and are far weaker since they now no longer have consistent buffs up. The raid definitely doesn't recast all buffs because a pet died, so making Soulbond a passive ability will ensure those buffs transfer to pets when they are resummoned, bringing pets more back in line with their previous power.
One of the main changes to gameplay with the buff rework is now the need (especially in raids) to constantly recast buffs as people die, as you can only soulbond a single buff at a time, and as people join / leave the raid, you end up having to recast buffs a lot. It is tiresome to constantly have to go back and forth between buff spells memmed and normal spells memmed, and recast all your buffs (save perhaps for 1 if you're fortunate enough to have everyone in the raid have it soulbound) whenever someone in the raid dies or switches out.
Since there is a maximum number of buffs and certain people don't want certain buffs in raids where buffers are constantly re-buffing, raiders find themselves constantly looking through their buff list to click off buffs they don't want at the time. These are buffs they don't necessarily want to block permanently, but at that time for their class they aren't as useful as other buffs so they are clicked off to keep the buff slots from being full.
Having to constantly have buffers go back to their spellbook and rebuff the entire raid whenever anyone dies, and the raid having to recheck and click off their buffs every time this happens boils down to tedious gameplay. Fortunately this has a relatively simple solution.
Make Soulbond a Passive Ability
With most buffs being 10 minute buffs, Soulbond makes more sense as a passive ability that affects any buff rather than a 1hr 10min recast for a single 10 minute buff. It also fixes the issues of having to constantly rebuff the raid whenever a single person dies, and takes pressure off people to constantly keep an eye on their buffs and click off the ones they don't want at the time.
As a side note to this, pets have also been hurting since the buff rework and are far weaker since they now no longer have consistent buffs up. The raid definitely doesn't recast all buffs because a pet died, so making Soulbond a passive ability will ensure those buffs transfer to pets when they are resummoned, bringing pets more back in line with their previous power.
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