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

[Thimagryn]

But keep talking at me as if I don't know what I'm talking about, when you haven't even listened to what Blizzard themselves have said.

And sadly, I seem to know more than you about it, and I admit that I don't know much about it.

Yes, and at no point did they say class imbalance was intentional design. That was something that YOU falsely assumed. That's the main reason I even bothered replying.

I know Blizzard currently wants to stick to Vanilla balance for Classic. That doesn't exclude the possibility of rolling Classic+ alongside.

Let's put things in perspective again

when you haven't even listened to what Blizzard themselves have said.

Again, point I make is Blizzard's decisions aren't set in stone, otherwise Classic would never be happening 'because they said so'. We have the power to change things given we communicate clearly what it is we want. Right now, you're only doing the exact thing that the Anti-Classic crowd contributed to the conversation for WoW: Classic; you rely on 'Blizzard said so'.

[Mindark]

Yes, and at no point did they say class imbalance was intentional design. That was something that YOU falsely assumed. That's the main reason I even bothered replying.

I know Blizzard currently wants to stick to Vanilla balance for Classic. That doesn't exclude the possibility of rolling Classic+ alongside.

They said that class imbalance was intentional design many times. They called it a hybrid tax.

edit: I'm curious what Classic+ is. What the agreed upon version is, anyway. I doubt that would happen. It would require far too many resources (rebuild azeroth again?) or be too boring (how timewalking dungeons feel).

[Kithelle]

That's not true. You can't know what every person was thinking. The people voicing it now were thinking it before it was announced, they just didn't see the point in asking since they couldn't even get Vanilla in the first place.

That's why every single thread that has popped up on here in the last 2 years that I've seen pined for *Thee definitive Vanilla experience* and every time I'd bring up class balance did they say? "Oh no that will be changed" "Or I can live with it like that!" No...they basically flat out ignored it or said the imbalance isn't that bad...said that you'd want a bear tank for his extremely high armor or you want multiple cats for their crit buff...so and so can do rather good damage with the right gear ect ect

Not once did I see talk of any kind of balance passing...but two seconds after vanilla is announced the threads popped up of people who basically want classic to be live, except without this feature or that feature, which they hate in live.

[Swalload]

There was no holy identity. Disc and Holy played the same. If you swap most of your uses of "holy" and "disc" with each other, you get your own counter argument. Sure, nobody in vanilla claimed they were disc. They were HEALER (not holy, unless they were and specified it) or shadow. You're putting holy on a pedestal again. What gave holy its "identity?" Only because the healing spell was in the holy spellbook and not disc? What about the following: power word fortitude, power word shield (for non-tanks), inner fire, dispel magic, fear ward (onyxia says hi), shackle undead, mana burn (pvp), divine spirit, and power infusion. Every. Single. Disc spell. Was used by good holy priests.

Of course there's situational stuff but it was never the core of any spec. Prot warriors are prot because of how they use their shield with the skills that go with them, they still use heroic strike, but heroic strike has no flavor, like a dispell or fortitude. They're bland generic spells, tied to a spec cuz they have to be but they dont feed into the fantasy of that spec as much as mortal strike or PW shield.

- - - Updated - - -

Says the guy who still believes Disc wasn't a spec in Vanilla.

With reason.

[Echocho]

Yes, and at no point did they say class imbalance was intentional design.

The hybrid tax was intentional though. It doesn't explain why warriors and rogues were so dominant though, warriors are even hybrids so they should be that good in pve and pvp. They should at least balance the four pure dps classes so that they're fairly close and above all the rest.
A fury warrior should never be able to beat a hunter or a warlock given equal gear and skill.

[Alienshroom]

Of course there's situational stuff but it was never the core of any spec. Prot warriors are prot because of how they use their shield with the skills that go with them, they still use heroic strike, but heroic strike has no flavor, like a dispell or fortitude. They're bland generic spells, tied to a spec cuz they have to be but they dont feed into the fantasy of that spec as much as mortal strike or PW shield.

- - - Updated - - -



With reason.

The underdog specs is one of the most unique things about vanilla. They are the hardest and most rewarding to gear for and when your finished its something truly special. Nobody wants jack of all trades like retail.

[Mindark]

I asked what gave holy its identity. It's easy to see how prot has theirs. But when holy plays exactly the same as disc, what is their identity?

So far, you've dodged asking multiple times what a disc priest is and now what vanilla's holy identity was. Spoiler alert. The fantasy of a PRIEST is to heal. That fantasy is not reserved to a spec, but the class. Shadow deviated from that. Because who wants a 3 spec healing class (member those threads? I member)?

So, I'll ask again. What was vanilla's holy priest identity? Difficulty: The answer cannot apply to discipline priests.

[Morrigenn]

You wanted Classic (i.e. "vanilla") WoW.

Blizz said it was coming.

Vanilla didn't include class balance. So either you want more balanced classes (you know, like current game) or you want Classic. You don't get to pick and choose what you think are the "best parts" and demand that THAT is "classic WoW".

I started, leveled, raided in the original game. While it was a great experience AT THE TIME, I have zero interest in going back since I do remember the warts and issues and negatives.

If you want Classic, play Classic AS IT WAS, not as some rose-tinted fantasy that so many of you seem to have.....

[Mindark]

The hybrid tax was intentional though. It doesn't explain why warriors and rogues were so dominant though, warriors are even hybrids so they should be that good in pve and pvp. They should at least balance the four pure dps classes so that they're fairly close and above all the rest.
A fury warrior should never be able to beat a hunter or a warlock given equal gear and skill.

The hybrid tax was the cause for most of the imbalance and was intentional, that was my point. If you're only talking about balancing a few of the dps specs out of all of them, then you really aren't "balancing" them at all. Are you wanting all 12 specs of each DPS class to be competitive with each other? Or only at least 1 spec from each of the classes to be competitive? And are you doing this in a vacuum? In a raid environment? Will full consumable buffs? With full target debuffs? Without taking utility or situation into consideration? No matter where you choose to balance whichever specs against whichever specs, I can guarantee you zounds of people will be screaming that it was balanced wrong, under the wrong assumptions, or not within a threshold that is appropriate.

[Thimagryn]

They said that class imbalance was intentional design many times. They called it a hybrid tax.

edit: I'm curious what Classic+ is. What the agreed upon version is, anyway. I doubt that would happen. It would require far too many resources (rebuild azeroth again?) or be too boring (how timewalking dungeons feel).

There is no agreed upon version because there is no unified discussion. Everyone cherrypicks what they like or hate and strawmans every discussion regardless of what any individual is discussing. That or the overgeneralize what is being discussed based on any numeration of the word, even if it's only being used to make a distinction between Classic and Classic-with-better-itemization-and-taunt

I simply want TBC's treatment of specs working for Vanilla; ie game-wide recognition for Feral and Prot as having the potential to fully tank a raid.

The hybrid tax was intentional though. It doesn't explain why warriors and rogues were so dominant though, warriors are even hybrids so they should be that good in pve and pvp. They should at least balance the four pure dps classes so that they're fairly close and above all the rest.
A fury warrior should never be able to beat a hunter or a warlock given equal gear and skill.

Not talking about removing Hybrid Tax. TBC kept Hybrid Tax and it was fine. I'm talking about making Feral/Prot effective in raiding; viable to the point where they can be accepted without over-compensation required. Balance tweaks are necessary for this to happen and wouldn't be a true 'Vanilla experience', but the fact that Warriors and Rogues are so dominant and Druids are the least played class is also far removed from a 'Vanilla experience'.

I don't want Hybrid Tax removed. I want Prot and Ret to have the tools required to do the content that is available; and that doesn't mean hand-outs, QoL or equal balancing to Warriors. It means tweaking the bullshit aspects that prevent these classes from being universally viable and not just viable for tanking/offtanking parts of Raids.

If someone dedicates themselves to the role and gears appropriately, they should be viable for it. In 1.12's case, it's possible but not widely accepted, due to sustainability, RnG of Crushing Blows or lacking threat-holding mechanics.

[Ielenia]

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.

Holy Shield. But I'm not talking solely abilities. I'm talking about the whole spec. Why give the class a tanking and DPS spec, if the class is not supposed to DPS or tank?

Warriors were the only class intended to be "real" tanks in vanilla.

I see this claim a lot. "Blizzard intended to make warriors the real tank". "Blizzard intended to make paladins not be able to tank or dps." etc. And yet... I have yet to see a single instance of confirmation of this from the developers. And no, pointing at how the vanilla game was, back then, doesn't work, because that can be easily be attributed to oversight and lack of experience in RPGs.

Adding a tank spec gave their healing a little flavor.

That makes no sense. Are you talking about giving an "illusion of choice"? Like "I could tank or DPS, but I 'chose' to be a healer instead"?

To answer your question, "why was everything resolved in the first expansion.." It's because players were demanding it, and Blizzard changed direction.

You almost make it sound like vanilla players were not happy with how vanilla was. Regardless, people wanting those changes doesn't disprove the idea that the developers realized their mistake and decided to fix it.

[Thimagryn]

You don't get to pick and choose what you think are the "best parts" and demand that THAT is "classic WoW".

If you want Classic, play Classic AS IT WAS, not as some rose-tinted fantasy that so many of you seem to have.....

Even purists who advocate 1.12 as the 'patch to use' for Classic WoW are picking and choosing. Classic as it was would have to roll back to 1.0 with progression for that to happen, and even the purist crowd isn't unanimous in wanting that.

[Mindark]

There is no agreed upon version because there is no unified discussion. Everyone cherrypicks what they like or hate and strawmans every discussion regardless of what any individual is discussing. That or the overgeneralize what is being discussed based on any numeration of the word, even if it's only being used to make a distinction between Classic and Classic-with-better-itemization-and-taunt



Not talking about removing Hybrid Tax. TBC kept Hybrid Tax and it was fine. I'm talking about making Feral/Prot effective in raiding; viable to the point where they can be accepted without over-compensation required. Balance tweaks are necessary for this to happen and wouldn't be a true 'Vanilla experience', but the fact that Warriors and Rogues are so dominant and Druids are the least played class is also far removed from a 'Vanilla experience'.

I don't want Hybrid Tax removed. I want Prot and Ret to have the tools required to do the content that is available; and that doesn't mean hand-outs, QoL or equal balancing to Warriors. It means tweaking the bullshit aspects that prevent these classes from being universally viable and not just viable for tanking/offtanking parts of Raids.

If someone dedicates themselves to the role and gears appropriately, they should be viable for it. In 1.12's case, it's possible but not widely accepted, due to sustainability, RnG of Crushing Blows or lacking threat-holding mechanics.

I like this in theory, but I don't see good resolutions for this. There would be too many changes to make things viable. Take, for example, protection paladins. How does one fix their mana problems without a) being easily exploitable, and b) preserving the vanilla experience? You really can't.

Do you give innate mana regen or change how mp5 works? If so, then how do you prevent holy from having it? You can't. So now healers can have this mana regen. Now they can cast rank 9 holy light instead of rank 4 without running out of mana. Now holy paladins have the greatest healing throughput of all the healers.

Do you make it generate the same way rage does? That's lazy and just wouldn't feel right. We'd be warrior clones with worse gear.

Do we make the fundamental changes to the class that we saw later? Well, that certainly isn't vanilla...

Taunt? Even if we had it, some bosses would be very terrible because of taunt resistances. We can't wear the warrior T3 set to fix this, so we'll be a worse version of warrior to the point of not being viable for progression. Or itemization at all? All our tiers are for healing.

Itemization? We'll need more hit and spell hit than a comparably geared T3 warrior. Where are we getting this? If we don't, we're worse versions of warrior.

These are simple problems with complex solutions.

[Ielenia]

Irrelevant. They went with a three spec system. It actually makes the most sense that a support class WOULD be able to do all the roles, seeing as a support in WCIII was versatile and did cover tanking and healing and CCing and utility.

So why couldn't they? Why couldn't paladins tank or dps in a meaningful way?

Did mages need Arcane, Frost, and Fire? No, precedent said mages were just Frost and Fire. (The Jaina hero unit, and the Kael'thas hero unit.)

Description of the Sorceress back in WC3: "These female Magi, sent by the Magocrats of Dalaran to watch over the volatile Battle Magi, use their arcane powers to aid the Alliance forces whenever Humanity is imperiled."

Hell, Malfurion TO THIS DAY even follows this formula - He's almost never in animal forms, only seen transforming when he's going in travel form or flight form. He's almost always his normal self, trying to heal the land.

Perhaps, like 99.999% of the "VIP NPCs", he stays in the back and lets others do the fighting for him?

No, in Vanilla, it did not. It meant they CAN do it. It does not mean they have to be competitive.

Yes, it does. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of adding those in the first place, becoming a waste of development resources and time.

You're playing the role of your character, and that role is your spec. Your spec does not have to be just as good as every other spec in the game.

So if you want to be a paladin that wields a hammer and shield to protect the innocent.. you're screwed? And yes, your spec should be as good as every other spec in the game, overall. Sure, it needs its own strength and weaknesses, but overall they need to be equal. Otherwise, again, it defeats the purpose of adding such options to the game.

Because they go through design iterations every expansion? This is a nonsense question.

Follow-up question: Why do they go through design iterations? If their design intention is to make Paladins not be good dps and tanks, why are they working on making those specs competitive? And every time a certain spec goes too below a certain curve, they either buff that spec, or nerf the ones that are too high up?

That'd be like asking if they thought TBC designs were terrible because Wrath completely changed every single class in multiple ways.

It's not the same thing, because, ever since TBC came along, Blizzard has never intentionally made one spec way below competitive levels for tanking/healing/dps'ing. Even when creating new classes.

[brt2pp]

i think the major fallacy here is thinking that blizzard is going to do vanilla remastered, rather then just host a stable, working sarver of vanilla wow, some people like that mess of a game, if you don't then just don't play it

[wholol]

Stop moaning about how blizz will do a shit job with classic and HELP THEM do it right instead!

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...lassic-survey!

[Thimagryn]

Do you give innate mana regen or change how mp5 works? If so, then how do you prevent holy from having it? You can't. So now healers can have this mana regen. Now they can cast rank 9 holy light instead of rank 4 without running out of mana. Now holy paladins have the greatest healing throughput of all the healers.

Admittedly I don't have much experience with pre-TBC Prot Tanking, since that was never really a thing. I would figure it would get something close to whatever was implemented in TBC.

There are numerous ways to approach, none which are fool-proof but worthy to explore. One could be through Spec-modifiers for stats; like Prot gaining X% more efficiency from Spirit on plate for Y seconds after blocking. This prevents Healers from trying a Prot-healing spec since it requires active blocking to benefit from the regen. Another would be to fold Mana Regen into a deep Ret/Prot talent. Another would be to add a Spec-unique ability or buff.

Do we make the fundamental changes to the class that we saw later? Well, that certainly isn't vanilla...

Vanilla balance was vastly different from 1.0 all the way to Vanilla 1.12. I don't know why everyone is behind that statement as though Vanilla was an unchanging state that was perfectly right. Even 1.12 allowed Prot and Feral to have somewhat of a role in tanking, unlike how brutally ineffective it was prior to that.

Taunt? Even if we had it, some bosses would be very terrible because of taunt resistances. We can't wear the warrior T3 set to fix this, so we'll be a worse version of warrior to the point of not being viable for progression. Or itemization at all? All our tiers are for healing.

Itemization? We'll need more hit and spell hit than a comparably geared T3 warrior. Where are we getting this? If we don't, we're worse versions of warrior.

These are simple problems with complex solutions.

Maybe implement similar Spirit = Hit fixes that worked in Cata. Honestly I don't do balancing or design, I simply have faith knowing it's possible since it effectively worked in TBC. I don't have answers for the details.

[Mindark]

Holy Shield. But I'm not talking solely abilities. I'm talking about the whole spec. Why give the class a tanking and DPS spec, if the class is not supposed to DPS or tank?

Oh, I was thinking actual cooldowns, like Last Stand.

I see this claim a lot. "Blizzard intended to make warriors the real tank". "Blizzard intended to make paladins not be able to tank or dps." etc. And yet... I have yet to see a single instance of confirmation of this from the developers. And no, pointing at how the vanilla game was, back then, doesn't work, because that can be easily be attributed to oversight and lack of experience in RPGs.

That's because it wasn't archived as well. Not everything they ever said was preserved. Finding a few blue posts from 11-13 years ago is a bit of a challenge. To say they had a lack of experience in RPGs (Kaplan and Chilton) and all these intentional design choices that only allowed warriors to be viable tanks is naive.

That makes no sense. Are you talking about giving an "illusion of choice"? Like "I could tank or DPS, but I 'chose' to be a healer instead"?

For everything competitive in WoW, yes. Any class that had a healing tree was predominately and pigeon-holed to be a healer.

You almost make it sound like vanilla players were not happy with how vanilla was.

A lot of players were not happy with how some aspects of vanilla was. I was one of them. I wanted to tank, but I was forced to heal (pally).

Regardless, people wanting those changes doesn't disprove the idea that the developers realized their mistake and decided to fix it.

These were not mistakes. They were intentional design decisions that evolved based off of player feedback.

[Deleted]

Vanilla doesn't need fixing, that's why people want it in the first place. Class balance is a huge issue in Vanilla that spans from (among other things):

classes lacking necessary abilities (Paladin taunt, strike ability) to

poor itemization (leather defense items) to

ability scaling mechanics (spellpower/ap scaling) to

tier sets (healing/tank-only bonuses) to

DoT vs direct damage classes (debuff limit on bosses) to

PvP (Enh Shamans and SPriests are already very strong in PvP but weak in PvE) all the way down to even

the basic function of main stats (intellect doesn't scale damage like strength and agility).

That's not even touching on the support class nature of most DPS specs for hybrids - they're intentionally designed to not do as much damage as pure DPS classes. Changing anything doesn't happen in a vacuum and to balance it will completely change the face of the game into something unrecognisable as Vanilla.

If you actually want Vanilla then you don't want rebalanced classes, because changing the game mechanics makes it not Vanilla anymore.

Thank you for taking the time to explain what I've been trying to say but couldn't be arsed to do properly.

[Ielenia]

That's because it wasn't archived as well. Not everything they ever said was preserved. Finding a few blue posts from 11-13 years ago is a bit of a challenge. To say they had a lack of experience in RPGs (Kaplan and Chilton) and all these intentional design choices that only allowed warriors to be viable tanks is naive.

Kaplan and Chilton were the only two people designing WoW. And regardless, I mentioned lack of experience and oversight.

For everything competitive in WoW, yes. Any class that had a healing tree was predominately and pigeon-holed to be a healer.

And ask any game developer worth their salt and I guarantee you they'll all say that is a bad design choice. That giving player classes specializations that are intentionally below the competitive curve considerably is a bad design choice.

These were not mistakes. They were intentional design decisions that evolved based off of player feedback.

If you can make that claim, I hope you have the evidence. Where's the WoW dev quote or interview where they said "we intentionally made many of vanilla WoW specs nonviable in comparison to other classes"?

Seriously, which developer with experience under her belt would think that designing classes with specializations so below the competitive curve they become nigh-unplayable is a good idea? What's the point of giving paladins a tank spec if you don't expect people to play it?