What is an acceptable level of mistuning?

[Exeris]

They can. In fact they can do better, by having actual in-game bots doing the "simulations". They even claim they do so, which is insane considering how much stuff they miss.

Hmm, maybe someone needs to teach Blizzard how to play their game?

I imagine it's hard to do simulations if you suck at WoW.

[yjmark]

ST DPS for all DPS specs should be within a 3% margin.

Has there ever been a 3% margin between all DPS specs? I would be interested in seeing that data.

[Tradu]

This is naive. The complex interactions of all possible encounters, combined with players willingness and abilities to come up with new spec and trait combinations and new rotations etc. means that there is virtually no way to just math this stuff out. When they get to see the millions of pieces of data coming in from live servers all of a sudden you have a very clear picture which wasn't available before.

I mean, consider a simple question of balancing between a generic +main stat proc and a defense trait for a tank. Which ones will overperform? Well, it depends on how much damage reduction is given vs how much dps is gained/lost vs how the procs work combined with what sort of encounters the tank is running on a regular basis. You really can't see which of those is going to overperform or underperform until you see it in action. There are just too many moving parts, and that's just one piece of gear for a tank. When they added hundreds of azerite traits for dozens of specs you get an absurd number of interactions.

Now, the argument could be made that they shouldn't have run down this road in the first place for that very reason, because it's a system that CAN'T be balanced in beta, possibly can't be balanced even on live with all the incoming data. But it's not a minor bit of math you're talking about.

Please tell me more about how hard it is to calculate whether 2 traits that are both generic damage procs are balanced. They even get an insane amount of feedback on all this shit in beta, we knew which traits would be strongest within days from when they put them into beta. And yes, when you're off by literally hundreds of percent, that's very easy to notice.
They have over a decade of experience with balancing WoW, and yet they keep adding shit they're incapable of balancing.

[Thirtyrock]

Please tell me more about how hard it is to calculate whether 2 traits that are both generic damage procs are balanced. They even get an insane amount of feedback on all this shit in beta, we knew which traits would be strongest within days from when they put them into beta. And yes, when you're off by literally hundreds of percent, that's very easy to notice.
They have over a decade of experience with balancing WoW, and yet they keep adding shit they're incapable of balancing.

If it were as simple as comparing two traits in a vacuum you'd be 100% correct. It's the complex interactions between them that you're not thinking about. And not all of the nerfs/buffs are due to pure tuning, some of it is "this trait is stronger but it's MUCH harder to maximize than this other trait so players are picking the trait that's harder to mess up"

[Malikath]

Has there ever been a 3% margin between all DPS specs? I would be interested in seeing that data.

no, closest we came to the game being balanced was ToT in MoP.

[yjmark]

no, closest we came to the game being balanced was ToT in MoP.

It would be really cool if Blizz could get there. Seems like they are moving in the opposite direction...

[Prime92]

ST DPS for all DPS specs should be within a 3% margin.

OK and then affli locks, boomkins, Spriests destroy dps meters on any kind of multitarget, be it cleave, hectic AoE or whatever, Xavius style, right? Fuck people who think the way you do...

[Malikath]

-assumptive options-

you assume alot, you should stop that.
as for AoE, i think pure DPS should go with the convention of burst AoE so that dealing with weaker adds are prioritized by them while other DPS specs are built around dealing the same AoE damage over time but with more delay on the delivery.

as is AoE is rather iffy atm, with many classes not really having a proper AoE rotation.
paladins need their seals back as ST/AoE/PvP skill modifiers, affili needs seed to spread all the warlock debuffs currently on the target to the victims of it's explosion, including seed itself so that the warlock can set up their dots, cast seed twice in a row with the landing of the second seeds causing the first to automatically detonate spreading seeds that will deal a fraction of the initial damage but inflict the full damage of the DoT.

[NihilSustinet]

ST DPS for all DPS specs should be within a 3% margin.
all classes need mobility to deal with mechanics in PvE and close the gap/escape in PvP.
every class needs at least 3 shared raid benefits and a unique perk to the raid.

this is ridiculous. this has never been and should never be true.

[BananaHandsB]

I really wish they'd get rid of the boring +stat traits, then try to balance things. They don't even have to add new traits, just redistribute the more interesting traits to the gear in place of the boring ones. Even if there is imbalance, there would be a greater chance of having at least one decent to good trait in each trait slot with less traits overall in the pool. And with less to balance, it'd be easier for them to get it right or at least closer to balanced.

[Jonnusthegreat]

I'd say for choices that people can make, 25% is good enough. You should just make the right choices. It makes the game less fun because you no longer realistically have a choice, though.

For choices you can't make, like class balance, it's lower. Maybe 10%.

[Deleted]

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...ge=30#post-584

In a recent discussion about Azerite traits, Ythisens makes the following blue post:
"I know it doesn't feel good to have these sort of things on live affecting your gameplay but it happens. It's hard to find every possible thing before it goes live."

Which raises the question, what is an acceptable number of "these sort of things on live"?

From the hundreds of mistuned and/or bugged Azerite traits, complete class imbalance, classes intentionally released unfinished, Warfront adjustments, and so on. When it does it go from 'things slipping through the net' to 'this is a systemic issue that needs addressing from the top'?

There is a priest trait which was buffed by 150%. Well, just a small indie company. id say traits should be allowed to vary between 30% since there should be good an bad ones

[Malikath]

this is ridiculous. this has never been and should never be true.

no it isn't, a melee DPS needs a slightly higher DPS then a ranged to maintain viability with as often as they're unable to deal any damage due to ranging.
the more mobility you give the class/spec the less the gap needs to be, understand?

[Kralljin]

While tuning all those Azerite traits along specs is rather daunting, i'm inclined to say that Blizzard is focusing too much on those Traits and not enough on the base performance of a spec.

So far, we've had a single balance Hotfix regarding Classes, the one happening right before Mythic release.
This balance Hotfix was already rather small (ignoring the feral one happening earlier), did not raise SP to a competitive level, ignored Shaman Dps, did not seriously reign in the OP specs and totally ignored Tank balance.

Meanwhile we've had multiple PvP Hotfixes and Azerite Trait hotfixes, that is just not enough.

And what i find worse, that it is, according to Lore, intentional.

We're working on it. It's a delicate thing; we want to solve the issue of players feeling like their class is undesired, but we also want to avoid the opposite issue where everyone feels like they need to reroll to whatever the new hotness is every few weeks (side note, that's part of why we do tuning adjustments in batches rather than every few days, to give things a little time to stabilize before the next round).

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...arriors-in-81/

It is simply unacceptable that they merely release relatively minor balance patch before Mythic release, then sit on their hands regarding Class performance for over two weeks.
At the very least buff those specs that are really in a bad spot ASAP, so people know they can stick to their spec.

Here's an example of a balance hotfix that actually at least puts out some fires:
Take the Legion one from 23 September, the first big one of the expansion.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/20252902

Just seach the page for "September 23".

Now compare that to its BfA equivalent.

https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/...ember-10-2018/

Imbalance is one thing, sitting on your ass doing nothing because you're too afraid people might get confused which is now the new FotM spec is a spat in the face for anyone hoping for buffs to be competitive because simply selecting another spec is not an option.

[Puri]

Personally I find it hard to defend Blizzard here. Yes, obviously you cannot fix every bug.

But the huge imbalance of traits is nothing new. The sims have been around in their very own beta forum and on easily accessible pages like Icy Veins for months before the release, for every spec, which showed how crap some traits were (and still are). They simply didn't care.

Or just take a look at current timewalking. Several mobs in End Time are not properly scaled, including a boss. That simply means they never, ever tested the dungeon with the current squish. Sure it's in all likeliness going to be hotfixed within hours (which I have to say they are very quickly in), but how could that have gone live?

BFA really turned out to have been launched in a very unpolished version.

[Lochton]

Sounds so boring if we book all in the same 3% margin as some seem to want. After all, all the classes are set up differently.

And from my experience, BFA and tuning hasn't been that bad as some before then.

[Mafic]

The probably have to fix timewalking first before moving onto tuning of classes and specs.

[Malikath]

Sounds so boring if we book all in the same 3% margin as some seem to want..

i love how you both have omitted the single target portion of that, must be hard having to rely on overpowered DPS to carry a lack of skill and understanding.

[Deleted]

ST DPS for all DPS specs should be within a 3% margin.
all classes need mobility to deal with mechanics in PvE and close the gap/escape in PvP.
every class needs at least 3 shared raid benefits and a unique perk to the raid.

What would that fix? Nothing, there is Brust aoe of 3-6 mobs, cleave aoe etc. balancing ST perfectly creates issues else, e. G. sub rogues wont work in that case

[WintersLegion]

What would that fix? Nothing, there is Brust aoe of 3-6 mobs, cleave aoe etc. balancing ST perfectly creates issues else, e. G. sub rogues wont work in that case

Yeah if all dps was within a 3% margin then either all classes would have to also be with in that same margin for aoe or what would be the point of bringing any classes that have lower aoe dps.