Scourge Strike and Blizzard

[elseagoat]

Also, for the downbreed a few posts ago whining that DKs represent a high percentage of the player population but an out of proportion percentage of "high arena" (whatever that hell that phrase means to this neanderthal)....

IT'S THE ONLY "HERO" CLASS IN THE GAME, GENIUS. Of course a lot of people are going to make DKs, they bypass the worst part of the leveling process and make for nice profession whores. The percentage of Death Knights that actively attempt to participate in "super srs bizness" arena is far, far lower than that of any other class. That is, since they were nerfed along with their paladin buddies and stopped being quite as faceroll. Season 5 probably featured a rather high percentage of level 80 DKs in arenas due to being able to spam a one button macro to kill people.

Overall class saturation compared to representation above a certain rating in arenas is absolutely meaningless. It's like saying there aren't enough people with Ph.Ds that have an IQ under 100(being generous here, I wanted to type 80 at first,) even though they represent such and such percentage of the overall population.

1) Maybe you should take a look at the actual percentages and you might rethink this statement. Looking at Rogues, the class with the highest percentage of players at 2k+ in 3v3, they are sitting at a whopping 1.3%. Think about the meaning behind the very, very small percentages you see for every class for a second.

2) However, if you were indeed correct in your sweeping "A high number of children and mentally handicapped rolled the class" statement, then that would simply validate the class representation numbers found here, where DKs are also shown as doing poorly without being checked against the total DK population and compared to other classes representations checked against their total class populations: http://www.realmhistory.net/arena-st...breakdown.html

[Tigercat]

1) Maybe you should take a look at the actual percentages and you might rethink this statement. Looking at Rogues, the class with the highest percentage of players at 2k+ in 3v3, they are sitting at a whopping 1.3%. Think about the meaning behind the very, very small percentages you see for every class for a second.

2) However, if you were indeed correct in your sweeping "A high number of children and mentally handicapped rolled the class" statement, then that would simply validate the class representation numbers found here, where DKs are also shown as doing poorly without being checked against the total DK population and compared to other classes representations checked against their total class populations: http://www.realmhistory.net/arena-st...breakdown.html

I never said that. Go back, and read my post again.


No class can claim any significance, at all, in a correlative study between their overall saturation in the game and their presence at a certain level in arenas. That is, unless they can also control the variable of which class/spec tends to draw "better" players, which nobody can. Not even comparing representation before and after a patch that "buffs" or "nerfs" their class can be completely conclusive, as perceptions (and simple attrition of older players and introduction of new players) can drive people to or from the class and skew the results.

This is one of the myriad inherent flaws in trying to create an "e-sport" atmosphere in a setting where there are 10 vastly different ways for people to compete and many, many different combinations in which people can use them. Truly "balancing" it is completely impossible.

[elseagoat]

I never said that. Go back, and read my post again.


No class can claim any significance, at all, in a correlative study between their overall saturation in the game and their presence at a certain level in arenas. That is, unless they can also control the variable of which class/spec tends to draw "better" players, which nobody can. Not even comparing representation before and after a patch that "buffs" or "nerfs" their class can be completely conclusive, as perceptions (and simple attrition of older players and introduction of new players) can drive people to or from the class and skew the results.

The quotation was an analogy, kind of like the one you made about handing Ph.Ds to people with 100 IQs.

We can assume that about 0.9% of the total level 80 population is serious about arenas and attempts to maintain a 2k+ rating for a reasonable length of time. Therefore, it is also a reasonable assumption that about 0.9% of each total class pop at level 80 is serious about arenas. Obviously, you are right, there will be variations here because one class might draw more serious PvPers than another, but...

Do you really think that at the character select screen, people saw whether they would be PvP junkies or not and that held weight over such a significant amount of people that the numbers I posted would be vastly different had I been able to account for that? I don't, I was not influenced whatsoever having originally wanted to be a mostly PvE character until I saw how boring raiding was.

Also, re rolling do to class potency in PvP does not have too huge a sway over these percentages either, maybe a small one, but not a large one due to how quickly PvP balance shifts from season to season. This is pretty much undeniable.




BUT, if you were correct in your sweeping generalization and we couldn't in fact show a general idea of how classes are looking in PvP by dividing # at 2k+ into total #, then we would instead account for this by basically saying that anyone can roll any class at any time for PvP with a little bit of commitment, effectively turning the total population at 80 of any class into a theoretical infinity.

Thus, Realmhistory's numbers alone would be sufficient to determine how well a class is doing in arenas. And according to Realmhistory, DKs are not looking good at all.




So take your pick, my logic, or yours. Because both point to the same thing: DKs are sucking in arenas.

[elseagoat]

Truly "balancing" it is completely impossible.

While this is true, it is not an excuse to avoid attempts to lessen imbalances, especially in an MMO which is designed to be completely dynamic.

[Sersick]

I am asking why Blizzard seems to believe that they cannot increase 3.2 Scourge Strike shadow damage even slightly simply because it ignores armor, when many abilities already exist in the game that do more damage than scourge strike and also completely bypass armor. In fact, one of these abilities is also a melee ability and can do over twice the damage of Scourge Strike in PvP. I am not asking for Scourge Strike to do identical damage to Chaos Bolt or a 5cp Envenom. In fact, even just giving it the 60 dmg or whatever it needs to be more worthwhile than two Blood Strikes in PvE would be fine by me. I am not asking for the best abilities in the game, just for my abilities to make mathematical sense and not have a 9k damage range in PvP.

And here are some numbers since I know you wont be checking out any of these threads and will continue to vomit your misinformed season 5 "DKS ARE SO OP OMG" drivel.
Here are some more numbers to discredit your general idea that DK's seem to be owning face in arenas. The percentages represent the percent of the total class population that has achieved 2k+ in 3v3 or 5v5, thus by comparing these percents to other classes we can generally see how players on the whole are doing with each class in PvP. Total class pop taken from Warcraftrealms, number of each class at 2k+ taken from realmhistory.

Scourge Strike numbers mean all dk's, even frosts and bloods, are bad for pvp.

[elseagoat]

Scourge Strike numbers mean all dk's, even frosts and bloods, are bad for pvp.

Blood and Frost are bad in PvP. Meaning we will have 3 viable PvE specs and not a single viable PvP spec.

The Scourge Strike change, regardless of its nonexistent effects on the already PvP lacking Frost and Blood specs, is a step in a direction which further defines us as PvE gods and non-viable in PvP with any spec.

[Tigercat]

The quotation was an analogy, kind of like the one you made about handing Ph.Ds to people with 100 IQs.

We can assume that about 0.9% of the total level 80 population is serious about arenas and attempts to maintain a 2k+ rating for a reasonable length of time.

How do you get this number? It's going to vary by class, the most sharply for Death Knights. This is due to it being the ONLY CLASS IN THE GAME THAT STARTS AT LEVEL 55, as I have already tried to explain.

Therefore, it is also a reasonable assumption that about 0.9% of each total class pop at level 80 is serious about arenas. Obviously, you are right, there will be variations here because one class might draw more serious PvPers than another, but...

Do you really think that at the character select screen, people saw whether they would be PvP junkies or not and that held weight over such a significant amount of people that the numbers I posted would be vastly different had I been able to account for that? I don't, I was not influenced whatsoever having originally wanted to be a mostly PvE character until I saw how boring raiding was.

None of this is at all relevant. Death Knights are the game's only hero class, and have a vastly different starting experience and significantly smaller amount of required investment to reach level 80 when compared to all other classes. If you don't think many people make DK's just to "try them out" and because of starting at level 55 you're fooling yourself.

Also, re rolling do to class potency in PvP does not have too huge a sway over these percentages either, maybe a small one, but not a large one due to how quickly PvP balance shifts from season to season. This is pretty much undeniable.

How can you look at the explosion of retadins in pvp after 3.0 hit live and make a claim like that? Just dumb luck that they were suddenly everywhere that had nothing to do with the changes that spec underwent? Maybe it was just because they were changed so much people wanted to try out the new mechanics? Wait, no, that arguement would also apply to people inflating the Death Knight saturation figures so you probably won't want to touch it.

BUT, if you were correct in your sweeping generalization and we couldn't in fact show a general idea of how classes are looking in PvP by dividing # at 2k+ into total #, then we would instead account for this by basically saying that anyone can roll any class at any time for PvP with a little bit of commitment, effectively turning the total population at 80 of any class into a theoretical infinity.

Thus, Realmhistory's numbers alone would be sufficient to determine how well a class is doing in arenas. And according to Realmhistory, DKs are not looking good at all.

So, Realmhistory can accurately account for DKs losing some people due to no longer being the, how shall we put it.....user-friendly powerhouse it was in S5? Even if some of those people were or have since become skilled at whatever class they moved to. A lot of the high end pvpers these days complain about the power balance between melee and casters in arenas these days. Blizzard has mentioned potential imbalances as well. Has this always been the case since the inception of arenas? Of course not. There's always going to be some group, or some class, that feels "picked on" by Blizzard whether it makes any sense or not.

You'll note I've yet to actually say anything about whether I agree with you on what the currently slated changes to Scourge Strike mean, for all you know I may think you're exactly right in the basic ideas of what it will mean for Unholy DKs in 3.3. The point is that you're making arguements based on vague ideas, and using said arguements to try to suggest changes to hard rules within the game. It's not exactly comparing apples to oranges, but it's something similar to that. Maybe apples and lawn furniture...

So take your pick, my logic, or yours. Because both point to the same thing: DKs are sucking in arenas.

Try this logic, then. Show me a way to quantify skill across 10 classes, 30 specs, and millions of players. Oh, and be sure to factor in player effort, interest and technical issues(think disconnecting in the middle of an evenly matched arena battle, or trying to play with high latency, bugs, exploits, etc) since all of these things contribute to the arena ratings you use as source data. Until you can do that, all you have is your own opinion and your own reasons for shouting it to the masses. It's just like trying to balance all of those things, it is impossible.



PS: The idea of being a pve god and not vaible in pvp, or the other way around, to varying degrees isn't a new concept in wow. It's been happening to various specs since arenas were introduced, with any spec that has a particularly fine line to walk between the two. Struggles to keep ret competant in pve without making them gods in pvp has been the one most noted in blue posts. PvE resto druids also suffered significant nerfs in late TBC to try to reel in their arena potency, to debatable effect.


Edit: Data, not date, dammit.

[Sersick]

Blood and Frost are bad in PvP. Meaning we will have 3 viable PvE specs and not a single viable PvP spec.

The Scourge Strike change, regardless of its nonexistent effects on the already PvP lacking Frost and Blood specs, is a step in a direction which further defines us as PvE gods and non-viable in PvP with any spec.

Well excuse me for seeing the dk in my guild pwn people as dw frost and as blood.

[elseagoat]

How do you get this number? It's going to vary by class, the most sharply for Death Knights. This is due to it being the ONLY CLASS IN THE GAME THAT STARTS AT LEVEL 55, as I have already tried to explain.

I got that number by taking the total number of players above 2k+ and dividing it by the total number of players at level 80, all classes combined.

Also, in order to make a Death Knight, you must already have a character at level 55.

None of this is at all relevant. Death Knights are the game's only hero class, and have a vastly different starting experience and significantly smaller amount of required investment to reach level 80 when compared to all other classes. If you don't think many people make DK's just to "try them out" and because of starting at level 55 you're fooling yourself.

I didn't include all players in these calculations, just those at level 80, and just those that have been seen in the last 30 days. Some people may have leveled to level 55 and swapped to DK, others may have re-rolled. Doesn't matter either way, for the most part only characters that people play frequently have been selected and if a player has an 80 of any other class + a DK and they are serious about PvP, good chance that they will take both into arena and will likely use the one they have the most success with. If they leveled to 55 and swapped, abandoning the other character, then it doesn't matter either because it nullifies your argument, they put in the investment to get to 55 and aside from some better gear from 58-65ish, their leveling experience was pretty much the same.

How can you look at the explosion of retadins in pvp after 3.0 hit live and make a claim like that? Just dumb luck that they were suddenly everywhere that had nothing to do with the changes that spec underwent? Maybe it was just because they were changed so much people wanted to try out the new mechanics? Wait, no, that arguement would also apply to people inflating the Death Knight saturation figures so you probably won't want to touch it.

The explosion of Paladins after 3.0 increased the denominator DRASTICALLY in this equation. But it also increased the numerator if they were in fact overpowered and had a very easy chance to succeed. If the rate at which the numerator increased was proportionally larger than the denominator(which it did), then the percentage of success for Rets in PvP went up, indicating that they are in fact powerful. If they weren't, an explosion of Rets would mean nothing because the proportion of Rets at 2k+ to total rets would remain about the same.

So, Realmhistory can accurately account for DKs losing some people due to no longer being the, how shall we put it.....user-friendly powerhouse it was in S5? Even if some of those people were or have since become skilled at whatever class they moved to. A lot of the high end pvpers these days complain about the power balance between melee and casters in arenas these days. Blizzard has mentioned potential imbalances as well. Has this always been the case since the inception of arenas? Of course not. There's always going to be some group, or some class, that feels "picked on" by Blizzard whether it makes any sense or not.

I am not sure what you are getting at here. When DKs were very powerful, their percentage of success was very high, at the top in fact. The number of DKs at 2k+ divided by total DKs (which was just as many as it is now if not more) was much larger compared to now, indicating that DKs are less powerful because the ratio went down.

You'll note I've yet to actually say anything about whether I agree with you on what the currently slated changes to Scourge Strike mean, for all you know I may think you're exactly right in the basic ideas of what it will mean for Unholy DKs in 3.3. The point is that you're making arguements based on vague ideas, and using said arguements to try to suggest changes to hard rules within the game. It's not exactly comparing apples to oranges, but it's something similar to that. Maybe apples and lawn furniture...

The only reason I posted the numbers concerning class rep in 2k+ divided by total number of each class is because some numbskull said something about DKs being powerhouses with every ability being the best incarnation of that ability in the game. It doesn't actually support much of my argument against the Scourge Strike change in 3.3, it just helps to show this kid that DKs are NOTHING like they were in season 5 and do in fact have a bit of validated trouble in arenas.

Try this logic, then. Show me a way to quantify skill across 10 classes, 30 specs, and millions of players. Oh, and be sure to factor in player effort, interest and technical issues(think disconnecting in the middle of an evenly matched arena battle, or trying to play with high latency, bugs, exploits, etc) since all of these things contribute to the arena ratings you use as source data. Until you can do that, all you have is your own opinion and your own reasons for shouting it to the masses. It's just like trying to balance all of those things, it is impossible.

In the original thread where I calculated those percentages, I specifically stated that there would be some degree of inaccuracy due to fluctuations in the percentage of skilled/dedicated PvPers within each class population at 80 (but if we make certain founded assumptions we could for the most part get a hazy picture of what class balance looks like) and separately, that this information is useless to determine anything having to do with spec other than whether a class has at least one viable PvP spec or zero. Paladins, for example, which are doing well in 3v3 and 5v5 are unfortunately confined to Holy or Prot healing roles and this information cannot be read from these numbers, as Ret is suffering from many of the same problems as DKs (aside from dispellers).

PS: The idea of being a pve god and not vaible in pvp, or the other way around, to varying degrees isn't a new concept in wow. It's been happening to various specs since arenas were introduced, with any spec that has a particularly fine line to walk between the two. Struggles to keep ret competant in pve without making them gods in pvp has been the one most noted in blue posts. PvE resto druids also suffered significant nerfs in late TBC to try to reel in their arena potency, to debatable effect.

Unfortunately, yes, you are correct. But is this really a reason to keep our mouths shut about implications of changes which obviously lead to a wider gap between PvE and PvP potency? Blizzard listens to the playerbase to some degree, (well, they certainly listened to players talk about how Unholy had no need for Armor Pen on its gear and months later, after announcing the removal of armor pen, they change Scourge Strike to be defendant on it, seems as if they pick and choose what to listen to) and therefore there is always a reason to voice opinion, even if it falls on deaf ears most of the time.

If we were to keep our mouths shut and there were no reason to ever make class changes, Death Knights would still be rocking Bone Shield at 40% mitigation and Icebound Fort at 50%, and since that's how it started, that's how it should stay because "hey, there have always been imbalances, whats the point of changing them?"

[elseagoat]

Well excuse me for seeing the dk in my guild pwn people as dw frost and as blood.

I win duels all the time as Blood or Frost. A Deathknight's ability to selfheal removes the threat of dying to any healer in 1v1 (though, actually killing them is another story) and gives us a significant advantage in duels against non-healing classes.

But in an arena where two or more people can coordinate damage, our selfheals amount to little more than a bit of additional mitigation rather than invincibility.

Blood and Frost are not doing well in an arena environment. Blood is capable because it can run a completely diseaseless armor pen based spec that can actually put out a bit of pressure, but Frost suffers even more than Unholy from disease dispels due to talents like Glacier Rot being so powerful. Most DKs run an Unholy spec in arenas that centers entirely on using disease applicators (using an applicator as a main strike makes it far less cumbersome to try and maintain diseases and use a non-applicator strike to put out pressure) and Death Coil, a runic power dump that does not have such harsh penalties for striking a target with no diseases up and more importantly does not consume runes but deals high unmitigated damage.

[Tigercat]

I got that number by taking the total number of players above 2k+ and dividing it by the total number of players at level 80, all classes combined.

As I've already said several times now, and as a matter of fact is the center of my arguement, there are going to be far more Death Knights made due to factors completely unrelated to pvp than that of any other class.

Also, in order to make a Death Knight, you must already have a character at level 55.

If the game had just released that way, you'd have a point, but with such a large playerbase already there with characters above that level, it's a bit of a moot point.

I didn't include all players in these calculations, just those at level 80, and just those that have been seen in the last 30 days. Some people may have leveled to level 55 and swapped to DK, others may have re-rolled. Doesn't matter either way, for the most part only characters that people play frequently have been selected and if a player has an 80 of any other class + a DK and they are serious about PvP, good chance that they will take both into arena and will likely use the one they have the most success with. If they leveled to 55 and swapped, abandoning the other character, then it doesn't matter either because it nullifies your argument, they put in the investment to get to 55 and aside from some better gear from 58-65ish, their leveling experience was pretty much the same.

I myself have been inactive for quite a while now, yet your calculations would have caught 2 of my characters at least. Logging on once a week or so to chat with a friend does not an active account make.

Also, they could play the class they enjoy more, or that has better synergy with their team. There is always more than 1 factor.

Once again, much of your arguement falls flat in the face of the massive number of people that already had characters over the level of 55 when death knights were introduced into the game. They have a choice: Start a new character of a different class from level 1, or make a DK that starts at 55 with a very smooth start for the next several levels. When it comes to just wanting to mess around with a new class, wanting another couple of professions, or any of a long list of reasons people come up with for making an alt, making a DK is often the easy choice due to their accelerated start.

The explosion of Paladins after 3.0 increased the denominator DRASTICALLY in this equation. But it also increased the numerator if they were in fact overpowered and had a very easy chance to succeed. If the rate at which the numerator increased was proportionally larger than the denominator(which it did), then the percentage of success for Rets in PvP went up, indicating that they are in fact powerful. If they weren't, an explosion of Rets would mean nothing because the proportion of Rets at 2k+ to total rets would remain about the same.

My point is simple. You can not pick one class out in a vacuum and say such things. There are other classes as well. The number of retadins and paladins in general increased sharply as a direct result of changes made in a patch, in direct opposition to what you claimed would happen in a previous post. You said patch changes only have a small effect on the overall population balance between classes, and I gave an example in which you were wrong. Nothing more, nothing less, it's just an example of how the approach of "Somehow the total number of people that play X class should mean ANYTHING in regards to their performance in high rated arenas" is flawed.

I am not sure what you are getting at here. When DKs were very powerful, their percentage of success was very high, at the top in fact. The number of DKs at 2k+ divided by total DKs (which was just as many as it is now if not more) was much larger compared to now, indicating that DKs are less powerful because the ratio went down.

The point is it's impossible to quantify just how much of the decrease was because of nerfs directly affecting performance, how much of it was due to "OMG WTF U NERFED ME IMA GONNA REROLL FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU," and how much of it was just skilled players(yes, there were skilled DKs among the crowd even in S5) burning out/rerolling for other reasons/other reasons people stop playing vs newer or just overall less skilled players getting into the class and dragging the numbers down.

The only reason I posted the numbers concerning class rep in 2k+ divided by total number of each class is because some numbskull said something about DKs being powerhouses with every ability being the best incarnation of that ability in the game. It doesn't actually support much of my argument against the Scourge Strike change in 3.3, it just helps to show this kid that DKs are NOTHING like they were in season 5 and do in fact have a bit of validated trouble in arenas.

The point you were trying to make there was a rather obvious one, and didn't require such measures. Granted, there is a bit of hypocrisy here, since I would think that the point that Im making that people make more DKs than other classes because of their hero class "status" is obvious and yet I'm going through all this, but meh.

In the original thread where I calculated those percentages, I specifically stated that there would be some degree of inaccuracy due to fluctuations in the percentage of skilled/dedicated PvPers within each class population at 80 (but if we make certain founded assumptions we could for the most part get a hazy picture of what class balance looks like) and separately, that this information is useless to determine anything having to do with spec other than whether a class has at least one viable PvP spec or zero. Paladins, for example, which are doing well in 3v3 and 5v5 are unfortunately confined to Holy or Prot healing roles and this information cannot be read from these numbers, as Ret is suffering from many of the same problems as DKs (aside from dispellers).

The thing is...there's only room for a certain number of people above the ratings you are looking at. The spread of classes is in part going to be determined by the skill of the people behind the avatars, not by the avatars themselves. This only becomes less apparent in extreme cases of an imbalance such as 3.0 retadins or "that day" warriors(referring to the extra talent point for a short time at 60, the birth of MS/Death Wish.) Of course the class balance is going to play a role, but it's not the only variable. The sort of "hazy" conclusions you reference is the kind of community....whining, dare I say, that so many of you DK's have been screaming out against since your class started getting nerfed away from being stupidly out of line. For more on the viewpoint of "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FACTS, THE PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE DOING X SHOULD EXACTLY MIRROR THE GENERAL POPULATION OR IM GOING TO THROW A FIT," see the works of Al Sharpton.

Unfortunately, yes, you are correct. But is this really a reason to keep our mouths shut about implications of changes which obviously lead to a wider gap between PvE and PvP potency? Blizzard listens to the playerbase to some degree, (well, they certainly listened to players talk about how Unholy had no need for Armor Pen on its gear and months later, after announcing the removal of armor pen, they change Scourge Strike to be defendant on it, seems as if they pick and choose what to listen to) and therefore there is always a reason to voice opinion, even if it falls on deaf ears most of the time.

Unless you can come up with a better solution other than a simple "Buff me!" yes, it is a reason to keep quiet. It's not like buffs(or nerfs) aren't considered, they're just rejected at times. Oh look, there's that "DK complaining about Blizzard 'listening' to the community" bit I mentioned earlier.

If we were to keep our mouths shut and there were no reason to ever make class changes, Death Knights would still be rocking Bone Shield at 40% mitigation and Icebound Fort at 50%, and since that's how it started, that's how it should stay because "hey, there have always been imbalances, whats the point of changing them?"

They'll make changes with or without community support, what we say isn't going to change that. They certainly didn't listen to mountains of beta and ptr feedback about issues in 3.0 until it spent some time on live servers. We're talking about the same group of devs that let druids run rampant in late TBC, Rets and DKs go nuts in S5, and PMR to do what it's been doing for years now. If you want to keep pissing into the wind, go ahead, I gave up on them a long time ago. Making WoW into an e-sport has no favorable outcome.


PS: Dammit, don't give me that "session has timed out" garbage. Post already!

[elseagoat]

As I've already said several times now, and as a matter of fact is the center of my arguement, there are going to be far more Death Knights made due to factors completely unrelated to pvp than that of any other class.

I fail to see how (# of total 2k+ rated players of ANY class)/(every 80 seen in the last 30 days) has anything to do with how many DKs there are. Remember, you are talking about a number I came up with that represented what percentage of the entire WoW playerbase is invested in PvP, this number includes all players of all classes, making any statement about a particular class rather... Irrelevant.

If the game had just released that way, you'd have a point, but with such a large playerbase already there with characters above that level, it's a bit of a moot point.

It is not a moot point as I provided two ways someone could play a DK.

I myself have been inactive for quite a while now, yet your calculations would have caught 2 of my characters at least. Logging on once a week or so to chat with a friend does not an active account make.

Yes, which is the reason why, in my thread about these percentages, I stated specifically that the numbers are likely to hold a bit of inaccuracy due to things such as this and others, like a larger percentage of skilled players playing a specific class. I am admitting that there are errors to this math due to being unable to poll the exact number of players invested in arenas within each class, you don't need to keep re-stating this. I am simply trying to show you that these inaccuracies aren't going to mean something like: "DK's are at the bottom of the list, if we accounted for these errors perfectly they would be at the top of the list." If we were able to account for things like this, yes, DK's might get bumped up the list a notch or two, but they would still be low on the list comparatively. I have given plentiful reasoning for this.

Also, they could play the class they enjoy more, or that has better synergy with their team. There is always more than 1 factor.

Better synergy with a team is directly related to how well a class can play in arena. Shamans have synergy on every single 5v5, which is likely a large factor in why their percentage of 2k+ players on 5v5 teams is much higher than that of other classes.

Once again, much of your arguement falls flat in the face of the massive number of people that already had characters over the level of 55 when death knights were introduced into the game. They have a choice: Start a new character of a different class from level 1, or make a DK that starts at 55 with a very smooth start for the next several levels. When it comes to just wanting to mess around with a new class, wanting another couple of professions, or any of a long list of reasons people come up with for making an alt, making a DK is often the easy choice due to their accelerated start.

It doesn't matter how many DKs there are.

Y/X=Z (Y divided by X equals Z). If Y is the number of DKs on 2k+ rated teams, and X is the total number of level 80 DKs, tell me this. What happens to the number "Z" when X, the total number of level 80 DKs, increases? Answer: Z (The percentage of 2k+ rated DKs) decreases.

But, here is where your argument comes in. If in season 5, X=1000, Y=10, and therefore Z=0.01, DKs have a very high 1% success rate for reaching 2k+. Now, in season 6, one season after DKs are introduced, that number Z has decreased dramatically. Possible reasons? A huge increase in X, or a large decrease in Y.

Now, lets think about this for a moment. Did everyone want to try the newfangled DK class and reroll in season 6? No, because the class was not new at this point, was already receiving large amounts of nerfs, so the only reason a large amount of players (small numbers of players, as in just a few thousand, result in small changes in these percentages, if you look at the original math you will see just how large an amount of players would need to reroll DK in order to make a significant change in Z, or percentage.) would be to make banking alts, and I honestly don't think that this would be such a massive increase that it would severely impact the percentage and raise it if we could somehow exclude these DKs from our calculations.

So, what if Y decreased? Well, this could happen for one reason only. DKs suffering in PvP due to class changes to their own class or to other classes or scaling issues (like warriors, which always get better with minimal changes due to awesome gear scaling). Well, DKs have had an extremely large amount of negative changes, and other classes such as Shamans have received several positive ones. This seems to be a likely culprit for a large number change, meaning we can reasonably assume that Y has decreased since season 5 by a proportionally larger amount than X.

My point is simple. You can not pick one class out in a vacuum and say such things. There are other classes as well. The number of retadins and paladins in general increased sharply as a direct result of changes made in a patch, in direct opposition to what you claimed would happen in a previous post. You said patch changes only have a small effect on the overall population balance between classes, and I gave an example in which you were wrong. Nothing more, nothing less, it's just an example of how the approach of "Somehow the total number of people that play X class should mean ANYTHING in regards to their performance in high rated arenas" is flawed.

I do not recall saying that and if I did, I misspoke because I don't believe that. But lets go over the simple equation again.

Y/X=Z. If Rets get awesome changes, then X will increase, making Z smaller, because a ton of kids rerolled Ret Paladins. But we do not see Z decrease, which seems odd considering the aforementioned fact. Instead, we see Z increase. How could Z increase if X has also increased? Answer: Y has increased by a proportionally larger amount than X has increased.

If Y (2k+ Rets) starts at 10, X (Total Rets) starts at 100, then Z will equal 0.1. If X increases to 150 because kids reroll to Ret, but Z also increases to 0.15 (Which is not numerically, but metaphorically what we saw in season 5, but we saw Z decrease after changes during season 5 which made ret non-viable and Paladins are holding on to their representation with healer builds that are still viable) then that means one thing must have happened. Y has increased by 13. That is the only way we could get that outcome, and that is exactly what we saw around patch 3.0x. When Y increases by a proportionally larger amount than X increases, resulting in Z increasing, it means one thing. Rets got buffed and can perform better in arenas.

The point is it's impossible to quantify just how much of the decrease was because of nerfs directly affecting performance, how much of it was due to "OMG WTF U NERFED ME IMA GONNA REROLL FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU," and how much of it was just skilled players(yes, there were skilled DKs among the crowd even in S5) burning out/rerolling for other reasons/other reasons people stop playing vs newer or just overall less skilled players getting into the class and dragging the numbers down.

More math. Y/X=Z. If X decreased because a ton of kids left the DK class due to nerfs, we would expect an INCREASE in Z. We didn't see an increase in Z, we saw a decrease. (Skilled players holding onto a 2k+ rating would not reroll on a large scale, likely only those that dropped below 2k and couldn't get back up, why reroll if you are still getting the gear and winning even if its harder? People don't reroll like they threaten they will on the forums.) That means that Y decreased a lot faster than X. Aka, the nerfs actually had an effect on player's ability to reach 2k+ in arenas.

The point you were trying to make there was a rather obvious one, and didn't require such measures. Granted, there is a bit of hypocrisy here, since I would think that the point that Im making that people make more DKs than other classes because of their hero class "status" is obvious and yet I'm going through all this, but meh.

I am not denying this, it is obvious that since there are more level 80 DKs than any other class that people often reroll DK, and it is obvious that they really aren't dead last like the numbers say. I am trying to explain that the numbers do show us hazy, fuzzy, blurred trends and that DK rep has dropped drastically in a short period of time when the total class pop has not changed so drastically, and this has meaning. Maybe they aren't dead last, but they certainly aren't first because "kids like hero classes" because that premise is simply not strong enough to cause the type of number increases and decreases we see with this math alone.

The thing is...there's only room for a certain number of people above the ratings you are looking at. The spread of classes is in part going to be determined by the skill of the people behind the avatars, not by the avatars themselves. This only becomes less apparent in extreme cases of an imbalance such as 3.0 retadins or "that day" warriors(referring to the extra talent point for a short time at 60, the birth of MS/Death Wish.) Of course the class balance is going to play a role, but it's not the only variable. The sort of "hazy" conclusions you reference is the kind of community....whining, dare I say, that so many of you DK's have been screaming out against since your class started getting nerfed away from being stupidly out of line. For more on the viewpoint of "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FACTS, THE PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE DOING X SHOULD EXACTLY MIRROR THE GENERAL POPULATION OR IM GOING TO THROW A FIT," see the works of Al Sharpton.
Unless you can come up with a better solution other than a simple "Buff me!" yes, it is a reason to keep quiet. It's not like buffs(or nerfs) aren't considered, they're just rejected at times. Oh look, there's that "DK complaining about Blizzard 'listening' to the community" bit I mentioned earlier.

I am not asking for buffs, it should be pretty clear that I have not done so once in this thread. I am speaking my mind AGAINST the new Scourge Strike which is a buff in many instances, but an awkward one that I, and from looking at the forums, alot of other DKs do not want. I want Scourge Strike to stay as it is now and figure out a less awkward way to make 1 SS > 2 BS if they feel like they have to (not taking reaping isn't a tragedy, Unholy is bloated and can't take Reaping anyways with all other PvE talents).

They'll make changes with or without community support, what we say isn't going to change that. They certainly didn't listen to mountains of beta and ptr feedback about issues in 3.0 until it spent some time on live servers. We're talking about the same group of devs that let druids run rampant in late TBC, Rets and DKs go nuts in S5, and PMR to do what it's been doing for years now. If you want to keep pissing into the wind, go ahead, I gave up on them a long time ago. Making WoW into an e-sport has no favorable outcome.

They do listen to the community, however, which is evidenced by this 3.3 version of Scourge Strike. The community asked for more SS damage and a reason for Armor Pen on gear for Unholy, and that's what we are getting. The problem is that we don't like how we are getting it, and we have every right to speak out against that. Blizzard listened about SS damage and Armor Pen, why not about this?

I wont be replying about my class balance math anymore. I stand firmly on my belief that vague trends concerning class balance can be seen from these simple calculations because "FotM rerollers" and friends do not have as large of an impact on the numbers as do patch changes, and I have stated my reasons for believing this.

I will respond concerning the new 3.3 Scourge Strike garbage that has been forced upon us, however.

[Tigercat]

This is useless. You can type Y/X = Z all you want, it's not going to make you look any better. It's like terrible players always claiming to use a rotation, thinking it makes them look better.


The number of total 2k players compared to every 80 seen in the last month has a LOT to do with the total number of DKs. I don't know how many times I have to say this for it to get through to you: There is an excessively high number of death knights due to their starting experience. You cannot fairly make the assumption that every class will have the same representation in a certain bracket when the number of people playing each class varies so wildly. The fact that your numbers include all classes is exactly why it is absolutely useless information.

How did you provide two ways someone could play a DK? You're making zero sense, again go back to my first arguement. As long as the number of DKs is so much higher than the others, your basic arguement is completely flawed. You can not claim that the percentage of DKs in high level arena teams should match the percentage of people playing the class.

Once again, you're completely ignoring the fact that the reason there are so many DKs out there is largely unrelated to pvp. I'm going to repeat this as many times as it takes to get the point across.

You missed my point about synergy. The idea is, once again, that there are other variables you are not accounting for. Arenas are competed in by teams, the classes other people play directly effect the viability of each class. Blizzard has already stated multiple times how any pvp-related change has a significant ripple effect due to this. You're not accounting for it, and honestly you can't.

You can't use Season 5 DK performance as a baseline for your arguements, unless you're asking to be made that overpowered again. OF COURSE the percentage of them in high rated teams went down, they couldn't faceroll a one button macro and win any more.

Then you go on to say, in effect, that nerfing or buffing a class is going to affect its performance. Thank you for that brilliant insight. The problem comes, yet again, with comparing the percentage of classes in high rated teams to their overall saturation in the game. YOU CAN NOT DO THIS. There is no rule Blizzard has written that says every class has to be equally represented in such a way. They do not go around scanning peoples' brain forcing them to reroll to keep the balance.

This is kind of like trying to explain to a communist why their ideas are not worth pursuing. In a perfect utopian world full of flowers and unicorns, maybe it can work. This is not a perfect world. The idea of each class having a 10% representation across the board is nice, but it will not happen.

The problem with scourge strike is one I knew would turn up eventually. The mechanic of using an attack based on weapon damage/attack power that ignores armor is very difficult to balance. They've been going back and forth on it with paladins as well. Show me a way to make it more agreeable to you that doesn't just involve buffing it. Until you can do that you're just shouting "BUFF PLX!" and are only worth the same amount of attention that all the other whiners are. You realize such an increase is NOT needed in pve, which means you're already apparently smarter than most DKs. Show us a solution.

[elseagoat]

The mechanic of using an attack based on weapon damage/attack power that ignores armor is very difficult to balance.

Frost Strike, Judgement, Envenom, anyone? These three attacks have seen very minimal changes, and their damage has been brought down to reasonable values considering their costs and yet they are still worthwhile to cast.

They've been going back and forth on it with paladins as well. Show me a way to make it more agreeable to you that doesn't just involve buffing it. Until you can do that you're just shouting "BUFF PLX!" and are only worth the same amount of attention that all the other whiners are. You realize such an increase is NOT needed in pve, which means you're already apparently smarter than most DKs. Show us a solution.

There are many solutions. One of them is insanely easy, and makes sense, but goes against Blizzards new philosophy of "Armor Piercing attacks must not be worth using" which does not make sense.

The first solution would be to return Scourge Strike to its 3.1 form. 45% of weapon damage plus 317.5, and then 11% per disease. With the resilience changes and the removal of 5% damage from desecration that occured last patch, returning Scourge Strike to these values would not buff Scourge Strike back to its full power in PvP.

Here is another solution that follows along with this retarded philosophy that Blizzard has put on Scourge Strike alone while ignoring every other ability.

Scourge Strike
Deals 50% of weapon damage as Physical damage plus 400, ignoring 20% of the target's armor. In addition, for each of your diseases on your target, you will deal an additional strike to the target for 35% of the Physical damage done as Shadow damage, but each Shadow damage strike is incapable of a critical effect and will reduce the damage dealt by subsequent Shadow damage strikes by 30%. (This means with three diseases on a target, you will hit the target for 50% of weapon damage as Physical damage, then strike the target 3 additional times, with each strike dealing 35%, 25% and 18% of the Physical damage done as Shadow damage, therefore making the dispel penalty not so harsh, if you have 3 diseases and get one shaved off, you arent hit with a 30% damage reduction on the shadow portion. This is essentially a modified form of the 3.3 Scourge Strike, the difference being that it has traded off the ability to double crit for a passive 20% armor pen. The double crit functionality was resulting in FUCKING HUGE scourge strikes when it occured and offered a significant damage bonus, but it also made the range of damage so huge that you have no idea what to expect. This suggestion lowers the damage range and reduces the penalty for disease curing, while leaving the average damage output about the same as the 3.3 Scourge Strike, and it is in line with Blizzards philosophy.)


Other options people have posted by some have been to leave Scourge Strike as it is now but put it on Unholy Blight, and give Unholy Blight a secondary effect to make it worth taking for hybrid builds or low levels.

Then there was also the idea to give Blood Strike the sunder armor effect for unholy DKs combined with the new Scourge Strike. This would work too as it would alleviate the need to gem for Armor Pen as Unholy.



Bottom line though, if you want to make progress with Scourge Strike, it has to do more damage than two Blood Strikes and there can't be a catch to it, Scourge Strike used to work, but Blizzard combined damage nerfs to the ability with damage nerfs to PvP Deathknights and damage nerfs across the board from resilience, basically they went overboard, and could have done all the damage nerfing without touching Scourge Strike and seen where it ended up. If it was still OP, then thats fine nerf it but they nerfed an ability that did exactly what it was supposed to and players always took, in the same patch where the ability was already going to take a ton of flak from other changes not having to do with Scourge Strike.


The massive reliance on all three diseases being up as well as the titanic and random damage range is not what any DK wants, having to gem for armor pen is just an additional bonus to all this crap.

[elseagoat]

Hell, making the ability an exact copy of Obliterate with a built in glyph would be better than the 3.3 version.

They want physical damage, just give us physical damage, not this half shadow half physical crap with the capability to oneshot people once in a blue moon but hits for 500 if someone starts to dispel diseases.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...id=1&pageNo=33

[Gnomatose]

As recently as yesterday evening, I was on the PTR at the Training Dummy, and Scourge Strike was doing just fine. Let's wait and see on it.

[Gnomatose]

Hell, making the ability an exact copy of Obliterate with a built in glyph would be better than the 3.3 version.

They want physical damage, just give us physical damage, not this half shadow half physical crap with the capability to oneshot people once in a blue moon but hits for 500 if someone starts to dispel diseases.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...id=1&pageNo=33

If you get a dispeller, find him and CC him...simple.

[Tigercat]

Frost Strike, Judgement, Envenom, anyone? These three attacks have seen very minimal changes, and their damage has been brought down to reasonable values considering their costs and yet they are still worthwhile to cast.


There are many solutions. One of them is insanely easy, and makes sense, but goes against Blizzards new philosophy of "Armor Piercing attacks must not be worth using" which does not make sense.

The first solution would be to return Scourge Strike to its 3.1 form. 45% of weapon damage plus 317.5, and then 11% per disease. With the resilience changes and the removal of 5% damage from desecration that occured last patch, returning Scourge Strike to these values would not buff Scourge Strike back to its full power in PvP.

Here is another solution that follows along with this retarded philosophy that Blizzard has put on Scourge Strike alone while ignoring every other ability.

Scourge Strike
Deals 50% of weapon damage as Physical damage plus 400, ignoring 20% of the target's armor. In addition, for each of your diseases on your target, you will deal an additional strike to the target for 35% of the Physical damage done as Shadow damage, but each Shadow damage strike is incapable of a critical effect and will reduce the damage dealt by subsequent Shadow damage strikes by 30%. (This means with three diseases on a target, you will hit the target for 50% of weapon damage as Physical damage, then strike the target 3 additional times, with each strike dealing 35%, 25% and 18% of the Physical damage done as Shadow damage, therefore making the dispel penalty not so harsh, if you have 3 diseases and get one shaved off, you arent hit with a 30% damage reduction on the shadow portion. This is essentially a modified form of the 3.3 Scourge Strike, the difference being that it has traded off the ability to double crit for a passive 20% armor pen. The double crit functionality was resulting in FUCKING HUGE scourge strikes when it occured and offered a significant damage bonus, but it also made the range of damage so huge that you have no idea what to expect. This suggestion lowers the damage range and reduces the penalty for disease curing, while leaving the average damage output about the same as the 3.3 Scourge Strike, and it is in line with Blizzards philosophy.)


Other options people have posted by some have been to leave Scourge Strike as it is now but put it on Unholy Blight, and give Unholy Blight a secondary effect to make it worth taking for hybrid builds or low levels.

Then there was also the idea to give Blood Strike the sunder armor effect for unholy DKs combined with the new Scourge Strike. This would work too as it would alleviate the need to gem for Armor Pen as Unholy.



Bottom line though, if you want to make progress with Scourge Strike, it has to do more damage than two Blood Strikes and there can't be a catch to it, Scourge Strike used to work, but Blizzard combined damage nerfs to the ability with damage nerfs to PvP Deathknights and damage nerfs across the board from resilience, basically they went overboard, and could have done all the damage nerfing without touching Scourge Strike and seen where it ended up. If it was still OP, then thats fine nerf it but they nerfed an ability that did exactly what it was supposed to and players always took, in the same patch where the ability was already going to take a ton of flak from other changes not having to do with Scourge Strike.


The massive reliance on all three diseases being up as well as the titanic and random damage range is not what any DK wants, having to gem for armor pen is just an additional bonus to all this crap.

I'll give you credit, I kinda like that version, but I'm thinking Blizzard wouldn't go for it. Too many different numbers flying around, when they seem to be wanting to move away from "mathy" abilities. That said, considering they just added to the laughably long Shadowform tooltip yet again, apparently they aren't against making exceptions.

[elseagoat]

I'll give you credit, I kinda like that version, but I'm thinking Blizzard wouldn't go for it. Too many different numbers flying around, when they seem to be wanting to move away from "mathy" abilities. That said, considering they just added to the laughably long Shadowform tooltip yet again, apparently they aren't against making exceptions.

Well, I will admit that part of the reason I divided the shadow portion of the strike into separate strikes is that I am not a big fan of abilities that use a single weapon to produce two separate numbers. I don't know why, it just irks me, it cuts what could be a big pretty number in half and the number 2 is something that bothers me unless it is a mutilate or stormstrike mechanic.

I will say though, that the 3.3 version of SS is already extremely mathy do to the way that it is designed to double dip in beneficial effects and not anti-beneficial ones. Specifically how it double dips with crit damage bonuses and Vicious Strikes.

Dividing the Shadow portion into three separate attacks, one attack per disease, with a diminishing value as you get more and more diseases and making this portion unable to crit does two things.

First, it makes it so that when you have 3 diseases up and you start scourge striking, you don't get penalized so hard with the first few dispels and the dispels only really start to take big chunks of your damage out when the dispeller starts getting rid of your last disease or so.

Second, by making the shadow portion unable to crit, it eliminates the mathy double dipping in crit part of the ability and normalizes the damage range to standard values (crit and noncrit, without a massive range from noncrit, single phys crit and shadow noncrit, shadow crit and phys noncrit, and double crit for whopping huge amounts of damage). The double crit for huge numbers mechanic makes the ability feel a lot like the old Lightning Overload, where it had a very small chance to proc but when it did, it aced the fuck out of your opponent. By confining it to just a normal crit noncrit range, you eliminate some of the damage potential in PvE meaning the ability leaves room for a pick-me-up. This is where the armor pen comes in. Now the ability hits harder on plate, doesn't nuke the shit out of cloth (because armor pen has greater effect on plate and less benefit on cloth) and the damage is normalized at around the same as it would be if you factored in double crits.

Double crits being the top end damage of the ability, if you shave that off, the average damage does down, thus you move the entire damage range up a bit with baseline armor pen on the ability (which also makes it feel more like it fits in the Unholy tree) which moves the average up to be back where it was. And voila, the ability has the same average damage in PvE, and isn't the most RNG primary attack in the game.

[elseagoat]

As recently as yesterday evening, I was on the PTR at the Training Dummy, and Scourge Strike was doing just fine. Let's wait and see on it.

Thats the thing, it hits very hard on dummies and very hard on cloth.

But we didn't need a single target damage boost on PvE targets and Cloth targets. We are struggling against Paladin Healers, Resto Druids, Resto Shamans in arenas and dispellers and making our primary attack mitigated by armor completely hurts us in this respect.

The new Scourge Strike suffers far more from dispels as well, having a higher percentage of its total damage shifted to whether or not you have a disease on the target.

But against plate targets, I have read reports of Unholy DKs in premade gear doing 2k crits shadow and physical combined, which is a pretty small number considering that if we can't provide burst or much CC, then all we bring to a team is Chains of Ice and Strangulate and Deathgrip to position enemies in range of our Bladestorming Warriors and silence healers during that time.