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Topic: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes

Ferrydust Title: Iron Chef Jennifer Posts: 10,588 Registered: Sep 4, '02 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 10,382 User ID: 711,372	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2956383 We understand that raw patch notes donâ€™t always provide enough context for changes to the game, so we thought weâ€™d take a moment to explain some of our logic behind the buffs and nerfs coming in the 4.2 â€œRage of the Firelandsâ€ patch. We particularly want to try to combat the perception that classes end up nerfed in PvE as collateral damage from PvP nerfs (or vice versa). The number of PvP buffs versus PvP nerfs were about equal this time around, and we make careful consideration to keep the impact outside of PvP minimal. So, if we nerfed your classâ€™s PvE damage, itâ€™s most likely because we thought your class was doing too much damage in PvE. No doubt youâ€™ll disagree with some of our logic -- â€œBut we were middle of the pack!â€ seems to be the common rebuttal these days. Balance is an art, though, not a science. (This topic probably deserves its own blog, but Iâ€™ll try to spell it out briefly.) Balancing a Battleship Player feedback certainly plays a role in our deciding to make balance changes, but itâ€™s just one small part. (And remember that our public forums are not the only place where players voice their opinions.) We also do a lot of internal testing, both simulations and actual character performance, and we collect a lot of external data, which needs to include players at a wide variety of skill levels. If a class is performing poorly except in the hands of one percent of the population, thatâ€™s a problem, but itâ€™s not an excuse for that class to be overpowered when played by that one percent, especially in PvP. In PvP, your group composition (whether your whole Arena team or just the participants in a given fight in a Battleground) matters enormously. In PvE, the encounter specifics matter enormously (and weâ€™re about to get a new cast of characters in Firelands). As a result, it can be challenging to decide which numbers are the right numbers. It doesnâ€™t make sense to balance PvE damage solely around Patchwerk-style target dummies and assume everything else is a gimmick. Likewise it doesnâ€™t make sense to buff and nerf for each individual encounter. (Say a boss buffs casters -- do you then nerf casters as a consequence?) Also realize that we donâ€™t believe in the existence of any single thermometer for estimating character performance. By that I mean there is no single relatively-accurate measurement of real and true DPS (or tanking, or healing) upon which most players agree. Everything from simulations to target dummy DPS to Arena comp percentages to the top 100 raid parses all count as pieces of the puzzle, and you really have to consider the totality of all of that information in the proper context. Resto druids â€œwinâ€ healing meters now in part because their raid cooldown, Tranquility, shows up as healing. Warriors do well on Chimaeron because they take a lot of raid damage. (Resto shaman heal well on Chimaeron because everyone is wounded all the time.) Yet once you start eliminating data -- â€œoh thatâ€™s a gimmick fightâ€ or â€œoh, someone is inflating their meters by attacking an irrelevant targetâ€ -- you risk skewing the results. Statistics is a complex business. That doesnâ€™t mean all of this stuff is inherently unknowable and nobody should bother. It just means you have to be careful; the discussions about these topics are never short and simple. It's wise to be skeptical when anyone attempts to boil down conclusions on class balance to very simple declarations. Simple Declarations Having said that, we have a lot of ground to cover below, so some of these notes are going to be very terse by necessity. My apologies in advance. General We changed the way interrupts interact with spell schools. Our intent when we created dual school spells (like Mind Spike being Frost and Shadow) was to allow players locked out of one school to still have something to cast, and we now have the technology to deliver on that design. However, we maintained the rule that being interrupted while casting a dual-school spell will lock you out of both schools because we didnâ€™t want players to only use those spells as a way of avoiding interruption. We changed all heals to have 200% crits because we wanted to make crit a more attractive stat to healers. Anything random is already at a disadvantage when viewed by a healer, and one point of haste just flat out increased throughput more than a point of crit. We removed the threat caused by buffs or crowd control because we wanted to make communication and coordination easier in dungeons, especially among strangers using Dungeon Finder. We want the challenge of a dungeon encounter to be the encounter mechanics, not marking targets. We also think this change will be a quality of life improvement for tanks, who inherited a lot of the responsibility for explaining fights, marking targets and otherwise setting the pace. We changed the values of Agility for plate-wearers and Strength for leather-wearers to reinforce which type of armor you should be using and so we wouldnâ€™t have to spend diminishing returns trying to balance tanks wearing non-traditional armor sets. Death Knights We added the cast time to Hungering Cold for PvP reasons. It is one of the most powerful forms of crowd control in the game, especially in Battlegrounds, and yet was impossible to prevent. The nerfs to Obliterate and Howling Blast were made because Frost damage was too high in both PvP and PvE. Note that these values were hotfixed -- you shouldnâ€™t see damage drop further when 4.2 goes live. The Glyph of Dark Succor change was to keep Death Strike from providing so much healing in PvP. The Might of the Frozen Wastes change was a small tweak to help keep one-handed Frost relatively competitive with two-handed style. The Unholy Might buff was to help catch Unholy up to Frost in PvE. Interestingly, we didnâ€™t nerf Unholy damage at all in 4.1, but you can still see a small drop in their DPS because so many talented DKs went Frost. Iâ€™d love to have the discussion some time about how close two similar specs need to be before players will play the one that is most fun for them and not the one that does theoretical higher damage. Is it 5%? 1%? 0%? Druids We boosted Feral damage to compensate for their losing the attack power from Strength. Net DPS shouldnâ€™t change much overall, though burst may be slightly higher. (We didnâ€™t want to buff bleeds since that was a problem before in PvP.) We cut back on the power of Innervates from Feral and Balance druids because we felt they were contributing to too much healer mana. We changed several Balance druid mechanics to cut down on the damage they could do while moving in both PvP and PvE and to cut back on some of their strength in multi-dot fights in PvE. Furthermore, we felt like druids were spending too much time at one end or the other of the Eclipse bar by using dots rather than moving the bar back and forth as intended. We toned down bear damage, because they were going to do more DPS than other tanks while tanking. Other changes were made to keep bears from neglecting certain core abilities. We redesigned Restorationâ€™s mastery because it was devalued in situations where druids did a lot of raid healing by HoT-ing different targets, especially in 25-player raids. Hunters Multi-Shot was doing too much damage in PvE given how simple it was to use. Careful Aim allowed Marskman hunters to do too much damage in PvE raiding, where the 80% health phase could last for a long stretch of time. However, the Careful Aim nerf also affected Survival, whose DPS was fine or even a little low, so we buffed Black Arrow to compensate. Mages We nerfed Arcane Blast because Arcaneâ€™s damage was too high in PvE. We wanted Arcane to be competitive with Fire, especially given that Fire tends to perform better on fights with movement or multiple targets. However, it looked like many Fire mages were begrudgingly respeccing to Arcane, which wasnâ€™t the intent. We wanted Arcane to be competitive, not the only serious mage spec for PvE. (See Frost vs. Unholy note above.) We originally tried nerfing Spellstealâ€™s cooldown, but that made it feel really random (for both sides) since the mage had no control over which spell was stolen. We instead nerfed the mana cost to encourage tactical use of Spellsteal and discourage spamming. Weâ€™d still like to try a model where dispels have a long cooldown but remove everything, but that is too big a change for now. We added the diminishing returns to Deep Freeze and Ring of Frost (after earlier trying some different nerfs) to tone down Frost mage control, especially in the mid and lower tiers of PvP when dispels canâ€™t be assured. Paladins We concluded PvE Holy paladins were ending fights with too much mana relative to other healers, so we raised the mana cost of their single-target heals. We tweaked Holy Light because we wanted it to compete a little more with Divine Light, especially when used with Beacon of Light. We buffed Word of Glory for three reasons: We felt Holy Power was mattering less to Holy paladins than it did at Cataclysm launch. We wanted to provide more uninterruptible healing in PvP. We knew Light of Dawn was trumping Word of Glory in almost all cases in 25-player raids. We changed the Denounce mechanic to give Holy paladins slightly more offensive utility in PvP. We felt that ignoring the other healing classes came at some risk which was not the case for paladins. We buffed Holy Radiance both to help PvE paladins feel like they could make larger contributions to raid healing (especially in light of the single-target nerfs) but also as part of a significant buff to Speed of Light to let Holy paladins have more mobility in PvP. We made a tweak to Holyâ€™s mastery to allow its bubble to stack, so it would be wasted less often when healing a single target. We made Selfless Healer, Divine Protection, and Beacon of Light no longer dispellable so that paladins didnâ€™t lose so much of their survivability in PvP to dispels. (At no point in this patch was Avenging Wrath undispellable -- that was a myth.) We redesigned Holy Shield, partially because paladin mitigation was going to be too good in the Firelands raid, but also because many paladins (though of course not all) told us they wanted a more dynamic rotation and less passive mitigation. We buffed Seal of Righteousness to let Retribution use it for AE fights as intended, and also to buff Ret AE damage overall. We made a slight buff to Selfless Healer. While we thought the old model was unbalanced and turned Ret into too much of a healing spec, we heard from a lot of players who liked the utility of being able to help heal somewhat. This talent should provide that trade-off in a more balanced way. Priests Shadow was doing too much DPS in PvE when multiple DoTs was favored, so we nerfed their DoT damage. We want Shadow to benefit from multi-DoTs, but Shadowâ€™s damage was just too high under those conditions. We buffed Shadow cast-time spells to compensate. We changed the facing requirement of Psychic Horror as a PvP quality of life change to make it consistent with other non-projectile crowd control spells. Rogues We nerfed Cloak of Shadows because it felt like rogues could counter both casters and melee specs too easily. This change forces them to choose between Cloak of Shadows and Combat Readiness. However, we wanted to compensate rogues for this PvP nerf, and we concluded rogue damage in PvE was also too low, so we buffed their damage overall. The buff to Hemorrhage was designed to make it less punishing when it wasnâ€™t possible to get behind a target, which often arises in PvP but also sometimes in PvE. Shaman We previously nerfed Water Shield via hotfix because shaman were gaining too much mana in PvP when attacked (especially by pets to discourage drinking). The 4.2 change is just a more elegant implementation of the same nerf that should keep the same mana per time as they have currently. We recognized Fire Nova had some usability issues so we increased its throughput and added the Flame Shock refresh mechanic to help ease some of the inconvenience. This is a new mechanic and one we are still evaluating. We introduced the Glyph of Unleashed Lightning to help shaman feel less punished by movement in both PvP and PvE. The impact of changes like this is very difficult to model. We nerfed Mana Tide for the same reason we nerfed Innervate -- it was just providing too much mana for the groupâ€™s healers as a whole. We didnâ€™t want to decrease the benefit to the shaman, so we redesigned / added the talent of Resurgence to help offset the nerf to them personally. Warlocks We nerfed the Glyph of Soul Swap to reduce the ease of applying multiple DoTs in PvP. We nerfed Drain Life because Affliction was forsaking Shadowbolt in PvE, which wasnâ€™t intended. We want Drain Life to be for utility, not primarily for damage, and we want all casters to have to hard cast at least some of the time. This was done via hotfix and players wonâ€™t see a change in 4.2. Warriors We put Deadly Calm and Recklessness on the same cooldown to reduce warrior burst in PvP. We also nerfed Arms and Fury damage across the board because they were doing too much damage in both PvP and PvE. While we are sensitive to casters outperforming melee on several raid encounters, having warriors handily outperform all other melee isnâ€™t the solution to that problem. The stance requirement changes on long cooldowns was a quality of life change. We didnâ€™t want warriors using Charge as a rotational ability on some fights without actually having to move (which was a bug created as a result of a fix put in to help hunter problems with minimum range). Raid Nerfs As discussed previously, now that players who have spent a lot of time in Throne of the Four Winds, Blackwing Descent, and Bastion of Twilight are moving on to Firelands, we wanted to make sure players who previously couldnâ€™t progress on those raids are now able to experience them. In a way, this provides new content for everyone -- if youâ€™re done with the 4.0 raids, you now have 4.2. If you havenâ€™t seen the 4.0 raids yet, nowâ€™s your chance. As I write this, 4.2 has not been completed, so there is still time for us to make additional changes. Constructive feedback is always welcome. Even the most articulate, logical, and passionate argument wonâ€™t always force our hand, but it helps. Greg â€œGhostcrawlerâ€ Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft. He successfully resisted the urge to bore the other designers with tales of obscure marine fauna for Vashjâ€™ir, though he did suggest the pogonophorans. -----signature----- I, on the other hand, prefer a command-line system 'cause i'm so hardcore /north /north You encounter an [Avatar of the god Set]! /cast sheild sheild spell unavailable /csat shield csat: unknown command [Avatar of Set] beheads [Peasant]
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-Mithan- Title: VNBoard Admin Posts: 1,000,060,379 Registered: Mar 1, '00 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 56,880 User ID: 13,156	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	This all sucks. What they should do is make the {insert my class} more powerful and nerf those f***ing {insert your class} because you {select between "beat me on the dps meter" and/or "killed me in PVP"}. -----signature----- I survived to the end and got nothing out of it, but hey.
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Quazimortal Title: The One and Only Posts: 17,806 Registered: Sep 18, '04 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 17,157 User ID: 968,129	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	I don't think they will be happy until raid bosses are impossible to kill without ending it with zero healer mana left and at least 50% of the raid dead. -----signature----- â€œA painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.â€ ~Leopold Stokowski
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dkdimmesdale Posts: ???? Registered: ???? Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 0 User ID: 0	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	my poor poor mana tide =( -----signature-----
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NilByMouthReborn Posts: ???? Registered: ???? Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 0 User ID: 0	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	What a depressing read. No post should ever contain the word nerf so many times. What makes it doubly sad is that GCs analysis of the classes that need (PvP) nerfing doesn't match my own experience. I'm not exepcting Blizz to tune the game around me - but it highlights how far off their "norm" I am! -----signature-----
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Rezzinu Posts: 3,920 Registered: Apr 17, '04 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 3,862 User ID: 915,409	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	Is he just trying to find out how many nails it takes to seal a coffin? Do they not realize they're draining their own pockets? -----signature----- DAoC, CoH, WoW, AoC, Warhammer, LoTR. Rift, etc... ..Played one, played them all! . Keeping your knowledge a secret leads to arrogance... ...Sharing your knowledge with others leads to your demise.
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Voqar Posts: 8,454 Registered: Mar 12, '01 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 8,255 User ID: 73,152	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	I see less geared paladins in raids (or heroics) heal nonstop...chain casting...and never having mana issues. I play every healer but a paladin and have to pick my spells for efficiency and the right spell for the moment, not just spam one button 500x a fight. So...I have about zero symphathy for pali healers - welcome to what all others healers have dealt with all of cata. There's a lot of stuff I dislike about cata, but I like the healing changes because it makes your whole group have to play smarter. Healing isn't just endlessly spamming and never running out of mana, now you need to pick the ideal spell for the moment, emphasize efficiency, and you need your dps morons to stay away from avoidable damage instead of constantly bailing out their stupidity with extra heals. I think waking up stupid dps is the best part of all this, since way too many dps are so pathetic they can't even play the easiest role in the game worth a crap. None of the other changes are going to be that drastic but people will still cray, because that's what people do. Lastly, my guild finally got nefarian dead tonight so I'm happy. For us, being a somewhat casual guild that's had to deal with defections, people burning out, recruiting, replacing, retraining, nonstop disruptions, it's a big accomplishment. Old news for most of you, I'm sure, but for us it's nice to get it done before the raid nerfs. Most raiding guilds from WOTLK fell apart early in cata on our server (or haven't got squat done so far) but we managed to keep it together and persevere. I think the cataclysm players have endured during this expansion greatly exceeds the flimsy representation of it in the lore. :/ -----signature----- Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that - George Carlin
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Ugh_Lancelot Title: Ooo...bouncy! Posts: 5,492 Registered: Jun 17, '02 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 5,446 User ID: 689,383	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that GC is not only stuck in whiny defensive whack-a-mole post mode but has completely lost sight of exactly what people are predominantly complaining about. (Hint: it isn't nerfs.) -----signature----- WoW and DAoC - Too many alts to count Charter Member - Altaholics Anonymous
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Fedup23 Posts: 2,271 Registered: Jul 14, '06 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 2,265 User ID: 1,155,204	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	-Mithan- posted: This all sucks. What they should do is make the {insert my class} more powerful and nerf those f***ing {insert your class} because you {select between "beat me on the dps meter" and/or "killed me in PVP"}. This is the truth of it. -----signature----- (none)
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Spookysheep Title: Lieker of Cheese Posts: 21,595 Registered: Jan 9, '02 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 21,166 User ID: 601,475	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	Rezzinu posted: Is he just trying to find out how many nails it takes to seal a coffin? Do they not realize they're draining their own pockets? -----signature----- I liek cheese Pirates > Ninjas .....................................
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Xorcha Posts: 143 Registered: Dec 21, '06 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 143 User ID: 1,192,938	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	GC posted: We nerfed Drain Life because Affliction was forsaking Shadowbolt in PvE, which wasnâ€™t intended. We want Drain Life to be for utility, not primarily for damage, and we want all casters to have to hard cast at least some of the time. Good example of the wrong attitude. He doesn't say, we nerfed it because it was too dang powerful. They were unhappy with the way players were using it. They wanted affliction locks to play differently. 'No shadowbolts!?!' Nerf! -----signature----- (none)
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-Peo- Title: Caveat Lector Posts: 3,208 Registered: Feb 2, '05 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 3,155 User ID: 1,024,262	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	Amazing how blind some people can be, both the devs and certain people on this thread. -----signature----- SWTOR, Maybe in a year. Back to WoW for now. With a lil f2p CoH.
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Zero_Washu Posts: 13,401 Registered: Sep 28, '01 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 13,151 User ID: 419,410	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	Summarized in one of two sentences, Healers had figured out how to deal with our assholiness so we will show them the meaning of fun. Players were starting to beat, er, enjoy the game again so we will show them One day Blizzard will realize the problem is the rampant gear inflation that blows apart all balancing -----signature----- . . . For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven . Cows go moo, Dogs go woof and MMO players go ''PVP is imbalanced'' . "Iâ€™m as horny as the hat rack at a Viking bar.", Ann Coulter
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GutterSludge Posts: 4,620 Registered: Nov 6, '05 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 4,545 User ID: 1,091,587	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	The only time I ever used shadowbolt as affliction was when the instant cast proc'd... Nerfing drain damage will not change this, I'll just have to drain one extra time, and STILL will not use shadowbolt. Why you might ask? Because shadowbolt f%^&ing sucks if you are Affliction... Come to think of it, I never used it as Destro either. -----signature----- Guttersludge People just can't handle the truth. NeMeFieD said:"Yea I Ucmed for 12 days straight.." njwCSUS posted:I'm homosexual, so really, its ongoing sexual attraction to my father, not my mother.
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Blisteringballs Posts: 2,247 Registered: Aug 12, '09 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 2,247 User ID: 1,366,612	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	I wonder why they keep making healing more difficult when players appear to have liked the old Wrath model more? It was nice to see GC acting like an adult again. Hopefully he never reverts back to the aggressive and puerile posture he had for far too long. -----signature----- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fox%20News
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Quazimortal Title: The One and Only Posts: 17,806 Registered: Sep 18, '04 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 17,157 User ID: 968,129	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	Blisteringballs posted: I wonder why they keep making healing more difficult when players appear to have liked the old Wrath model more? They have to stay true to the Visionâ„¢. -----signature----- â€œA painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.â€ ~Leopold Stokowski
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Cedax Posts: 8,084 Registered: Nov 12, '02 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 7,907 User ID: 737,408	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	Spookysheep posted: Rezzinu posted: Is he just trying to find out how many nails it takes to seal a coffin? Do they not realize they're draining their own pockets? -----signature----- "The reason why I have killed you was simply because.... ..... you pointed your blade at my pride."- Byakuya
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Crafty_ac2 Posts: 6,018 Registered: Dec 8, '02 Extended Info (if available) Real Post Cnt: 5,806 User ID: 746,616	Subject: Explanation of 4.2 Balance Changes
	i just resubscribed after leaving for 4 months. looks like it will be just a 1 month sub. -----signature----- Balance in a game is only achieved when no class is fun to play...
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