Balance the classes. Keep the content the same. Just stop.

[Kaver]

Pretty sure if they intended Paladin tanks to have a taunt, they'd have just given them a taunt. Not a stretch to think that.

Pretty sure if they intended Ret Pallies to do as much DPS as Warriors, we'd have seen much more sweeping changes to Ret Pallies that they didn't end up doing.

Pretty sure if they intended Druid Tanks to be non-crushable, they would have given Druid Tanks defense on gear. Not a terribly hard thing to do.

But that's just me.

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See above.

I don't like your tone young boy

I think you overestimate Blizzard in this scenario. I don't believe they knew the consequence when they in the beginning decided not the give Prot Pala a taunt.

[Thimagryn]

Pretty sure if they intended Paladin tanks to have a taunt, they'd have just given them a taunt. Not a stretch to think that.

TBC.

Yes, they did give them taunt. And fixed all the specs. They just waited and put it all in one bundle so that it didn't mess with the current meta all while incentivizing everyone to buy the expansion to get proper balance out of specs. It's all right there.

If these players don't want to play Vanilla without changes, they won't have to reroll because they won't play Classic.

You're assuming that people will not play Vanilla because of something lacking in what they want. It's not so clear-cut. Classic players who want change can live with not having it; it's a matter of IF 'balance' can be achieved then of course we would want to see it.

Some people like or not like having certain features in the game. Few actually make the decision to play or stop playing just because of those features. Yet if Blizzard is not clear on what is intended with expected features, people will be disappointed in Blizzard's actions, especially if it involves rerolling a character that is already hard to level up. This is assuming the scenario is that Blizzard is quiet on Classic+ and rolls it out 'after hearing public demand'.

On the contrary, you can likely get people who want Classic to stick with Classic+, because it's 'close enough' to Classic, and THEY will be the ones who will be pissed if Classic is rolled out later as THEY will be the ones who won't want to reroll.

People who don't want to play Classic without changes CAN wait, because they can just not play Classic in the meantime since they don't want to without changes and wait for Classic+. If the vocal demand remains after Classic is launched and the Classic players are happy, Classic+ can then become a thing for anyone who wants Classic with changes.

We can't launch both at the same time, because then we're just delaying BOTH groups for the other's sake, and that's just a dumb idea.

Then you shot yourself in the foot in saying this is a good way to gauge how successful Classic would be if Classic+ is intended to be launched later. This inflates the number of OP classes played at the very start, knowing that people will conciously avoid playing underpowered ones knowing it's on the horizon. You didn't solve anything here, you just created the exact same situation as if Classic+ is already implemented.

I have no problems with this method, but you'll see it affecting the community. Staggering basically forces Hybrid/Support players to wait, or bite the bullet and play Classic in order to play with friends. At least with both servers coming out at the same time, lines will be drawn like PVE/PVP servers, and not forcing existing PVE players (who wanted PVP servers) to make a decision to reroll later on.

[Kaver]

"In the beginning," sure. That makes sense.

They had 12 major patches to figure it out. PRETTY SURE they could have figured it out.

They then had THE ENTIRETY OF THE BC EXPANSION to figure it out, and still couldn't. They INCLUDED TAUNT SWAPS IN BOTH VANILLA AND BC and couldn't figure it out, is what you're saying.

They made bosses that could not be completed without being uncrushable, and didn't give Druids defense rating through 12 major patches. But you're saying they couldn't figure it out.

That's severely underestimating Blizzard if you ask me.

You make a great argument.

But I really think they just couldn't get it right. It took them over 13 years to decide to make our main bag bigger.

[Thimagryn]

Seems like a dumb idea if you ask me. Why would you make an entire spec wait an entire expansion of the game - 12 major patches, INCLUDING ONE that had a 'major overhaul' for your class, and 'accidentally' forget to give that class a taunt while continuing to make boss fights that require a taunt swap?

It's disingenuous to say this wasn't intentional. They've never cared for the meta in WoW, and actively try to shake up the meta whenever possible.

Do you remember how Vanilla was balanced? They did a round-robin 'Patch of the Class' style updates. One would question why they did this instead of their current method of balancing all classes that need it.

The thing is, Vanilla was very much a 'wild west' of MMOs. They were building off of what existed in Everquest without recognizing what players actually wanted and expected out of the game. There was no consideration in Prot Paladins and Feral Druids becoming end-game Support, considering this was the meta that followed in their decision to implement 'Hybrid Tax' and the community taking a min-max stance on what was 'viable' and what wasn't.

The intention was that Druids and Paladins would still be able to tank but they're not as good as Warriors. And Private servers have proven that Druids and Paladins CAN tank this content; it's just hard as fuck to do it and no one in the general community would advise doing so if they could actively avoid it. That's not being practical.

TBC effectively fixed all of this. It provided the viability without removing the Hybrid Tax. TBC's balance was MUCH CLOSER to their intended design, and is admittedly so.

It's like pointing at a flawed v1.0 system as a mainstay when the developer made a bunch of mistakes instead of looking at a much improved v2.0 as a basis. We don't look at Vanilla D3 itemization and point to it as the intended design that the developers always wanted out of the game. It was not intended for Yellow items to be more valued than any Legendary drop in the game.

I'm literally not assuming anything. These players keep saying "I do not want to play Vanilla without changes." This is most often coupled with insults towards Classic players along the lines of "I have a job and kids now, I'm not some no-life."

It's not an assumption - It's fact.

I can voice my wants and needs while still play Vanilla. How? I'd roll a Pure class instead of a Hybrid as I would want to play as. Complaints and playing the game are not mutually exclusive.

What should be taken out of a need for change is not 'I do not want to play Vanilla' but 'I do not want to play Vanilla as an underpowered/ineffective specced class'. If people didn't care, they wouldn't be asking for change in the first place.

[Kilee25]

As a software engineer with some years of experience, I do not believe that the problem of class balance can't be solved. If it was not accounted for in Vanilla, I believe that it was deliberate. There would have definitely been conversations at Blizzard about it in some kind of round table. If they didn't fix it then, there were only two reasons - (a) they didn't have the resources to do it or (b) they didn't want to.

The answer to whether or not they make any changes to Vanilla - to me - depend entirely on whether or not the answer was (a) or (b). If the design intent for Vanilla was that everything was done on purpose, then I think they should stick with that design intent. However, if they were pressed for resources and workers, and just simply couldn't generate the assets to do it, then I'd like to see them "finish" Vanilla as they had originally intended.

If I were on the design team, I would go back to the designers of the original game, and have some discussions with them about what they intended for the classes, and how they wanted the game to work and how they wanted everything to work together. The answers they gave me would probably play a large factor in what Classic turned out to be.

I think that's probably what I would do.... also several people here have suggested releasing the game as close to the original as possible before adding or doing anything new, and I think that's probably the safest choice for Blizzard. Give players an authentic experience with as few changes as possible, then roll out any changes in increments with future patches, and only in small releases.

[Ielenia]

Pretty sure if they intended Paladin tanks to have a taunt, they'd have just given them a taunt. Not a stretch to think that.

It is a stretch to claim it the paladin's inability to tank being intentional a fact, though. On the flip-side, why would they give Paladins a tank spec if they didn't intend for paladins to be able to tank?

Pretty sure if they intended Ret Pallies to do as much DPS as Warriors, we'd have seen much more sweeping changes to Ret Pallies that they didn't end up doing.

Kind of... like they did in future expansion changes? And again, nothing of that proves intentional design. It indicates more oversight than intentional design.

Pretty sure if they intended Druid Tanks to be non-crushable, they would have given Druid Tanks defense on gear. Not a terribly hard thing to do.

Pretty sure the 'non-uncrushable' thing was supposed to be off-set by the ginormous amount of HP druids could muster with talents.

I see people claiming that the original developers were something akin to "genius" for developing "such a perfect game"... but then that claim is directly off-set by the claims that all the imbalances and spec inviability were intentional. Oftentimes both claims being made by the same person. I simply can't fathom how a "genius" would create such intentional, nonsensical imbalance among the classes and specs like that.

However, when you substitute "genius" with "people who were developing their very first RPG ever and didn't have much idea of what they're doing", then it becomes clear what happened. You understand that none of vanilla's imbalances were intentional, just oversight.

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It's disingenuous to say this wasn't intentional.

Actually, the disingenuous claim is the claim that vanilla Wow was intentionally designed as flawed and missing important abilities. Considering that Blizzard was still not a huge company back then, and WoW was not only their first MMO but also their first RPG, it's easy to see that the issues vanilla had weren't "intentional", but actually a product of oversight.

[Swalload]

I'll ask you what I asked the other guy - what was a "disc" priest then? A disc priest was a second healing spec, so yeah, shocker...they healed.

Edit: The spirit buff, at the time of the patch(es) I'm referring to, was the bottom of the talent tree.

They are mainly using stuff that are in the holy page of the spell book. Disc priests had no identity whatsoever. Putting points in the disc page but having the exact same playstyle as holy does not make discipline a spec. Spec means specialization, what do you specialize yourself as a discipline priest in vanilla? That's right, you specialize in using the spells in the holy spellbook, not disc.

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Considering 31 points was more than half of your available talent points, "points up to the spirit buff" was more points than in Holy. You were a Disc priest more than a Holy priest. The fact that you had similar rotations was irrelevant.

A non-PoM-Pyro mage had a similar rotation to a PoM-Pyro mage (-Pyroblast), but Pom-Pyro went deep into Arcane to get PoM and less into Fire. PoM-Pyro was still a different spec than Fire.

See above.

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By that reasoning, holy priest is just disc priest up to their 31 point talent, it didn't play any differently than disc priest, so it was a disc priest. Stop being wrong and calling people who are right wrong, it's pointless.

They were just called "priest." What, in your opinion, was a disc priest in vanilla? Someone who just played priest wrong?



I don't think classes should be rebalanced because it will break the game. What would we balance the classes against? Solo? 5 man? Raid groups? Which debuffs the target has? Fully geared? Fully enchanted? There would be no such thing as "balance" because of all the utility and buffs that are in the game. Too many things are looked at from an individual meter perspective.

See above.

[Thimagryn]

As a software engineer with some years of experience, I do not believe that the problem of class balance can't be solved. If it was not accounted for in Vanilla, I believe that it was deliberate. There would have definitely been conversations at Blizzard about it in some kind of round table. If they didn't fix it then, there were only two reasons - (a) they didn't have the resources to do it or (b) they didn't want to.

Or they had the fixes saved for a larger release in order to not mess with current meta. As far as I'm aware, our pipeline at work doesn't always roll out fixes as soon as they are available. Sometimes they wait on a larger update (like a new project) so that it doesn't mess with the way things work in the current state, even if there are fixed that can be useful right now. In the meantime, the current project settles with workarounds just long enough to get things done.

That's what TBC essentially provided in terms of class balance. They literally added abilities to classes and specs that made them viable that could have existed in Vanilla. This includes number tuning like making Feral's Claw ability do way more damage. Why not just roll out to Vanilla? Because they didn't want to infringe on having Druids suddenly all swap raid specs in the middle of raiding; and it would be easier to accept the change if everyone was back to leveling up at the same pace and exploring an all new raiding Meta at the same time.

[Flarelaine]

There's a reason everyone and their mom ran with a warrior alt back then (including myself), they were kings at everything in Classic.

"One class was better than all the others, but I also played that, so it's fine"

[Mindark]

They are mainly using stuff that are in the holy page of the spell book. Disc priests had no identity whatsoever. Putting points in the disc page but having the exact same playstyle as holy does not make discipline a spec. Spec means specialization, what do you specialize yourself as a discipline priest in vanilla? That's right, you specialize in using the spells in the holy spellbook, not disc.

Got it. So disc has no identity and plays exactly like the very viable holy, except it isn't viable because they spec down to a raid "mandatory" buff. Makes sense.

Sarcasm aside, I think the disconnect is language. You're defining a spec based off the trees that their frequently used spells are on, and others are more commonly defining it based off the spec tree that they invest most points in. I agree that some spells found in the discipline spellbook are objectively worse than some spells found in the discipline spellbook.

An extreme use of that reasoning would be that level 22 healers (Rank 4 holy light) are better for raiding than level 60s (rank 9 holy light) are because of downcasting.

[RobertMugabe]

Most people are just concerned that ANY changes will significantly change the gameplay (for the worse) and that those small changes could "snowball" (= blizz does 1 simple change and then players demand more and more changes)

[Flarelaine]

It wasn't designed as flawed and missing important abilities - it was designed such that each class had a strong class identity. It was never intended for Warriors to become the only tank, but it was intended for Warriors to be the best tank. It wasn't intended for Druid and Paladin tanks to be non-viable and broken, but it was intended for their healing specs to be strong, as well as their support abilities. It wasn't intended for many non-pure DPS specs to be worse than others, but it was intended for Mages to have strong damage early with fall off later, Warlocks to have lower damage to start but no end to DPS via life tap (for higher dps over a longer fight), and shadow priests to be lower damage than both with strong support abilities.

Paladins followed their WC3 hero unit, which was not a damage dealer or a tank - It was a support unit with healing. The fact that they didn't add things to the classes to make it possible for them to be other roles supports this - Paladins were meant to be a support with healing, and coincidentally, that is what they were in Vanilla.

The fact that they HAD a tank spec doesn't mean they had to be competitive with Warrior tanks. And the design choices around how they implemented it suggests they never intended to make the prot paladin as good a tank as Warrior until BC.

What I hear "my class was fine".

We know how the classes turned out, but that does not prove intent by any means.

[Swalload]

Got it. So disc has no identity and plays exactly like the very viable holy, except it isn't viable because they spec down to a raid "mandatory" buff. Makes sense.

Sarcasm aside, I think the disconnect is language. You're defining a spec based off the trees that their frequently used spells are on, and others are more commonly defining it based off the spec tree that they invest most points in. I agree that some spells found in the discipline spellbook are objectively worse than some spells found in the discipline spellbook.

An extreme use of that reasoning would be that level 22 healers (Rank 4 holy light) are better for raiding than level 60s (rank 9 holy light) are because of downcasting.

Specs are a playstyle, who gives a flying fuck if you put 75 points in one page if it plays exactly like the page where you put zero points in but you use its spells? That's just bad design EITHER WAY.

[Thimagryn]

You do realize that what you've just described is they intentionally had Druids and Paladins as worse tanks than Warriors. Just with more words. Right?

There is a difference between being worse but viable, and being worse while being ignored by the meta.

Again, class imbalance was what Vanilla was known for. The fact that it is what people WANT in retrospect is not a result of Intentional Design. Purists openly refer to this as 'Warts and all', and it is not reflective of what Blizzard actually intended the meta to be.

Druids of the Claw were heavy melee with support abilities. In WoW, it was meant to be a Hybrid where their ability to heal was supposed to offset lower tanking stats and lack of certain defensive stats. In practice, it failed because the design of encounters didn't factor in an ability to self-heal or the Crushable stat that made Warriors the de-facto choice. It was an oversight that the community would designate ALL Druids to be Resto for raiding. This does not mean Druids couldn't tank - they could but it wasn't worth the effort. They simply were not viable considering the amount of compensation that was needed (great healers, great support, 39 people who accept Feral Tanks) in the raid to ensure a Feral Druid would be able to tank an encounter.

Nobody is arguing that TBC's design downgraded Vanilla's systems.

What they are arguing as that you're not getting Vanilla if you upgrade all the classes to TBC. Which is true.

Not everyone wants pure Vanilla. Yes, the outspoken majority do want a pure experience, but many simply want a version that is playable for all specs. Same can be said for those who want QoL in any form. Is that Vanilla? No. But just like people are asking for Vanilla knowingly beyond 'You think you do but you don't', there are also those asking for changes knowingly that it wouldn't be Vanilla.

Not everyone wants the Vanilla experience, and a part of that is knowing that without any balance changes, Vanilla isn't going to be Vanilla either. We won't have an excess of Paladin and Druid players who were rolling under the impression that they would be able to tank in the end game and irrevocably becoming support in raids. That's what happened in Vanilla and it was due to circumstance which can easily be avoided now. Private server numbers even support this.

Then you are not one of the people I am addressing. That said, it'd be disingenuous to deny that those people are all over this forum, considering thread after thread after thread (including OP) continue to say it themselves.

When have I denied those people? I simply state that what you're arguing isn't what I'm arguing. If you have problem with people stating that they have no time to play because of RL, then Classic+ as I'm proposing (tweaks that make specs viable, not QoL changes) is not going to solve their time investment problem either. Apples to Oranges. Balance Tweaks =/= QoL.

I want a Druid that is able to tank given that there are features that support end-game Feral Tanking. This means something like gear that is hard-to-obtain that has the right stats for tanking, or talents that convert raiding gear stats into Def, or adding in a necessary threat generators or Taunt ability to overcome boss mechanics that require it. Viability doesn't mean an easy-street to compete with all Warriors. TBC didn't have Ferals replacing Warriors, and it was the right amount of change to allow us to tank without taking the role away from them. That's all I would want to see honestly. That's already in the game too, and solves many issues that existed in Vanilla even if it will not purely be 'Vanilla'. It's something Blizzard already recognizes, even if their current stance is 'We're not changing balance for Classic, we heard all your feedback'.

[Mindark]

Specs are a playstyle, who gives a flying fuck if you put 75 points in one page if it plays exactly like the page where you put zero points in but you use its spells? That's just bad design EITHER WAY.

Now specs are playstyles? No. Specs can sometimes determine playstyles (this was not really the case with hybrids in vanilla WoW though). If I spec 51 points into ret and gear for ret, but play as prot, I am still ret spec. If a holy or disc priest uses SW:P and mind flay while solo questing, it does not make them a shadow priest. You're creating your own definition for words and arguing with others that they are wrong because they are using commonly accepted definition of it.

[Ielenia]

Paladins followed their WC3 hero unit, which was not a damage dealer or a tank - It was a support unit with healing. The fact that they didn't add things to the classes to make it possible for them to be other roles supports this - Paladins were meant to be a support with healing, and coincidentally, that is what they were in Vanilla.

Yet they did. They gave paladins a DPS and a tank spec. Gave paladins the ability to wield a shield, instead of going pure 2H weapon like its WC3 counterpart. Blizzard gave them DPS abilities. Tank cooldowns. Etc.

The fact that they HAD a tank spec doesn't mean they had to be competitive with Warrior tanks.

Yes, it does mean that. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of adding them in the first place.

Last, but not least: if Blizzard actually really intended for the design to be the way it was in vanilla, that the designers actually sat down and thought through and through about it and intentionally chose those designs... then why all that you mentioned above was 'resolved' in the very first expansion?

[Manaia]

They are mainly using stuff that are in the holy page of the spell book. Disc priests had no identity whatsoever. Putting points in the disc page but having the exact same playstyle as holy does not make discipline a spec. Spec means specialization, what do you specialize yourself as a discipline priest in vanilla? That's right, you specialize in using the spells in the holy spellbook, not disc.

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Honestly? They specialized in giving a unique spirit buff. That was their specialty.

spe·cial·i·za·tion
ˌspeSHələˈzāSH(ə)n,ˌspeSHəˌlīˈzāSH(ə)n/Submit
noun
the process of concentrating on and becoming expert in a particular subject or skill.
"the division and specialization of labor"
a particular area which someone concentrates on or is an expert in.

Disc spells:
Power Word: Fortitude
Power Word: Shield
Inner Fire
Dispel Magic
Shackle Undead
Mana Burn
Inner Focus (Talent)
Power Infusion (Talent)
Divine Spirit (Talent)

Holy spells:
Lesser Heal
Renew
Resurrection
Cure Disease
Heal (Skill up from Lesser Heal)
Flash Heal
Prayer of Healing
Abolish Disease (Skill up from Cure Disease)
Greater Heal (skill up from Lesser Heal and Heal)
Holy Nova (Talent)
Light Well (Talent)

Whether you're 31 points in disc or 31 points in holy, you're dipping into the other school/tab about 50/50 depending on dungeons, raids, and enemy/spell type. They both have six unique non-talent spells that are used depending on the encounter (Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal are the same spell - only different ranks.)

Let's keep this in context.
The original guy I replied to said people would never bring a disc priest - I explained that they actually did bring a disc priest and ret paladin.
I can give some wiggle room on the ret spec, since in most cases they still played as a healer. However, in this context, what is the appropriate role/play of "disc" that the raids wouldn't bring?

Edit: Quote tag was messed up!

[Swalload]

Now specs are playstyles? No. Specs can sometimes determine playstyles (this was not really the case with hybrids in vanilla WoW though). If I spec 51 points into ret and gear for ret, but play as prot, I am still ret spec. If a holy or disc priest uses SW:P and mind flay while solo questing, it does not make them a shadow priest. You're creating your own definition for words and arguing with others that they are wrong because they are using commonly accepted definition of it.

You put points in ret, with a 2 hander and pull stuff, nothing stays on you and you don't tank anything, everyone dies. How is that playing Prot? That makes no sense lol. I mean sure people can closse their eyes, click everywhere to make their spec then sit on their keyboard and anal probe themselves with their mouse. The concept is still to use the abilities that you improved through your talent choices. The disc page helps the holy spells, cuz there's no specific disc spell other than power word shield, which is very rarely used since it stop rage generation on warriors in vanilla. The disc page is just another holy page with a different name, it doesn't allow you to play any differently than a holy priest. So it's not a spec in itself.

[Flarelaine]

Yes, it does.

If they never added a taunt to paladins while still adding fights requiring a taunt swap, they didn't want Paladins to tank. Period. That's not deniable. If they wanted Paladins to tank in Vanilla, they would have given them a taunt.

And yet there were tanking talents. Maybe designed to taunt paladins?

[Mindark]

Yet they did. They gave paladins a DPS and a tank spec. Gave paladins the ability to wield a shield, instead of going pure 2H weapon like its WC3 counterpart. Blizzard gave them DPS abilities. Tank cooldowns. Etc.


Yes, it does mean that. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of adding them in the first place.

Last, but not least: if Blizzard actually really intended for the design to be the way it was in vanilla, that the designers actually sat down and thought through and through about it and intentionally chose those designs... then why all that you mentioned above was 'resolved' in the very first expansion?

Paladins' DPS and tanks specs were a joke though, for DPSing and tanking. Every class has DPS abilities, that doesn't mean every class had a legitimate DPS spec. There were no tank cooldowns for paladins. Lay on hands might be considered a "tanking" cooldown.

Warriors were the only class intended to be "real" tanks in vanilla. Adding a tank spec gave their healing a little flavor. It did not make them competitive tanks. To answer your question, "why was everything resolved in the first expansion.." It's because players were demanding it, and Blizzard changed direction.