Classes
There's no "lead rogue designer." They've said this a few times. It's a collaborative effort.
This. We don't want a design environment with developers campaigning for buffs for "their" class. (
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Ghostcrawler if you could give a class a revamp what would it be?
Don't think any class needs a revamp ATM. If it weren't for risk, would be fun to make 2 DPS specs in 1 class very different. (
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People don't use sims as an argument. They use raidbots analysis, which shows equally skewed DPS balance as the sims.
Raidbots can provide good data if analyzed intelligently. Disagree that it often reflects the sims. (
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Why is it that Restodruids and Holypaladins "naturally" have no-cost spells(clearstate,wog),but Priests and Shamans haven't.
just a class distinction. We balance mana costs and returns around it. (
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Would it be possible to see a class balance Q&A soon, kind of like you guys did in Cataclysm?
You mean with user questions like the Cover it Live or Reddit we did? Would be fun. (
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classes weren't sat for spine due to 20% gaps. It was for 50-100%+ due to cooldowns, ramp up, etc
But these are usually in cases of best guilds trying to beat content while undergeared so they need to use more tricks that most. (
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Do you read class forums at all? You've made Russians start quitting, that's when you know you've broken something.
Stopped reading class forums personally. Too much echo chamber and chasing out dissenting opinions. I read the role forums. (
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Is it better to balance on what a class can possibly do, or what the player base currently is doing with a class?
We go with the former, but we don't expect players to play at robot levels. (
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They don't balance around top parses. GC continually mentions sampling bias as something they're wary of.
Top parses are super tricky because they display the most skillful players but also the most lucky. (
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Most of firelands also favored resto druids, yet garalon (most friendly for druids) still has us ~10% lagging behind in 25's.
Many raids heal Garalon clumped which benefits shaman and monk a lot (overall, HPS is not a great way to compare healers). (
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Death Knight (
Forums /
Skills /
Talent Calculator)
You never did answer my tweets: You've basically screwed up blood dks mitigation and made them useless for pvp now. Why?
Blood DKs were too hard to kill in PvP with DS. Tank mitigation is balanced around bosses, which can feel unfair in pvp. (
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Priest (
Forums /
Skills /
Talent Calculator)
There has been alot of confusion regarding Spectral Guise. It's not useable while cc'ed anymore since 5.1, bug or intended?
Intended. Sorry that we failed to patch note it. We will update the notes. (
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Shaman (
Forums /
Skills /
Talent Calculator)
I can understand the silence.totem nerf for resto shammies. It hurts the other specs though. Is there another way?
If it comes to that, we'd rather give Ele and Enhance a survival cooldown to use when silenced. (
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That totem nerf was nothing but you being stubborn after an extremely poor decision. You still havent answered on it
To repeat: we thought dropping a totem was too hard to counter now that they have such great utility. Disagreement != stubborn. (
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PvE
Sympathetic to the argument that 16 bosses is already a big time commitment. Different world from small tiers like Firelands. (
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Any reason why Flask Cauldrons didn't make an appearance in MoP ?
We wanted to return some responsibility of raiding to individual members not just officers. (
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You dont believe the mass exodus to overcrowded realms as well as the decline in general raiding is hurting guilds?
Realm balance is a huge concern, but the solutions aren't simple or we would have done them. Not seeing a raiding decline though. (
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Can you tell us a bit more about how boss encounters are designed in general and specific for MoP?
Hmm. Not via Twitter. Ion is working on a water cooler or two. (
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would you rather people go through content too fast, or not at all? (people ignoring rep grinds)
With the latter, I suspect some players will do the content. With the former, there is too little content for everyone. (
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So you like 50% of people 100% happy vs 100% of people 50% happy? If you had to choose, not being snarky.
It seems harsh when you put it that way. I'd hope that the 50% of people not happy had other things that made them happy. (
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Feng is quite good, but T14 is excellent in general. Best tier of raiding in *years*. Ranks w/ Ulduar & Sunwell
Yay. Just wait until the next one. (
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why did you implement the upgrade system, now high end raiders get the advantage from PVE just like cata....
Not sure I understand. If you mean PvE, shouldn't they get best gear? If you mean PvP, upgraded Conq gear is better. (
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have you guys ever thought of giving LFR a 10 man option instead of forcing 25 man LFR?
We think 25 works better for LFR. Easier to carry less experienced folks. Easier to pull while backfilling. Feels epic. (
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PvP
Random chance at PvP rewards when winning arena matches/BGs (maybe scaled based on MMR) could be interesting.
Yeah, would just need to avoid making botting more attractive. (
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Burst in pvp was stupid, 5.1 added more pvp power but not extra resil. Please do us all a favor and quit your job, ty.
You guys would just beat on whoever replaced me until someone said: Things were better in the GC era. (
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No offense, but I'd take my chances. I think you do a bad job at PVP, because you personally don't enjoy it.
I actually do enjoy it, but I also understand that what I personally like isn't always the right call for the game (e.g. threat). (
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So melees can Hit for 70-150k with "instant" attacks, but casters should need to cast? Yeah thats balance!
I can turn that around: so casters can cast at range but melee need to close the gap? (
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Is it true your philosophy is "it's not okay for melee to shut down casters, but it's fine for casters to shut down melee"
I feel like players are complaining about casters (mage, lock) and melee (warrior, maybe Feral) right now. (
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What do you think about nerfing damage cds a bit and buffing consistent damage? Arena revolves too much around big cds.
There's a balance though. Burst windows are often the only thing allowing you to score a kill before they're healed back up. (
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What about making those 1 pvp specs the way you balance pvp and just make the other specs slightly weaker, but still playable?
There is a lot of wisdom in that approach, but I think a lot of players would be angry. Interesting discussion though. (
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Sorry Greg, I'm calling complete BS on this, Blizzard actively hired pro wow players to balance PVE do it for PvP
We hire great PvP players too. What I disagreed with was making every change that players ask for, even expert players. (
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