Ask the Devs - Answers #2

[Nerraw]

They avoided a lot of questions many PvPers would be interested in. Sad, very sad...

That's not their fault, you should blame the people voting for these things.

[Mantús]

That's not their fault, you should blame the people voting for these things.

you want people to read ALL the questions ? 26 pages .. thats more than 200 questions if the page takes 8 questions only .. and the time is limited

the questions that are voted for are the ones at the first 4-5 pages imo

[orderschvank]

guys.... about frost mages

its because everyone at blizzard plays them.. when have frost mages ever not been awesome??

[skylla05]

Frost mages feel balanced? My ass they are, everyone says they are OP, form 1k rating to 3k rating. Every frost mages I know claim they are OP.
So, they said nothing about buffing ele/balance. Said nothing about nerfing warriors, mages and dks.
glad about the guild rep/xp change though, that is what´s most important in pvp, gaining guild lvls, not balance, guild lvling is important.

Try not taking it out of context next time.

Frost Mages are balanced on the high end, and if you disagree with that, you're probably ranked 1400 or lower and/or are bad at this game. Did you even read the post? Or did your eyes glaze over with rage once you read that fragment of a sentence? Go to the Mage forums and ask if they think they're overpowered, because you're going to get a resounding "no" (along with a million yes's from other classes), since dispels (which exist in any serious arena/BG team) completely wreck our control AND damage to the point of complete frustration. But hey, better watch out for those serious 5k unfrozen Ice Lances!

They are however, looking at ways to remedy the lower end, which was mentioned in that post (hence why I assume you didn't even read it). Whether they do it or not is a different story, but you should probably grow up a bit and learn how to read. Blanket nerfing Frost Mages would put them into non-existance. While I'm sure there are some kids that would think this is perfectly fine, it's actually not.

[FlowGlider]

...
3. WOW = world of face-book craft = get social or get out (sad) - MMO - MASS MULTIPLAYER ONLINE - MASS - MULTIPLAYER. MULTIPLAYER. Got that? Go play a solo, regular RPG if you don't want to play in a MASS - MULTIPLAYER - ONLINE - RPG.

/Bloodlust fades.

It is passed your bed time. Go to bed and let the grown ups have their talk...

[Leodegrance]

The more I read these blue Q&A posts the more I realize Blizzard has lost all touch of reality with their game and all form of competence in getting this game back on track.

This game has been on a downward slide since the end of Burning Crusade and there is no sign of it ever going back up.

[VanishO2]

LOL at their excuses for non-healing capable classes healing way more than healing capable ones...

So, because a paladin can't change spec in combat, it means a rogue or warrior can heal/passive heal way more than paladin's healing buttons?

That would mean that a Holy paladin should do a hell of damage from it's crusader strike or judgement against a dmg class just because they can't switch to ret in combat!!!!!

Just fail Blizzard...

[aeir]

"This gives them a high skill cap"yeah i know 5-7 different melee escapes is not enough vs a ret paladins 1 stun and instantly spell stolen hof right?My brother who cannot even spell the word soup gets on my frost mage that hes never played before and gets 1-3rd on damage done in BG's and has gotten as high as 1900 in arenas with another frost mage with no resilience on either.yep massive skill cap!

You're such a blatant liar. It's amazing.

I only disagree with the skirmish comment form the Devs. I used to skir all the freaking time while waiting for BGS.

LOL at their excuses for non-healing capable classes healing way more than healing capable ones...

So, because a paladin can't change spec in combat, it means a rogue or warrior can heal/passive heal way more than paladin's healing buttons?

That would mean that a Holy paladin should do a hell of damage from it's crusader strike or judgement against a dmg class just because they can't switch to ret in combat!!!!!

Just fail Blizzard...

I fail to see how a HEALING SPELL is the same as a SELF HEALING...? It's not like you see the rouge throwing out recup to the entire party?

[Shadowgale]

I removed all the bullshit and PR speak from the answers, so people don't have to read through all this while desperately trying to find some concrete answers:


Q:Is it a possibility that the premade group requirement will be dropped from Rated Battlegrounds, allowing players to queue for a Random Rated Battleground? I'm sure many people would be ok with the inherent risk and disadvantage of grouping with random players for rated content if it meant they could at least make use of the rating system. – Gëtmastiffd (North America/ANZ), Kaymac (North America/ANZ)

A. Not gonna happen


Q:Why can't we have a pure, straight up, unadulterated Death Match style Battleground? - ???? ???? (Taiwan), Gulantor (North America/ANZ)

A: We don't like the idea.


Q:Arena Skirmishes: What happened to them? They were a useful tool in trying new compositions, testing out a new teammate, or just having some fun during downtime. Wargames are nice, but did skirmishes have to go in order for them to be implemented? – Zubzar (North America/ANZ), Nølfen (Europe [French]), Jinusek (Europe [English]), Whoohoo (Europe [German])

A: Not coming back, use Wargames.


Q: In Cataclysm, PvP fights were supposed to be slow and everyone should spend longer in a wounded state. But from what I’m seeing, healers are still able to bring someone up from 1% to 100% in 2 or 3 global CDs. So it comes down back to the WOTLK style, either you burst someone in a CD and damage spike, or you need a setup with tons of CC. There simply is not a state where someone is at 50% health and you can keep him around that way with your damage. He will be at 100% in the next 2 global CDs. Any plans to address this? – Noidealol (Europe [English])

A: Healing in PvP is fine, l2p.


Q: Will guilds focused on PvP be able to progress and have rewards just like guilds focused on PvE?/ Will it be possible in the future to advance guild reputation through PvP? – Smrt (Europe [German]), Ypsen (Europe [French])

A: In 4.1 you can earn guild XP and reputation from Battlegrounds, Arenas, and Honorable Kills.


Q: With the proliferation of spell interrupts and other control mechanisms, and the ever-increasing value of mobility, how do the developers plan to successfully move casters away from instant casts and make hard casting in PvP more viable? – Maldramere (North America/ANZ)

A: Ghostcrawler will write a blog about it soon.


Q: Players’ skill level in PvP between rated and random battlegrounds are very different. Could a personal rating system such as the one in Starcraft II be implemented so similar level players can be matched up? – ?? (Korea)

A: Not gonna happen.


Q: CC used to be the big thing for arena, but now it’s all about damage. Is it the direction you are taking at the moment? – Thatis (Taiwan)

A: Arenas are fine, l2p.


Q: Warrior damage is currently game-breakingly out of control and looking at the 4.1 patch notes it is only set to get worse. Your attempts at toning down the burst from Colossus Smash will have very little effect on high armor targets and absolutley no effect on medium to low armor targets, factor in the compensation you have given to Slam, Overpower and Mortal Strike and it ultimately leads to a significant damage increase. With warrior damage already absurdly high and a resilience nerf in the works what is the reasoning behind these changes? – Albany (Europe [English])

A: We'll fix it in 4.1


Q: Can I hear your thoughts of the survival abilities of the Warlock on PvP? – Mccoll (Korea)

A: Locks are fine, l2p.


Q: Balance druids are widely recognized as deficient in PvP. Can you describe your motivation for nerfing Balance druids' burst damage, crowd control, and self-healing in 4.1? This seems like a lot, given that you have acknowledged that Balance druids are currently weak in Arena (during your first Q&A). (It would be great if you could speak generally to what your vision or plan is for this class, in PvP. Some players believe that Blizzard does not intend for feral or balance druids to be played in arena. Please tell us for the record that this is not true!) Thank you. – Jynks (North America/ANZ)

A: Boomkins are fine, l2p.


Q: Elemental Shaman are rarely seen in high rating Arena teams nowadays. I want to know the thoughts and opinions of the Dev. Team regarding the PVP abilities of the Elemental Shaman. Can I expect any improvement? – ?? (Korea), Mythren (Europe [English])

A: We agree, but probably won't do anything about it.


Q: Why do hunter traps continue to be resisted when the hunter is both spell pen capped, and specced 2/2 into Survival Tactics? – Zubzar (North America/ANZ)

A: Technical issue, won't be fixed.


Q: The healing abilities of hybrid classes are being severely limited (eg. Retribution Paladin, Shadow Priest). Compared to this why do DPS Classes such as Rogue, Warlock have strong healing capabilities? Can I get some explanations for this? – ????? (Korea)

A: Hybrids are fine, l2p.


Q: Frost Mage and Blood Death Knight are almost unbeatable in PvP situations. Do you have any plan to adjust balance issues regarding the two Classes? – ????? (Korea)

A: "At the high end of PvP, we think Frost mages are balanced."

[Crispin]

Even in Wrath of the Lich King, pick up raids didn't start becoming super common until a tier or two of content had already been released. The scenario you mentioned in your original post, of constant pick up raid spam in trade, didn't really occur until a bit later.

huh.... I did Pugs way before Ulduar came out, heck I pugged everything before Ulduar came out.... on a RP server, god they're so full of it, you'd think that they were Gaddafi's advisors at times.

[Deleted]

So freaking hilarious (and sad :´-(

"Warlocks have issues, please share some insight!"

(dev looking for the most convenient question avoiding questions like why Soul Swap turned warlocks from a a proper DPS class to a weak version of a shadow priest) "Allright so warlocks are after answers.... dont worry, we will nerf Shadowpriests until they suck as much as you do and maybe then some. now shut the f--- up or reroll warrior"

[Nicola]

Q: Can I hear your thoughts of the survival abilities of the Warlock on PvP? – Mccoll (Korea)

A: Overall, we think they’re fine. Warlocks in PvP often compare themselves to Shadow priest, and to be fair, Shadow priests have some very potent emergency buttons, particularly Dispersion. Warlocks have good self-healing (which also to be fair, was nerfed recently), abilities like Demonic Circle and fears that are good for both offense and defense. Once Shadow priests lose their defensive dispel capabilities, we think they will be less versatile and their entire package will be more comparable to warlocks.

Blizz doesnt seem to have a single clue about locks.
1) We also have demo and destro spec, not every lock plays a shadowpriest copy.
2) What selfhealing nerf? Fel armor u mean? We don't use it in pvp as affly.
3) Fear being good cc? Seriously, a cc thats both dispellable, shares dr with 10 other abilities, breaks on dmg and half of the classes have a fear immunity.
4) Even shadowpriest without dispell will do better as lock due higher dmg and survability.

Just proven, blizz doesnt have a single clue.

[CaptainArlong]

Uhh.. The best gear in PvP all requires a team rating. You can have truly random Rated Battleground and they wouldn't award rating, just Conquest points. This is pure Blizzard Double Standard at work, because with Valor Points, you can buy the best PvE gear (except weapons) from the vendors. You even need to buy your Tier pieces with Valor, while the HEROIC version require HEROIC raids, which rewards gear equal to the TOP PvP gear which requires RATING just to equip.

[Deepone]

MMO - MASS MULTIPLAYER ONLINE - MASS - MULTIPLAYER. MULTIPLAYER. Got that? Go play a solo, regular RPG if you don't want to play in a MASS - MULTIPLAYER - ONLINE - RPG.

/Bloodlust fades.

I have to say, this is way, way off the mark. 1) It's "Massively" not "Mass" 2) Having several thousand people per game world doesn't mean you have to require team-building (LFD demonstrates this clearly). 3) Blizzard's rationale:

If you take away the group requirements for Rated Battlegrounds, then you don’t have Rated Battlegrounds – you just have the same old Battlegrounds we’ve always had expect (sic) they now reward the best loot in the game.

is absurd, and they know it. They had dozens of players submitting suggestions on the old suggestions forum for how to address exactly that, and many of those suggestions were viable. Most of the boiled down to, "make a more nuanced scoreboard for battlegrounds that counts at least a dozen different attributes of battleground performance, normalize and sum: there's your rating for this battleground."

If they did that, then no one would have to form a pre-made to succeed and gain rank, and yet it would most certainly not represent free gear.

[Kokiron]

I'm so glad I don't PVP. All they ever do in response to concerns about class balance is say "we dont think" or "we dont feel" even though what they think and feel is irrelevant when people who PVP every day are telling them there's a problem. Otherwise they say "Yeah, we know there's a problem, we'll look into fixing it one of these days but deal w/it for now."

[Swizzle]

Uhh.. The best gear in PvP all requires a team rating. You can have truly random Rated Battleground and they wouldn't award rating, just Conquest points. This is pure Blizzard Double Standard at work, because with Valor Points, you can buy the best PvE gear (except weapons) from the vendors. You even need to buy your Tier pieces with Valor, while the HEROIC version require HEROIC raids, which rewards gear equal to the TOP PvP gear which requires RATING just to equip.

"Reuires battleground rating of 2200 OR personal and team arena rating of 2200 in 3v3 or 5v5 brackets". There is no team rating required if your personal RBG rating is 2200+, thus having random rated BGs would mean people could get gear from playing with randoms.

Also, PvE gear from vendors isn't close to being the "best" gear available. Valor gear is comparable to unrated Conquest Point gear.

Lastly, to answer all the people looking for a Deathmatch BG...it's called Arena.

[Deleted]

nothing really important atleast for me , this is as usefull as the other questions.......

[deathtakes]

Why do these Q&A's sound like a press conference from a CEO/politician/lawyer. Just talk to us like people for fuck sakes and stop side stepping the issues.

[Deyadissa]

Blizzard is so full of shit...

In short, all I hear is blizzard saying that they don't give a shit about solo / casual players
and you must play in teams or get lost.

Time to face facts:
...World PvP is dead, gone and will never recover
...There will never be a 1v1 PvP Balance
...WOW = world of face-book craft = get social or get out (sad)

WOW PvP is now officially 100% based on RNG, OP class mechanics and nothing else.
No skill required... an 8 year old could do it...

Don't comment on balance in World of Warcraft until you play Rift, it's about 50 times worse than world of warcraft.

There is skill required in World of Warcraft, you just aren't able to reach it. Have you achieved rank 1 this season?

[notbob]

Taking a look at the 3v3 bracket ladder for Bloodlust aand its hilarious.
Top 20 there are no mages
top 50 there are 8 mages
then from there mages get more and more abundant...
why? because mages are so effectively countered by good players.
But they're so poorly handled by bad players, thats why they swarm the lower brackets.

I find it funny that mages are more underrepresented in this season than any other, yet people complain about mages being OP? okay they're gonna beat you 1v1 if you're a melee. okay too bad. sorry they're gonna kick your ass in a BG. But you know what? the more you QQ, the less mages there are going to be and the more rerolls there are scrubbing up your class :/