[OFFICIAL] MoP Beta Build Changes Discussion Thread

[Sarevokcz]

I heard all forum posters use their main characters for their screen name.

Well if he isnt willing to share his armory or logs, unlike other posters (I posted my logs several times already) then I can assume whatever I want.

[Deleted]

Well if he isnt willing to share his armory or logs, unlike other posters (I posted my logs several times already) then I can assume whatever I want.

Before you start attacking Endus, I am in a guild going for World Top 20 in Mists. Apart from on Ultraxion (where I dont try, if I did try I would go for TF spec because the fight is so short) I can easily compete for top spot. I completely destory Yor'sahj and am ranked on many fights. Do I think we are overly strong in Cata? Hell no we are definitely one of the weaker specs. Do I think that means we can't compete? Absolutely not.

The point Endus was making stands anyway, the differences between classes is small enough that skill plays a much larger factor than class balance for 99.9999999% of the population, and in Mists the balance is even better.

[Deleted]

Balance means that I can play whenever I want and be able to be as good, if I need to change specs its a lack of balance. We could be where we should, but if someone will be better I don't see what's the problem if its shaman. I not asking for be the Overpowered top dps, I just think that saying that we should not try to be the top one is a fallacious argument if we want the most balanced game.

Well the simulations already show enhancement 10% behind rogues, dks and 5% behind rogues. Elemental is shown be at the bottom of dps.

Actually i think that enhancement is even lower than simcraft is showing.

The blue post said: 'so we reduced the damage of the Primal Fire Elemental’s Immolate DoT by 65%'

but the immolate dps went down by only 30%. So it would be anohter 2k dps less, ending @ 105k dps while rogues are at 116k, DKs @ 114k, Warriors @ 110k while ret, feral and monks are still missing ( but monks were one of the best melee dps so i'm sure they will be pretty high once their simulations work).

We will see enhancement being the lowest melee class ingame and elemental will also get massive problems. Looks like they say: hey, shamans aren't supposed to be competiitive, you're just here so that all that int mail gear doesn't get disenchanted!

PS: Noone doubts the very good one minute burst phase shamans had. But that was it, since after that, dps was anyways the weakiest ingame. Now it's by far the weakiest as simcraft shows, only burst phase are really strong.

[Omanley]

@Undefetter: A large part of your arguments boil down to: more specs => more likely to have one to top meters.
Wether a spec performs that good though or not is not up to chance, but intend. Namely blizzard's.
If it were blizzard's intend for shamans to have just as good a dps potential as a pure's, there would be no problem for them to do so.

Not far from the top or ranks; the idea of the two by itself is wrong.
It shouldn't be all that hard testing every spec under each and every situation with equal gear several times with exceptionally good players, determine a dps average and then experimenting with numbers to reach a state in which dps differences are incredibly low.

There's no excuse for any spec to perform the best consistently or average out as the best by a fair margin. If mid t14 mages performed 20% better than shamans on a average basis for example, there's no way there wouldn't be anything wrong.

The aspired situation is that even world ranked guilds will have a hard time deciding which classes to take. This is where different class perks will start kicking in. THIS is where proper balance starts.

Instead of playing lotery between 1-5th place specs, 5-10th place specs and so forth, we should be playing lottery between 1-23th place. Provided the skill of the corresponding players is equal of course. The lottery factor would be rng (crits, procs and the like).

I make no claims about how enh (or ele for that matter) does currently on either life or beta. Just making clear what I perceive as balance.
I've been on 1-2nd place dps-wise in wotlk-icc on most encounters, rivaling with our guilds' fury warrior. However considering how enh was bottom of the barrel at that point of time, I basically outplayed my competitors easily in terms of performance. Knowing that, where was the reward in me outdoing myself to get the last bit of dps out of my character? I very much hope so we wont have to experience that again.

It's not "fine" because of that, it's that they have three specs they feel free to swap between, which makes it more likely that they'll change to the "best" spec they have.

Meanwhile, you'll see a lot of Enhancement players who refuse to play Elemental because they like being melee.

You said it. They are free to swap specs. Enhancement doesn't have that freedom switching from a melee to a ranged. Not only is the playstyle entirely different in comparisson to three melee specs who basically switch finishers and cp-builders and in what number they use them, no it also requires entirely different gear that you constantly have to gather, renew, enchant and reforge.

Because dps shamans dont have that freedom pures and dps dk/warriors have, it is all the more important for both specs to be competitive (able to be first with the same skill as others). It is also to aim for to do this for pures, since, even though their differences are not as severe, they're there.
Still, a hybrid player is hit much harder if his prefered dps spec is not competitive, since some players are not pure or hybrid nuts, but melee or caster nuts.

As a melee nut myself, I couldn't see myself going ele, but rerolling frost dk or warrior instead. That is something to always consider.
Plus a pure dps can always have a spec aimed more for pvp (arms, sublety). I dont know if that kind of design still exists in MoP, but it is something to consider.

I love the shaman class, but what I would love even more is having a 2nd melee specialisation avaiable, so that I could have more variation/specialisation in certain roles.
Since that is not avaiable, all I can hope is that enhancement is viable even in highly competitive environments in several aspects.
That is because I as a shaman and melee dps nut have no other option than relying on enh to be awesome.

I hope that will be the case. If it is, I'll gladly return to the game. If not, my wow-abstinency will continue.

[Endus]

You said it. They are free to swap specs. Enhancement doesn't have that freedom switching from a melee to a ranged.

That is NOT what I said. I said they FEEL free to swap.

Enhancement DOES have that freedom to swap, particularly between tiers. But Enhancement players often don't FEEL as free to swap, because they like melee more than ranged (or vice versa for Elemental players). It's an issue of feeling, not mechanical difference.

[Deleted]

Before you start attacking Endus, I am in a guild going for World Top 20 in Mists. Apart from on Ultraxion (where I dont try, if I did try I would go for TF spec because the fight is so short) I can easily compete for top spot. I completely destory Yor'sahj and am ranked on many fights. Do I think we are overly strong in Cata? Hell no we are definitely one of the weaker specs. Do I think that means we can't compete? Absolutely not.

The point Endus was making stands anyway, the differences between classes is small enough that skill plays a much larger factor than class balance for 99.9999999% of the population, and in Mists the balance is even better.

Actually, when you rank all the time and your fellows don't so you are better than them and therefore you shouldn't compare their dps with yours. Especially since i assume you're not in a 25m guild so you don't have that many players to compare to. And i assume you are buffed by a legendary weapon so that's not the normal case.

And concerning skill: i've played for quite some dps and I know that class matters a lot once everyone plays on the same level. I was able to top t11 not because i was a much better player than all other melees, but jst because unholy was too strong. Hell, i was even p2 to p4 as enhancer during 25m progress beginning Ds - but bot because shamans were that good, i was simply much better than the pthers since i landed in a guild full of casuals. I was top dps with 37k dps on ultraxion, while comparing myself to my old raid, nearly everyone was above 40k dps. I saw two enhancers that didn't make the trial because they were too far behind me, though they weren't weaker than many other dds in the raid.


Of course player skill matters, but honestly, i knew that i would deal a lot more damage with another class. That's why i'm going to reroll for MOP since it's not fun to be worse than equally(!!!) skilled and geared up players. I could go with every class to a casual raid and they would think that class XY is great because the others aren't maximizing their dps.

[Deleted]

That is NOT what I said. I said they FEEL free to swap.

Enhancement DOES have that freedom to swap, particularly between tiers. But Enhancement players often don't FEEL as free to swap, because they like melee more than ranged (or vice versa for Elemental players). It's an issue of feeling, not mechanical difference.

To further extend this point, you went on to say

it is all the more important for both specs to be competitive (able to be first with the same skill as others)

That is a completely inaccurate statement. Competative does not mean able to be number one. In an ideal world everyone would be able to be number 1 because everyone would also be number 2, number 3... number 23. Thats just not how it works. Competative means your within a fairly small range of the middle of the pack. The middle of the pack (read ~10th) is where you should want to be, not number 1. Theres lower nodes than the middle and higher, caused simply by class mechanics. There is NO way to make it so that in all situations everyone is equal. Its just not possible. So in a situation where you are the same gear and skill to all other raiders its this small % skew that makes the difference from the MIDDLE. Not from the top. Your looking at what is classed as balanced/competative to be who is at the top and everyone else is underpowered. Thats not how it works.

This fact, the fact the skew is off the middle and classes above the middle are better means that if you have more specs available to you to play, you are more likely to have a high dps spec to play. The fact pures come as default with 3 specs is why they are more likely to be top. A Shaman by constrast can be seen as - to the average player - only bringing one class because people dont like to switch from ele to enhance and resto is a healer spec. Your comparing the likelihood of ONE spec to be good compared to the likelihood of THREE. Thats where your problem lies, and thats where me and endus were coming from when we said the answer is to roll FotM. That way you pick the one spec that is the best, or at the very least pick one of the specs in the top half.

---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 06:08 PM ----------

Actually, when you rank all the time and your fellows don't so you are better than them and therefore you shouldn't compare their dps with yours. Especially since i assume you're not in a 25m guild so you don't have that many players to compare to. And i assume you are buffed by a legendary weapon so that's not the normal case.

Actually, my entire raid ranks weekly, I never said they didn't rank either, just that I do too.

And concerning skill: i've played for quite some dps and I know that class matters a lot once everyone plays on the same level. I was able to top t11 not because i was a much better player than all other melees, but jst because unholy was too strong. Hell, i was even p2 to p4 as enhancer during 25m progress beginning Ds - but bot because shamans were that good, i was simply much better than the pthers since i landed in a guild full of casuals. I was top dps with 37k dps on ultraxion, while comparing myself to my old raid, nearly everyone was above 40k dps. I saw two enhancers that didn't make the trial because they were too far behind me, though they weren't weaker than many other dds in the raid.


Of course player skill matters, but honestly, i knew that i would deal a lot more damage with another class. That's why i'm going to reroll for MOP since it's not fun to be worse than equally(!!!) skilled and geared up players. I could go with every class to a casual raid and they would think that class XY is great because the others aren't maximizing their dps.

Yes of course if your class is capable of higher numbers than if your only 80% efficient but your class does 200% damage you will beat someone that does 100% efficiency on a 100% ('balanced') class, but thats the whole point Im trying to make. The damage differences are not that big anymore, and are getting smaller in mists. Its more and more about your skill. Will there be outliers? Of course. Thats where nerfs/buffs come in. The game will never be 100% balanced.

[Deleted]

That is NOT what I said. I said they FEEL free to swap.

Enhancement DOES have that freedom to swap, particularly between tiers. But Enhancement players often don't FEEL as free to swap, because they like melee more than ranged (or vice versa for Elemental players). It's an issue of feeling, not mechanical difference.

I don't know where you live but both shaman speccs have different gear on EACH slot. So it's not like you just respecc, reglyph and reforge and are close to the maximum. In a normal raid, all the melee gear goes to melees and not to the elemental shaman who might wanne swap to enhance (perhaps!) next week. Aside of the totally different playstyle. This barrier is nearly as big as changing from heal to dps or tank to dps.

That's why you are more likely to have resto + ele specc than enhancer + ele specc, since ele and resto have for most parts the same gear.

[Endus]

I don't know where you live but both shaman speccs have different gear on EACH slot. So it's not like you just respecc, reglyph and reforge and are close to the maximum. In a normal raid, all the melee gear goes to melees and not to the elemental shaman who might wanne swap to enhance (perhaps!) next week. Aside of the totally different playstyle. This barrier is nearly as big as changing from heal to dps or tank to dps.

That's why you are more likely to have resto + ele specc than enhancer + ele specc, since ele and resto have for most parts the same gear.

If you're raiding most weeks, by the time you're wrapping up a tier and the next one is coming out, you'll have a full set of gear for your main spec AND a decent set of off spec gear. This makes swapping specs late in a tier or for the start of a new tier not significantly more difficult for a hybrid than for a pure.

Swapping in the early parts or middle of a tier where gear is still in high demand, sure, that's more awkward. But that's not what we're talking about, for the most part. It's more difficult to swap specs on a per-fight basis, during progression. It's NOT functionally more difficult to swap specs at the start of a new tier.

[Deleted]

To further extend this point, you went on to say

it is all the more important for both specs to be competitive (able to be first with the same skill as others)

That is a completely inaccurate statement. Competative does not mean able to be number one. In an ideal world everyone would be able to be number 1 because everyone would also be number 2, number 3... number 23. Thats just not how it works. Competative means your within a fairly small range of the middle of the pack. The middle of the pack (read ~10th) is where you should want to be, not number 1. Theres lower nodes than the middle and higher, caused simply by class mechanics. There is NO way to make it so that in all situations everyone is equal. Its just not possible. So in a situation where you are the same gear and skill to all other raiders its this small % skew that makes the difference from the MIDDLE. Not from the top. Your looking at what is classed as balanced/competative to be who is at the top and everyone else is underpowered. Thats not how it works.

This fact, the fact the skew is off the middle and classes above the middle are better means that if you have more specs available to you to play, you are more likely to have a high dps spec to play. The fact pures come as default with 3 specs is why they are more likely to be top. A Shaman by constrast can be seen as - to the average player - only bringing one class because people dont like to switch from ele to enhance and resto is a healer spec. Your comparing the likelihood of ONE spec to be good compared to the likelihood of THREE. Thats where your problem lies, and thats where me and endus were coming from when we said the answer is to roll FotM. That way you pick the one spec that is the best, or at the very least pick one of the specs in the top half.

---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 06:08 PM ----------



Actually, my entire raid ranks weekly, I never said they didn't rank either, just that I do too.



Yes of course if your class is capable of higher numbers than if your only 80% efficient but your class does 200% damage you will beat someone that does 100% efficiency on a 100% ('balanced') class, but thats the whole point Im trying to make. The damage differences are not that big anymore, and are getting smaller in mists. Its more and more about your skill. Will there be outliers? Of course. Thats where nerfs/buffs come in. The game will never be 100% balanced.

So your argument is that shamans are bad because they have only one damage specc?

That's silly. Shamans were in the middle of the pack in beta and that's why they nerfed them to the ground. Hybrid tax isn't gone, they simply don't want shamans to be competitive. And with they i of ocurse mean Blizzard. They have a lot more loggs than us and if they wanted shamans to be competitve, they would've simply buffed them.

Hybrid tax still exists for shamans. And that's for stupid reasons, especially since balance druids and shadows performed great during cata due to their overpowered mechanics, not because their single target dps is so high.

---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 05:28 PM ----------

If you're raiding most weeks, by the time you're wrapping up a tier and the next one is coming out, you'll have a full set of gear for your main spec AND a decent set of off spec gear. This makes swapping specs late in a tier or for the start of a new tier not significantly more difficult for a hybrid than for a pure.

Swapping in the early parts or middle of a tier where gear is still in high demand, sure, that's more awkward. But that's not what we're talking about, for the most part. It's more difficult to swap specs on a per-fight basis, during progression. It's NOT functionally more difficult to swap specs at the start of a new tier.

Actually this discussion is irrelevant since it's not like both speccs were ever strong in the last 3 years. You are saying baleroc was good, but just by accident because they had a totally overpowered set bonus with silly mechanics (temporary buffs working for two minutes uptime) and still were overall pretty mediocre because of missing strong mechanics like burst and multi dotting and cleave.

You weren't raiding highend. You didn't see in T11 both elemental shamans rolling for one raid spot and that was just because of 'fairness'. You didn't see 2 of 3 resto shamans being benched for ragnaros heroic because they wanted to play with 4 healers and finally went down to 3 healers, replacing the last resto shaman.

I know that for many casual raiders like perhaps you, everything looks fine. For casuals, skill matters a lot so a bad mage losing 40% damage because he moves too much or dies because he doesn't and so on while elemental is very mobile and therefore easier to play, elemental will be strong. But a good mage optimizig his movement simply outplays an equally good shaman by far.

[User was Infracted for this post - Please refrain from implying that blizzard either doesnt care about about or actively works against Shaman. Its not true, is destructive to the community and offers up nothing constructive to the conversation - Unde]

[zenga]

...100% this. My guild is going for World Top 20 in Mists.

... from personal experience in a guild going for World Top 20...

... I am in a guild going for World Top 20 in Mists.

yeah we know it by now ... not sure why you like to use that phrase as if it adds some sort of credibility to what you say

The point Endus was making stands anyway, the differences between classes is small enough that skill plays a much larger factor than class balance for 99.9999999% of the population

As per raidbots.com, 10m hc, all parses over the past 2 months, dps per boss. Bm & mm hunter, frost mage & sub rogue are not taken into account on most bosses since they have not enough parses.

morchock 10hc: ele is #9 - 2% away of #5
zonozz 10hc: ele is #14 - 5% away of #5
yor'sahj 10hc: ele is #13 - 10% away from #5
hagara 10hc: ele is #13 - 5% away from #5
ultraxion 10hc: ele is #16 - 15% away from #5
blackhorn 10hc: ele is #16 - 8% away from #5
spine 10hc: ele is #17 - 10% away from #5
madness 10hc: ele is last - 10% away from #5

It's fairly safe to say that ele is at least 5% away from a top 5 spot if you take every elemental shaman into account that uploaded a log. The numbers are close enough to call ele viable (i.e. not to replace them), but it means that every ele should play 5% to 10% better than they do now to have ele up there. A while back joystick had done a similar much more detailed exercise, where a 5 to 10% range was also concluded (though iirc they took the 100 best parses for each spec).

Really take any sport or whatever competitive game and a 5% to 10% difference is pretty big.

[Deleted]

yeah we know it by now ... not sure why you like to use that phrase as if it adds some sort of credibility to what you say

I keep repeating it because people keep disregarding comments because 'oh your just a casual' or the like. I agree it is stupid and makes me look like an idiot, but it has to be done to stop stupid disregarding of very valid points.

As per raidbots.com, 10m hc, all parses over the past 2 months, dps per boss. Bm & mm hunter, frost mage & sub rogue are not taken into account on most bosses since they have not enough parses.

morchock 10hc: ele is #9 - 2% away of #5
zonozz 10hc: ele is #14 - 5% away of #5
yor'sahj 10hc: ele is #13 - 10% away from #5
hagara 10hc: ele is #13 - 5% away from #5
ultraxion 10hc: ele is #16 - 15% away from #5
blackhorn 10hc: ele is #16 - 8% away from #5
spine 10hc: ele is #17 - 10% away from #5
madness 10hc: ele is last - 10% away from #5

It's fairly save to say that ele is at least 5% away from a top 5 spot if you take every elemental shaman into account that uploaded a log. The numbers are close enough to call ele viable (i.e. not to replace them), but it means that every ele should play 5% to 10% better than they do now to have ele up there. A while back joystick had done a similar much more detailed exercise, where a 5 to 10% range was also concluded (though iirc they took the 100 best parses for each spec).

Really take any sport or whatever competitive game and a 5% to 10% difference is pretty big.

If you have done any raiding or numbers on the beta, balance is an aweful lot closer than it is in Cata, at least at this point (if you remove outliers like arcane mages or hunters pre-nerf). Even if you just look at those numbers you gave, in all honesty being number 10-13 is pretty good for where you want to be. Madness is an outlier because we don't benefit nearly as much from the haste buff as other classes which is why we are low on that fight. Personally I see not much problem with those numbers. Are we top? No. Are we close enough to the middle? Yes definitely. The problem then lies with the classes above us, not us. They can either nerf the few classes above us, or buff us along with every single other spec below us too. Personally because we are in the place that we are meant to be (the middle) the answer is change everyone around us, not change us, which is exactly what Blizzard have said they want to do.

[Endus]

As per raidbots.com, 10m hc, all parses over the past 2 months, dps per boss. Bm & mm hunter, frost mage & sub rogue are not taken into account on most bosses since they have not enough parses.

morchock 10hc: ele is #9 - 2% away of #5
zonozz 10hc: ele is #14 - 5% away of #5
yor'sahj 10hc: ele is #13 - 10% away from #5
hagara 10hc: ele is #13 - 5% away from #5
ultraxion 10hc: ele is #16 - 15% away from #5
blackhorn 10hc: ele is #16 - 8% away from #5
spine 10hc: ele is #17 - 10% away from #5
madness 10hc: ele is last - 10% away from #5

It's fairly safe to say that ele is at least 5% away from a top 5 spot if you take every elemental shaman into account that uploaded a log. The numbers are close enough to call ele viable (i.e. not to replace them), but it means that every ele should play 5% to 10% better than they do now to have ele up there. A while back joystick had done a similar much more detailed exercise, where a 5 to 10% range was also concluded (though iirc they took the 100 best parses for each spec).

Really take any sport or whatever competitive game and a 5% to 10% difference is pretty big.

A top 5 spot is also an arbitrary and pointless measure. There is no goal to get us into the top 5. If that's your desire, go back to my list and pick the 12 specs that won't make that cut and aren't PvP specs or secondary specs, and explain why they deserve it less than Shaman specs do.

[Omanley]

Competative does not mean able to be number one. In an ideal world everyone would be able to be number 1 because everyone would also be number 2, number 3... number 23.

Except in the real world skill barriers aren't as discernible as they are in the game. In the game it's quite easy to perform near perfection performance-wise. Compare that to olympic-participants.
In the olympics, everyone has a shot at a gold medal, not just the predestined 5 countries. In that sense, wow is worse than reality. True, being born a african will give you a boost towards sprinting for example, but with pure determination and tenecity, lots of that can be compensated. In wow there's alimit to that, so skill can only get you so far against a stronger designed spec/class.

If not everyone in the olympics had a shot at the medal, what would be the point in holding them? Same, if you did not have a shot at performing best in numbers when peroming just as good as others, what's the point, what's the motivation in doing as well as you can? What would be the motivation as a non-african to even participate in running, if they new they had no chance anyway?

There is NO way to make it so that in all situations everyone is equal. Its just not possible.

That is due to rng and different fight mechanics, yes. But you can work towards a smal +/- area (the rng aspect) of a view percent in which everyone is able advance if he just works hard enough.

So in a situation where you are the same gear and skill to all other raiders its this small % skew that makes the difference from the MIDDLE. Not from the top. Your looking at what is classed as balanced/competative to be who is at the top and everyone else is underpowered. Thats not how it works.

That small difference would vary in favor of rng towards any class/spec. There wouldn't be top or underpowered specs.

The fact pures come as default with 3 specs is why they are more likely to be top.

If blizzard makes enhance do twice as much damage as arcane, it is 100% likely that it will always perfom best.
Again, it is not down to number of specs and chances that you'll have a spec being able to get top dps. It is down to proper balance.
If they are intend to balance to the max, even with different class mechanics and fights, it should be possible to create an x-pack were every class will regularly shine, not just encounter a which per chance is completely in our favor.

Your comparing the likelihood of ONE spec to be good compared to the likelihood of THREE.

Again, there is no likelyhood or chance. It comes down to wether the spec is designed to be able to compete or not. Are the devs willing to do that or not. Nothing else. They are willing to get pure specs close enough that more than one is able to top both enh and ele (if seen graphs showing two rogue, mage and hunter specs well above ele/enh, there's no likelyhood there. Is the class properly designed or not, that's all there is to it.
Class design is not playing roulette.

[Deleted]

A top 5 spot is also an arbitrary and pointless measure. There is no goal to get us into the top 5. If that's your desire, go back to my list and pick the 12 specs that won't make that cut and aren't PvP specs or secondary specs, and explain why they deserve it less than Shaman specs do.

But it's obvious, that one class will be the first and another the last. What's disturbing me, it's the difference between the first and the last. Elemental is at the bottom on Madness and it's by 10% from the weakest spec in the top five! That's a huge gap, to be honest.

[Endus]

But it's obvious, that one class will be the first and another the last. What's disturbing me, it's the difference between the first and the last. Elemental is at the bottom on Madness and it's by 10% from the weakest spec in the top five! That's a huge gap, to be honest.

The top 5 aren't the 5 balanced classes. What matters most is the gap between classes. The gaps between specs in Madness aren't that big, nor is 10% a "huge gap", for a single fight.

[jace5869]

. True, being born a african will give you a boost towards sprinting for example, but with pure determination and tenecity, lots of that can be compensated.

Was completely following you for most of these pointless discussion cause I don't really agree with Endus and Undefetter, but this is just silly, lol

[Deleted]

Except in the real world skill barriers aren't as discernible as they are in the game. In the game it's quite easy to perform near perfection performance-wise. Compare that to olympic-participants.
In the olympics, everyone has a shot at a gold medal, not just the predestined 5 countries. In that sense, wow is worse than reality. True, being born a african will give you a boost towards sprinting for example, but with pure determination and tenecity, lots of that can be compensated. In wow there's alimit to that, so skill can only get you so far against a stronger designed spec/class.

If not everyone in the olympics had a shot at the medal, what would be the point in holding them? Same, if you did not have a shot at performing best in numbers when peroming just as good as others, what's the point, what's the motivation in doing as well as you can? What would be the motivation as a non-african to even participate in running, if they new they had no chance anyway?

Im sorry but that just doesnt work. Real life is not in any way fair. You say 'if theres no point in winning why turn up'? In that case, in the 100 meters what is the point of anyone except Yohan Blake and Usain Bolt turning up? They have no chance of beating those 2. Thats an indiviual effort, and its in no way balanced to be fair.

That is due to rng and different fight mechanics, yes. But you can work towards a smal +/- area (the rng aspect) of a view percent in which everyone is able advance if he just works hard enough.

That small difference would vary in favor of rng towards any class/spec. There wouldn't be top or underpowered specs.


If blizzard makes enhance do twice as much damage as arcane, it is 100% likely that it will always perfom best.
Again, it is not down to number of specs and chances that you'll have a spec being able to get top dps. It is down to proper balance.
If they are intend to balance to the max, even with different class mechanics and fights, it should be possible to create an x-pack were every class will regularly shine, not just encounter a which per chance is completely in our favor.


Again, there is no likelyhood or chance. It comes down to wether the spec is designed to be able to compete or not. Are the devs willing to do that or not. Nothing else. They are willing to get pure specs close enough that more than one is able to top both enh and ele (if seen graphs showing two rogue, mage and hunter specs well above ele/enh, there's no likelyhood there. Is the class properly designed or not, that's all there is to it.
Class design is not playing roulette.

Its just not true to say the devs favour one class or another. If a class is within the correct boundaries of the centre then they are balanced. There is no hidden agenda to make it so that Shaman are underpowered. We are in the boundries that make us competative. The objective is NOT to be number 1, its to be within a certain % of the middle, and for there to be a middle some have to be below it and some above it. Thats just how it works. If the classes are in the right place then its fine that some are above and some are below because thats just how it works. Its when the difference from the middle gets too big that the problems arise, and that distance is getting smaller and smaller all the time.

[Deleted]

Yea, the only "Endus" dwarf shaman on armory has 6/8 HC, with warmaster killed once. I dont want to jump to conclusions, but...

I guess he's got a char that isn't called Endus?

[jace5869]

Im sorry but that just doesnt work. Real life is not in any way fair. You say 'if theres no point in winning why turn up'? In that case, in the 100 meters what is the point of anyone except Yohan Blake and Usain Bolt turning up? They have no chance of beating those 2. Thats an indiviual effort, and its in no way balanced to be fair.

To win bronze of course! Bronze = boners, duh!