Glyphs to remove knockback effects on some abilities
We are considering glyphs that will allow players to remove the knockback from Typhoon, Thunderstorm and Blast Wave in return for some other benefit, such as more damage or a cooldown reduction. You could then use these glyphs when raiding and not make the tanks mad. (
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Developers decision making process
We do very extensive testing on all aspects of combat balance. Remember, as a large company we have access to testing capabilities far beyond that of the average player. As developers of the game, we also have access to a large number of tools that we don't make public.
I mention Patchwerk a lot because raiders understand that he is a fight where most of the raid takes no damage and there are no adds or movement issues. It is a very straight-forward fight. "Patchwerk" is shorthand for a tank and spank fight. But he is not a test case for every possible encounter in the game, nor do we use him as such.
The designers are generally very good at playing a variety of classes. You pretty much have to be to get hired here. We also spend a lot more time with the game than many players are capable of doing, and can look up numbers or gather data that most players have to estimate or guess at. All of this experience probably puts us in the upper percentiles of player skill. Nevertheless, we don't pretend to be the best players in the world in all aspects of WoW, nor do I think that is necessary to do our jobs. We do employ experts on all classes in both PvE and PvP and as a reality check to our own testing, we are also in contact with expert players of the classes throughout the world. We also read this forum and others just to make sure players are experiencing the same thing we're seeing.
I think sometimes there is a misperception from players that we read the forums all day and when we see someone saying "X is too good" we nerf it and when "Y is too bad" we buff it. Forum feedback, while very helpful, is but a small percentage of our actual testing paradigm. (So is personal experience of that matter.)
We do make mistakes sometimes, whether because of an undetected bug, or players falling into different spell rotations or gear that we predict, or a number of other reasons. But you generally don't need to worry that e.g. we forgot to test say paladins on non-undead targets. (
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Druid (
Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Armor trinkets and bear armor mechanics
We are considering changing the trinkets or the way bear armor works so that finding armor on items doesn't make them so superior for druids. If we make this change, I'll announce it before LK ships so that you don't make a heroic effort to get those items with lots of armor.
Bear armor would continue to increase as your armor from items went up, so that you'd still want heroic leather before going on to raiding. We would also make sure your overall armor levels didn't drop. (
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Developers Q&A (
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The amount of times you can shapeshift before running out of mana is considerably lower now
The counter-argument is that when you shift to bear you are regenerating mana in a fashion that totally protects it from drains and the like. It’s not just as simple as giving you more mana or making the shifting cost cheaper. But it is something we’ll take a look at.
Why is the druid the only class with a talent based on the number of players in a party? If this is supposed to be a pvp balance thing for arena or to prevent druids from solo tanking then why are we the only class given this special treatment?
I said it’s something we might change. Mostly I wanted to understand if it was an actual balance issue in cases other than niche situations or if it was just something that was just a thorn in your paw. I am pretty sure it’s the latter, but that still doesn’t mean it’s set in stone.
Improved Leader of the Pack is total mana. This means I regenerate more mana at 70 than I do at 80. At 80 I spend ~35% more on EVERYTHING.
We could change that to base mana I imagine.
It makes no sense why a resto or balance druid are allowed to shift more than us when WE are supposed to be the masters of shapeshifting because we are the ones who specced to improve our animalistic side. All we want is to be pvp viable and not be so restricted on mana, I would be lucky if I could even manage an arena fight at this stage with the mana I have now, I wouldnt beable to do anything really.
I’m not sure I would use that line of reasoning. The casters could just as easily say that they are the most fragile so they need the means to escape or deal with melee more than a Feral. It doesn’t invalidate your whole argument, but I don’t think this particular point makes it stronger.
I think you need to spend more time on the EJ forums. If there was a trinket with -100 Stamina and +1000 armor, Druids would wear it. White +Armor items are that overpowered. Regarding PVP gear for tanking, we're not giving up "a lot of stats to get marginally better Stamina." We're giving up stats which are irrelevant for tanking (AP, strength, expertise past the cap) for Stamina. Tanks generate 7000tps; threat generation is an invalid concern. Therefore, unless the PVE gear provides superior mitigation (like the +armor T6 did) or increased Stamina, then bears will be forced to wear PVP gear in order to have the best survivability while tanking.
We do follow those forums. They have very smart people posting there, but of course they are not right about everything either. You can find many excellent as well as a few mediocre suggestions there. Their best aspect is the signal to noise ratio is very strong. Since you point it out though, one thing I wish our posters could learn from those forums is how to communicate with each other. Our forums have far too many threads where dissenting opinions are ignored instead of addressed.
On the armor thing, I still feel like you are trying to turn this into “GC doesn’t understand Feral itemization.” I realize that line of thinking might make it easier to dismiss our point of view when you disagree with it, but it's not true and not really the issue. Xaamau’s original concern was “Not enough "Armor" trinkets in game making them invaluable to druids, basically once you have these trinkets you will not grab anything else unless you reach armor cap.” I just don’t think the second part is an issue. Depending on your existing armor and other stats and what other pieces you can upgrade, you are not going to only look at armor on trinkets and ignore everything else they can do. The first part is of more concern if bears have trouble getting the trinkets they need.
Personally, I'd be much happier if armor was removed from trinkets/necks/rings/staves altogether, and druids were given a talent to convert DPS stats to tanking stats (maybe bump the armor conversion from agi, or turn AP into a bit of dodge). That way we wouldn't have to "steal" necks/rings from plate tanks, and we could use similar accessories for both cat and bear. And if someone in the itemization team slips and lets a 1k armor blue staff through, it isn't immediately heralded as a better tanking staff than any epic in the game. It also gives a smoother progression though the tiers of raiding, since you won't need a separate DPS and tanking staff and only have access to 1 staff per tier.
We have discussed this before, and I do think removing armor completely as a stat has a lot of merit. I do think it would cause a lot of complaints from druids who didn't understand why we were doing it.
I have already expressed my distaste for feral-specific weapons (though I own plenty of them). They are some of the last vestiges of the antiquated system where certain characters are very dependent on relatively uncommon items that cause frustration among other players when they drop. That situation in turn makes the items even rarer, and therefore even more of a big deal when they drop.
Potential changes to itemization ...
Changing armor would be work, but possible to do within the confines of Lich King (though probably not before it shipped). If we decide to do it, we will make sure you know ASAP so that nobody is struggling to get Defender's Code. Changing feral attack power is more work, but in that case the weapon would still be just as good for you as it is now, so it affects what items you collect less.
Mage (
Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Slow - Reducing the PvP duration to 10 seconds
We are strongly considering this. (
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Paladin (
Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Abilities uptime and mana cost
You should be able to spam Consecrate if you use Divine Plea. This is what we, and I believe others, have found. You should be able to use Divine Storm, Crusader Strike and a Judgement without Divine Plea and keep mana up almost indefinitely. (
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Warlock (
Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Developers Q&A (
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- Chaos bolt, Instant. (Why, because destruction is still way to dependant on Casting+Stationary , LOS, and being locked out of spell trees. Mostly make it instant for pvp but would also help pve dps if locks decided to go this path.) I know hunters have simular line of sight complaints but I beleive this is hurting destruction a lot more then our hunter friends.
We're talking a lot about warlocks in PvP right now. Instant-cast spells may or may not be one of the changes we'll make. Ultimately, changing Chaos Bolt and Haunt to instant just makes them different spells. We would have to nerf them significantly to make them instant, which would have PvE ramifications. Warlocks do have a fair number of spells they can cast while moving.
Give demon form a permanent form for warlocks, especially if your going to be succeptable to MORE cc then you were before IE Turn evil and Banish. (Why, because "I know blizz hates it when we compare classes but" every other talented form regardless of damage reduction abilities is permanent if you spec into it" So unless this is a failed attempt at Beastial Wraith which may I remind you makes you immune to All types of CC not adds more) As well Give Soul Link the 5% bonus damage back, not sure who in the world decided to take this away.
We don't want warlocks to be in demon form all the time. I think we've explained the Soul Link change before.
Give us back our old Self Buffs, the New fel armor is not cool and the Armor on Demon armor is downright terrible. I guess this is complaining so my solution, fel armor, 130 spell dmg and 30% more + healing, Demon Armor 2000 Armor+ and increased health regen.
What is your beef with Fel Armor? Our internal testing found that once you have gear with Sprit on it that it can improve you dps by 20% or even more. You may be low at your current levels without Spirit. That will change in just a couple of weeks.
There is talk about dispel resistance for destruction! this is kick ass and long overdue, what about for the few dots demon locks use?
We're looking at dispel resistance for locks in general.
Warrior (
Skills List / Talent Calc. (9095))
Bloodsurge
All you have to do is tweak Bloodsurge to allow us to slam more often and that will solve 2 major problems fury warriors have. What I am going to propose below isn't even some huge buff that will scale fury warriors out of control.
Yep, we like this idea a lot. I'm not certain this is the approach we'll take, but it's an idea (Bloodsurge -> Slam) that has come up several times around the office. (
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