Heal the World of Warcaft

[innocent51]

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....773513&sid=1#7
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Introduction:
I am thinking about writing this for a few years. The time was just never right to sit down and start it. But Cataclysm is probably already quite close to beta and its now or never to write down my thoughts about the current state of the game.
I will try not only to claim that this or this is bad, suck or whatever but to bring ideas to fix the issue. I won’t either come with a long list about what I like in WoW and how cool I think the game is. I’m playing it since very early beta and never cancelled my account. Moreover if I take the time to write and think about it, it’s definitely because I do care.
Also before you start flaming me because of how genuine I am to think the developers will ever care about whatever I can say. I know there are very few chances for this thread to go up all the way to the top but I don’t think I would be smarter not to do anything.
If we want to save the world every action counts 

(last time editing) You may see here issues that have already been discussed and/or solved. What I have not removed is here because it is necessary to understand the whole logic (for example: Burst -> HP -> MB/MS).

Just a few words about who I am. I am nearly 30 and as you can read I’m not native English speaker. I’ve started to play Everquest ten years ago when the Ruins of Kunark expansion launched and I’ve been extremely hardcore in a world top 5 guild until GoD. Then I’ve played to a bunch of other MMOs, beta tested and was even involved into development of a free flash soft, but never more than four or five month in a raw. So I’m really an EQ guy. I try not to fall into the elitist nostalgia thing but EverQuest is clearly a constant reference.
About WoW. I think I can define myself as a highly average player. I’ve played US and euro betas, then all the way until now with a few breaks here and there (took a peek to WAR, AoC, Champions Online) but never really left. I’ve been sometimes very hardcore, most of the time casual. I always was in raiding guilds, never world top guilds, sometimes on serverfirst but generally into the mass of these mid tier family guilds.
As for PvP it’s about the same. I’ve been rank 12 in vanilla, over 2k arena rating with five different characters but never Gladiator or anything great, really.
I read news, patch notes, EJ, MMO-champ’, Arena Junkies and stuff daily but never got into an expansion’s beta test. I blog weekly on my guild’s website but it’s mostly jokes (something close to old EQ Legacy of Steel’s news page).
Through those five years I’ve -really- (I mean both serious PvP and raid) played a priest, a hunter, a rogue, a warrior, a shaman, a druid and a death knight.
So all in all I’m hardcorely average.




Heal The World:
One very sad thing about the evolution of WoW’s world (that sounds weird, should I say Warcraft’s World?) is that it is getting emptier everyday. The same thing happened to EverQuest with Nexus’s and PoK’s portals. With travel ease the world is dying.
I’m not saying I love to walk through the Barrens for 20 minutes but with the Warlock’s indoor portal, the Battleground interface and the dungeon finder one almost doesn’t have any reason to move out Dalaran. Patches after patches the world is getting empty. All these beautiful sad empty zones are crying.

How to heal?
You cannot step back and remove teleports. People just wouldn’t understand, heck, I’ll be mad too!
What you can do is give reasons to go here and there. Daily quest are an option, but gear vendors NPC could be one too. Maybe the weekly raid quest may involve a small travel chain in Azeroth. Whatever it is, the goal is to force players to use the space.

Another good addition might be road speed.
Giving an out of combat +50% mount and run speed on the roads not only would really help lower level character but would ease the pain of having to go though the old world for high levels.
Moreover it would locate players around the same area.
What brings me to…




World PvP:
Let’s get this clear. There are PvE servers where people create their characters because they don’t want to fight against the other faction outside of Battlegrounds and Arenas. There are PvP servers where players like to be able to kill each other whenever they want. And I don’t think they are particularly under populated.
No one likes to be ganked by an overgeared, overleveled character or when you have the wrong gear, spec or are fighting a monster. Actually, no one likes to die, do you?
I don’t. But I created all my characters on PvP servers. I like the thrill, the danger, it makes your brain works faster even when farming or questing.
I can tell most of my good memories in WoW come from world PvP situations, even when I was horribly slaughtered. Stranglethorn, Tarren Mill, Kargath, Silithus, Black Temple’s meeting stone, Throne of the Elements, Sketis, Quel’Danas…
All of this feels so gone.

Though the ages, there are a few things that slowly killed the world’s PvP.
Battlemasters, flying mounts, sanctuaries, indoor warlock’s portals, teleports and fast travels, dungeon finder…
Don’t get me wrong, I love most of these features (except maybe sanctuaries) but they still are PvP killers.
I understand the nostalgia of most ex-DAoC hardcore players even if I’ve never been a very big fan of this game. WoW almost had some of this thrill, this fun, but not anymore.


How to heal?
First of all I think World of Warcraft’s development team must stop trying to protect players on PvP servers. People that play on PvE servers don’t risk anything, those on PvP servers have chosen to play the game that way.

Have more non-flight zones where you can PvP: like Azeroth cities, daily quest locations…

Flying inertia: Flight speed may be reduced for the first 5 seconds after take off and any attack within this time will drop you down the mount.

Road speed and more worldy daily/weekly quest would bring players out towns and focus them into the same areas.

Reward “ganking”: give more honor point per out-battleground kills. Quest like “kill 10 dudes in this zone” are at the moment not rewarding enough (since hardly anyone does them).




Damage, healing and hit points
This (and the next) section is about both PvP and PvE feature but affects definitely more PvP.
We hear and read a lot that damage, burst damage in PvP is too high.
Well, it is true, of course. But healing is also way too strong. Without MS-like debuff, every healer can full heal almost anyone in a pair of GCDs without burning any major cooldown.

So both damage and healing are too high, great.
Actually the real point is that hp pools are too low in the current state of the game.
Tank get mashed down in less than a second on a few fights, even 1k+ resilience PvPers get cleaved to death about as fast and healers mostly end up hammering the biggest heal they have.
Almost everyone could use at least a 30% hitpoints boost. But that wouldn’t be enough.

Healer’s gameplay would also be improved by having to choose between mana efficiency and HPS. When a tank or some raider dies it shouldn’t be because one was lacking this damn GCD but because of bad choices on mana management or bad coordination between healer’s cooldown abilities and target’s defence cooldown abilities.

As for PvP, death should be the result of good interrupting, crowd control, switch and LoS and not of mashing cooldowns waiting for the good combined random generated number to blow up the target.

To conclude, buff hit points but not damage and healing. Make healing spells either good for HPS or for HPM.
But we’ll face another problem and that brings me to…




Mortal Strike-like debuff (MS) and Mana Burn (MB).
If you cannot burst down someone and if mana becomes a bigger issue for healers, then MS and MB, already very strong abilities, become terribly overpowered.

I would recommend just losing MS. I don’t see how you can avoid it forever.
At this point none of the three classes who have it would dramatically underperform without. I mean compared to other dps classes.
Yes it does come with a few adjustments (more on that later) but even without, they would still be viable.

As for Mana Burn, I think the important point is that manaburn shouldn’t be the best option ever for manaburners (almost that way at the moment and totally will if hp goes up).
MB should cost X% of caster’s current mana pool and burn Y% of target’s current mana pool, having X > Y. Not hugely superior but still.
Manaburn should be for a team a way to push up their superiority. We heal less, we damage more, we handle the fight better so we can allow ourselves to burn your mana and finish you off. It shouldn’t be a one-way ticket to win by drying everyone out of mana as fast as possible.
Warlock’s mana drain may also have a negative impact on lifetap like a healing debuff.
Hunter shouldn’t burn mana, more on this later.



Crowd Control
This is probably the section I will get the most flamed for. Trust me I really tried to take the problem under many angles and I’m not writing this to provoke anyone.

I don’t like the word “overpowered” because it’s always arguable. But there are two main kinds of crowd controls in World of Warcraft that are extremely frustrating.

First comes all the fear-like mechanisms. Hex, freezing trap, fear (all of them), nova, roots… basically everything that doesn’t break on any damage but after “some” damage.
These CC should always break after 10% of victim’s current health pool is lost. Some glyph may bring this number to 15% but none of them are design or balanced to either break after one pet’s hit or to be some kind of 6 seconds stun.

And now we reach this inevitable point.
The most frustrating mechanisms in World of Warcraft: Stun.
In order to help the eventual trolling and flaming of this thread I will state it in an easily quotable line.
You must remove stun from the game.
Stun is a problematic mechanism since day one. It’s the only crowd control against which you cannot do anything. I know there is Divine Shield, and then we had trinkets, and then very later Thunderstorm and Pain Suppression (I voluntarily exclude stun prevention or dispel/removing).
But still, stun is the one and only crowd control that allows you basically nothing but to let yourself go down with no chance to strike back or have a clever use of defensive abilities.
And this is frustrating. It makes people hating their playing time and we don’t want this.
Ret paladin dps might have been an issue, HARP rogue burst also but at the end of the day the real frustration comes from being mashed down to death without any chance to compete.

I believe World of Warcraft have enough tools to avoid the usage of stuns. Silence, Disarm, Immobilise, even Pacify at least allows to move and eventually take a clever positioning.
Of course you can always get rooted AND pacified but it’s not that easy.
Combining those features would allow more skill to show off and less frustration to grow without completely crippling the classes that use stuns.

Especially to my fellow rogues, you guys have to understand that the disappearance of stuns would actually make the class better since you are its biggest victim. Low armour, dodge based, cooldown based, stun is a great rogue tool but it’s also its worse enemy.

Of course, more comes on this later.

So:
- Remove Stun
- Remove Terrorise (that is technically a stun)
- Create a new player-casted CC “Pacify” (Cannot do anything but moving)
- Create a new CC with its own DR “Pin” (a root that interrupts spell casting. Not a CS, only interrupts current cast.)




Unique and rare buffs
When the first WotLK preview came out I was one of the first claiming that you were destroying the class identity by giving out unique buffs to a bunch of other specs.
But after one year I completely understand how good this modification was, bring the player not the class.
I even would like to see you going a bit further by offering at least another 20% melee haste option and bloodlust and rebirth equivalents, and more on this later.




Gear usage
Another “more on this later” section.
Just as reminder of gear usage:
- Cloth: 3 classes, 9 specs
- Physical Leather: 2 classes, 4 specs
- Caster Leather: 1 class, 2 specs
- Physical Mail: 2 classes, 4 specs
- Caster Mail: 1 class, 2 spec
- Physical Plate: 3 classes, 6 specs
- Tank Plate: 3 classes, 5 specs
- Caster Plate: 1 class, 1 spec

The “spec” number is averagely relevant since DK can tank or dps with all 3 specs and druids can both be bear or cat nowadays but it gives an insight to compare equivalent class numbered armour type.




Achievements
Alternate characters have become, mostly with the major change to the access to last tier raid gear, an important feature in WoW. I don’t feel altoholic myself even if I played a bunch of toons over the years but it’s very good in many situations to be able to spawn a pocket tank or a pocket healer to deal with the daily group, raid or PvP situation.
Along WoW history many changes have been made to make levelling and low level life’s easier. Even if many people doesn’t realise that the 3.3 patch is probably the biggest reroll patch ever. But even before, xp bonus, heirlooms, and more have made our alternate character’s life better.
This is good. Playing a new character, a new class, even just a new race or a new faction gives a new interest to the game. It makes people keep playing, and we want that.

Now some big painful thing comes in the way. These are achievements.
I do know quite a few people around me that have lost some interest into the game but wouldn’t consider rerolling because of all the work done into achievements on their character.
Some finally found something new to go for, some did actually start another toon but a couple of them just ended quitting the game and we don’t want that.

Cataclysm is coming out with two new races and a bunch of new class/race combo. We all know it is way less exiting than a new class, even with a cool new starting zone and a bunch of let’s-not-say-imbalanced racial abilities.
But we still want people to play goblins and tauren shadowpriest (do we? More on this later!).

All this to say: Achievements must be made account-wide.
Now this maybe causes some theorically easily fixed issues. If I have an orc exalted to Ogrimmar, I shouldn’t score points to win exalted Stormwind on my human. Mounts and vanity pets should stack between all the characters as long as they are unique.
Actually Mounts, tabard and mini pets maybe should just be in a shared interface.

As for the rewards I wouldn’t be shocked to see my troll druid allowed to use my purple proto drake or my goblin warlock followed by a perky pug a level one.
It’s also not dramatic to share titles even if some cool feature like “Son/Daughter of” could be also nice to use on characters that did not achieve the title by themselves. And there would go Bob Son of The Astral Walker, Jena Daughter of the Horde, Elder’s Son Jimmy, Marshall’s Daughter Pamela or Leeroy Son of Jenkins.




Tauren priest and paladin
I have been talking a lot with some friends about this section. The topic has been discussed over and over and mostly everything has been already said about it. Moreover if there is any slight chance to my message to have any echo to the dev’s ears this particular point have absolutely no chance to change anything.
But I’m not deleting it. I can’t help it, it is what I think, maybe it will just bring me more trolling.

Most new class/race combos are cool. Troll druids are so Gurubashi Empire, human and undead hunters are perfectly logical, dwarven shamen feel like Nordic gods and even Night Elves mages fits very well the lost knowledge of the high-born concept.

But tauren priests and paladins, guys seriously…
Tauren are close to the nature, nature is like the opposite of the light. One is chaos when the other is order; one is wild when the other is civilized. Don’t try to fool me with this sun and moon worship; it is just nowhere close to the paladin spirit.
On the other hand undeads could completely be paladins, there is actually quite a bunch of undead paladins in the game. As for priest anything would be better than tauren, heck, even orcs, they have warlocks after all.
If you really want to give something for taurens anything else would be better. There are tauren mages in the game, geomancers, and they clearly are one of the smartest race on Azeroth. Even stalking scout tauren rogue would be less ridiculous in stealth than in Shadowform!




Classes
Disclaimer:
There is a lot more to do and to say on many classes. My silence doesn’t mean I don’t see an issue or think it’s perfectly balanced (well it’s never perfectly balanced anyways) but I will not talk about what I don’t know enough or if I don’t have any solution to offer.



Druid
Amazing design overall. I think druids are the best class coming out Lich King.

They may deserve a spell interruption on feral charge (cat).
Speaking about Feral Charge, a good option would be to have a core Feral Charge for every druid but to add in deep feral (somewhere in the 25ies) a talent to add the root+CS feature on the charge.
The bear charge out of a melee struggle should be an option for healers and moonkins as long as it doesn’t add more control.

Single target bear tanking gameplay is now quite fine with Faery Fire entering the rotation but the AoE Maul/Swipe spam is pretty boring, efficient but boring, maybe swipe is too good and druids may need positional heavy aggro AoE attack. Demo roar for example could be a front cone attack with a 10 seconds cooldown/duration.

Note: Maul, Heroic Strike and Rune Strike are all very spammy, maybe less for the last one but their gameplay is quite poor. I don’t have a great idea to make them better but I wish I did.

A not so unimportant matter is druid forms. Druids basically spend their life into their spec forms. Feral forms were revised and its great (if you play cat and night elf stay away from my grandmother) but I really think balance and healing druid forms need some love.

Stuns:
- Bash is pacify
- Pound is pin + silence
- Maim is pacify




Death Knight
They main problem for Death Knights in both PvP and PvE is the disease system.
It’s one of the core systems of the class; I am not asking to remove it but to reform it.
Here is the situation:
If diseases are not important enough into de DK dps rotation, player end up ignoring them in some specs (during the first month of Lich King) but if they are too important it leads to either a too big damage output on static PvE events (current state of the game) or a grand weakness against flahs dps targets (Marrogwar’s spines, XT’s heart…) and of course against dispel in PvP (season 7 pre 3.3).

I’ve been thinking to many ways to fix le issue. Some kind of Unstable Disease would do the trick for PvP but it’s not new and actually may be too successful.

So I came up with the idea of Disease Resonance.
The Disease Resonance would be a stackable buff on the death knight that applies every time a new disease is on a target and for the time of the disease (modified by necrosis): one application for frost fever, one for blood plague and one for ebon plague/crypt fever. Of course spreading diseases won’t give you 1238 stacks but you could disease a mob and instantly switch to another and still be able to deal your full strike damage without having to re apply the diseases.
The dispel of the disease would also only stop the DoT damage but the Death Knight would still hit as he has all the disease were on it for the duration of the Disease Resonance.
It actually sound complicated but it really is not.

If it ever helps to understand, tooltips should look like:
Disease Resonance
Passive Self
Every time the Death Knight applies a new disease on a target he gains a Disease Resonance that improves his Strike’s damages.
Stack up to 3 times.
(Well actually 2, and 3 for Unholy)

Blood Strike Rank 6
1 Blood Melee range
Requires a melee weapon
Instantly strike the enemy, causing 40% weapon damage plus X, total damage increased by 12.5% for each level of Disease Resonance.


Another Death Knight issue is with what ease they can spread diseases.
While it’s sometimes not a big deal, facing Cleansing Totem or Prayer of Mending it becomes a way too good tool in many situations, and in PvE AoE events.
I would recommend making Pestilence only spread one disease (actually two for unholy since ebon plague applies automatically), the newest, and combining the incredibly strong Minor Glyph of Pestilence with Major Glyph of Disease effect.
Now I know this would horribly suck for Death Knight AoE tanking that’s why what’s next comes next.

When tanking AoE as a feral druid or a protection paladin is breaindead button mashing, it is extremely frustrating as a Death Knight to deal with unexpected addition of mobs.
Death knights lacks an anytime AoE aggro ability that cost no runes. I won’t enter a long speech on that, DK tanks know what I’m talking about.

I think a good option would be:
Carrion Swarm
40 Runic Power 20 yd range
Instant
The Death Knight fires a wave of carrion creeps in a frontal cone that deals [Half a Death Coil] as shadow damages to all enemies in the area. This ability causes a high amount of threat.


Another concern about Death Knight class is, besides a few successful frost build in early S6 and the full CC immune DRW blood burst in middle S5, it’s inability to get out the unholy tree for PvP. It’s almost true for PvE dps too.
A good way to fix this issue would be to give a permanent controlled 30 sec cooldown ghoul to DK’s core ability set. Unholy specced ghoul will still benefits more from strength.
It would also cool to see ghoul frenzy changed for a runic power based ability called “abominable serum” transforming the ghoul into an abomination for a short period of time gaining chain grip instead of leap and a PBAoE fart knockdown instead of gnaw!


Not extremely important but chain of ice behave weirdly with Chilblains, you should just be able to have both up on the target without stacking but making impossible to move faster than 50%. At the moment CoI overwrites Chilblains and it’s impossible to reapply Chilblains even after 5 seconds when the CoI snare is weaker.


Raise ally may also work as a 2 minutes duration rebirth (you could actually still look like a ghoul while being able to use all your normal abilities), sharing a bit of druid’s uberness.


You shouldn’t be able to grip thing without a “charge path”, it leads to ridiculous abuses of arena maps.


Just one word about some crazy ideas, maybe Unholy death knight could wear caster plate and dual wield caster swords and maces. Making them what enhancement shamens have almost been with flame-tongue patch during Sunwell’s beta test. I mean real hybrid caster/melee. It would give a use rotting caster plate and lighten physical dps plate desirability. This is not place for me to enter in the depth of my ideas on this but there are real options.


Stuns:
- Gnaw is pin
- Icebound Fortitude Immunes to impairing movement effects (ie pin, root, snares, not pacify).



Hunter
Hunters are going to lose their mana, intelligence and gain focus instead. So I heard from the Cataclysm reports. I find it cool. Mana was always either a non issue, either a frustrating problem for hunters.

Now the viper sting issue comes out. Like I said earlier mana burn will become a very dangerous situation. Having a non mana class being able to drain mana is problematic.

Beast mastering hunter is also a good client to be awarded of a talented Bloodlust-like ability.

Eagle Eye: Also grants a 5 seconds see invisible (ie vs mages, succubus, sentry totem) buff to the caster.

Eyes of the Beast: Grants a strong perception bonus (ie vs stealth) while seeing through your pet’s eyes.


Stuns:
- Intimidation is pacify



Mage
Stuns:
- I never quite understood why frost mages ever needed another crowd control on the top of everything else. Making Deep Freeze instant Freezing Trap-like (ie fear) would be fair enough.



Paladin
Losing the 10 (or 15 glyphed) yards “stop” effect on Hammer of Justice may have ugly result on retribution paladin. Giving them a snare would quite ruin the particularity or Ret’s gameplay. I would think a nice tool would be a Glyph of Divine Storm giving a 50% run speed buff for 2 seconds after using Divine Storm.

I also miss the old BC’s paladin caster tank. I think with Death Knights and warriors there are enough clients for the tanking plate armor pieces and with good talents and combining tank jewellery and caster plate there are good options. Bears tank in rogue gear anyways.


Stuns:
- Hammer of Justice is Pacify



Priest
I know a few priests that would really like to embrace a main DPS role without having to go into the Shadow Concept. I’m sure it’s very much doable through talents as feral and death knight talent tree are built even if I don’t come up with any great idea.


Stuns:
- Psychic Horror is 3 pin + 10 sec disarm



Rogue
The rogue class is probably the most affected by the changes I suggest. I mean affected, not nerfed.
Like I said earlier, rogue is the weakest class against stun. When you are caught into another rogue’s stun lock or under the effect of any other class’s stun you cannot use your precious defensive cooldowns you’re class is based on or have any benefit of your high dodge value.
Something you must understand is that nothing my CC system reduces your chances to dodge, that is overall a massive buff for both hunters and rogues.


Just a side note, Shadowstep should give instead of costing energy (some kind of King of the Jungle’d Tiger Fury) and Honor Among Thieves give 20% raid melee haste.


Blind should also be “protected” as fear, hex or freezing trap to allow more reliability on a heavy cooldown.


Stuns (not just stuns because rogues are special people):
- Cheap Shot is a good strike between the legs, trust me you cannot move and you drop down everything to check if the stuff is still there but you still can scream (ie cast) for you mother = pin + desarm
- Kidney Shot cuts your breath and only allow you to run away = Pacify
- Garrotte strangulates you hard = pin + silence

A very important point is that Cheap Shot should deal about half the damage of an ambush and KS about 30% of an eviscerate. If rogue are unable to completely lockdown their target they must do damage in return.
Gouge should also deal a good chunk of bleeding damage and not be broken but bleed.



Shaman
Shaman totems are overall a cool feature but when it comes to pure gameplay it is sometimes quite bothering, even with the new call of totems. First, when the group is moving, on 5 men, PvP or even some fights where a lot of running around is involved there are range issues. The shaman ends up dropping totems again and again and again.
Purely for PvP the weakness of totems, even with stoneclaw actually, makes shaman buffs easily destroyed by any class, or even pets.

What I would suggest is to keep the totem system for all the “active totems” (I’ll do a list) and to change static “buff totems” to a new “Shaman Song System”.

First of all I would like to say: even tho it feels bardish, songs perfectly fits the shaman concept. In the tribe the knowledge is held by the elder, the shaman, and this lore is comes to the tribe men as an oral legacy, by storytelling and singing.

Songs would somehow act like paladin auras.
A shaman would be able to sing 4 songs at a time (one per element). Songs buff group/raid allies within 40 yards. Activating a song cost no mana but has a 2 seconds casting time that cannot be interrupted with counterspells or movement (ie can be casted while running). Silence however does drop all the shaman songs.

Shaman songs:
- Fire Resistance Song
- Flametongue Song
- Frost Resistance Song
- Mana Spring Song
- Nature Resistance Song
- Stoneskin Song
- Strength of Earth Song
- Windfury Song

Shaman totems:
- Cleansing Totem
- Earth Elemental Totem
- Earthbind Totem
- Fire Elemental Totem
- Grounding Totem
- Healing Stream Totem
- Magma Totem
- Searing Totem
- Sentry Totem
- Stoneclaw Totem
- Tremor Totem

Of course the shaman will be able to use four songs and four totems, so able to keep buffs rolling and use cool abilities.

Totem of Wrath talent will now have 2 effects:
- Applies a 3% crit debuff on all targets within 40yd of any Fire Totem of the shaman.
- Make Flametongue Song better to match old ToW’s spellpower’s value.


New Sentry Totem:
Summons an invisible Totem at your feet for 30 seconds.
It fires a static shock for 700 nature damages every 5 seconds to all creatures within 10 yards.

Far Sight: Also grants a 5 seconds see invisible buff to the caster.



Warlock
The main concern about warlock is in my opinion the shard system. This is being changed and previews seem cool so I’ll just shut my mouth.


Besides that a lot a warlocks feels a bit bored after five years of the imp/suc/void. Maybe its time to bring out a new core demon to the warlock toolbox (actually wotlk was quite a better “time” for it conceptwise).

I think a Crypt Fiend would be a nice addition. Hunter-like pet firing ranged physical attacks, with two main abilities that would be:

Lurk
Instant (toggle) 1 min cooldown
The Crypt Fiend lurks into the ground. While lurked the Fiend cannot attack or be attacked but it gains a massive health and mana regeneration.
(The demon keeps moving under earth but only the warlock himself can see where his pet is while lurked, that can allow nice Web Warp ambushes with clever pet hold. If commanded to attack while lurked the Fiend will just try to stick to its target from beneath the ground.)

Web
30yd range 30 sec cooldown
Encases the target in sticky webs, preventing movement for 4 sec.
(Root)

Web Warp
20yd range 1 min cooldown
Channels a beam of webbing, rendering the target unable to move for 3 sec. When the effect ends, the target will be encased in webs, incapacitating them for 10 sec. If the webs surrounding the targets are killed, the target will be released.

The cocoon has about 2k hit points.
So what’s cool with Web Warp is that both allies and enemies can kill the cocoon. That means you have to be carefull while mindlessly tab/attacking or AoEing but on the other hand it’s technically not dispelable (but any class can remove it).

The 3 seconds cast is long but the 10 seconds is also extremely strong if no one cares about it.



Warrior
The first thing about warriors is the double scaling with gear. Vanilla have seen warrior going from “rock” to “The Rock” as claims Mute in the great World of Roguecraft. But truth is every expansion has been the same for warriors: pretty much weak against everyone at first to grossly overpowered when stats and gear flows at the end. Of course, BC was better than Vanilla and Wrath better than BC but you still can feel the same evolution.
The rage system is cool but I don’t think you have any other options at this state but to purely normalise rage generation to weapon speed.

It is also quite interesting to keep going with the danger to hit a warrior. When every crit swing gives you a full bar of rage you pretty much Heroic Strike most of the time and hammer all you abilities on cooldown.
With normalisation you can play on how much extra damage the warrior will be able to deal when he is receiving damage. I think the risk to “piss off” a warrior by attacking him is a cool strategic element. As a reference I would say the season two state of the game for rage generation was quite fine.


MS bebuff goes away, oh yes it will.
I guess Mortal Strike (the actual warrior ability) could easily bring the 3% crit received debuff on the target.
As for Unrelenting Assault it has to go too. The mechanism is nice tho, maybe it should only reduce magic damage dealt but for 10 seconds.


Now, after years of warrioring myself I always thought the biggest problems with the class what its lack of game options. Wrath of the Lich King was probably the best warrior “patch” ever: recklessness/retal/SW cooldowns, UA, Juggernaut, TG, Enraged Regen… those are completely game changing and pretty amazing.
I would still suggest two other things.

Intimidating Shout was always the most frustrating ability for me.
First the effect on the main target is kina weird, who wants an attack that works better if you can cast it on a nearby critter?
I would make the effect on the first target not be broken by bleeds (like the old Maim).
The range should also be 20 yards for the intimidated target and 8 yards fear around the warrior (the concept is that the warrior shouts so loud that the target cannot do anything and every one around runs away).

I know it’s also strong because of its inability to be dispelled but two minutes really is a pain. Only one minute would probably works fine (don’t forget MS debuff is gone!).


Another addition, which comes partly from my DAoC days, is grapple.

Tooltip:
Grapple
25 rage Melee range
Instant 2 min cooldown
The warrior starts struggling in a close hand to hand melee with an enemy or protects a group member with his own body. While grappling the warrior cannot do anything. The target is pacified for 6 seconds.
Any damage dealt or healing done to the warrior or the grappled target is equally shared between the two.
The armor, avoidance and resilience calculated are always those of the grappled target.

As for the “effect” I was thinking to the kobolds on Beasts of Northrend event (now imagine a taunren warrior grappling a gnome…).


This tool has many possible uses (and I guess abuses).
On an enemy:
- The warrior runs on a warlock, starts fighting him. At the point when he is full doted he grapples the warlock to share the DoT damages for 6 seconds.
- A low life warrior can grapple a full HoTed target to benefit from the healing while his healer is controlled.
- A full life warrior can grapple a low life healer hoping his teammate is going to burn both of them leading to the death of the target.

On a teammate:
- The warrior can use it to protect a teammate that is low hitpoints.
- The warrior can use it in PvE as a “protective” cooldown close to paladin’s sacrifice/DS or priest’s Pain Sup (close but not as powerfull but since the heal is shared too it can be good on an anticipated damage spike).

Danger:
The warrior cannot do anything (eventually stop the grapple) but the target still can move, watch smart LoSing!


Stuns:
- Charge is pin
- Intercept is feral charge (yes, counterspell + root)
- Concussion is Pacify
- Shockwave is Pacify



I'm posting here the TLDR that were proposed. I just cannot make my brain doing it or its gonna be a 12 pages TLDR.

-More World PvP - encourage players to go out of Dalaran by offering dailies, increased road travel speeds, dismounting if hit in the first seconds of mounting and etc.
-Less CC control - Remove stun, implement "Pin" and "Pacify" as control mechanisms effectively replacing Stun. Refer to each class for exactly what's replaced
-No Mortal Strike, Less need to spam Mana Burn always when possible
-Account-wide achievements for titles & progression, perhaps implemented via son/daughter of [title] system
-Balance out burst - Increase HP by ~30% or so, divide healing spells into good for HPS and good for a big chunk heal.

-Separate the current "stun" into "Pacify" and "Pin" components; modify all current stun-spells
-Homogeneize some out-of-line CCs like "fear" by making them break after a set amount of damage
-Limit the power of Mana Burn (the burner should lose more %mana than the one being burned)
-Replace the buff totems with "Shaman Songs" (2 seconds cast - can be cast while moving - interrupted by silence but not counterspell)
-Tie the DK strikes damage not to disease debuff, but to a specific "disease resonance" self-buff, that does not disappear when diseases are dispelled.

[Tezmata]

I... uh... wow. Um... ???


Seriously, my mind is blown. I had points off and on while reading, but forgot them all by the time I finished reading. If ever a post needed a TL;DR version, this is it.


EDIT: Typo. The mindblowing hurt my spelling.

[Deleted]

I really hope Blizzard reads this ;D
Very well thought up and compiled, I salute you! 8)

Edit: A short TL;DR for the guy above
-More World PvP - encourage players to go out of Dalaran by offering dailies, increased road travel speeds, dismounting if hit in the first seconds of mounting and etc.

-Less CC control - Remove stun, implement "Pin" and "Pacify" as control mechanisms effectively replacing Interrupt and Stun respectively. Refer to each class for exactly what's replaced

-No Mortal Strike, Less need to spam Mana Burn always when possible

-Account-wide achievements for titles & progression, perhaps implemented via son/daughter of [title] system

-Balance out burst - Increase HP by ~30% or so, divide healing spells into good for HPS and good for a big chunk heal.

And more, but that's just off the top of my head

[crayven]

Believe it or not i DID have the patience to read everything.
Problem is the post was such a wall of text that i freakin' forgot the comments i wanted to make and i am not really in the mood for quoting endlessly almost a full page of post simply coz you wanted to write a small novel.

P.S. : rogues are SO gonna bash you.


The problem of lvl 80s bashing lowbies can be easily solved.
Lvl X characters cannot attack X-10 enemy characters.Simple. Such a mechanic would clear out STV lvl 80 ganking parties.
example:
lvl 80 cannot gank lvl 70 or lower. They simply are unattackable as clearly these stand absolutely no chance.

[Tremelizzer]

Didn't read it through completely but this post seems more like just PVP balance whining or something.

[crayven]

Didn't read it through completely but this post seems more like just PVP balance whining or something.

Then maybe you should read it completely...

[TheMage]

wow... that is one gigantic wall of text.

[Nodrim]

Warlock
Besides that a lot a warlocks feels a bit bored after five years of the imp/suc/void. Maybe its time to bring out a new core demon to the warlock toolbox (actually wotlk was quite a better “time” for it conceptwise).

I think a Crypt Fiend would be a nice addition. Hunter-like pet firing ranged physical attacks, with two main abilities that would be:

Crypt Fiends aint demons. Nice ideas tho, but i doubt Blizzard cares that much... U want the game to change from stupid to smart, that dosent bring money.

[AnotherPaladin]

I read through the first few paragraphs and skimmed the rest but from what I can tell it is an amazing concept. You make some very good points, and you obviously took a lot of time to write this. Great job.

[Health]

Your story is rly making a lot of sense.

I'll reserve this place to comment it all.

[innocent51]

If ever a post needed a TL;DR version, this is it.


EDIT: Typo. The mindblowing hurt my spelling.

Many thanks for the TLDR vertion, I had exactly the same coment from a friend. Here is his:
TLDR: Main "new" proposals:
-Separate the current "stun" into "Pacify" and "Pin" components; modify all current stun-spells
-Homogeneize some out-of-line CCs like "fear" by making them break after a set amount of damage
-Limit the power of Mana Burn (the burner should lose more %mana than the one being burned)
-Replace the buff totems with "Shaman Songs" (2 seconds cast - can be cast while moving - interrupted by silence but not counterspell)
-Tie the DK strikes damage not to disease debuff, but to a specific "disease resonance" self-buff, that does not disappear when diseases are dispelled.

Crypt Fiends aint demons.

Indeed.
Besides, there are no playable necromancers in WoW and both DK and Locks are quite close to them. I love the lurking concept and a ranged physical pet also seem adequate.

U want the game to change from stupid to smart, that dosent bring money.

I will never post that on the official forums or I'll get called names.
Whoever is behind Blizzard (the huge relentless money making machine Vivendi-Universal) the dev's are not the same thing.
Even tho I don't have much illusion about where these proposal will end up (nowhere?) I believe that people that work in the video game business are not just interested in money. Or they would work elsewhere. Its a very time demanding activity and (for the worker themselves) not hugely rewarding.
I do really believe WoW's dev actually try to make the game better.

[crayven]

Many thanks for the TLDR vertion, I had exactly the same coment from a friend. Here is his:
[i]TLDR: Main "new" proposals:

-Limit the power of Mana Burn (the burner should lose more %mana than the one being burned)

You mentioned mana burn cost ( X ) should be made > than mana burnt from target (Y ) => X > Y

Question why would i even do mana burn if i run oom and he still has some mana? This kinda breaks the whole idea of mana burning the enemy.
Or is it called that way coz i simply waste my mana? :O
Arena would exploit this greatly.

[wonkeykong]

wow wall of text :P

still, it was a very well thought out and written piece - with several brilliant concepts within.

I particularily liked the warrior grapple concept, although it would be very difficult to ballance.


regarding to world pvp - this is something which i have been dying for ever since quel'delas, but none have come out since, mores thie pity.
i believe that in cataclysm there will be a dailies zone which is a combination between quel'danas and wintergrasp, so heres to hoping.

removing MS i believe would be a mistake.. or at least for pve. It is a very useful buff to have for many fights - and without it blizzard would not be able to implement fights where bosses heal.

[HavokHeart]

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....773513&sid=1#7
But tauren priests and paladins, guys seriously…
Tauren are close to the nature, nature is like the opposite of the light. One is chaos when the other is order; one is wild when the other is civilized. Don’t try to fool me with this sun and moon worship; it is just nowhere close to the paladin spirit.

Actually the opposite of light is Darkness or the absense of light.

Nature is not chaos, Light is not pure order.

Tauren pallies make more sense than gnome or worgen DK's.

Anyway i stopped reading there.

Obligatory: TL;DR

[innocent51]

Question why would i even do mana burn if i run oom and he still has some mana? This kinda breaks the whole idea of mana burning the enemy.

The idea is that burning mana should cost you slightly more than it burns. Manaburn wouldnt be just THE way to go but a way to ensure fast victory if you overplayed your oponent.

removing MS i believe would be a mistake.. or at least for pve. It is a very useful buff to have for many fights - and without it blizzard would not be able to implement fights where bosses heal.

MS doesnt disable healing. Mobs can easely heal half what they currently do.

[Tezmata]

Thanks so much for the TL;DR version. Helped me to remember my thoughts.

Agree with: Tauren priests/pallies are weird (I can accept it though), the pacify/pin separation for stun (obviously with a LOT of thought put into it. I doubt it's as simple as making spells one or the other), achievement system (would help a TON for getting into raids now that everyone wants you to post your achievement :)

Disagree with: Mana Burn's mana cost (why would anyone bother burning someone else's mana if it just destroys more of your own? I think Mana Burn is in a great place right now. You can always LoS it due to it's fairly long cast time and it's not as if it is wiping out 25% of a good player's mana per cast), "Shaman Songs" (shaman aren't bards. Period.)

Neutral on: DK diseases (I honestly don't know how I feel about this. I haven't played a DK past 65 and don't feel like I ever had a problem with my diseases being up. Pestilence works wonders. I've never had to tank though and admit that I don't know much about what DKs need for good DPS in terms of disease maintenance)

[smuggles908]

TLR

Mod Edit: To Long; Couldn't Post either it seems...

Wont delete this, rather use it as an Example: People, please refrain from posting TL;DR. If you didn't read it, don't bother to post. Its all in the Guidelines.

[crayven]

The idea is that burning mana should cost you slightly more than it burns. Manaburn wouldnt be just THE way to go but a way to ensure fast victory if you overplayed your oponent.
MS doesnt disable healing. Mobs can easely heal half what they currently do.

Reeally?
Have you tried downing Anub in Toc 25 heroic?

[innocent51]

Disagree with: Mana Burn's mana cost (why would anyone bother burning someone else's mana if it just destroys more of your own? I think Mana Burn is in a great place right now. You can always LoS it due to it's fairly long cast time and it's not as if it is wiping out 25% of a good player's mana per cast), "Shaman Songs" (shaman aren't bards. Period.)

Mana Burn is in a fine place right now.
If you buff hitpoints and make healing a more strategic point in term of mana management (ie heal less and have to chose HPM or HPS) then both MS and Manaburn become too strong. And when I say MS and MB I mean all the abilities that inflict a 50% heal malus and spells that distroy's oponent's mana.

Shaman are storytellers and keepers of the tribe's story and culture. Therefore they do sing

Have you tried downing Anub in Toc 25 heroic?

Never hit P3.
But it doesnt matter. If mobs heals for half less than you don't need MS to win th fight.
Plus you don't have to bother to bring an MS debuffing class in your raid.

[Tezmata]

If spells are going to be more mana-intensive for healers, that fixes the Mana Burn problem on its own. Priests are healers, after all. There are still shadow priests, but again, there is the lengthy cast time (2 seconds with talents) and the fact that the priest can be LoSed, silenced, etc. and I really just don't foresee it being a problem.