Is "Balanced DPS" really balanced?

[Eugenides]

EDIT:

I just saw this and decided to include it as it completely proves the point I'm trying to make below.

"retri / retri
im owning 2v2 whit a friend Cheesy got like 2k rating in no time only team that beated us were (guess) other 2 retri and ofc resto shamy + retri (that cuz of grounding totems ruining our stuns Tongue)"

-------

Now, I'm not sure how much of this has already been said and by how many people.  So, if I step on anyone's toes, forgive me, however, I haven't seen it raised in a non-QQ "OMG!" way, so I figured I might as well try to put some constructive criticism and questions together for whoever might or might not be listening/reading.

Blizzard has said many-a-time that the goal is to give all classes equal dps, specifically in regards to PvE/raiding situations.  I'm not going to reply to the PvE concerns, sorry about that, but it's been addressed and I've read some well-formatted response to those questions.  So, what I want to focus on is the implications to PvP.

1.  Balance Issue

I completely understand Blizzard wanting to make all classes viable for PvP and PvE.  I think they should.  I think that all classes should be viable.  Otherwise, we'd see nothing but certain classes and it would be boring all-round.  However, what I do not agree with, is the current situation where the only way Blizzard chooses to make all classes viable/equal, is to make all classes deal the same amount of damage.  This, frankly, makes no sense.  Why?  Because PvP breaks up into several categories:
    a. Damage
         - Burst
         - Sustained
    b. Mitigation
    c. Crowd Control
    d. Utility (aka, debuffs, buffs, etc)
When we look at these issues, we realize that simply leveling the DPS meters on all specs doesn't work.  For example, my main characters that I play are my 70 Warrior and 70 Rogue.  Previously, my Warrior had been my main, but I decided to switch to Rogue as I got tired of tanking in Vanilla (hours of wipes in ZG-Naxx, anyone?) and decided to go solely DPS.  Which, as we all know, no one will take a Fury Warrior in heroics.  Ever (at least that's changed now. Thanks, Blizz!).  So, I switched my main to my rogue, but continued to PvP both BG and Arena with both of them.  Obviously, my rogue did more damage--specifically burst.  But that is the way it should be.  Why?  Because the equations looked like this.
     Damage: Rogue > Warrior (Cs -> Ks -> Hemo, hemo, hemo anyone?)
     Mitigation: Warrior > Rogue (Plate FAR GREATER than Leather, + spell reflect, etc)
     Crowd Control: Rogue > Warrior (Rogue has stuns, sap, and blind.  Warrior has 1 fear)
     Utility: Warrior > Rogue (MS, Bshout, Cshout, hamtring, Overpower, mace-stun, etc vs ... poisons)
This is balance.  I never expected to do greater dps on my warrior than my rogue, because, frankly, he's in plate and has MS.  If his DPS output equal my rogues, or, say, a mage, it would be unfair--it wouldn't actually be balanced.  

Lets fast-forward to the new patch and the stated goals of WotLK.  Now, warning, I'm going to be slightly slanted as I'm still stuck in 70 mode, as I haven't gotten to 80 (duh).  Lets look at the balance issue again.  Lets take the worn but true examples of Ret Pally vs. Rogue (I'll expand some others, as well).  
    - Damage: Pally > Rogue
         Burst: Even though the poor Rets have been (sorta) nerfed, their output is still impressive.  Rogues have been interesting.  True, sub's imp ambush talents are interesting and mildly impressive... but that's all they have.  If the opener doesn't finish the match, then the rogue is done.  Backstab is powerful, but situational and expensive.  There's no longer any reason to pick up Ghostly Strike (though I still have it ), and Hemo is weak with daggers.  
         Sustained:  Ret Pallies used to be heavily reliant upon mana.  When my Rogue/Druid team fought a Ret pally as their sole DPS, we realized that it would be hard to outlive his burst, but we relished in the fact that they would soon go oom, and we could prevail.  However, since the changes to mana (Which, by the way, I think was necessary for Rets since their PvE utility was...pathetic) we no longer have that hope.  And, lets face it, any rogue who goes Combat right now is going to get lol'ed to death.
    - Mitigation:  Pally >>>>>> Any other class
Do we really even have to go through this?  Pallies have plate (extremely useful since most arena teams have a melee dps), ability to have insta-cast heals that give them 5-75% life, damage shield, the ability to outlast bursts by macroing a sword-and-board, and then, if they're really in trouble, they can bubble.  Where, unlike Mage's IB, they can cast, and even use some of their abilities, making them a virtual fortress that can still do great damage.
    - CC:  Rogues > Pally
Yes, their stun was nerfed.  I personally think that's not the problem, but that's a post for another day... The most impressive thing they have is the ability to give themselves and friends Blessing of Freedom.  No longer can a druid run away and heal him or his teammate with a well-timed root.  No longer can a rogue attempt to turn the tables by chain stunning, in fact, no class can really do much of anything once they BoF themselves and then judge their opponent so that they can't run faster than 100%.  These are all great abilities, and, personally, I'm fine with the pallies having each and every one of them.  These are what make pallies, pallies.
    - Utility: Blessings for every occasion.  Rogues... poisons?

Now, I'm not trying to hate on pallies.  I'm not telling Bliz to nerf them (well... I might, just not in the way most people are).  I think it's fine for them to keep all of their abilities.  But lets realize what our goals are here.  I don't think that Blizz really wanted to equate damage, that's just what they did.  What they wanted to do was make all classes equal and viable for PvE and PvP.  That is understandable and that is right.  However, something needs to be done about how this is done.  In PvP, something that can do damage = or > than any other class and also brings to the table amazing survivability is op.  I don't care what we talk about.  I understand that the concept is difficult.  It's hard to balance Shamen (or, shapeople if you're intent on being PC... but that just sounds stupid) and hunters, because even though they both wear mail, the hunter cannot heal himself like the shaman can, so the hunter should be able to do higher dps.  Warlocks may be able to do higher dps than mages, and with SL they do pretty well in survivability, so I agree that mages should get sheep and IB to help them balance.  Warriors have plate and great range-closing abilities, wonderful.  But they can't heal and a pally who can do even near the same dps as them will eat them for breakfast.  

In short, giving all classes the same dps is not the right solution to the problem.  It just isn't.  If we want equality, I remember a fight that my warrior had with a pally way back in Classic.  My warrior and a pally were fighting in AV all alone.  I took the pally down to pretty low life, while only losing about 40% of my own life.  The pally bubbled, healed, and we started again.  He healed more often this time, and by the time he died he was oom and I was at 3% life and would have died if I hadn't had a lucky crit and an execute.  That's balance.  That's equality.  

I'm not saying that we completely erradicate the Paper->Rock->Scissors>Paper approach.  I think that warriors should be rogues.  I think that pallies should be rogues. I think that rogues should be casters (if they get the jump on them).  But that's class mechanics, it's not damage equitability.  A feral druid shouldn't equal a rogue in dps.  If a feral druid wants to beat a rogue, he should do it be using what inherent abilities he has such as roots, and even a single heal.  If all he had to do was sit there and dps the rogue equally, then that promotes lazy and in-initiative play styles.  I don't think that's what blizz wants.

So, en totem, leveling damage does not = the playing field.  Nerf the classes who have other abilities, or boost the damage of those classes in which that is all they have. Because in PvP specifically, if you don't do that--it's just not equal.

[rabbimojo]

A feral druid shouldn't equal a rogue in dps. If a feral druid wants to beat a rogue, he should do it be using what inherent abilities he has such as roots, and even a single heal. If all he had to do was sit there and dps the rogue equally, then that promotes lazy and in-initiative play styles.

To be honest, feral should out-dps rogue in pvp. Rogues have wound poison. Wound poison is incredible -effective- burst, though most people with heal debuffs choose to ignore this. This is why ret has high burst as well. Each dpser needs some way around healing, otherwise healers are immune to them and that's equally OP.

Ret is OP-ish right now, sure. Stop at 60 and twink a character, tell me which characters are OP there. Related to L70 at all?
I'm not really trying to pull out the "It's balanced at 80!" argument, because I don't know. My personal experience fighting as, and against ret in the beta at 80 suggests it's not particularly scary.

[Jamster1990]

u do realise some pallys really gouldnt give a damn about pvp right and that is only half the game, pvp nerfs have been the bain of most people lifes and alot of people have been pissed off with blizz because they nerf the class because it is slightly 'OP' in arena and wank all over our dps in a raid environment.

finally we have damage that is on par with others in pve and people just complian. u forget we came from 1 of the worst dps classes in game if not the worst. cant u give them a break for the short preiod they are better than the rest, it will balence at 80, do not worry.

[Eugenides]

"u do realise some pallys really gouldnt give a damn about pvp right and that is only half the game, pvp nerfs have been the bain of most people lifes and alot of people have been pissed off with blizz because they nerf the class because it is slightly 'OP' in arena and wank all over our dps in a raid environment."

You DO realize (not 'realise') that I specifically stated that I was NOT talking about PvE, right?

Oh, in case you're wondering it's also "bane" not "bain." And I'm not talking about Pally's, i'm talking about a mindset of how to balance the game. Pally's are just a convenient example.

[Eugenides]

Ret is OP-ish right now, sure. Stop at 60 and twink a character, tell me which characters are OP there. Related to L70 at all?
I'm not really trying to pull out the "It's balanced at 80!" argument, because I don't know. My personal experience fighting as, and against ret in the beta at 80 suggests it's not particularly scary.

I agree with you. As I said, I'm not taking into account 80, nor am I talking about any specific class. No, not even pallies, I'm just talking about a specific scenario and the way it seems that Blizz is trying to fix a problem.

[iModi]

Yes, because Mutilate rogues and Frost mages aren't putting out stupidly high amounts of burst damage, yet they go unnoticed. And a mage put out 1.3mil damage in the last AV I ran...next closest was 600k from a warlock.

[Indris]

The "equal DPS" you're talking about refers to classes' SUSTAINED RAID DPS, raid specced, raid glyphed, raid buffed. You give up DPS talents for PvP talents, you had to at level 70, you will have to at level 80. You don't use PvE rotations in PvP, either.

PvP balance isn't centered around sustained DPS, it never was, and never will be. As for Ret Paladins in their current state and game balance... Yeah, ret is OP at 70. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that by now; it's also been said that the patch is NOT balanced around level 70, and won't be - so why bother discussing it?

[Communion]

"u do realise some pallys really gouldnt give a damn about pvp right and that is only half the game, pvp nerfs have been the bain of most people lifes and alot of people have been pissed off with blizz because they nerf the class because it is slightly 'OP' in arena and wank all over our dps in a raid environment."

You DO realize (not 'realise') that I specifically stated that I was NOT talking about PvE, right?

Oh, in case you're wondering it's also "bane" not "bain." And I'm not talking about Pally's, i'm talking about a mindset of how to balance the game. Pally's are just a convenient example.

Before you make a big stink correcting someone's written English in a post, you probably ought to get your own house in order. Learn the difference between possessive and plural, please. (Here's a hint: you're using apostrophes when you shouldn't be.)

[Parynziux]

Before you make a big stink correcting someone's written English in a post, you probably ought to get your own house in order. Learn the difference between possessive and plural, please. (Here's a hint: you're using apostrophes when you shouldn't be.)

The man's right! Also, "realise" is a perfectly acceptable way of spelling "realize." The former is British, the latter American (that is why most spell checks default to making you use z).

But to topic: I agree with most of the original post, but remember PvE and PvP play very differently. In leveling the field for PvE - sustained DPS - the changes pass on to PvP - burst damage. You don't really want burst in PvE, and you don't really want sustained DPS in PvP, but you can't NOT affect both unless there are two sets of abilities (one for burst, one for sustained) and talents that modify both differently. I guess Blizz is aiming for that in some way, but not quite so simplified.

I, too, would prefer having classes that play in different ways - that is, you have to pull of some 'mad skillz - over having classes that all do equal damage and it's more a case of first-shot-wins than it is better-player-wins. But, it's early days. I don't think the developers are oblivious to what makes for more fun and challenge.

[Stal]

This is the first post i've read after the latest patch where someone isn't just QQing about how OP or how Underpowered there class or specific classes are.
I agree with you completely.

ps. I remember the good ole vanilla wow fights.