So many spec's left out of Mythic plus

[kek280]

Faster cycle of balance is really the only thing Blizzard can do but they are too busy coming up with new schemes to steal money from players.
This rogue warrior cancer should have been nerfed 2 months ago, give way for another fotm combo to show, and then nerf that new fotm combo, etc.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Or you could play a frost mage in M+ and be the most represented ranged dps spec in the game at all keystone levels. I'm glad that different classes have different strengths and weaknesses.

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I feel that it detracts from the RPG elements of a game. I think it's healthier for the game for specs to have limitations and weaknesses. Classes and specs have been like this since day one.

Not at all in real life stuns are not class restricted. It just about causing enough trauma to the head to cause a concussion.

[Orwell7]

Perfect balance is possible at the cost of class identity. Which basically translates to "we sacrifice balance in some aspects in order to keep classes different".
This is the class deign philosophy of Blizzard now. Which is totally fair.

Not everything has to be balanced around doing 17+ keys. Those are the highly competitive spots, and the highly competitive environment needs the best of the best to min-max. It is that simple. In order for every spec to be competitive at the highest level, every spec would need to do the exact same dmg and utility, which would just mean that every spec is the same.

Damage-wise every spec to very close to each other. I've been playing a survival hunter for the past month and it's really good, I have to say. It just doesn't provide the same utility that a rogue has, that's all.
Every class has its own strength and weakness, some are just better for some content than others. Like, with Reaping affli is pretty lacking in M+, but it finally let Demo shine, which was a very underplayed spec before. This will all change once we get the new seasonal affix, we'll have another top performer group and then people will be whining about those.

This is why you, as the player, should set your own goals: if you wanna play your class for fun you need to accept that it may be harder for you to do extremely high-end content without a group of friends. If your goal is to be at the top of charts, you need to sacrifice your preferences. This is the exact case with most of online multiplayers that include a variety of options. Balancing different playstyles around an "equal outcome" would just make less difficult specs be on top, for obvious reasons. People choose the path of least resistance. You can't change that.

This is SO FALSE man!
Just imagine those huuuge buildings around you. All the scyscrapers, how the building itself engineered with water, heating, security, etc.
And then here are some 36 specs with ~10 abilities and you tell me it CANNOT BE DONE?

The conclusion from your "base" is very true, I admit. But the base that "balance or identity" is absolutely false. No one claimed that, only Blizzard's incompetence made you believe that!

[ZazuuPriest]

any spec has a place in up to a 15 key easily. If youre trying to min max a MDI type of event then there will always be the top class-spec which is why the MDI is so boring to watch

[Garymorilix]

This is SO FALSE man!
Just imagine those huuuge buildings around you. All the scyscrapers, how the building itself engineered with water, heating, security, etc.
And then here are some 36 specs with ~10 abilities and you tell me it CANNOT BE DONE?

The conclusion from your "base" is very true, I admit. But the base that "balance or identity" is absolutely false. No one claimed that, only Blizzard's incompetence made you believe that!

What does a static building have to do with spec performance in a video game?

This is the most disconnected argument I have heard in a while.

If you want perfect balance you need to make classes identical.
Because it doesn't matter if a fury warrior does 10-15% more dps than a rogue, when a rogue can save you more time with shroud. It's this simple.
Unless you make every class deal exactly the same dmg (which is nonsense in itself, cuz why should an aoe spec deal as much single target dmg as a single target spec) and have the exact same utility, you will have FotM classes.
And even if you made everything the same, the 'top' classes would be the brain-dead easy classes, cuz why would you play something with a higher chance of error when you can play Arms warrior and spam slam all day and do the exact same damage + utility?

Buildings are buildings. Whatever their design is, they all serve the same function.
Specs do not serve the same function. Even sub-categories differ. This is not a hard thing to grasp, it is called class design.

tl;dr: Yes, I tell you it CANNOT BE DONE in a game like WoW where the goal is not to have 'one' spec with different colored abilities, but multiple different specs with different strengths and weaknesses in many different encounters for thousands of players with different levels of skill at the game. I hope it's not that hard to see.

[Nitros14]

Or you could play a frost mage in M+ and be the most represented ranged dps spec in the game at all keystone levels. I'm glad that different classes have different strengths and weaknesses.

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I feel that it detracts from the RPG elements of a game. I think it's healthier for the game for specs to have limitations and weaknesses. Classes and specs have been like this since day one.

Would you like to tell me what the strength of fire and arcane mage is? Which content are those two specs suited for?

Specs are supposed to have strengths right?

[HuxNeva]

With as many specs in the game as there are--too many in my opinion--the only way to get to anything truly balanced for all types of fights and damage is to homogenize the shit out of classes until you can't tell them apart. I don't think that's better for the game.

You are right, and I also said this in the past. So what has changed?
With the ease of leveling and gearing characters,together with the addition of the WoW token to Blizzard balance (services for free), the dynamic of the ingame ecosystem and the resulting meta game changed dramatically;

Both Blizzard and the more engaged players now can expect for a competitive guild/M+team that players will have access to every class, spec and race combo at a sufficiently geared level on short notice. This is fairly recent, and has accelerated in BfA significantly over even Legion. Boost a new character, powerlevel it in a few hours, gear it though catch-ups on steroids and group up to farm M+/Islands and you are ready to go in no time.

And because it is so 'cheap', it is not just the 'top ten guilds/teams vying for WF/MDI', it is all over the place. Your average casual M+ team struggling on 15's can suddenly do 18's with ease because the tank changed to prot warrior and one of the dps leveled a rogue.
Now you could say what is the problem? Just look at it like League where you have a whole roster of champions and you select the right 'tool' for the job in line with the current meta and the specifics of the adversaries to overcome. And if you like that, nice for you.

But there is a very large contingent of players that are not so thrilled about this qualitative change of the game. People that are more traditionally tied to their character, people that just do not like playing 'whatever does the job best'. For them this 'new cheapness' of characters makes their game a lot harder playing 'off meta', both in terms of progression as well as in terms of peer pressure and group dynamics.

So, yes, the only way to have prefect balance is still to have just different cosmetic flavors of the same spec, but the impact of (severe) unbalance has changed dramatically due to other dynamics in the game.

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M+ is designed for a TV show. Its not designed for players.

It is actually an extremely poor format for eSports, but content wise one of the best things added to the game in like forever.

[Tehterokkar]

any spec has a place in up to a 15 key easily. If youre trying to min max a MDI type of event then there will always be the top class-spec which is why the MDI is so boring to watch

There was a lot lot more variety in Legion MDIs.

It wasn't because people were any less min-max(though yes, people have gotten better at M+), it's because the class and dungeon balance is far far worse.

There are way more abilities to interrupt, which in itself very much favor melee specs. Dungeons like Atal'Dazar are suicide without at least 2 melee DPS on high keys fortified simply because some mobs do such insane damage on spammable casts that you can't survive without interrupting. On top of that, the spec balance is worse than it's ever been. There are so many DPS specs that simply cannot compete in m+ because they were designed with limited target caps. And even with said target caps, there are multiple specs that are better at the restricted target counts some specs have.

The dungeons themselves have been designed to be MDI-ready, which makes them full of super annoying trash that has more mechanics than the bosses themselves. MDI was an afterthought in Legion, they just designed a keystone system for the dungeons, which had its flaws(Tyrannical Halls of Valor says hello) and they corrected them in BfA with 0 bosses that have insanely scaling abilities that straight up 1 shot you in tyrannical. But opened a whole new can of worms with the aforementioned high interrupt requirements, which forces you to now run at least 2 melee for every dungeon(3 in MDI as we have seen with 2x Rogue and 1x Monk).

[Khallid]

I hear you about accepting it and I do I just feel bad for the other specs that really cannot complete for higher keys.

I mention sub rogues cause there 0.3% played in mythic plus dungeons.

Realistically as long as every class has one spec that works things would be fine. No one is going to cry for sub Rogues when they can just switch specs. There's some classes that are just fucked and none of their specs are good for mythic+. Switching specs is not comparable to rerolling a character.

[Garymorilix]

Would you like to tell me what the strength of fire and arcane mage is? Which content are those two specs suited for?

Specs are supposed to have strengths right?

Would you like to tell me what the strenght of outlaw rogue or demonology warlock or prot warriors was in 8.0? Or sub rogue before the Zul cheese?

FotM classes are FotM because they can handle the CURRENT CONTENT better than others. If you nerf a class based on their performance in an ever-changing environment, just because it excels in it, you end up with sub rogue type abandonement after the Zul stuff (and the encounter even got nerfed after).

This does not mean that you playing Fire or Arcane hinders you from succeeding, especially since the numerical difference in dmg output is very minimal.

[HuxNeva]

This does not mean that you playing Fire or Arcane hinders you from succeeding, especially since the numerical difference in dmg output is very minimal.

If you believe that the numerical impact of hitting a target dummy has any relevance on the viability or balance discussion, I don"t know where to begin.

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Would you like to tell me what the strength of fire and arcane mage is? Which content are those two specs suited for?

Specs are supposed to have strengths right?

Typically Fire and arcane are only let off the reigns after the final raid of an expansion, when nothing realy matters. The fact that these specs have more non-linear scaling than others unfortunately makes Blizzard 'erring on the safe side' when it comes to tuning.

[Garymorilix]

If you believe that the numerical impact of hitting a target dummy has any relevance on the viability or balance discussion, I don"t know where to begin.

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Typically Fire and arcane are only let off the reigns after the final raid of an expansion, when nothing realy matters. The fact that these specs have more non-linear scaling than others unfortunately makes Blizzard 'erring on the safe side' when it comes to tuning.

What are you on about. Who talks about target dummies, boy?

All I said was dmg output variance is minimal. Not that damage is the only thing that matters.
But don't act like it doesn't matter. Ask protection warriors about it.

[HuxNeva]

All I said was dmg output variance is minimal.

Tell that to the 99th percentile SV Hunter that gets beaten by a facerolling 20th percentile Outlaw rogue

Not that damage is the only thing that matters.

Now we are talking; Best damage is the kind you don't even have to do or take; Guess which class brings the highest utility there. Balanced?

But don't act like it doesn't matter.

I did not, I just said it isn't the main thing by far.

Ask protection warriors about it.

Now where was your balance argument when a bloody tank is second on damage of all specs?

[pewpmeiser]

While there will always be the specs and classes that edge out the others in the top tier of competition, I firmly believe that for all other circumstances people not taking specs/classes boils down to being close minded, or not able to think for yourself and come up with your own strategies. People see what people do on streams or the MDI and say THATS THE WAY YOU HAVE TO DO IT!

[Poe]

If you're doing sub 15 keys, spec is literally irrelevant. As long as you have 1 tank spec 1 healer spec and 3 dps specs.

[Nitros14]

Would you like to tell me what the strenght of outlaw rogue or demonology warlock or prot warriors was in 8.0? Or sub rogue before the Zul cheese?

FotM classes are FotM because they can handle the CURRENT CONTENT better than others. If you nerf a class based on their performance in an ever-changing environment, just because it excels in it, you end up with sub rogue type abandonement after the Zul stuff (and the encounter even got nerfed after).

This does not mean that you playing Fire or Arcane hinders you from succeeding, especially since the numerical difference in dmg output is very minimal.

Lazy balancing. The environment is hardly "ever-changing" it changes about once every six months. Nerf the spec while it's grossly overpowered. If it sucks later rebuff it. Blizzard is just astonishingly lazy at balancing this expansion. Specs have to wait like 8 months for the hope of maybe getting help.

[Mashanerz]

Are you confusing viable with best?

There's always going to be a best, and when you have these tournaments associated with them you're going to see people optimize their groups with the best (that's why a lot of groups run double rogue)

As for being viable, the rest are viable for probably anything you're able to run, the problem is that people see what the 'best' use and try and mimic it. Just because you're seeing a lot of groups run war/druid/rogue/rogue(or DK)/monk doesn't mean that you can't be successful with another class or spec.

I have a buddy that's really fucking bad for this sort of stuff, constantly makes excuses about his runs and they're all based on FotM class/build/specs. "I can't keep up with you because you're a rogue" "I can't get groups because I'm not a rogue", etc, etc.

If people can make it work without being able to abuse shadowmeld, then a rogue can make it work using sub. You might not get 3.6k+ io with it, but is that where you were going to be from the get go?

[Nitros14]

I feel like this an excuse for lazy balancing.

Yes, there will always be a best.

But the current gap is absurd, bottom specs shouldn't be that far behind.

Blizzard has been particularly bad this expansion.

[Garymorilix]

Tell that to the 99th percentile SV Hunter that gets beaten by a facerolling 20th percentile Outlaw rogue



Now we are talking; Best damage is the kind you don't even have to do or take; Guess which class brings the highest utility there. Balanced?



I did not, I just said it isn't the main thing by far.



Now where was your balance argument when a bloody tank is second on damage of all specs?

1) Survival hunter is not designed to have the same type of AoE damage as outlaw rogue. It looks bad when you compare different classes. Look: demon hunter vs arcane mage. You made no point comparing apples and oranges.

2) Again, one class having an ability other classes don't have doesn't make said class imbalanced. Every class has different utility/rotation/dmg spikes whatever. One class can put down summoning stones AND battle rez, how crazy is that, no-one else can! *hurrdurr*

3) Nobody said it was the main thing, not even I, but yet you felt like making me look like I did.

4) My balance argument is the same. High AoE damage output is one of the strengths of prot warris. Other tanks have other strengths. It's simple as that. That's why we used DK's in 8.0, cuz we didn't need high aoe burst for Reaping waves, we needed strong enemy reposition abilities, which are DK strengths. Now times changed. They always change. The fact that the current M+ seasonal affix promotes a different kind of damage pattern (high AoE burst) doesn't mean currently strong classes will stay the best when the next seasonal affix hits. In fact, I can guarantee we will have new 'best' classes. This is always the case.

[unbound]

TBH, this just highlights the fact that the entire M+ concept is flawed.

Rather than making a more engaging experience via more challenging content, they simply increase the health and damage while throwing in some random elements, and add a timer to it. This means that your ability to approach the challenge is very limited.

If it was a matter of more challenging (and thoughtful) content without a timer, every class becomes viable as there are different ways to approach those challenges. But Blizz didn't want to go down that path because it would have caused them to put in substantially more effort, and the margins for WoW would drop from about 80% down to about 60%.