// PC GAMER — GAMING
This little orb's going to be sitting on my minimap for the rest of WoW's current expansion, and I couldn't tell you why
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This is Terminally Online: PC Gamer's very own MMO column. Every other week, I'll be sharing my thoughts on the genre, interviewing fellow MMO-heads like me, taking a deep-dive into mechanics we've all taken for granted, and, occasionally, bringing in guest writers to talk about their MMO of choice.
World of Warcraft's no stranger to borrowed power—after Blizzard learnt its lesson making borrowed power features the entire focus of an expansion's progression, it instead started to weave them in as seasonal patch incentives. Broadly optional mini-grinds that were good if you wanted a cheap boost and something to do, or were hankering for best-in-slot gear, but nothing that'd hoover up all of your time.
I've been middling on these—the Reshii Wraps, the DISC belt—but I at least think they've been broadly interesting so far. For instance, the Reshii Wraps gave you some extra bonuses while you were phase-diving. And, for the most part, getting a new shiny bit of gear's cool.
But the latest one, the Omnium Folio, is kind of baffling—to put it bluntly, I kinda don't really get why it's there.
For the uninitiated, the Folio is a borrowed power system that sees you jaunting to the arse-end of Silvermoon every week to complete a quest chain that, so far, has been mostly filled with the same weekly activities I was doing anyway.
Most features like the Folio have had some degree of interactivity—take the Onyx Annulet ring from Dragonflight, which had a bunch of gems you could find in the Forbidden Reach. And yet the Omnium Folio is just sort of… there. Take a look at this talent tree.
A single lonely line, a linear path, filled with abilities such as "sometimes, you do more damage" and "sometimes, you do more healing". Three weeks in, I cannot say I've felt a single one of these abilities impact my time hitting stuff in WoW one bit—beyond a flat numerical increase. If there are fiery explosions happening, they're blending into the overstimulated machine of gunshots and big smoke clouds.
It's not interacting with any of the weekly activities beyond a quest to go and do them, sometimes. It's not making the routine of hitting enemies feel any different. It's not impacting my rotation in any way. And it's not interacting with any patch-specific mechanics. It pretty much just makes me hit slightly harder, and if I don't do my weekly quest, I miss out on a power boost until I get around to handling it.
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