Patch 3.0.2 - On Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking

[fmampaey]

these changes suck, really.

Blizzard watch out, you maybe will add yourself to the ones that screw a game up with a patch. Meaning more then 10% players will stop raiding and quit the game due to this fcking stupid patch.

[Newor]

since like everybody has cc and since spell casters will buff spell casters and melee will buff melee ...

now all you need for a 5man is a tank/healer as always and any 3 other classes ... nice.
now all you need for a 10man is 2 tanks, 2 healers and 6 dps of any kind
now all you need for a 25man is 4-5 tanks and 4-5 healers and 13-15 dps of any kind.


the only problem is when raids are min-max they wont want more than 1 spec for each class. (see post by Mäkelä)

Humm... where is the Arms/Fury cc???? Not nice forcing every warrior to go Tank (since blizz isn't forcing every retpally to go holy/prot for example).

[hosehead]

To all those who are Queue, Queue.

Welcome to the social.


I understand Rogue work has really yet to begin, but honestly, over the past year Rogues haven't had any real buff to their class, meanwhile all the complaining in the forums seems to garner attention from devs for most every other class/spec.

I anxiously await to see what lies in the shadows for the Rogue.

And not everyone here posting has even contemplated that the fights will be built around these changes. Perhaps a lot of the queuers are still trying to relate these changes to fights that are long forgotten. New changes, new fights, reworked old ones.

Just shut your traps if you aren't offering advice through the in-game method. Blizzard is just changing how we play the game. Now you'll have to rework which three buttons you push. Wow.

BTW, I could no longer lurk here after this thread. I felt compelled to [finally] join in. First post. ;-)

[Amgyn]

also does anybody share my worry that by patch 4.0 blizzard will decide we dont really NEED tanks for instance and just need 4 dps/cc and 1 healer..

then by patch 5.0 blizzard will decide we dont really NEED tanks and healer we just need 5 dps (who ironically have auras/buffs/procs that heal them suffeciently)..

then patch 6.0 where everyplayer can tank, heal, buff and dps so there will be no need for groups..

[Mahtamori]

Karnee, remove one of the tanks and add in a Protection Paladin so that people will get Blessing of Sanctuary. This means less reliance on the Disc Priest actually healing everyone with a direct heal before they take damage.
Or simply run with 2 pure tanks and 2 hybrid tanks and skip the Disc Priest entirely so that you can tank AOE encounters as well. I'm uncertain the DPriest bring any other unique buff anyway.

[Newor]

To all those who are Queue, Queue.

Welcome to the social.


I understand Rogue work has really yet to begin, but honestly, over the past year Rogues haven't had any real buff to their class, meanwhile all the complaining in the forums seems to garner attention from devs for most every other class/spec.

I anxiously await to see what lies in the shadows for the Rogue.

And not everyone here posting has even contemplated that the fights will be built around these changes. Perhaps a lot of the queuers are still trying to relate these changes to fights that are long forgotten. New changes, new fights, reworked old ones.

Just shut your traps if you aren't offering advice through the in-game method. Blizzard is just changing how we play the game. Now you'll have to rework which three buttons you push. Wow.

BTW, I could no longer lurk here after this thread. I felt compelled to [finally] join in. First post. ;-)

You mean, every fight will be exactly the same, since with this new way of play by blizz, they can't afford fights wich could favor ranged over melees... of physical instead of spell dps... it's very obivious that with this news, would be normal to put a melee physical dps only raid and have the same chance as a ranged/spell/melee raid.

Or you'll start to re-create non-desired classes/setups for each raid, wich will suck really hard.

[rothomp3]

Not like you even need enhancement shamans, all their buffs are available from other sources... Depending on what the flat spell dmg on totem of wrath is, all their buffs might be available or surpassed by other classes as well, not to mention heroism stacking gone. These changes absolutely decimate shaman.

OK, this is a response to all these sorts of posts: GET A F***ING CLUE. These changes "absolutely decimate" all classes, from the point of view you just gave. Guess what? That's the f***ing point. THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE CHANGE IS NOW THERE IS NO REASON TO BRING TWO OF ANYTHING, SO YOU CAN GRAB ONE OF EVERYTHING THEN GRAB YOUR FRIENDS/THE GOOD PLAYERS REGARDLESS OF CLASS OR SPEC.

That's the point. THE ENTIRE POINT. You are looking at this from the point of view of your class instead of the point of view of intelligent design for a fun game. STOP.

25 raid slots. 30 specs. This had to happen. There couldn't be any reason to bring two people with the same spec, that would be incredibly unfair to everyone else.

[wyrdone]

I really hope that the warrior bleed ability doesn't overwrite the Druid's mangle, otherwise you will have a lot of Druids yelling at the warriors.

[rothomp3]

Shadowpriest
Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit. (nerfed from +5% spell dmg on target)

Boomkin
IMP FF: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.


They gave boomkins what the shadowpriests needed for a raid spot and buffed it.
They gave HIGHER DPS/MORE RAID BUFFING classes (hunter & retadin) our mana battery effect.
They nerfed shadow weaving to buff only the shadowpriest himself.


Shadowpriests are now pvp only.

OK, I have to respond to all these too, and no by god I don't feel like reading the rest of the thread first. I'm angry and lashing out.

You do realize, wait, no you don't realize. Let me start over: The only Hunter spec that gets the Shadow Priest effect is Survival. Survival is far and away the lowest DPS Hunter spec. This, combined with the only other spec getting it being Ret Paladins, completely invalidates your point.

Especially since you didn't read the actual post. It was explicitly stated that some class/spec DPS would need to be buffed, and some nerfed, to balance these changes. Try reading next time, 'k? (Ironic, I know, given my first sentence).

[Sharandris]

Karnee and Mahtamori, would you please stop it?
I know that you are not presenting the only one ideal setup but people will believe there is only ONE setup. I don't think Blizzard wants everybody to go for 100% possible support but wants to make sure that even if you have no clue about raid composition you'll get about 80% possible support.

Another option is that you can invite ALL your friends and not have to stop about halfway because you already know you are missing 6 key speccs and there isn't any room left.

Still, people who want to do a good setup but don't have much clue have it easy nowadays: if you need manareg, you bring a shadowpriest. They do this 'math' themselves.
However, in wotlk it's too complicated, so let the professionals decide what's good for us. And hello, we have the problem everybody is fearing. This is more a community than a game design issue.

[Gheed1901]

They're dumbing this game down to the point of Hello Kitty Island Adventures. :

[Sharandris]

I really hope that the warrior bleed ability doesn't overwrite the Druid's mangle, otherwise you will have a lot of Druids yelling at the warriors.

Shadow Protection doesn't overwrite the paladin's shadow aura. Still you only get 70 resistance. See what I mean? I guess it will be the same with those debuffs. The actual math isn't visible through tooltips... which is actually a shame.

[Iandrasil]

this patch will quite simply completely destroy raiding at any significant level unless they decide to nerf bosses down to magtheridon level

but regardless they decided to make warlocks utterly useless so that's my class gone.

[Ferocious]

I dont quite understand why people suddenly go emo and cry about how this and that class will be left out of raid. As it has been previously, some classes (well, more like it, speccs) have been less wanted than others in raid, such as balance druids and ret paladins. With BC theese got a chance with some guilds, ret paladins more than balance druids.

Playing a balance druid myself, ive been struggling for months and months, trying to get a guild that actually would take me in their raid group.. Most just said "yous dps sucks, kkthxbai" or "ok you do some dps, and have some buffs, but a lock/mage/random is better anyway".. Still there are raiding boomkins, as there still will be raiding shadow priests and other classes/speccs that have been nerfed.

I dont think blizzard will want to push out certain classes from a raid, and also there is a reason for why they are testing stuff, both in beta with wotlk, and PTRs normally.. They make a change, does it work like intended, yes or no?

If yes (after evaluating it and taken feedback in consideration), good, change can be implemented! If no, too many complains, poor class balance or other issues, then they change it again..

And in the end of the day, this is a game, and its evolving all the time! If you've played for years allready, you know there has always been changes that some hate and some love, some were good and some were superfail.

Still, we keep playing, for now. Why cant you just wait and see how the new changes will be before you whine (it sounds like a lot of you dont have beta keys or anything, you just whine because you like to whine).. So quit the 12 year old QQing, and give it a shot.. If it sucks, then come back and tell us and blizzard..

And before some smartass feels like guessing: no im not casual.

[RealPjotr]

Now tell me you jackasses who think this is nice, Would you bring a Ret Pallie over a BM Hunter for the Danage increase buff?

NO.

Why?
Ret Pally DPS blows monkeydick in hell, they get taken for RAID UTILITY! Rake this away and they fucking suck.

Looking at the PTR, retribution pally was the highest DPSing class in the game, so a max DPS raid would use only retri pallies. How's that for logic?

[Raynhard]

Maybe I know, why the mass is more QQing, than loving this change.

It's like Blizzard takes everyone away a status. The status, only you can buff something so you have to be invited if the class isn't in the raid, yet.

I love this change. The first weeks it will be a big learning phase. What stats stack, whose don't ... But in the end, we don't need to build in a 10 man like: 5 melees / 5 caster - min. one of each class. Just invite who is online and lets go.

In 25 man its even no change at all. You already had all your buffs. Now you get them all with less players. And the rest of the raid filled with 15 rogues? There will be encounters, that will punish you for stacking to much of one class (Karazhan, Maiden of Virtue with to many melees? ^^).

And come on, if a class now has fewer utility, they are allowed to do more dps through changeing in class mechanics. Blizzard staff don't run with blinders.

[wyzard]

So they way I see it, This will help Raid DPS because all they are doing now, it reducing the number of UTILITY classes needed and allowing you to stack more pure DPS classes. The growing trend has always been way too many DPS, too few tanks, healers, and utility. So, we give the tanks and healers more DPS so they can do every day things without having to respec. To solve the utility aspect, they just made it so you require less of them. Rogues/hunters did a nice job crying in forums about losing their jobs to hybrids. That's what really brought the change.

[Deleted]

Regarding the raid dumbing down and "encounters are going to be easy as shit because of this", you have to remember how encounters are conceived and balanced.
- gear level for a given encounter can be determined quite precisely, giving a good idea of pre-buff stats for the whole raid. Same for consumables/enchants/gems.
- class buffs and skill-stacking (as well as a few consumables like LW drums) as it is currently available allows certain stats to jump through the roof in a certain raid composition, because of both stacking and multipliers
This ends up making the range of dps/hps that an encounter is tuned for quite wide, meaning encounters will either be tuned outside of optimal stacking (and thus easy for hardcore min-maxers) or tuned to be challenging with a min-maxed raid (and thus infeasible without the exact right classes and specs each evening).

This change here reduces the variance in stats at a given encounter level by a lot, allowing Blizzard to fine tune difficulty a lot more while reducing raid composition constraints. ie challenging encounters for everyone that do not depend on a raid having x players of y spec to beat it.
So no dumbing down nor end of hardcore raiding.

--
Regarding all the "class X gets my buff, i'm now useless", you have to look at how that class is applying the buff/debuff and wether it's more or less practical before complaining. Keeping the +3% spell hit debuff causes moonkins to lose ~4% of their dps (1 GCD every 40s) whereas the spriest one is applied through normal dps rotation. Guess which is the best ? The spriests ones, and any moonkin will be thrilled to have an spriest with him to avoir having to insert iFF in his rotation.

That being said, the change is massive and i'm not sure i like it either, but at least think a bit before QQing instead of posting crap.

[Nuronv]

R.I.P WoW.
2004-2008

This is it, the end of WoW, this change is just so motherfucking STUPID its unreal.

Now tell me you jackasses who think this is nice, Would you bring a Ret Pallie over a BM Hunter for the Danage increase buff?

NO.

Why?
Ret Pally DPS blows monkeydick in hell, they get taken for RAID UTILITY! Rake this away and they fucking suck.
What will happen is: raid leaders will look at all buffs. They will pick minimum amount of classes that bring all of them, then they will stack the highest dps on the rest of the slots. Everyone else will be screwed.

So just ill up those slots with buffers/debuffers and then stack the pure DPS classes on top of it.

BACK TO VANILLA WOW, Hybrids STFU and HEAL!

Hahahaha

BLIZZ IS CLUELESS...

Hi there,
So I'm guessing you didn't read the whole article about them balancing out the damage so no one gets left out, This will make more people able to join the raid not exclude them
KThxBye

[Ferocious]

This ends up making the range of dps/hps that an encounter is tuned for quite wide, meaning encounters will either be tuned outside of optimal stacking (and thus easy for hardcore min-maxers) or tuned to be challenging with a min-maxed raid (and thus infeasible without the exact right classes and specs each evening).

Well, maybe they plan to add more encounters that actually requires SKILLS again, and not only perfect setup/gear/consumables and other stuff.. At least one can hope!