Author Topic: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two

Ghostcrawler posted:
Don?t take this as an announcement that the release of patch 4.3 is imminent. While we have completed a lot of work, it?s just hard to know at this stage when the patch will be ready. Nothing is set in stone until the actual patch, and even then we still have the ability to hotfix any major problems that we missed or caused.


First, here is the link to Part One of our balance explanations. We?ll discuss additional changes below.

In particular, you may want to pay attention to my comments about rates of change. While we do overhaul mechanics when we think it?s warranted, we try to save as many of those as possible for expansions. As exhilarating as it can be for players who log in regularly to suddenly be able to look at a talent or spell in a different light, it can also be frustrating for players who maybe took a break in between patch 4.2 and 4.3 to have to relearn rotations or re-gem their character. In particular, we try to be really conservative when buffing spec B of a class upwards to compete with spec A of the same class. We have gotten it wrong before, and forced a large number of players to swap specs. Ideally we want you to play the spec you enjoy the most and not the one that does the highest DPS, but asking you to continually swap specs to achieve that highest DPS is an unreasonable thing for us to ask.


Mortal Strike (and similar debuffs)
We dropped the healing debuff from 50% to 10% some time ago, but were convinced at 10% that it was hard to appreciate the effect at all. We want to try Mortal Strike et al. at 25% to see if it feels useful but not mandatory. If 25% is too much and 10% is too little, then it may mean the entire mechanic may not have much of a future. We decided to only change the debuff for the warrior, rogue, and hunter, restoring the original relationship between ?strong? and ?weak? MS that we had in Lich King.


Death Knight
We decided not to prevent or discourage block capping for paladins and warriors, because it would have required several corresponding changes to compensate for such severe nerfs and the risk of getting things wrong or asking players to change gear was just too great. Instead, we decided to buff DK and druid tanks to improve their ability to handle streaks of bad luck. In the DK?s case, we increased the armor bonus of Blood Presence.


Druid
As mentioned above, we increased the Stamina bonus of bear form in order to reduce the chance of tanks being killed too quickly by bad luck. We also changed the armor bonus for bears at lower levels by removing the mechanic that mimicked the warrior and paladin transition from mail to plate. Bears were having difficulty surviving in low-level dungeons, which honestly we don?t want to be that challenging. The armor change should not affect end-game tank balance. We changed the Glyph of Shred so that Feral druids wouldn?t need to vary their rotation in situations where they could not Shred (such as on Ultraxion). We changed the pushback on Cyclone because we decided that it was appropriate for DPS casters to not have pushback protection on heals, and for healers to not have pushback protection on nukes, but that utility spells should be protected for both roles. This will be a small PvP buff for caster druids.


Hunter
We provided a modest DPS buff for Beast Mastery and Survival hunters to help them catch up with the Marksman spec. As I mentioned above, we wouldn?t consider it a success if we made every Marks hunter respec to Survival, so our intent is to get close without going over. BM also suffers from a lack of AE damage, so we increased the damage of two of their AE pets.


Mage
We offered some buffs to Fire mages to help them compete with Arcane. Frost is viable in PvE, but at high-end raiding we understand that its damage isn?t perceived as comparable to Arcane or Fire. The problem is that Frost has a lot of control and survivability, and if their damage were also identical, there would be no reason to choose Arcane or Fire. Note that the 5.0 talent design is partially to fix this specific problem, where specs have either higher DPS or higher utility.


Paladin
We continued to adjust Holy Radiance for its new 4.3 design. We want paladins to be a viable group healer without suddenly becoming far and away the best AE healer. We also want Holy paladins to continue to care about Holy Power and Light of Dawn and not revert to just spamming Holy Radiance. We changed Beacon of Light largely because it was unclear which mechanics were supposed to cause the Beacon transfer. This is a change from our previous design, which allowed Protector of the Innocent and other forms of healing to benefit from Beacon. We want Beacon of Light to remain a powerful spell, and it will be even with these changes, but putting slightly less focus on Beacon will allow paladins to still shine in situations where Beacon isn?t operating at its maximum effectiveness. For Retribution, as we suggested previously, we lowered the crit chance of Hammer of Wrath to reduce burst but increased sustained damage through Two-Handed Specialization and Seal of Truth.


Priest
Most of our Holy adjustments were discussed in Part One, but we did buff Guardian Spirit to make it more competitive with Pain Suppression. The Shadowform glyph was strictly a quality of life improvement requested by several Shadow priests.


Shaman
We have slightly unnerfed the initial Wind Shear nerf, but we still want it to be much harder for a healer spec to have such a potent interrupt. Wind Shear (originally Earth Shock) was balanced in the hands of a Resto shaman as a tool for coping with enemy casters in the absence of a magic dispel. While a priest could remove an ally?s Polymorph, the shaman?s only recourse was to prevent it from ever landing in the first place. But in a world where Resto shaman gained the ability to remove magic debuffs, the net result was too potent. We nerfed Elemental?s tier 12 set bonus because it was so powerful that shaman risked passing over their tier 13 set bonus. We increased the passive benefit of Shamanism and Fire Elemental scaling to help compensate for this nerf. There are many other shaman changes discussed in Part One.


Warlock
We increased Demonology and Destruction?s DPS to be more competitive with Affliction, and increased the duration on Improved Soul Fire to make that buff a bit easier to manage. We also fixed a long-standing bug that caused the Doomguard to do too much damage, so Demo?s buff also needed to offset that.


Warrior
We believe we have fixed ?charge jumping,? where a target who jumped ended up in a different location from the warrior. The warrior should now end up next to the target. We needed to nerf Fury?s DPS slightly to keep them from being ahead of other melee DPS.


Greg ?Ghostcrawler? Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft. His first hunter pet was a crab named Sushi.


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Sociop 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Ever notice Ghostcrawler can almost never give something without taking something away i.e buffing without nerfing something else. He may very well have a legitimate obsessive-compulsive disorder and should not be in a position of power, instead be in counselling.

 

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Spookysheep 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Mage
We offered some buffs to Fire mages to help them compete with Arcane. Frost is viable in PvE, but at high-end raiding we understand that its damage isn?t perceived as comparable to Arcane or Fire. The problem is that Frost has a lot of control and survivability, and if their damage were also identical, there would be no reason to choose Arcane or Fire. Note that the 5.0 talent design is partially to fix this specific problem, where specs have either higher DPS or higher utility.




Morons, true morons.

 

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The_Korrigan 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
So they nerfed the armor buff of Blood (Frost before) presence into oblivion when it was working just fine, and now the buff it again? Even though all DK tanks told them back then that they were making a mistake?
Bunch of incompetent idiots.

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
I never read anything about Rogues anymore. Are we perfect finally? I hope so!

 

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kuide 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Restro Druids are going to be very popular kill target with this new patch.If you see one im sure every dps will chase it knowing it cant defend itself.

I have a feeling certain classes are being played by the devs.A very unproffesional development team Blizzard has left with WoW.

 

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Kriegprojekt 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
The_Korrigan posted:
So they nerfed the armor buff of Blood (Frost before) presence into oblivion when it was working just fine, and now the buff it again? Even though all DK tanks told them back then that they were making a mistake?
Bunch of incompetent idiots.



Yeah. Also, take a look at the pre Cata release changes for mages and warlocks. I think right before the expac went live, they nerfed the damage of these two by 17% or so (in the patch notes). If you take a look at 4.3, they have almost reverted a bunch of these damage nerfs. Its almost like they really have no clue.

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Kriegprojekt posted:
They really have no clue.


FTFY

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Spookysheep posted:
Mage
We offered some buffs to Fire mages to help them compete with Arcane. Frost is viable in PvE, but at high-end raiding we understand that its damage isn?t perceived as comparable to Arcane or Fire. The problem is that Frost has a lot of control and survivability, and if their damage were also identical, there would be no reason to choose Arcane or Fire. Note that the 5.0 talent design is partially to fix this specific problem, where specs have either higher DPS or higher utility.




Morons, true morons.


i think the bigger issue i see with that statement is " its damage isn?t perceived as comparable to Arcane or Fire"


it's not PERCEIVED as comparable to arcane or fire because it ISN'T... there is no perception there.. that is a true reality that frost doesn't do as much dps as fire or arcane. period... there is no question to that, it's in the cold hard numbers.

while he makes very valid points, the fact that he says we don't perceive it's damage as comparable to the others is just retarded... there's nothing to perceive there, it's just the way it is.

anyways..............

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Quazimortal posted:
Kriegprojekt posted:
They really have no clue.


FTFY



Heh heh.

 

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Cawlin 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
kuide posted:
I have a feeling certain classes are being played by the devs.A very unproffesional development team Blizzard has left with WoW.


This is no different than at any other point in time in WoW's history. The devs are just playing different classes now. Get over it.

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
sarnsereg posted:
Spookysheep posted:
Mage
We offered some buffs to Fire mages to help them compete with Arcane. Frost is viable in PvE, but at high-end raiding we understand that its damage isn?t perceived as comparable to Arcane or Fire. The problem is that Frost has a lot of control and survivability, and if their damage were also identical, there would be no reason to choose Arcane or Fire. Note that the 5.0 talent design is partially to fix this specific problem, where specs have either higher DPS or higher utility.




Morons, true morons.


i think the bigger issue i see with that statement is " its damage isn?t perceived as comparable to Arcane or Fire"


it's not PERCEIVED as comparable to arcane or fire because it ISN'T... there is no perception there.. that is a true reality that frost doesn't do as much dps as fire or arcane. period... there is no question to that, it's in the cold hard numbers.

while he makes very valid points, the fact that he says we don't perceive it's damage as comparable to the others is just retarded... there's nothing to perceive there, it's just the way it is.

anyways..............


Why is this a problem? Frost DOES have a huge amount of survivability and control compared to arcane or fire no? As noted, why would you play any other spec of mage if you got all the survivability and control of Frost AND you got the damage capacity of the other specs?

I think this guy is generally an idiot, but his choice of words here is not inaccurate imo.

Maybe he should have said "Frost is not perceived as VALUABLE as arcane or fire", and it would have been closer to the mark, but still, that's where his comments are going.

Obviously I know everyone loves their arcane mage where you spam 2 buttons and a cooldown macro and wants that to be the be-all end-all of the mage class but really, it's kind of absurd.

When all other damage dealers have at most one kind of attack comprising 30% of their damage and then the rest of their damage split among 5 or 6 other attacks/skills, why do you think it's OK for the arcane mage to have 90% of their damage be one button, and the remainder be one other button?

 

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Cawlin 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
For all classes, there should be a main "DPS" spec, that provides just pure raw max capacity DPS for that class. Other specs should provide something important in terms of either things like crowd control, or survivability, or utility. I don't understand why this upsets people.

In the case of classes which can do more than one role, the specs should define the roles.

In the case of the Priest it looks initially like it doesn't fit into the paradigm because there are two specs for healing, but I will presume that the intention is to provide one spec for raid healing, one for PvP healing/survivability/utility, and one for DPS.

Oh and the spec of your class is not the entirety of your class. If you play a paladin, your class concerns are those of the whole class, not simply "Ret Paladins" or "Holy Paladins", if you play a Hunter, your concerns are those of the entirety of the class, not merely the BM Hunter - that's not a separate class. If the class as a whole does not provide viability for DPS or tanking or healing or whatever the role it is supposed to be able to provide, THEN it's a problem, but not until then. You don't get to have 3 flavors of ret paladin, you get one flavor of ret paladin, you get one flavor of paladin tank, you get one flavor of healing paladin, period.

Again I ask, why is this a problem? You have two specs available to you now, switching between them is a small thing to worry about.

 

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TruthyID 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Cawlin posted:
Why is this a problem? Frost DOES have a huge amount of survivability and control compared to arcane or fire no? As noted, why would you play any other spec of mage if you got all the survivability and control of Frost AND you got the damage capacity of the other specs?

I think this guy is generally an idiot, but his choice of words here is not inaccurate imo.

Maybe he should have said "Frost is not perceived as VALUABLE as arcane or fire", and it would have been closer to the mark, but still, that's where his comments are going.

Obviously I know everyone loves their arcane mage where you spam 2 buttons and a cooldown macro and wants that to be the be-all end-all of the mage class but really, it's kind of absurd.

When all other damage dealers have at most one kind of attack comprising 30% of their damage and then the rest of their damage split among 5 or 6 other attacks/skills, why do you think it's OK for the arcane mage to have 90% of their damage be one button, and the remainder be one other button?


The poster took issue with the word perceived because it shifts the blame for the lack of frost mages in raids to the playerbase. The fact is, as the poster pointed out, that it's not our perception that keeps people from raiding as frost it's their design (low dps, high control).

The rest of your post is pretty ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. Arcane is popular because it's currently the highest dps spec in the game. After 4.3 fire mages are going to be much more prevalent because it's looking like that will be the higest dps spec for a mage. It has less to do with playing the easiest spec as it does with squeezing the most dps out of your toon that you possibly can, even if it means playing a boring spec.

 

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Cawlin 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
TruthyID posted:
Cawlin posted:
Why is this a problem? Frost DOES have a huge amount of survivability and control compared to arcane or fire no? As noted, why would you play any other spec of mage if you got all the survivability and control of Frost AND you got the damage capacity of the other specs?

I think this guy is generally an idiot, but his choice of words here is not inaccurate imo.

Maybe he should have said "Frost is not perceived as VALUABLE as arcane or fire", and it would have been closer to the mark, but still, that's where his comments are going.

Obviously I know everyone loves their arcane mage where you spam 2 buttons and a cooldown macro and wants that to be the be-all end-all of the mage class but really, it's kind of absurd.

When all other damage dealers have at most one kind of attack comprising 30% of their damage and then the rest of their damage split among 5 or 6 other attacks/skills, why do you think it's OK for the arcane mage to have 90% of their damage be one button, and the remainder be one other button?


The poster took issue with the word perceived because it shifts the blame for the lack of frost mages in raids to the playerbase. The fact is, as the poster pointed out, that it's not our perception that keeps people from raiding as frost it's their design (low dps, high control).

The rest of your post is pretty ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. Arcane is popular because it's currently the highest dps spec in the game. After 4.3 fire mages are going to be much more prevalent because it's looking like that will be the higest dps spec for a mage. It has less to do with playing the easiest spec as it does with squeezing the most dps out of your toon that you possibly can, even if it means playing a boring spec.


The poster's position then was exceptionally whiny and "picky" and missed the bigger picture, kind of like your post does.

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
as i said, he makes valid points to the effect that frost mages have al ot more survivability. the point of my post is the fact he balmes the users for not taking frost mages because we perceive them as not doign as much dps as the other specs.. but it's simply a afct they don't. and since you don't need anything but dps in a raid from a mage (due in mostly part to THEIR game design) we don't want frost dps since they don't dps as much. there is no perception to this, look at the meters to see the story.

 

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Cawlin 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
sarnsereg posted:
as i said, he makes valid points to the effect that frost mages have al ot more survivability. the point of my post is the fact he balmes the users for not taking frost mages because we perceive them as not doign as much dps as the other specs.. but it's simply a afct they don't. and since you don't need anything but dps in a raid from a mage (due in mostly part to THEIR game design) we don't want frost dps since they don't dps as much. there is no perception to this, look at the meters to see the story.

And you had a seizure over it...

I admit that I think this dude Ghostcrawler is a downy idiot, but seriously, THIS is what you took issue with?

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
The problem with frost (and most CC abilities) is that they are totally useless on raid bosses 99% of the times. All most morons see in a raid is the DPS one can do on a boss, and not the utility the class brings otherwise. Note that players aren't the only culprits, it's Blizzard who spawned that elitist attitude with their game design. Raid bosses should involved less pew pew, and more thinking, but then all the scrubs would whine it's too hard just like they whined for the Cataclysm heroic dungeons.

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
The_Korrigan posted:
The problem with frost (and most CC abilities) is that they are totally useless on raid bosses 99% of the times. All most morons see in a raid is the DPS one can do on a boss, and not the utility the class brings otherwise. Note that players aren't the only culprits, it's Blizzard who spawned that elitist attitude with their game design. Raid bosses should involved less pew pew, and more thinking, but then all the scrubs would whine it's too hard just like they whined for the Cataclysm heroic dungeons.


WTF? Did you seriously just equate the Cataclysm heroic dungeons to something that requires less pew pew and more thinking? I'm hoping that was just a bad comparison on your part...

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Quazimortal posted:
WTF? Did you seriously just equate the Cataclysm heroic dungeons to something that requires less pew pew and more thinking? I'm hoping that was just a bad comparison on your part...
WotLK = drop AOE and faceroll.
Cataclysm = think your pulls and use CC.
Definitely a difference. That's what the scrubs all whined about, they couldn't stand having to do some "basic thinking" when playing. I never pretended it was rocket science either, but for some it was still too "difficult" apparently.

 

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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Heroics are srs bzness

 

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Cawlin 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
At the end of the day, there are two possibilities for the consideration of the presence of various specs of the same class in raids or in any other aspect of the game.

First premise: All specs are viable for raid encounters, and so there should be some representation of all specs in a raid.

Now, if that "equal" or "appropriate" representation is not being met - and it may not be equal because you may only need one of a given spec for "utility" or other reasons - then the raid model is broken in that the utility of the other specs are not required. Perhaps the raid needs to make use of the utility of the spec that offers lower DPS so as to offer that playstyle some time to shine. This happened a lot in vanilla by the way.

Second premise: There's no need to consider that ALL possible specs of a given class SHOULD be represented in raids because there are other aspects of the game wherein the other specs have their "time to shine". I.e. PvP/Arena.

If there is no viability for frost mages in PvP over say, arcane or fire, AND there is no viability for frost mages in a raid, then there is a problem.


So the question with respect to mages is:

Is there a part of the game wherein frost mages are viable or even preferred? Do they make the best choice for an arena mage for instance? I don't know that answer, it's an honest question. If the answer is yes, then there is no problem and the rationale should be clear - frost is the PvP spec, and arcane or fire are the raid spec. Presumably there will be some raid encounters or raid dungeons where either fire or arcane would be preferred for instance.




All in all, the big thing that I think WoW has moved away from and which is the REAL problem here is the give and take, the necessity to make choices between things like maximum DPS and maximum survivability, or utility, etc.

To use an example from early BC - back then, max DPS for hunters was Beast Mastery, but that's not what got hunters through the rough heroics (and they were rough back in those early days - most of you probably don't remember that, but I do - back when those heroics were required to get keys to raid instances beyond Karazhan). Hunters would get invited to heroics because they could spec for utility and crowd control, not because they could do DPS.

This game has largely homogenized various aspects of class choices and I think it has done so, in the name of "simplicity" but it has done so, also to the detriment of the game.

 

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Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
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Quazimortal 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
The_Korrigan posted:
Quazimortal posted:
WTF? Did you seriously just equate the Cataclysm heroic dungeons to something that requires less pew pew and more thinking? I'm hoping that was just a bad comparison on your part...
WotLK = drop AOE and faceroll.
Cataclysm = think your pulls and use CC.
Definitely a difference. That's what the scrubs all whined about, they couldn't stand having to do some "basic thinking" when playing. I never pretended it was rocket science either, but for some it was still too "difficult" apparently.


That is just stupid. I know that isn't what I hated nor any of my friends or even the people I barely knew who talk in trade chat. The thing that sucked about Cata heroics was the retarded amount of damage going out to everyone that couldn't be CC'd or stopped or anything. Virtually every single one of the bosses, with the exception or two, was a dps check and had absolutely nothing to do with more thinking aside from your standard 'don't stand in sh1t' rule.

 

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Spookysheep 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Cawlin posted:


So the question with respect to mages is:

Is there a part of the game wherein frost mages are viable or even preferred? Do they make the best choice for an arena mage for instance? I don't know that answer, it's an honest question. If the answer is yes, then there is no problem and the rationale should be clear - frost is the PvP spec, and arcane or fire are the raid spec. Presumably there will be some raid encounters or raid dungeons where either fire or arcane would be preferred for instance.



Yes, in PVP, frost mages are face roll, literally. Hence it is why all the carebears who want to try their hand at PVP roll one. You could train a monkey in about 3 easy steps to get max rating with a frost mage.

Arcane and fire are the raid specs. So yeah, mages should quit their crying.


Unlike the other arguments in this thread though, my only point was how retarded blizzard is for saying that frost is viable in PVE because it is not, in any way. It is for PVP and if blizzard is too stupid to know that they designed it that way, their is little hope for the future grin

 

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Cawlin 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Spookysheep posted:
Cawlin posted:


So the question with respect to mages is:

Is there a part of the game wherein frost mages are viable or even preferred? Do they make the best choice for an arena mage for instance? I don't know that answer, it's an honest question. If the answer is yes, then there is no problem and the rationale should be clear - frost is the PvP spec, and arcane or fire are the raid spec. Presumably there will be some raid encounters or raid dungeons where either fire or arcane would be preferred for instance.



Yes, in PVP, frost mages are face roll, literally. Hence it is why all the carebears who want to try their hand at PVP roll one. You could train a monkey in about 3 easy steps to get max rating with a frost mage.

Arcane and fire are the raid specs. So yeah, mages should quit their crying.


Unlike the other arguments in this thread though, my only point was how retarded blizzard is for saying that frost is viable in PVE because it is not, in any way. It is for PVP and if blizzard is too stupid to know that they designed it that way, their is little hope for the future grin


It's kind of funny though that your perspective on what's "viable" is only from the raider view.

Really, what does "viable" mean?

We're way beyond the days of people kicking scrubs from heroics for low DPS as a regular thing, and of course any serious raider would have the ultimate spec, but casual raiders - they're casual for a reason - one of those reasons that I've heard over and over through the years is that they can't be bothered to worry about pulling their weight in a group and that they're just there to get what they can before the group bails... so... what does "viable" really mean? tongue

 

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Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
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Spookysheep 
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Subject: Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
Cawlin posted:

It's kind of funny though that your perspective on what's "viable" is only from the raider view.

Really, what does "viable" mean?

We're way beyond the days of people kicking scrubs from heroics for low DPS as a regular thing, and of course any serious raider would have the ultimate spec, but casual raiders - they're casual for a reason - one of those reasons that I've heard over and over through the years is that they can't be bothered to worry about pulling their weight in a group and that they're just there to get what they can before the group bails... so... what does "viable" really mean? tongue



Touche' bro. Tou, *#*$#, che' grin

 

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