Achievement - Wintergrasp Grand Black War Mammoth
It's quite a possibility that this will be removed from the meta achievement at some point too, we'll have to wait and see. (
Source)
Achievement - Immortal-style achievement in Ulduar
We will see what achievements we decide to make for Ulduar, but honestly I would not be surprised if an immortal-style achievement was one of them. There can be some frustrating scenarios that cause this to fail like disconnects, but unless it is a mass disconnect it can be worked around a lot of the time. Overall, in my experience, it is almost always a player's fault for failing on Undying/Immortal by getting a little careless and not remaining focused on the achievement goal. (
Source)
Random Number Generator and its effect on the game
This is a good summary. We have no problem with RNG to a point. WoW is an RPG and we think part of that is having a random component to the outcome of some events. We realize some players would like to remove most RNG from the game, but that isn't our stance. Where RNG is a problem, especially in PvP, is when the outcome has too much influence. RNG is bad when it feels like who wins or loses an Arena match too often comes down to a single random roll.
A few examples:
-- The dispel system started to feel too random. Chance are you wouldn't be able to dispel something, but once in awhile you could, and that changed everything.
-- Random stuns became a problem. An ability with a 100% stun chance can be balanced around say its cost or cooldown. Random stuns are just an unpredictable bonus.
-- Too much random damage. Sudden Death (the Arms warrior talent) was a problem here. It approached the point of having a percent chance to kill a target or a percent chance to do almost nothing. (Don't confuse the fact that Arms damage is too low at the moment with their burst being too high before we changed this ability.)
One of the keys is whether you are talking about a few random rolls or many. If it is many random rolls, then the probability tends to even out over time. A 50% chance to proc something will happen about half the time as you approach infinity. We don't think the RNG nature of Windfury is a huge problem because it isn't always coming down to a situation where if WF had proc'd, you would have won the match. (Having that happen once in awhile is fine -- that is probably the definition of a very close, exciting match.) Over the course of an Arena, WF tends to proc with about the same frequency. If WF was a 2% chance to boost damage by 50X, then that would be too much RNG. The balancing problems we've had with Windfury have a lot more to do with its total contribution -- whether it does too much or not enough damage overall, and less about the random nature of the proc.
We have also backed off the design where all certain specs bring to PvP is MASSIVE DAMAGE LOL. We have been trying to give more specs more utility-based abilities (say on-demand CC, or on-demand CC breaks). If Enhancement is not competitive in PvP, we'd rather address the problem through this direction. (
Source)
PvP Itemization and resilience budget
We increased the budget of resilience because we felt like PvP gear was too attractive in Burning Crusade. Because of that, and because this gear was initially too easy to get, it forced a lot of players to feel like they were supposed to head to the Arena to improve their character, even if they had no business or interest in trying to compete in there.
The problems we feel like we had with resilience at the start of Lich King were different:
1) We launched relatively easy PvE content before PvP gear was available. As a result, players entered PvP with really awesome Naxx gear.
2) Introductory PvP gear was too difficult to get and not available from day one. As a result, some players were going into Arenas with almost zero resilience and getting blown to bits.
3) Burst damage was initially too high, which 1 and 2 just compounded. We think it will be in a better place when 3.1 ships. We are already seeing plenty of "invulnerable healer" threads, which suggests that just burning people down is harder now. (And I don't mean to imply that is our sole measurement on how balance is working out.)
4) BC brought a lot of free stamina to almost everyone. We didn't increase health as fast as we increased damage in LK, which ended up making players feel a little fragile initially.
Ideally (and what we very well might do next time) is to try and launch the first tier of raid content at the same time as the Arena season, or at least give players a head start on accumulating PvP gear before the season starts. It's also likely you will see player health increase more, and PvE content balanced accordingly.
Now resilience is a tricky thing. Some players are going to blame any loss in Arenas on resilience being too weak. It is sometimes difficult to sort out the effects of skill from the effects of the game balance. You are going to die in Arenas a lot, even if you are a great player and everything is working as intended (which as I said above, is not currently the case). (
Source)
Dual-specialization and raid composition requirements
Our design direction is not to change our designs at all as a result of this change. We are going to design instances and talent trees while pretending this feature does not exist.
Examples of things we will NOT do:
1) Have a fight that requires 8 tanks, because you know, half the raid can change specs.
2) Have a fight that requires some obscure talent, because surely someone can afford to swap into it.
3) Let Arms be the PvP tree and Fury be the PvE tree, because warriors can just switch out.
4) Have a buff spec with low dps and a damage spec with high dps, and expect players to buff then swap specs.
While realistically we predict almost every high level player will use a dual-spec, we aren't assuming you have access to it. Furthemore, all the feature does is make it easier for you to do something you could already do, which is hearth back, respec, and get summoned back. (
Source)
Replenishment is causing strange acrobatics to be taken with regard to regeneration balancing. Blizzard has made an assumption that all raid group members will have access to a replenishment buff. If that is the case, then why not just build it into the class?
Because it makes classes with Replenishment someone you want to invite.
While WoW permits and encourages soloing to some extent when compared to some other MMOs, the endgame for both PvP and PvE are designed around grouping. We like that it matters who you are grouped with. We don't want you to be able to just bring all of your buffs with you. We like that you are much more powerful when grouping, in part because you benefit from the stacking effects of so many different buffs.
Replenishment is a very powerful and unique buff, meaning it' isn't just another version of more attack power or spellpower. However, you can't stack more than a couple of Replenishment classes and gain additional benefits from Replenishment alone. For 3.1 we expanded the number of classes who offer Replenishment to give you more flexibility in how you earn the buff.
Now all that said, you can group without it. There isn't a guardian at the door who checks for Replenishment before it lets you pass. Mana regen will be harder for you than a group with the buff however, and you may need to compensate in other ways, such as how you gear or the other buffs you have. If your dps is high enough and your tanks survive, then the threat of running out of mana won't be so scary. (
Source)
Death Knight (
Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Dual Wield changes in 3.1
We don't have a problem with DW tanking or DW dps. Whenever I say something about DW tanking it is usually to say that we don't want DW tanking to dominate. Before the Stoneskin Gargoyle rune, having two tanking weapons was a big benefit to DW, and in a world with crushing blow, "parry instagibs" are much less scary now.
That said, the Howling Blast changes were much more about DW dps builds. Death knight dps was just too high across the board, especially with certain hybrid builds. If we're convinced we fixed the problem, then we might improve Howling Blast damage again (though we might imcrease its cooldown). (
Source)
Hunter (
Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Marksmanship mana issue
Marks running OOM too often we feel is a legitimate problem and something we plan on improving. (
Source)
Wild Hunt
Wild Hunt is being changed to 10/20% extra AP from the master. There was a bug where the talent was just applying the hunter's AP to the pet twice, which is too generous. If you have 6000 attack power, your pet probably gains 1320 attack power from you. With 2 ranks of this talent, it should gain 1580 attack power instead. Your pet's attack power will be higher than this by a few hundred from other sources. (
Source)
Paladin (
Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Retribution DPS in 3.1
Retribution dps, especially in PvE, is lower in 3.1 than we want. (
Source)
Priest (
Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Warrior rage generation while Power Word: Shield is active in 3.1
This is a buff to warriors versus priests. However, warriors also received a pretty hefty nerf versus priests that not many players are talking about. Specifically, you will no longer be at zero armor in PvP situations. (
Source)
Warlock (
Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Pandemic - DoT crits damage bonus
We have posted a couple of times that we don't think the Affliction changes make sense unles dots can crit for 200% damage. However, we are probably more likely to just allow Pandemic to grant that bonus rather than make taking Pandemic also force you to pick up Ruin. (Most PvE locks do anyway, but not all PvP builds include it.) (
Source)
Warrior (
Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Arms changes
We still plan on making some Arms changes for 3.1. (
Source)
1 Minute Shield Wall
The cooldown of Shield Wall is not intended to be that low. (
Source)
Rage loss on stance dancing
Most likely, rage loss with regard to stance dancing will not change in 3.1. We don't think the system we were exploring has enough benefits over the current implementation to warrant the change. (
Source)
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Originally Posted by Mstone86
As a previous Hunter, you guys really need to get the hunter specs straight, you nerf one, then you nerf the next, pretty soon, there will be no hunters.
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