The AT World of Warcraft Thread (Where do you play) and general BS

[lupi]

Some shammy buffs and more tanking discussion (crushing blows have been removed from the game?), no lock news (yeah).

 

[Fingolfin269]

Blizz must be sending beta invites to lure customers back. I have not officially 'quit' but my play time has gone downhill quite a bit lately. I lost my check card last week and had to cancel/re-order a new card. Two days later my account was deactivated because I didn't have an active card on the account when they tried to charge it...

Last night I received a beta invite. Time to go resub!

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: lupi
Some shammy buffs and more tanking discussion (crushing blows have been removed from the game?), no lock news (yeah).

Crushing blows have been moved from +3 levels to +4 levels from what I recall... so they've been removed from tanking, but not the game entirely. I always saw them as something to stop you from fighting mobs too far above your level, but the nature of them in raiding creates too many variables (if you're not uncrushable).

Here's the news stuff:

Tanking in Wrath of the Lich King (full version)
Better threat generation on non-tanking specs
[...] It might even be okay if non-tanking specs can generate a lot of threat (heck, hunters do it), so long as they also don't have high mitigation.

Past issues with Protection warriors
[...] The best we can offer is flexibility so that you can pick up all the passive mitigation talents and someone else can try out a different build. The problem with Prot before, I'd argue, is that there weren't enough choices to go around so that by the time you got the bare minimum, the options left were pretty paltry.

Class diversity in raid
That is pretty much the point. No class brings anything so unique that you want them to come at the expense of others. You should earn your raid spot because you know how to tank and have some decent gear and a guild who can back you up. Maybe you're a great leader or maybe you don't argue. Maybe you've got a great sense of humor or are a good guild recruiter. All of those are better reasons to get into a group IMHO than because your buff is a unique snowflake. Quite honestly I'd rather raid with my friends than some jerk who has the perfect buff. And I really don't want to send one of my friends off to reroll a level 1 dude because we both happened to choose rogues at first level six months ago and now our group is suffering for want of a buff. If you can tank, you'll get into raids.

Prot Warrior versus Paladin Tanking
The Prot warrior should also be able to switch to dps, and they come with Battle Shout and Commanding Shout, two very solid buffs. [...] If the paladin is so much better at AE that you take him instead of a warrior, then we have a problem.

Death Knights tuned raid encounters
Again, the "best Magic boss" shouldn't be to the extent that you call the raid when she can't come. There will be no fights tailored to a particular class. Sorry. Believe me, we don't have to come up with a gimmick to encourage death knight raiders. Northrend is infested with them already. Ghouls are cool though.

Balance between tanking classes
You Sunder, you Demo Shout, Battle Shout, Challenging Shout. You might Piercing Howl depending on the encounter. You Execute. You Intervene. See where I'm going...? If you are really winning or losing fights based on whether your tank can Innervate, then we've probably made the content too challenging. The difference in skill (or gear) between a potential warrior and druid tank should have a much bigger effect on the outcome.

The situations we've had before have been more like "The paladin can tank all of Heroic Shattered Halls with no CC" or "The druid can do nearly double your dps while tanking" or "The warrior can achieve passive crushing immunity and has the only ability that can handle Shear." Those are egregious barriers to having 4 viable tanking classes, which is why we're trying to fix them.

Death Knight
Blood Tanking
A Blood knight can heal herself really well and Vampiric Blood lets the healers heal you a lot too.

I think when the damage among the 3 trees is more normalized, the threat will be too. It's possible Frost or Unholy is better for mitigation, but if so, I would expect the difference to be pretty marginal over the long haul and possibly even depending on the boss. (Source)

Druid
Tanking balance and itemization
There are a lot of huge changes in the expansion though. Warrior tanks are worried they won't be useful anymore because their big niche (surviving crushing blows) was given to all tanks. Paladin tanks are concerned because better AE threat is being given to all tanks. Death knight tanks are worried that they are going to get nerfed because of the damage they're doing. Druids are worried that they won't have the armor they are used to, and might be inferior tanks because of it. Almost every class is worried that their unique raid buff won't gaurantee them a spot in the raid any longer. We're worried about pulling it all off. Smiley

Druids have talents like Thick Hide, Natural Reaction, Mother Bear and Survival of the Fittest in part to make up for the fact they aren't wearing plate, parrying or blocking. Is that enough mitigation to make them just as good end-game tanks as the other three tanking classes? We don't know yet. We haven't finished our testing and nobody on beta is in Naxx yet. If Bears are getting clobbered or their healers are running out of mana trying to keep them up, we'll fix it. (Source)

Paladin
Protection Talent Tree Feedback
We are about ready to do our next major pass on the Paladin trees. We think Prot does have too many mandatory talents, and too many talents that offer passive mitigation without other interesting mechanics or even dps. This thread is a great opportunity to discuss the tree and offer your feedback.

For purposes of this thread, the kinds of feedback that are useful:

* Which talents are fun vs. which ones aren't
* Areas in the tree that tie up too many talent points vs. areas that feel barren
* Talents that feel mandatory vs. talents that feel fun but optional vs. talents you'd never get


For purposes of this thread, we are less interested in:

* Mitigation and threat capabilities of the paladin vs. other tanks (we'll get to that)
* Holy and Retribution (we'll get to that)
* Mana, dps, interrupts or other paladin issues (we'll get to that)
* Whether it's a good goal for Prot to be viable at healing, dps or PvP. (It's helpful to mention when talents might fit these roles, but let's not use this particular thread for a debate on whether Prot should be at all decent in PvP.)
* Questions about other topics, pleas to visit other forums or catty arguments


Rest assured this is not our only avenue for collecting feedback. We do talk to experienced and beginner tanks alike as well as drawing on our own internal resources to make decisions. (Source)

Warrior
Protection Warrior and PvP
As I said before, whether Protection shoud be viable for PvP is controversial. People on the extreme of both sides of the debate should be able to see pretty clearly that there are plenty of others who don't see their point of view. It's not an argument that is going to be won by debate, consensus or vote.

As I've also said, there are some things we want to do with Prot to improve it. We could make a very fat, very boring tree with 30 talents that promise excellent passive mitigation. I don't think that's going to make warriors any more fun to play. Here's what we'd like to do instead:

Add some more fun abilities to the tree. Warbringer is one such ability. It may not be something everyone will use, and honestly, we're cool with that. Some talents should be optional. We also know some tanks, even hardcore endgame ones are excited about the ability. As a tank it could be a good source of rage (Yes, we know you lose all your rage when stance dancing -- the design of Warbringer is not that you stupidly lose all your rage when you change to Battle Stance and then say oops.) It could also help your mobility on fights where you need to zip around a lot to put out fires -- that's part of tanking too. It's not all sitting there and getting hit by Brutallus.

To make room for some of those abilities, you have to have some options. The classic tanking build from BC doesn't leave you a lot of free talents. We need to combine a few mitigation talents together to buy you some space. Also, must haves like Imp Heroic Strike and Imp Thunder Clap may not be must haves anymore, because...

We're buffing Prot's dps. A lot. This is going to help with threat, and will make doing dps with a prot build (whether as OT, MT, leveling or doing daily quests) more fun. A lot of abilities that do +threat now are going to be doing +damage instead. You are going to see crits from Thunder Clap and Conc Blow that might blow your mind. You're going to hit Thunder Clap and have mobs stick to you long enough for you to use some other abilities. Oh and If you haven't tried Retaliation while tanking yet, it rules. For those who never got to enjoy the joys of Shield Slam with crazy +block, you'll soon get to.

Warriors lost a very comfortable tanking niche with the removal of crushing blows. We need to make sure there are still good reasons to take a Prot warrior. Vigilance and Safeguard are good starts there, but we're also looking at buffing signature abilities like Spell Reflect. A lot of the recent changes were intended as buffs, not nerfs. We'll get you your Expertise back. We'll get you your cheap Devastates back.

As we start to get the talent trees in better shape, we're going to be able to get a better handle on the state of balance. Simultaneously, people in the beta will start venturing into heroics and Naxx. This will start to give us some data for the first time on whether L80 Prot warrior threat or mitigation is too low compared to other classes. If it is, we'll fix it.

I mention that because we designed Vigilance not as a band-aid to fix Prot warrior threat (because we don't know if it's too high or low yet) but because we thought it would be fun. Use it on that reckless warlock who likes to pull aggro and you turn a weakness into a strength. Use it on your fragile healer and you can, yanno, actually *protect* them. Instead of having to say "Please wait for 3 Sunders before you attack" maybe people will say "That tank has Vigilance -- no way you'll pull off him."

As for the shammy stuff:

* Maelstrom Weapon no longer resets the autoattack swing timer
* All Enhancement Shaman set pieces, including PvE and PvP sets, have had the Strength attribute removed and replaced with AP at the level 70 conversion rate (1 STR = 2 AP).

Pretty much stuff that was long since overdue .

 

[Xavier434]

I really do love how Blizz thinks most of the time. Everything they had to say about the tanks is spot on.

 

[Anubis]

i guess im the only person that thinks big class deversity is a good thing
....

comming in the xpac after wrath, we merge all classes so everyone cna do everything

 

[Chimley]

I need to see these changes firsthand..

Warrior tanking is changing so much.. god WTB Beta invite PST. (Or put the shit on PTR ASAP...)

 

[Xavier434]

I believe that they will still feel unique enough to the point where the changes will not make the game less fun. Their goal is to make the game more flexible. It is not to make it all feel the same.

The parts that they are removing are the parts which annoy me more than they satisfy me and make the game more fun. Most of these parts feel as if we are trying to satisfy some sort of requirement in order to raid the way that raiding was intended to be like. I hate that. Like many guilds, my guild is not huge and we do not have a wide array of people, classes, and specs to select from when forming the raids every raid night. We also do not ask that someone bring an alt to raid if they do not want to just because their alt fits what we need more at the time. Likewise, we do not require anyone to respec either. Basically, we just do not want people to feel pressured to play the game in a way that they do not enjoy playing. Volunteering to do such things is perfectly fine, but pressuring is a big no no. The way things are now, Blizz has made doing that very difficult. Even though we manage, a lot of time is wasted as a result and it does produce a lot of unnecessary frustration which would magically vanish if encounters were not so ridiculously dependent on certain classes and specs in order to be fought the way it was intended to be fought.

Think of the current state of the game as leaning more towards one end of the extreme where the other end is making pretty much every class and raid encounter the same. Both suck and make the game less fun. Blizz knows that. They are aiming for something in between.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Chimley
I need to see these changes firsthand..

Warrior tanking is changing so much.. god WTB Beta invite PST. (Or put the shit on PTR ASAP...)

I think that if they are on track to have the expack in stores by beginning on November (else it will be a turkey day release), then I'd expect that we need to be seeing the PTR this tuesday.



Somethin I hadn't mentioned before but really notcied now with multipul <L40 mounts, dustwallow is much more mount friendly. The on sunken road doedn't dismount you know and even most of the canals can be crossed mounted without problem.

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Anubis
i guess im the only person that thinks big class deversity is a good thing
....

comming in the xpac after wrath, we merge all classes so everyone cna do everything

Speaking of which, I need to gather some neatherweave while it's cheap and start cranking out the big bags for all my chars so I can empty my banker out since they won't be added any char slots for the DK arrival

 

[Aikouka]

Sometimes the lesser class variety seems a bit of a bummer... I think sometimes people liked knowing that they brought something unique to a raid... it almost makes them feel worthwhile. It's kind of a fun feeling seeing people go... "ZOMG SHAMAN!!! TEH WINDFURRIES!" You get to feel good... "Fuck yeah, bitches! I bring the pain!"

Now (Frost) Death Knights bring my pain too . But that's not necessarily a bad thing... what if I'm in a fight that has nature resistance. I can toss down a nature resist totem them and let the Death Knight worry about +physical haste and that also lets the hunter not be stuck doing Aspect of the Wild. So, I mean... as a Shaman I have other viable options, but that's just because I'm restricted to about 20 different totems but I can only have 4 out at once (of the types).

As a mage, I'm still not 100% sure what to do. Will Fire DPS be better than Frost DPS enough to ignore the mana return from the water elemental? Maybe I'll be stuck doing a Frostfire type of build but going up to improved water elemental in frost? Frostfire is supposedly similar in DPS to fire if you grab all the good talents (which don't include the WE).

Originally posted by: lupi
Somethin I hadn't mentioned before but really notcied now with multipul <L40 mounts, dustwallow is much more mount friendly. The on sunken road doedn't dismount you know and even most of the canals can be crossed mounted without problem.

Gnomes still dismount in puddles .

EDIT:

Originally posted by: lupi
Speaking of which, I need to gather some neatherweave while it's cheap and start cranking out the big bags for all my chars so I can empty my banker out since they won't be added any char slots for the DK arrival

That's why it's good to have more than one account XD.

 

[xboxist]

I need to start liquidating mats before they become worthless once the expansion comes out. Did that happen to anyone else after BC? Stuff I was hesitant to sell had its value plummet once no one needed it anymore.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to get gold out of 200 badges...

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: xboxist
I need to start liquidating mats before they become worthless once the expansion comes out. Did that happen to anyone else after BC? Stuff I was hesitant to sell had its value plummet once no one needed it anymore.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to get gold out of 200 badges...

sell gems or vortexes, gems still sell for 200-300 on nerzhul



correct me if i am wrong but Badges are gonna be tradeable in wrath arnt they

so couldent you just give them all to an alt for gear to help lvling?

 

[QuantumPion]

Cool, I got a beta invite last night. Spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to pile all my herbs and leather mats onto a bank alt so I can copy them over to try out inscription

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Sometimes the lesser class variety seems a bit of a bummer... I think sometimes people liked knowing that they brought something unique to a raid... it almost makes them feel worthwhile.

Ya me too. I call it "skill". :laugh:

No seriously, I understand what you mean and I don't believe that will be taken away from the game as much as people fear. Blizz is aware of how important those types of things are. They have expressed it to us directly in the past and have followed through directly with results. A good example would Misdirect. MD is a skill with a single purpose. It could have been given to pretty much any ranged class with very slight differences in design in order for it to be effective and make sense. They told us that they chose the hunter class for this ability for several reasons, but the main one was that they wanted the hunter to have more raid utility since the class was lacking.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: xboxist
I need to start liquidating mats before they become worthless once the expansion comes out. Did that happen to anyone else after BC? Stuff I was hesitant to sell had its value plummet once no one needed it anymore.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to get gold out of 200 badges...

Usually the high end pre-BC mats still sell fairly well, because no one farms the higher end pre-BC stuff anymore. Thorium will go for 50g a stack and really isn't that hard to get. Also, herbs will skyrocket once the 3.0.2 content patch comes out because people will be leveling inscription.

I've seen a lot of gem prices drop recently as well as vortexes... although I still paid way too much for a gem once ~_~. I knew I should've pushed the guy down further, but oh well. On Alleria, I've seen epic gems going for under 200 quite frequently... same with vortexes.

I actually need about 40 more badges on my shammy so I can get some welfare epics .

Originally posted by: Xavier434
No seriously, I understand what you mean and I don't believe that will be taken away from the game as much as people fear. Blizz is aware of how important those types of things are. They have expressed it to us directly in the past and have followed through directly with results. A good example would Misdirect. MD is a skill with a single purpose. It could have been given to pretty much any ranged class with very slight differences in design in order to for it to be effective and make sense. They told us that they chose the hunter class for this ability for several reasons, but the main one was that they wanted the hunter to have more raid utility since the class was lacking.

Well, rogues are going to have a misdirect-esque move now and warriors will get a 30 yard ranged high-threat move. I don't think a ranged pull move will make MD worthless though, because half the time, your tank is in his designated spot and leaving can be a pain to get back at times. So I think it'll be more like the Hunter MDs and the warrior uses that in conjunction (when the boss is close enough). Or it even serves as a way to break CCs and help pull the mob to them if it might not be the best idea to run up to it (which in some places might put you a taaaad too close to another mob).

I want beta key .

 

[BenSkywalker]

Seems to me with the changes Blizzard is doing, it is going to end up going one of two ways. One is that Blizz can't balance dps(how shocking would that be ) and the current utility specs/classes are completely removed from viability. I love having boomers in raid for the mages and locks, if their unique buff isn't stacking then they don't get a raid spot for anything pushing our progression level. Same with elemental or enhance shammies, kitties, ret pallies(well, we only ever use one of them anyway), shadow priests(they are almost certanly removed from raids anyway as of now)- all gone unless Blizz balances dps out evenly between all the classes. Now I suppose they could fire their lead class developers and it could happen, but as someone whose main was a mage through TBC I witnessed Blizz's answer to mage's poor scaling by placing a damage tax on the class that pushed mages even further down. Blizz has an extensive history at being utterly inept, to be as kind as possible, at balancing dps. For those that would say we should give them a chance- we have, for years, they have proven they aren't capable of doing it. Pretty much, kiss they hybrid classes goodbye unless they heal.

The other side of it, even if they DID manage to fire the exceedingly poor developers handling character development and they managed to completely balance all of the classes dps wise- you kill off locks and mages. Why on earth would anyone bring a cloth class when they can bring a mail wearer that gives them everything they want, can heal, can rez and can even rez themselves? Clothies in general would be done outside of holy priests. Discipline priests, as an entire tree- is ONLY viable because of what it brings in terms of buffs(and even that is limited to pvp atm), remove that you eliminate a good chunk of what priests are capable of. As a raid leader, if all of the classes are truly balanced dps wise, I'm going to bring the boomer who can pop tranquility in a pinch and has a brez over a mage, I'm bringing an elemental shamman who can chain heal and ankh over a lock, just the way it is.

Blizz is decidedly moving in a direction that I quitie frankly have no interest in. Hey, my effective main at this point is my druid, and trees are getting straight retarded buffs. I'll be able to keep hot stacks on 5-6 tanks just due to spec- I have toons on both ends of the spectrum of what wrath is doing. Just from a realistic perspective they get exactly what they want- and destroy a bunch of classes in the process- or they fail at doing what they want- and destroy a bunch of classes in the process.

Another angle to think about it from- why would you level a clothie with these new changes if all toons were really equal?

No matter how you look at it, they fail or succeed, the one thing they are without a doubt doing is profoundly changing the mechanics of a game, and quite frankly, they don't sound interesting at all. If this was a new MMO I would be laughing at them for how moronic their idea was- let's take the classes that have the hardest time surviving by far and give them NO benefit!! What in the world are they thinking? Seriously, Activision culture clearly impacted Blizz more then the other way around.

 

[Anubis]

i once again Agree with BenS

 

[Chimley]

gotta say.. that's my fear as well. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt because I'm addicted to the damn game and I'll play anyways..

 

[Xavier434]

The missing cornerstone in Ben's argument is raid encounter design. Otherwise, I would say he is pretty much spot on. Remember that only after considering the various raid encounter designs is it possible to accurately define class balance and effectiveness in a raid. They define each other like Yin and Yang. Blizz previously made it so more classes had a consistent unique role or strength in a raid which may sound good to some, but others might call it pigeon holing. What they are basically doing now is identifying all of the serious pigeon holes and dissolving them. That does not mean they are removing the necessity of a certain role though. Instead, they are allowing one other class to be capable of getting the job done in most cases. That doesn't mean that both classes are capable of "getting the job done" just as effectively during each raid encounter. That all depends on raid encounter design and how they vary things. What it does mean is that the difference in effectiveness that one class may have over the other will not be so drastically large to the point where most raids practically require a certain class/spec to handle a certain task every time they attempt a specific boss.

Now, does that mean that a single DPS class will never have an advantage during a specific encounter? No, that isn't necessary. What they are doing is making it so that advantage isn't so large that it tremendously defines the fight if used properly such as stacking a specific class. It is a delicate balance, but one which is most certainly obtainable if they design the bosses right.

One needs to also consider an entire raid instance of bosses at the same time rather than just one at a time. Generally speaking, what they did wrong in TBC is that there were several raid instances where it was very clear that certain classes had an advantage during almost every boss fight in that instance, and there were other classes which were constantly left at a disadvantage. That is not good. That gets boring. What you need to do is mix it up. You need to have some bosses where certain classes (not necessarily a single class) can shine more than others, but just not to the point where stacking a single class makes as major of a difference as we have seen in the past. Lastly, one additional way to make that happen is to incorporate more bosses with different phases where one phase allows a couple of classes to shine more and the other phase(s) allows different classes to prove their worth. Designing enough bosses so that all of the classes get their fair share of advantages in single raid is important since everyone wants to feel desirable and useful.

That's the goal and class balance is not enough to make that happen. Raid encounter balance and variety is just as necessary and that happens to be the one cornerstone that no one has any knowledge about at this point except for Blizz.

 

[Anubis]

the prob with the un pigeon holing as you call it is it didnt actually do that on paper anyway, they gave more classes more similar abilities so more specs were raid viable, HOWEVER in the process they destroied certian classes and made others better. no serious raiding guild is going to bring Class A when Class B has the same buff but it does it 5% better and the do not stack, among other things as Ben said. they simply changed who is now pigeon holed and IMO no amount of raid boss balencing is gonna fix that

 

[Aikouka]

I doubt an elemental shaman will ever do as much DPS as the rest of the casters because they bring far more utility than the rest of the casters (even if there is a bit of overlap). But even then, the one thing I think people are ignoring is there is 0 guarantee that a class will have said buff. For example, the improved faerie fire for a moonkin? Every decent balance build I make does not have it. Also, considering how it requires the druid to reapply the faerie fire every time rather than a shadow priest's misery (which is a debuff applied on a spell cast), it's more efficient to use one rather than the other.

Increased Spell damage taken is another good example. There are three people that can apply it now... moonkin, unholy death knight and a warlock. So if you do not have an unholy death knight (which is possible) and you have a moonkin, simply let the moonkin do it via Earth and Moon, which occurs on spell hit and let the warlock use Curse of Doom or whatever else they'd like. This gives the warlock more damage.

Also, I don't know why most people think a spirit priest will be that useful anymore since it doesn't stack with Flametongue totem and there's quite a good chance that you'll have a shaman in your group. The only use I could see is the fact that Divine Spirit is just a buff which can let the shaman use another fire totem... but there are very few good fire totems that would be considered a huge and necessary buff... maybe during a icy encounter to use Frost Resistance Totem (Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad mebbe). Frankly, the stacking works really well in a Shaman's favor. If there's no need and you have a spirit priest, a Shaman can throw down a searing totem... I know even with my shaman being enhancement, I still gain around 12% of my damage from fire totems.

I mean there's so many different ways to look at this... especially considering different builds. I could probably go through the entire list and show you that one class will still be the most effective at keeping it up and doing so can just be a possible DPS increase to everyone else.

I also do not foresee warlocks being left out to oomkins.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

I also do not foresee warlocks being left out to oomkins.

they will most likely be left out to DKs

there is no reason to spec Aff anymore because of the change to shadow embrace and even with Mal COE is not as good as what DKs or OOM kins provide, so you have no utility in a crappy DPS spec

the only way aff will become viable is if they make it so that ALL of our dots yes EVERY SINGLE ONE get that crit mechanic that LOL DKs get and SPs are getting on mind flay

Destro got its ass handed to it on a plate, zero utility and its DPS was cut by 25%, sadly fire destro is still looking like the best DPS spec, hurray for more 1 button mashing

Demo provides that only usefull raid buff for locks, the silly thing that improves spellpower, at the cost of horrid DPS

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Anubis
the prob with the un pigeon holing as you call it is it didnt actually do that on paper anyway, they gave more classes more similar abilities so more specs were raid viable, HOWEVER in the process they destroied certian classes and made others better. no serious raiding guild is going to bring Class A when Class B has the same buff but it does it 5% better and the do not stack, among other things as Ben said. they simply changed who is now pigeon holed and IMO no amount of raid boss balencing is gonna fix that

You just nailed it, but not in the way you are imagining. What Blizz is doing is making it so that that 5% difference doesn't make any real noticeable difference towards the outcome of your success anymore. Obviously it will still make a bit of a difference, but not enough to choose one player over another in your guild. What Blizz is trying to emphasize is that they want raid leaders to pick their raids more so based on the skill of the player. There will be guild leaders out there who just cannot get over the fact that their raids are 99% optimized instead of 100% optimized according to the numbers of potential performance, but the fact of the matter is that there is no way to do that properly while still making the game just as fun to play for every class. You can come close to balancing it, but it will never be spot on according to the numbers. IMO, if you are in a guild that weighs too heavily on such things, then you should leave the guild and find one with a leader who is more reasonable. We play to win, but we pay to have fun first. This is a game. It's not a business.

 

[lupi]

All I can say is, here comes DK baby!

 

[nanobreath]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker7

The other side of it, even if they DID manage to fire the exceedingly poor developers handling character development and they managed to completely balance all of the classes dps wise- you kill off locks and mages. Why on earth would anyone bring a cloth class when they can bring a mail wearer that gives them everything they want, can heal, can rez and can even rez themselves? Clothies in general would be done outside of holy priests. Discipline priests, as an entire tree- is ONLY viable because of what it brings in terms of buffs(and even that is limited to pvp atm), remove that you eliminate a good chunk of what priests are capable of. As a raid leader, if all of the classes are truly balanced dps wise, I'm going to bring the boomer who can pop tranquility in a pinch and has a brez over a mage, I'm bringing an elemental shamman who can chain heal and ankh over a lock, just the way it is.

This is becoming my single biggest gripe about the balance in the game. When they first designed armor it was done to balance out the greater effectiveness of the lower armor wearing classes. Now that they are making it so that every class can perform their function to the equal ability of every other class...the classes that wear better armor have a GIANT advantage, especially in PvP. What is the point in armor now? Just because it's what was there a long time ago so we're keeping it?

With the new debuffs/buffs in raids, I think these steps are taking balance too far and are overbalancing the game...ie the only way to achieve TRUE balance is to make everybody exactly the same.

Every class should have something UNIQUE to bring to the raid. Make them non stackable so that 1 class doesn't have a giant advantage over every other class. This way you NEED to have 1 of each class...but after that one you can take whatever else you want. As long as multiple classes have similar BUT STILL DIFFERENT abilities, there WILL be min and maxing. That is how it works, people will work to achieve every benefit no matter how minuscule it is. Who ever passed up that new piece of gear because it only had +1 more damage on it?