Patch 3.0.2 - On Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking

[Dia]

Retarded.

That is all.

[lemuever17]

Playing around with theorycrafting a bit, I think a raid of

Balance Druid
Feral Druid
Fire Mage
Protection Paladin
Retribution Paladin
Holy Priest
Enhancement Shaman
Resto Shaman
Warlock of any Spec
Protection Warrior
Arms Warrior

covers every buff, leaving ~6 healing slots and ~8 DPS slots to be filled by whichever class you like. I'd be interested to know if anyone can narrow it down even further.

I dont think we need 6 healers, maybe 4 healers will be good

[Flamingcloud]

Playing around with theorycrafting a bit, I think a raid of

Balance Druid
Feral Druid
Fire Mage
Protection Paladin
Retribution Paladin
Holy Priest
Enhancement Shaman
Resto Shaman
Warlock of any Spec
Protection Warrior
Arms Warrior

covers every buff, leaving ~6 healing slots and ~8 DPS slots to be filled by whichever class you like. I'd be interested to know if anyone can narrow it down even further.

This doesn't really cover the +spell dmg requirement unless you have the warlock as demo. Obviously Demonic Pact and Totem of Wrath are going to be the best things in those categories. You could also have a Fury Warrior instead of a Feral druid. Also Spirit isn't covered unless you have an aff lock or a disc priest, though that buff is a lot more minor.

[Iahri]

Good-bye shadow priest, I knew ye well.

[Karpalo]

This doesn't really cover the +spell dmg requirement unless you have the warlock as demo. Obviously Demonic Pact and Totem of Wrath are going to be the best things in those categories. You could also have a Fury Warrior instead of a Feral druid. Also Spirit isn't covered unless you have an aff lock or a disc priest, though that buff is a lot more minor.

I think he ment holy priest to be a discpriest there.

[Flamingcloud]

I think he ment holy priest to be a discpriest there.

Still doesn't cover the spell dmg requirement. Flametongue totem is horrible compared to demonic pact for example.

[topfer]

These are some epic changes. I'm not really sure for the best either. This might be watering things down too much in an effort to fix 'undesireable' specs instead of fixing the spec itself.

[coMModus]

the bloodlust/heroism change is actually a significant buff since you no longer need to wait for the 10 minute cooldown of the bloodlust the shammy in your party has. you just use a bloodlust every 5 minutes since is raidwise and you should have enough shammys to keep it up

anyway all theese changes seem like big buffs more or less for the raid. i wonder if the encounters are gonna be harder because of this. or did blizz just nerfed the game for the casuals

[Karpalo]

the bloodlust/heroism change is actually a significant buff since you no longer need to wait for the 10 minute cooldown of the bloodlust the shammy in your party has. you just use a bloodlust every 5 minutes since is raidwise and you should have enough shammys to keep it up

anyway all theese changes seem like big buffs more or less for the raid. i wonder if the encounters are gonna be harder because of this. or did blizz just nerfed the game for the casuals

I fail to see how you see these as a big buffs? Only i thing i can come up is that you need to stack less hybrids to get the max amount of buffs. Relative raid dmg propably will go down what it is now and what it will be compared to the gear lvl upgrade and 10 levels.

[Diedel]

What I really don't understand is why they waited so long to do this in the beta, it looks like they just came up with this and didn't plan for it before. Many of the Talents that will get changed already got changed in beta before and will get changed again now, like imp Scorch.

And they will do a hell lot of balancing "old" raids for this to work out, even if it is only for the time between 3.0.2 and WotLK.

[Lobbas]

About the improved moonkin thingy... we just get 3% haste? that's it? man...

[Luffee]

I as a SP feel like I just got placed on the soon to be extinct animal/spec list :-\

[Karpalo]

W00t? matched mana regen with shadowpriest with superior dps if it stays as it is.

[player404]

I like this change.
Really.
What are you people crying about?
Dumbing down the game?

A dumb game is a game that lets you form a raid based on what classes give the most utility and dps.
A smart game is a game that lets you form a raid based on player skills, where classes that share the same amount of utility also have equal DPS-potential.

Shadow priests aren't dead because there's no reason taking a retadin or a surv hunter if you can provide better DPS, which is now possible because as I said, DPS potential is based on your raid utility.

Instead of throwing shit at every change in this game, be it big or small, remember that QQing will get you nowhere by the fact that it's changed, PERIOD, and you can do nothing about it, so you better start embracing that fact, understand that it's actually a good change, love it, and keep playing the fucking game.
If you can't, just quit.

Changes these big aren't made to anger the players, they are made to make them happier, so players would keep playing and pay subscription fee so Blizzard could get more money.
And Blizzard is really good at getting more money.
So even you really really honestly truly think this change is teh sux, people will still play just as much if not more as they did before that change.

I'm not trying to make you guys angrier, I'm just trying to explain to you that Blizzard simply won't do such a drastic change in game mechanics unless they were absolutely sure it's a better, more profitable solution.
I'm not saying they're always doing stuff right, obviously. They still have a lot of phail history, but was mainly on PTRs and eventually every content patch was completely cleaned of phails (that's what PTRs are for), and the game you play now is the combined result of all those patches. And there wasn't any point in the game where it saw a downfall because of a big bad change in some content patch. That's because Blizzard is a good company, they wouldn't let such a big change make it into such a big patch unless it was clearly an upgrade.

So by reading that post in the front page you can easily realize that it's not just a thing Blizzard is testing to see if it's actually a better solution. It's a mechanic that WILL be implemented in 3.0.X, and it wouldn't be if if Blizzard didn't think it's good. And what Blizzard thinks is good = is also good for you, whether it takes you days or months to realize that. Because most of you will keep playing, even Shadow Priests :P, and you will still have fun playing despite your furious QQs, and believe me, after this change you will have more fun.

[Varithorn1]

play404 is probably a casual, who sees all changes to raiding as good, since they all benefit casuals and harm the more hardcore raiders. Oh, and in case you didn't know, beta is the time for people to complain about stuff, otherwise Blizzard could implement terrible changes (maybe they will anyway!).

[Karpalo]

I like this change.
Really.
What are you people crying about?
Dumbing down the game?

A dumb game is a game that lets you form a raid based on what classes give the most utility and dps.
A smart game is a game that lets you form a raid based on player skills, where classes that share the same amount of utility also have equal DPS-potential.

Shadow priests aren't dead because there's no reason taking a retadin or a surv hunter if you can provide better DPS, which is now possible because as I said, DPS potential is based on your raid utility.

Instead of throwing shit at every change in this game, be it big or small, remember that QQing will get you nowhere by the fact that it's changed, PERIOD, and you can do nothing about it, so you better start embracing that fact, understand that it's actually a good change, love it, and keep playing the fucking game.
If you can't, just quit.

Changes these big aren't made to anger the players, they are made to make them happier, so players would keep playing and pay subscription fee so Blizzard could get more money.
And Blizzard is really good at getting more money.
So even you really really honestly truly think this change is teh sux, people will still play just as much if not more as they did before that change.

I'm not trying to make you guys angrier, I'm just trying to explain to you that Blizzard simply won't do such a drastic change in game mechanics unless they were absolutely sure it's a better, more profitable solution.
I'm not saying they're always doing stuff right, obviously. They still have a lot of phail history, but was mainly on PTRs and eventually every content patch was completely cleaned of phails (that's what PTRs are for), and the game you play now is the combined result of all those patches. And there wasn't any point in the game where it saw a downfall because of a big bad change in some content patch. That's because Blizzard is a good company, they wouldn't let such a big change make it into such a big patch unless it was clearly an upgrade.

So by reading that post in the front page you can easily realize that it's not just a thing Blizzard is testing to see if it's actually a better solution. It's a mechanic that WILL be implemented in 3.0.X, and it wouldn't be if if Blizzard didn't think it's good. And what Blizzard thinks is good = is also good for you, whether it takes you days or months to realize that. Because most of you will keep playing, even Shadow Priests :P, and you will still have fun playing despite your furious QQs, and believe me, after this change you will have more fun.

You know i have had a lot of good ideas. Tho they all didint seem so good the next morning...

[Selenti]

I think you will find most people's problem with this change is that it hurts them personally in a significant way.

Take me, for example. I dislike this change because it directly hurts one of the teams I was going to run come 3.0. Overall I'm still happy about WOTLK, lots of cool changes, but this is the first big thing about WOTLK that I have very strongly disliked.

Simplifying raid stacking is fine, but it has some nasty fallout.

[player404]

play404 is probably a casual, who sees all changes to raiding as good, since they all benefit casuals and harm the more hardcore raiders. Oh, and in case you didn't know, beta is the time for people to complain about stuff, otherwise Blizzard could implement terrible changes (maybe they will anyway!).

Well, judging by the way it's written, it's not a mechanic to be tested on the PTR/Beta and then removed/changed/tweaked based on feedback. It's something that will go live no matter what.

And it would be a lie to say that I'm not a casual, but I'm still raiding alot, and probably gonna get my 5th T6 item soon. So I KNOW how you and the other guys feel, I felt the same way initially, but instead of thinking how your raid utility got nerfed, think of how other specs' utilities got buffed to now compare to how imba you are. This does make you less imba now, but that's just to let other people enjoy the game by getting them some raid spots which were ninja'd by utility classes like you.

So opening spots for the previously underdog specs is indeed GOOD.
Thinking of it as bad because you are less wanted now is SELFISH.

[kraeden]

Wow this is horrible... I never whine about nerfs and changes but this is just... horrible. Might just ruin raiding permanently.

[Selenti]

Oh, yeah, this also pretty much destroys ret PVP if the new replenishment is completely replacing old Judgements of the Wise.