PVP Issue: No one does physical damage anymore.

[Dewsch]

I was talking to some friends the other day about the damage output of various classes, and we came to a bit of a realization with the major issue in World of Meleecraft: magic damage.

The days seem to be long gone when melee classes would do actual physical, armor-mitigated damage. It becomes really apparently when you look at talents like Sparring and how useless it really is against all but maybe 2 melee classes. Main attacks and melee abilities are doing magic damage for some unknown reason, and because of this, armor value means essentially nothing, and honor talents like sparring are pointless because they don't trigger on most of the primary abilities for classes.

Enh Shamans - Stormstrike and auto attacks are physical - everything else is magic.
Unholy/Frost DKs - mostly magic damage save for their auto attacks.
Ret Paladins - Almost entirely magic damage, save for their auto attacks.
Ass rogues - lots of physical damage and lots of poison damage, but the physical comes in the form of non-mitigated or sparred dots.
Sub rogues - their biggest hitters are shadow damage.
Outlaw rogues - mostly physical damage!
Fury/Arms wars - mostly physical damage!
Windwalker Monk - mostly physical damage!
Feral druid - mostly physical damage, but most of it is unmitigated bleeds.
Havoc DH - mostly magical (chaos) damage.
Survival Hunter - mostly physical damage, however a big portion of their dps comes from explosive trap and lacerate.

So of the 13 melee specs, 4 of them are worth using Sparring against. 29 pvp-viable specs in the game with 4 of them doing enough physical damage to warrant sparring.

This seems kind of goofy, and by making most classes in the game completely ignore armor with their moves, blizz is backing themselves into a corner by having to add stamina modifiers all over the place to make plate wearers feel like they're taking less damage, when in reality, melee classes are hitting them as hard as they're hitting a leather wearer with most of their moves.

What are your thoughts on this? Did I make a bad assumption somewhere? Is sparring better than I'm making it out to be? Can Blizzard stop with this completely ridiculous obsession with majority magic damage from classes with no reason to be doing it?

[Brocksley]

Well as an MM hunter we have, Windburst, Aimed shot, Market Shot, Multi Shot, Piercing shot, Sniper shot, Volley, and Barrage that all do physical damage. So yeah, we are a physical damage spec.

[Warllyz]

Well as an MM hunter we have, Windburst, Aimed shot, Market Shot, Multi Shot, Piercing shot, Sniper shot, Volley, and Barrage that all do physical damage. So yeah, we are a physical damage spec.

When did Marksman become a melee spec?

[Ethret]

For Ret, our HP generators are physical, but TV is magical, yeah.

[Brocksley]

When did Marksman become a melee spec?

When they made aimed shot and windburst require standing still. Haha.

Obviously casters are magic damage, but mm hunters are in this strange spot where we do so much physical damage but we are casters. So it's like a melee caster, if you will. So it's a strange thing to balance as we do struggle with doing damage to plate. Op talked about how many melee specs can avoid dealing with plate due to all the magic damage. I thought mm hunters were a unique anomaly to bring to the discussion in this thread because of these things.

[Axaion]

Sub rogues - their biggest hitters are shadow damage.

Yeah, if you let it tick forever and dont instant dispel it, making him waste combo points


hurrrrrrr

[Tyrannica]

rogues lost expose armor, reducing armor on opponents long ago.

That the reasion why you will never see outlaw rogues in the arena, even thoug they have quite a big cc toolkit.

without an ability to reduce armor and all their physical attacks they will never do any harm to plate wearers especially melee bubble teams.

[Deleted]

rogues lost expose armor, reducing armor on opponents long ago.

That the reasion why you will never see outlaw rogues in the arena, even thoug they have quite a big cc toolkit.

without an ability to reduce armor and all their physical attacks they will never do any harm to plate wearers especially melee bubble teams.

You don't see outlaw because of rng the bones, if you had true bearing everytime you rolled outlaw wouldve probably seen as much play as assa, outlaw does extremely high burst dmg if you get a good RtB

[Deleted]

You're wrong about Unholy DK's.

Scourge Strike = Half Physical Half Shadow
Festering Strike = Physical
Death Strike = Physical
Auto Attacks = Physical
Apocalypse (the ability not the wound popping) = Physical.
Pet Vile Gas = Physical

Death Coil = Shadow
Festering Wound = Shadow
Virulent Plague = Shadow
Gargoyle/Valkyr = Shadow

Unholy in particular is a pretty balanced mix of Physical and Magic damage.

[Dewsch]

You're wrong about Unholy DK's.

Scourge Strike = Half Physical Half Shadow
Festering Strike = Physical
Death Strike = Physical
Auto Attacks = Physical
Apocalypse (the ability not the wound popping) = Physical.
Pet Vile Gas = Physical

Death Coil = Shadow
Festering Wound = Shadow
Virulent Plague = Shadow
Gargoyle/Valkyr = Shadow

Unholy in particular is a pretty balanced mix of Physical and Magic damage.

I think you'll find if you look at the logs of most DK's, auto attack makes up around 4-5% of your damage, the apocalypse hit is about 1-2% of your damage, and festering strike is around 15-20% of your output. I think 21-30% physical damage on a melee class is kind of exactly what I'm talking about when I make this post.

[Tanthoris]

Those melee classes that do damage that isn't just melee are thematically using their spells to deal the damage.

Right, so a ret paladin uses holy magic to defeat their foes
A DK uses frost and shadow damage to defeat their foes
Rogues use(d) poisons to slow/damage/weaken their enemies
Enhance shamans use magic to imbue their weapons to smash and blast their foes
DHs use fel magic to empower their strikes to obliterate their enemies

That is how those classes have been since they first came out, it's nothing new.
In Vanilla Enhance shamans did more magic damage than physical outside of windfury procs.
Same goes for lol ret back then their seals did a bulk of their damage as did judgement, auto attack was their only physical damage.
Rogues always had poisons until Legion where it became an Assassination only thing so they were always dealing nature damage, and bleeds.
Dks have always had an odd mishmash of damage combinations since they had two diseases and whatever spell type that their spec was, until Legion

Warriors, ferals, and rogues are the only melee classes that did mainly physical damage since forever because their themes weren't based around using spells to hurt enemies or enhance themselves/allies.

Note: I left SV hunter out because well, until WotLK that spec was a horrible combination of melee and ranged spells and now in Legion it's fine thematically what damage it does, some fire from traps n such but mostly bleeds and physical damage.

[Dewsch]

Those melee classes that do damage that isn't just melee are thematically using their spells to deal the damage.

Right, so a ret paladin uses holy magic to defeat their foes
A DK uses frost and shadow damage to defeat their foes
Rogues use(d) poisons to slow/damage/weaken their enemies
Enhance shamans use magic to imbue their weapons to smash and blast their foes
DHs use fel magic to empower their strikes to obliterate their enemies

That is how those classes have been since they first came out, it's nothing new.
In Vanilla Enhance shamans did more magic damage than physical outside of windfury procs.
Same goes for lol ret back then their seals did a bulk of their damage as did judgement, auto attack was their only physical damage.
Rogues always had poisons until Legion where it became an Assassination only thing so they were always dealing nature damage, and bleeds.
Dks have always had an odd mishmash of damage combinations since they had two diseases and whatever spell type that their spec was, until Legion

Warriors, ferals, and rogues are the only melee classes that did mainly physical damage since forever because their themes weren't based around using spells to hurt enemies or enhance themselves/allies.

Note: I left SV hunter out because well, until WotLK that spec was a horrible combination of melee and ranged spells and now in Legion it's fine thematically what damage it does, some fire from traps n such but mostly bleeds and physical damage.

Very little of the vanilla shaman damage came in the form of magic. Shocking off cooldown and occasionally throwing a casted chain lightning out when they had time. Most of their damage was literally waiting for WF procs.

Rogue poisons made up VERY little of a rogue's damage in vanilla or BC. There was very little reason for a rogue to use anything other than wound and crippling poisons in pvp.

Rets were trash in vanilla, so I'm not super worried about them doing magic damage - it makes sense to have SOME melee do magic damage. The whole point of my post was that almost EVERY melee spec is doing unmitigated damage now.

DK's are a good example of a class that makes sense to do magic damage with MAGIC abilities.

I'm not saying that classes can't have magic damage. I'm saying that if blizzard is going to make melee classes do mostly magic damage, then there need to be adjustments to allow strategies to survive them. Is there a point to plate armor vs. leather anymore? Will there be a reason to use sparring when warriors are just randomly given unmitigated "Anger" damage on all their abilities in 7.4?

[Tanthoris]

I'm not saying that classes can't have magic damage. I'm saying that if blizzard is going to make melee classes do mostly magic damage, then there need to be adjustments to allow strategies to survive them. Is there a point to plate armor vs. leather anymore? Will there be a reason to use sparring when warriors are just randomly given unmitigated "Anger" damage on all their abilities in 7.4?

I guess the point I was trying to make was that they aren't just warriors who smash/slice/slash people, they deal damage from sources beyond just their weapons. Paladins smite people with holy magic, rogues poison people, Shamans use elemental magics to enhance themselves to weaken their foes.

Armor have become a bit of a thing of the past when it comes to relevance anymore, many classes have passives that boost damage reduction from melee.

Sparing should be melee damage or damage from melee sources tbh because atm it's fairly useless.

[Deleted]

When they made aimed shot and windburst require standing still. Haha.

Obviously casters are magic damage, but mm hunters are in this strange spot where we do so much physical damage but we are casters. So it's like a melee caster, if you will. So it's a strange thing to balance as we do struggle with doing damage to plate. Op talked about how many melee specs can avoid dealing with plate due to all the magic damage. I thought mm hunters were a unique anomaly to bring to the discussion in this thread because of these things.

Hunter casts cannot be kicked I think

[Deleted]

As a warrior its very weird being the only pure physical damage class left in pvp, all our damage is mitigated by armor. Meanwhile everyone else is casting spells =/

[Allerius]

Armor in PVP is a pretty big issue from a design perspective. If it matters, counterclasses are exacerbated since caster classes will always ignore armor. If armor is good then plate classes like holy pallys will counter melee cleaves and get rekt by caster cleaves just by virtue of a passive and thoughtless stat. They should just set the armor template to 0 in PVP and adjust the physical abilities accordingly.

[Dewsch]

Armor in PVP is a pretty big issue from a design perspective. If it matters, counterclasses are exacerbated since caster classes will always ignore armor. If armor is good then plate classes like holy pallys will counter melee cleaves and get rekt by caster cleaves just by virtue of a passive and thoughtless stat. They should just set the armor template to 0 in PVP and adjust the physical abilities accordingly.

Is counter classing that big of a deal, though? What you're describing is how wow PVP had been for the first like 10 years.

[Allerius]

Is counter classing that big of a deal, though? What you're describing is how wow PVP had been for the first like 10 years.

Losing to a certain comp before the game hasn't even started is definitely a big problem as it's not fun at all and devalues skill. Same in 1v1 and all forms of PVP. It's the opposite of balance where you have a good shot to win if you're skilled regardless of your class.

Soft counters have always existed, but making less counters is always a good thing. Sure, I'd take interesting gameplay and diverse classes over having no counters, but introducing counters for little to no gain is a bad design direction.

[Dewsch]

Losing to a certain comp before the game hasn't even started is definitely a big problem as it's not fun at all and devalues skill. Same in 1v1 and all forms of PVP. It's the opposite of balance where you have a good shot to win if you're skilled regardless of your class.

Soft counters have always existed, but making less counters is always a good thing. Sure, I'd take interesting gameplay and diverse classes over having no counters, but introducing counters for little to no gain is a bad design direction.

I totally get where you're coming from, and my idea of a counter is more along the lines of your soft counter definition. I don't, however, think that counter comps = no balance, though. Rock Paper Scissors is an intrinsically balanced game at its core.

Mages > Warriors > Rogues > Mages was a staple core of the game, and the idea of expanding upon that by building similar counter-triads would create a more manageable game. A system of checks and balances so that no one class could get out of control because there'd always be a class that counters it.

Trying to put everyone on an equal footing has led to what we have now.

[Raugnaut]

For Ret, our HP generators are physical, but TV is magical, yeah.

Ret can go down the path of near-pure Holy, with the exception of their AA and CS. Against anything with high avoidance/armor, you go Divine Hammers due to its inability to be avoided, and magic damage.

Its almost always been this way btw - The only spec that has ever done 100% mitigatable-through-armor damage is Fury Warrior for a wee bit. Now, everyone has some portion of damage that can bypass armor.

Note, however, that phys. damage mitigation is actually fairly similar for ALL non-tank classes. DPS plate wearers tend to have ~35-40% protection via armor. Now, lets look at the squishies.

Warlock - The lowest damage mit. of all casters. Only defensive ability outside of talents is Unending Resolve, 40% damage reduction+silence/immune interupt on 10 second duration. Talents can boost them up a bit, but not by much. Demo has a bit extra survivability.

Mage - Passive armor buffs gives Frost/Fire a small mitigation boost vs phys. Fire gets 6% damage reduction, Frost gets free slows. Arcane is the weakest spec when it comes to melees.

Priests - Shadowform grants +10% phys damage reduction, giving them close to leather mitigation. Disc/Holy gets +30% damage reduction from melee, putting them close to plate.

Druids - Boomkins get as much armor as Guardians do. Feral/Resto need to assume bear form, greatly reducing their in-spec effectiveness.

Monks - Get nothing against pure phys damage.

Rogues - Evasion/Riposte.

DHs - Blur.

Shamans/Hunters get nothing that protects them against phys. So, generally, among the DPS specs, most are bout on par with each other against physical damage due to passives or cooldowns. Does it suck that the pure phys damage dealers deal, on average, 30% less damage against most all classes? Yes, but do note that the only way to stop phys damage is to kite, CC, or use avoidance if available to your spec. Most casters can be interupted for 4 seconds out of every 15, and LoSd otherwise.