Why can't blizzard balance talents correctly?

[Beefkow]

Basically what the title says.

Today I took a glance at the icy-veins guide in the talent section discussing whether to take X, Y, or Z. As I read what talents I should take and what not to take, there is always that one talent that has no value to the spec whatsoever. Of course icy-veins looks at the talents from a pve prospective as I'm reading in the WQ, raid, and dungeon part.

I then wonder to myself, why can't blizzard read these guides in order to pin-point these issues. Is icy-veins an inaccurate guide? Are the talents just good in their eyes? Are they good in Pvp? Am I missing something?

Remember that there is a pvp stat template so they can nerf/buff anything as they please. It's good in pve but too good in pvp? Just nerf it by X% in pvp combat, easy.

What are your thoughts. Are there just talents that are obviously broken or just flat out horrible?

[Barcasaur]

Pvp is the only explanation for Mirror Images / Incanters Flow to exist. I wish MI was baseline and they came up with something else cause I love Mirror Image and can't use it unless I am pvping or just world questing even then its still underwhelming. From a pve perspective as a mage its Rune of Power or re-roll.

[Deleted]

Basically what the title says.

Today I took a glance at the icy-veins guide in the talent section discussing whether to take X, Y, or Z. As I read what talents I should take and what not to take, there is always that one talent that has no value to the spec whatsoever. Of course icy-veins looks at the talents from a pve prospective as I'm reading in the WQ, raid, and dungeon part.

I then wonder to myself, why can't blizzard read these guides in order to pin-point these issues. Is icy-veins an inaccurate guide? Are the talents just good in their eyes? Are they good in Pvp? Am I missing something?

Remember that there is a pvp stat template so they can nerf/buff anything as they please. It's good in pve but too good in pvp? Just nerf it by X% in pvp combat, easy.

What are your thoughts. Are there just talents that are obviously broken or just flat out horrible?

Feels like they didn't use their time in beta efficiently to balance the talents properly. There are some classes that have really good talent trees and some that are completely broken. I know of a lot of people, who gave very elaborate and good feedback on all the talents, but for some classes next to no changes were implemented. I really like the talents and the artifact traits of my prot paladin, but the talents on my blood DK are god awful. In the case of blood DK I saw the pages upon pages Troxism (one of if not the best blood DK at the time) wrote, going into great detail, what works and what doesn't. Were there any changes? Nope.

[Kithelle]

Feels like they didn't use their time in beta efficiently to balance the talents properly. There are some classes that have really good talent trees and some that are completely broken. I know of a lot of people, who gave very elaborate and good feedback on all the talents, but for some classes next to no changes were implemented. I really like the talents and the artifact traits of my prot paladin, but the talents on my blood DK are god awful. In the case of blood DK I saw the pages upon pages Troxism (one of if not the best blood DK at the time) wrote, going into great detail, what works and what doesn't. Were there any changes? Nope.

Seems like in most cases its their way or the highway...I've seen so many good ideas...like with Demo for example...I've seen multiple suggestions to spice up or change DE, including one I've suggested...yet Demo is still clunky and leaves you practically casting DE every other cast.

[Banquetto]

Today I took a glance at the icy-veins guide in the talent section discussing whether to take X, Y, or Z. As I read what talents I should take and what not to take, there is always that one talent that has no value to the spec whatsoever. Of course icy-veins looks at the talents from a pve prospective as I'm reading in the WQ, raid, and dungeon part.

Usually, the talents which have "no value whatsoever" for strict maximization of performance in a raid do have value elsewhere.

For example, I main Holy Priest, and it seems pretty clear that all of the talents with a big red X through them on Icy Veins are intended for PvP use, not PvE raiding.

There are a few examples of just straight-up horrible talents, talents for DPS classes which just simply don't increase DPS as much as the alternatives, in any situation. But the impression I get is that they're pretty rare.

[Niroshi]

They haven't really balanced much yet. We'll see how that patch goes I guess.

[Beefkow]

Usually, the talents which have "no value whatsoever" for strict maximization of performance in a raid do have value elsewhere.

Well yea there are talents that are usually benefical for different situations with the 5 big factors being: out in the world (pve/pvp), dungeons, raids, bgs, and arenas. If a talent cannot affect your class positively in any of the 5 criterias, it simply isn't a good talent. Maybe just a tuning issue? maybe just flat out poor design.

[Deleted]

Yeah, the talent balancing overall right now is pretty horrible despite the long beta period and tons of feedback that Blizzard got from experienced players during it. Now that they implemented PvP exclusive talent trees the fact that some general talents are meant to be viable mainly for PvP is just unacceptable.

You would expect them to pay way more attention to this with since they have a larger team working on WoW now (more resources to allocate purely into balancing). So far they are not doing all that well though. We'll see if they make any effort towards talent balance in the upcoming overall spec balancing.

[natpick]

Seems like in most cases its their way or the highway...I've seen so many good ideas...like with Demo for example...I've seen multiple suggestions to spice up or change DE, including one I've suggested...yet Demo is still clunky and leaves you practically casting DE every other cast.

its always being their way or the highway... this is classic blizz arogance dont get me wrong i have followed them since they formed(im old) and love most of there work but boy can these guys be stubborn on things like talents and balancing.

[Nero Stormchester]

Remember not all players are about maxing their performance . A lot of players just play for the fun , to escape real world difficulties, to relax . Hell in sure there quite a few players who don't go to forums such as mmo champ , nor read guides . They just go about doing their stuff , with some lfg/lfr to spice things up. And I guess Blizzard caters to those players too. Some talents may be far from optimal, but fun nonetheless like Mirror Image or Equality, and the option is there if you want it . If you wanna maximise your performance , the option is there too .

[Phookah]

Basically what the title says.

Today I took a glance at the icy-veins guide in the talent section discussing whether to take X, Y, or Z. As I read what talents I should take and what not to take, there is always that one talent that has no value to the spec whatsoever. Of course icy-veins looks at the talents from a pve prospective as I'm reading in the WQ, raid, and dungeon part.

I then wonder to myself, why can't blizzard read these guides in order to pin-point these issues. Is icy-veins an inaccurate guide? Are the talents just good in their eyes? Are they good in Pvp? Am I missing something?

Remember that there is a pvp stat template so they can nerf/buff anything as they please. It's good in pve but too good in pvp? Just nerf it by X% in pvp combat, easy.

What are your thoughts. Are there just talents that are obviously broken or just flat out horrible?

People need to remember that most of the time when some mix-maxing site/guide says "This talent is useless" it actually means "This talent is behind the others in this row" and its not actually worthless/useless.
Believe it or not, most people who play this game do so for fun and don't ever look at any guide or anything, they take what they think is fun/enjoy.

[Gaucho-]

People need to remember that most of the time when some mix-maxing site/guide says "This talent is useless" it actually means "This talent is behind the others in this row" and its not actually worthless/useless.
Believe it or not, most people who play this game do so for fun and don't ever look at any guide or anything, they take what they think is fun/enjoy.

Hmm. I think you interpret too much into what Ion said during his interview at GamesCom.

Certain talents, such as Storm Elemental for Elemental Shaman, is more than useless (= far behind numbers wise). It deals less damage than Fire Elemental while replacing it.

[Tonyman64]

In a lot of cases the "useless" talent is within about 5% of the other talents. For general play they're often pretty well balanced. I'm not saying they all are, just that "useless" in an Icy Veins guide is often an overstatement.

[Baracuda]

Not sure why Ravager is still a talent, does anyone even use it?

[Wenoxar]

@Niroshi

They haven't really balanced much yet. We'll see how that patch goes I guess.

I remember this:

- Relax it's only Alpha
- Relax it's only Beta
- Relax it's only Prepatch

Aaaand not much was changed. One thing is certain, though... Blizzard will tune numbers soon. Blizzard most likely will not change spec's gameplay. You should not expect rework of talents.

[Beefkow]

Not sure why Ravager is still a talent, does anyone even use it?

Does less damage than bladestorm, stationary, and a 30 sec. cd reduction (still doesn't compensate for loss of damage). You would look like a complete idiot if you chose that talent, unless you feel that you need to spend your rage during ravager instead of staring at your screen waiting for BS to end.

Not viable in pvp whatsoever with the CC breaker being too solid alongside with the dmg output.

The bladestorm animation is just too good to pass up for.... ravager animation??

"Ravager no longer replaces bladestorm." Whoah, did I just fix this talent?

[ShiyoKozuki]

Well yea there are talents that are usually benefical for different situations with the 5 big factors being: out in the world (pve/pvp), dungeons, raids, bgs, and arenas. If a talent cannot affect your class positively in any of the 5 criterias, it simply isn't a good talent. Maybe just a tuning issue? maybe just flat out poor design.

It's weird how some classes have nearly 100% good talents with actual choices in every single tier while other classes like blood DK barely have 1 functional talent per tier.

- - - Updated - - -

People need to remember that most of the time when some mix-maxing site/guide says "This talent is useless" it actually means "This talent is behind the others in this row" and its not actually worthless/useless.
Believe it or not, most people who play this game do so for fun and don't ever look at any guide or anything, they take what they think is fun/enjoy.

Blood actually has USELESS talents and talents that harm you by picking them(soulgorge).

[Baracuda]

Does less damage than bladestorm, stationary, and a 30 sec. cd reduction (still doesn't compensate for loss of damage). You would look like a complete idiot if you chose that talent, unless you feel that you need to spend your rage during ravager instead of staring at your screen waiting for BS to end.

Not viable in pvp whatsoever with the CC breaker being too solid alongside with the dmg output.

The bladestorm animation is just too good to pass up for.... ravager animation??

"Ravager no longer replaces bladestorm." Whoah, did I just fix this talent?

They probably just don't want people to stack them, still...

[Al Gorefiend]

They should create talents that cater to different play styles instead of balancing them for maximum dps. If you want more cc, take a cc talent instead of a DPS one. Or an AoE one instead of single-target. Or a speed boost instead of a absorb shield.