When I read the title, I thought cosmetics. But this is interesting, its hard to make a fox more pretty anyway. Blue, flying, waterwalking fox. Why did I even bother to farm spirehawk when all I needed in the end were 3 days of gathering herbs?
This thread is a perfect example of why Blizzard should not try new things. I would love to see AP replaced with a new dynamic fun relevant inventive system for max level character progression. But I imagine all the people "screwed over" by the change would gnash their teeth and pitch a fit.
I don't like the change, but since it'll be forced on us anyway, I'd like to see two new kinds of mount equipment - one that makes all mounts flyable, and one that increases swim speed while mounted. Perhaps even a legendary one that increases flying speed by something significant like 90%.
Wrote-up seems to have a big error... I read that passive absorbs like Ice Barrier & Resounding Protection will NOT prevent being dismounted AT ALL. And I really resent the implication from blizz that somehow we who spent so much time and effort getting the strider mounts got some sort of unfair advantage. OH, how about Druids who can flight form, get first tag on a quest mob or item without ever having to dismount (uh, we both arrive at the same time BUT I have a second or so to dismount before I can tag)? I can be running right up to a quest item, boom drood flies in grabs it before I am in distance. AND let us not forget that when we got the strider, it wasn't NEAR as necessary as their OWN ZONE DESIGN made it to be. AND what is this nonsense "cannot be dazed unless hit from behind?" Ya think the mobs behind you are going to outrun you to hit from the front?
Making it per mount doesn't FIX the problem of the Water Striders. Yes, 7 years ago (or even 5 if you got the recolour during Warlords), it was cool, but... welcome to hindsight being 20/20. Remember how they tried to make Water Striders not work in Legion initially, and then backpedalled on it? Because it was taking away a function just for the sake of "we don't like this thing we added before for future world design". Now, they are giving us the solution: You can have water-walking, or have something else, but the mount does not dictate the function (barring the Sky Golem and Mechanical Lumber Extractor mounts).Additionally, as this is coming at the same time we can unlock flight (including in the 8.2 zones)... you'd have the water-walking enabled until you get it unlocked, and then... not care and switch to something else (likely the parachute or anti-daze).The issue I have is there is a distinct lack of options...Water-Walking: Okay and fine, but if you can fly in the zone, pointless (which is everywhere except Argus (which only has water in 1/3 of it's zones), all expansion race starting zones, Death Knight starting instance, and the Isle of Quel'Danas). Invalidated by being a Death Knight or Shaman.Anti-Daze: Useful, if you aren't running Resounding Protection on at least 1 Azerite piece (which is a decent option for that inner-most ring for most non-tank classes), assuming the fact being dazed while mounted ignoring absorb shields was a PTR bug and not an intended change. Invalidated by being in a tank spec: Protection Warrior, Protection Paladin, Guardian Druid (do they require Bear Form for it?), Blood Death Knight, and Brewmaster Monk.Ground Mount Speed: Pretty nice for most classes... if I had to guess, it WILL stack with Pathfinder (as originally that didn't stack with Paladin/Death Knight passives, and was changed early on back in Warlords to stack, and has ever since). But Paladins and Death Knights invalidate it simply by being there. Lesser bonus from Mag'har Orc being lost from it kinda sucks (but it applies to Flying speed), and the Guild Perk hasn't existed for a LONG time (cause my guilded Warlock sure doesn't have it).Parachute: Accident prevention for some people, likely necessary with War Mode enabled. Invalidated by Mages, Priests, Druids, and Paladins (provided they wanna waste a cooldown).So... what do we see here? Death Knights only have two options, one of which can be negated by spec or azerite trait. Paladins are in a similar boat, being able to invalidate 3 of the options by spec/ability use/passive.If we could get more options, I'd be far more happy. Right now, this seems bare-bones. Hopefully it gets built upon.
I think this is such a step in the wrong direction, it makes sense that a water strider can walk on water... it's born to do it. I want diverse and unique mounts not copy paste with a different model how freaking boring! Guild wars 2 does their mount system spectacularly. I grinded the anglers rep to exalted but I love fishing in WoW so it didn't really feel like a grind and I loved my strider. You can get it easily via timewalking now and you could even buy a strider in WOD so why is it that mounts like Sky Golem can herb which effects the economy but it's not ok for water strider to walk water. GREAT THANKS BLIZZARD, guess I'll be strapping on my freaking boring ass anglers water strider equipment and use it on my sky golem so now I can walk on water AND herb. Oh I know the real reason, why aren't the micro-transaction mounts selling? Because there's the strider! Let's get rid of the strider so people buy our damn mounts. Get stuffed, this is anti-gameplay and really boring.... professions were already bad in BFA and now you're adding a pointless addition.
Removed