Class/Spec power "Niches" are confusing me.

[Alcsaar]

Trying to wrap my head around this concept Blizzard is pushing.

They want some classes to be good at aoe, some to be good at cleave, some to excel at single target.

I look at a bunch of the classes and I see some that are only good at one of those. Some aren't really competitive at ANY of those. Some are the best at 2 or even all 3 of those.

For example...lets look at Havoc DH.

They pull some of the highest if not the highest burst/sustained AoE - and then they can also pull basically the best competitive raid boss dps (currently 3rd ranked on logs overall).

They're a class that is highly desired for raiding content, mythic+ content, and pvp due to their excellence.

Then we have class/specs which pull mediocre single target and cleave damage, and really bad aoe dps. In most cases, even the utility they bring only makes it worth it to bring at most ONE to a raid as dps - and that's only if you can't get the same utility from a better spec.

As an example I'll talk about Boomkins. Balance druids are simming below 50% of specs on Mythic/Heroic raid content. Their single target is very mediocre especially after the trait nerfs. Their AOE has huge ramp up time and still get stuffed by classes like DH who pull better single target dps. Even their cleave isn't "great" in comparison in a lot of situations.

Affliction warlocks have pretty solid single target damage - at least they're more competitive on that front than balance druids - but they have farrr worse cleave and aoe - yet a number of specs which perform much better on aoe/cleave have higher single target damage than affliction as well.

So where is the balance? Playing a spec that gets dumpstered on everything while watching some specs dominate on everything with out even changing specs/traits is really disheartening.

[BlueRemedy]

There are no niches.

It is a nice idea but it is clearly rooted in a class fantasy that doesn't exist. Classes are far closer to the point where they're just recolors of one another than they are diverse with niches.

[Alcsaar]

There are no niches.

It is a nice idea but it is clearly rooted in a class fantasy that doesn't exist. Classes are far closer to the point where they're just recolors of one another than they are diverse with niches.

I think you misunderstand class fantasy. Class fantasy is inherently imbalanced because they're trying to make classes powerful at certain niches.

The fact that class dps is so incredibly imbalanced right now just proves that they ARE trying to do that.

Homogenization is a better solution for balance - and that is not what is happening here. If it was we'd be seeing much closer dps numbers across the board.

[javierdsv]

It is just their excuse to justify class unbalance. They know if you are not viable for M+ or Raids your class is just not desirable.

I wonder if when simcraft came to picture they designed any kind of tool that works similar for their "internal testings", I guess they didn't, and I guess they have nothing remotely similar.

[Onikaroshi]

This isn't a class fantasy issue. I don't personally care if every class is exactly the same with different animations.

If this was homogenization, we wouldn't be seeing such drastically different levels of dps output.

They try to pretend there's niches so it makes up for their inability to balance the game. Niches and shit in a game like this are horrible as you can end up picking or enjoying the "wrong" class/spec.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

The Devs may want niches, but Mythic (Dungeon and raid) groups want only the best at the most things.

[Soon-TM]

I think that M+, while being perhaps necessary for the game's longevity/replayability, is putting the dev team between a rock and a hard place. In theory, a class who excels at AoE should deal (relatively) mediocre ST, and viceversa. The problem with M+ is that you can't have mediocre AoE, because trash is usually way harder than the bosses themselves - something that still baffles me. The alternative would be giving the same tools to everyone with a different envelope (i.e. the MoP approach), but that comes with the price of rendering class choice largely meaningless; and would imply to revert the pruning of the last 3 xpacs, something that the current dev team is evidently against.

Besides, M+ faces the same issue than arenas upon their introduction (and for quite a few years as well): being all about reduced numbers, it puts a microscope on class balance, something that Blizzard has notoriously struggled with since... well, forever. Now Blizzard not only has to balance classes just for PvE and PvP, but rather for wPvP, BGs, arenas, raids, and M+. It's unsustenable, moreso with the massive pruning since WoD onwards.

[Biomega]

Here's a radical thought: what if we had a system by which you could shift the strong/weak points of your class. What if there were a few tiers of extra abilities, where you could choose, say, one out of three, and use that to essentially mold your own niche. That would mean you could have more flexibility to fill a needed niche, and it would put less strain on overall class design. Of course, such a system would need to be set up in a way that can be switched as needed - that LAST thing you'd want is to have it so that you select one basically optimal setup, and have all the actual choices restricted to mere utility abilities with little to no impact on performance.

I don't know what we could call such a system. Expertise? Aptitude? Knack? Something like that, in any case.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a great, differentiated system like that?

[Azzurri]

Niches are myth, in theory it sounds like a good idea and would be cool. But the problem is how the raids and dungeons are designed. Why in the world would you take a class that sucks at AoE/Cleave, when mythic+ is all about AoE/Cleave? It doesn't work in WoW, because like you said why wouldn't you take a Havoc DH over a Spriest or a feral?

[Cyanu]

Trying to wrap my head around this concept Blizzard is pushing.

They want some classes to be good at aoe, some to be good at cleave, some to excel at single target.

I look at a bunch of the classes and I see some that are only good at one of those. Some aren't really competitive at ANY of those. Some are the best at 2 or even all 3 of those.

For example...lets look at Havoc DH.

They pull some of the highest if not the highest burst/sustained AoE - and then they can also pull basically the best competitive raid boss dps (currently 3rd ranked on logs overall).

They're a class that is highly desired for raiding content, mythic+ content, and pvp due to their excellence.

Then we have class/specs which pull mediocre single target and cleave damage, and really bad aoe dps. In most cases, even the utility they bring only makes it worth it to bring at most ONE to a raid as dps - and that's only if you can't get the same utility from a better spec.

As an example I'll talk about Boomkins. Balance druids are simming below 50% of specs on Mythic/Heroic raid content. Their single target is very mediocre especially after the trait nerfs. Their AOE has huge ramp up time and still get stuffed by classes like DH who pull better single target dps. Even their cleave isn't "great" in comparison in a lot of situations.

Affliction warlocks have pretty solid single target damage - at least they're more competitive on that front than balance druids - but they have farrr worse cleave and aoe - yet a number of specs which perform much better on aoe/cleave have higher single target damage than affliction as well.

So where is the balance? Playing a spec that gets dumpstered on everything while watching some specs dominate on everything with out even changing specs/traits is really disheartening.

it's a bit more complicated than that, if you wanted to get a more detailed picture you could rank the dps specs in the following categories:

-burst/sustained singe target dps (good ol patchwerk)
-burst/sustained cleave dps (2-3 targets)
-burst/sustained spread cleave (council fights the domain of dot specs, here there are many mobs far away from each other)
-range (mellee vs ranged mostly but some mellee specs can do more damage from range than others, for example survival hunter hunts down beats warrior from range)
-burst/sustained aoe (burst usually goes to specs with multiple and powerful offensive cds like havoc with his metamorphosis)
-mobility (turrets vs mobile specs)
-utility (interrupts,death grip,buffs,dispels,off heals,healthstones,combat rez, misdirects etc)
-cc (mostly a pvp domain)
-defensives (sustained survivability/vs immunities, some classes are just lackluster overall here, enha shaman being an obvious case)

and now take each spec and imagine ranking each category from 1-10

so let's for example see destro lock vs fire mage,if you just see the first 3 categories (which are exclusively about dps) you miss the whole picture, as a the fire mage is dramatically more mobile than a destro lock with his double blinks, movement speed buffs, an entire arsenal of instants and castable while moving scorch

destro lock has more sustained survivability with sou leech, life drain etc vs the mages ice block which is better vs crazy bursts

destro buffs the groups survivability, while fire the groups dps

for the dps it's a matter of tuning though destro obviously wins on spread cleave and fire obviously wins on aoe

[Soon-TM]

Here's a radical thought: what if we had a system by which you could shift the strong/weak points of your class. What if there were a few tiers of extra abilities, where you could choose, say, one out of three, and use that to essentially mold your own niche. That would mean you could have more flexibility to fill a needed niche, and it would put less strain on overall class design. Of course, such a system would need to be set up in a way that can be switched as needed - that LAST thing you'd want is to have it so that you select one basically optimal setup, and have all the actual choices restricted to mere utility abilities with little to no impact on performance.

I don't know what we could call such a system. Expertise? Aptitude? Knack? Something like that, in any case.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a great, differentiated system like that?

It would be the same than giving everything to everyone, since in high level play you will be expected to shift your "expertise" according to the situation. You equip your AoE mastery during trash pulls, and then switch to ST mastery for the boss (unless it's an adds-based boss). I don't think it would work :/

[Biomega]

It would be the same than giving everything to everyone, since in high level play you will be expected to shift your "expertise" according to the situation. You equip your AoE mastery during trash pulls, and then switch to ST mastery for the boss (unless it's an adds-based boss). I don't think it would work :/

Hm, that is a problem.

I suggest reading the passage again, and thinking of synonyms for expertise, aptitude, or knack. Maybe that'll clear up my point.

[Soon-TM]

Of course, such a system would need to be set up in a way that can be switched as needed

It sounds a lot like the Legion talents, where you had a ST/AoE/useless talent in most rows, and swapped them on a per-boss basis. Ironically enough, when you have too much freedom on a customization system, it effectively stops being customizable since you are expected to use the "optimal" setup at any given time. And the whole point of your suggestion, if I read correctly, is to

shift the strong/weak points of your class.

[Nikkaszal]

It would be the same than giving everything to everyone, since in high level play you will be expected to shift your "expertise" according to the situation. You equip your AoE mastery during trash pulls, and then switch to ST mastery for the boss (unless it's an adds-based boss). I don't think it would work :/

(He was referring to talents. Where you do exactly this).

[Niwes]

its the pool billard problem: if you have the white ball and 1 colored ball on the table, you can predict really good what happens, when the white hit the colored. when there are 2 colored balls beneath together, you start having serious problems to predict what happens. if you have 8 of the colored balls together, its nearly impossible to predict what happens.

that said:
step a) blizz give classes niches (aoe, cleave, st)
step b) blizz give the game niches (m+, different raid bosses in different raid difficulties)
step c) blizz give variance to the niches of raid bosses (some soft cleave, some 15+ aoe, some ST, some long live aoe, etc)
step d) blizz is bad at balancing specs and values per se (just the numbers per se, like if you compare 2 exact same niches)

when you bring that variance, that combinations of fight length, rampup times, resource management, encounter design, combat niches, and and and together, then it is nearly impossible to ever balance this beast or even have a good overview at all. you simply cant compare i.e. a ST rogue at boss 17 (ST boss) with an AoE DH at boss 19 (AoE boss).

the more complex that mix is, the more radical outliers you will have. in both directions. DH reflecting exactly this on the one end of the scope, while classes like SP or Ret reflecting the other end of the scope.

whats the solution ?

the truth is: in a variable game like wow you can never balance classes with niches. there will always be that raid, even when having cleave bosses and ST and mass aoe bosses, that favour class x over class y, because that class x niches and relations perform more apropriate to the sum of the bosses, than class y ones. even when class y is really good at its niche.

so, you have to go back to a more older but more solid game concept, if you wanna still keep diverse encounters with encounter niches like ST, AoE or cleave (what we want, to keep bosses being engaging and different). you have to go back to the talents template model for classe, and you have to streamline them. this means, every class have to have talents that specifically target AoE gaming, ST gaming or cleave gaming. and every class must be as good in this niche as every other class. the goal is that every class can fill in the exact same role, with exact same level of performance, dependent on talents.

we had this concept in the past. the downsides are:
- at every boss the class needs a talent swap, to not feel completely useless.
- the classes become heavily homogenized and overall classes feel boring and missing diversity.

class diversity was blizzards reason to drive away from this option (see blue posts archive).

in the end, the question is, which death you wanna die. more boring but better balanced ? or vice versa ? imo, since all classes already use the builder/consumer pattern with their class resources, the benefit of diversity is too low these days anyway. so i would go back to the old model in exchange for more soild class balance.

but if they do this, they should start handling re-talenting in a slightly another form.

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

There certainly are niches and most of them have to do with are you ranged/melee and how many targets are there and how bunched up they are. What the biggest thing affecting people not seeing this is that people do not play by the strengths of their class if it makes them look worse in the damage meters even though it would be good for the overall pull. Sometimes it is perfectly fine to let the DH aoe for 12 seconds instead of helping him and doing 1/5th of what he does to take it down to 10 seconds. I'd say the difference in raid setups on the last 3 mythic bosses at the cutting edge would point towards there certainly being classes that are good at certain things.

Good example of this is the zul fight. The actual amount of aoe required for that fight is easily covered by just a few people. Yet people to my experience tend to just go for whatever looks the best (meaning burst at the very start) on the meters. Just staring at the meters does make certain niches feel like crap.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Here's a radical thought: what if we had a system by which you could shift the strong/weak points of your class. What if there were a few tiers of extra abilities, where you could choose, say, one out of three, and use that to essentially mold your own niche. That would mean you could have more flexibility to fill a needed niche, and it would put less strain on overall class design. Of course, such a system would need to be set up in a way that can be switched as needed - that LAST thing you'd want is to have it so that you select one basically optimal setup, and have all the actual choices restricted to mere utility abilities with little to no impact on performance.

I don't know what we could call such a system. Expertise? Aptitude? Knack? Something like that, in any case.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a great, differentiated system like that?

It still wouldn't fix the issue. It'd just shuffle the issue to something else.

Groups would still demand the classes the best at doing everything, and demand they take the talent build that makes them best at everything.

The only solution to the niches problem (which let me add is entirely community created by the above line) is to remove niches, roll the class design back to MoP where everyone was equally good at everything. Re-homogenize.

[Deleted]

Guy makes post proving that class balance is trash and that there are classes that excel at everything while some only excel at something or nothing atm and other people start talking about "niches" actually being there when they clear do not exist and the word is used to cover for bad design or for the fact that blizzard actually want people to play X and Y class. Feels like some people only read the tittle rather than what the OP posted and ignored points he made.

Niches are myth, in theory it sounds like a good idea and would be cool. But the problem is how the raids and dungeons are designed. Why in the world would you take a class that sucks at AoE/Cleave, when mythic+ is all about AoE/Cleave? It doesn't work in WoW, because like you said why wouldn't you take a Havoc DH over a Spriest or a feral?

its not "all" about cleave/aoe tyrannical is there for a reason why you dont take feral or spriest over a DH is simple the DH will do same/more ST dps AND blow them away on aoe aka its a jack of all trades master of all.

[Soon-TM]

The Devs may want niches, but Mythic (Dungeon and raid) groups want only the best at the most things.

Indeed. Mythic stuff (and arenas, to a good extent) are incompatible with a basic RPG tenet: that your character is customized in order to get an advantage in certain field(s) to the detriment of others. In other words, strengths and weaknesses inherent to your character, which are very difficult, if not outright impossible, to modify.

[Alcsaar]

Lot of discussion going on here - but here is what it comes down to. Balancing around niches is AWFUL. Its awful for exactly all the reasons listed by Niwes.

You can't possibly balance all content so that every class/spec and their niche are equally and fairly displayed. DHs are great at everything right now because almost everything is balanced around DH's "Strengths". It doesn't matter if X spec is suppose to excel at Y fight if Y fight is incredibly rare. All that matters is that Z class gets to excel in every mythic+ and on essentially every single raid boss because fight types aren't varied enough.

- - - Updated - - -

in the end, the question is, which death you wanna die. more boring but better balanced ? or vice versa ? imo, since all classes already use the builder/consumer pattern with their class resources, the benefit of diversity is too low these days anyway. so i would go back to the old model in exchange for more soild class balance.

but if they do this, they should start handling re-talenting in a slightly another form.

Class diversity doesn't work in practice (as we are seeing) because what you get is everyone rerolling to FOTM classes that excel in the current content or quitting if they can't invest the time to reroll. No one wants to play a spec for an entire raid tier that does pitiful dps because of boss design that doesn't show off their "Strengths". If every raid tier and every mythic+ can't provide an opportunity for every unique niche to display its strength, than they need to do away with said niches and move towards homogenization. Classes can still have their own flavor while being homogenized. It might not be as uber unique, but at least you don't have to spend entire patches feeling shitty because of poor design.