Incredibly disappointed with class balancing so far

[Canbie]

You do know that marking a PTR patch is not the equivalent to them announcing the patch will go live in a week?

Another point to bring up is also that Blizzard usually gives a 2 week notice before any PvP season will end. Blizzard notified us about that this week. This would put the launch of the pre-patch in 2 weeks, not one.

When did they announce that? I've been looking/waiting for it but haven't seen it.

[Michael Jackson]

"-Dont worry guys, its just alpha Im sure they'll fix it!"
"-Dont worry guys, its beta, they will fix it!"
"-Dont worry guys, its just X.0 they will patch it!"
"-Dont worry guys, they'll probably fix it in X.3!"
"-Dont worry guys, it will get fixed next expansion!"

seriously it's becoming so absurd to see this.

[Jester Joe]

When did they announce that? I've been looking/waiting for it but haven't seen it.

It was slid into one of the big posts on Monday, I missed it too.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...xpansion-patch

BATTLE FOR AZEROTH PVP SEASON 4 ENDS AND THE POST-SEASON BEGINS
The gates will soon close on Battle for Azeroth PvP Season 4 with the release of the Shadowlands pre-expansion patch. Don’t worry though, you’ll still be able to take part in competitive PvP in a special post-season, which will end with the launch of the expansion. The new Shadowlands Season 1 will then go live shortly after the launch of Shadowlands.

If you participated in Season 4, to ensure you receive the rewards that you’re due, please keep the following in mind:

Refrain from transferring your character(s) to another realm or faction until after Battle for Azeroth Season 4 has ended.
Battle for Azeroth Season 4 titles and mounts will be awarded approximately two weeks after the season ends.

[Gurg]

I feel like Blizzard is altogether dropping work on classes and focusing on expansion content and borrowed power. Few classes that are currently seeing changes are classes that have received minor reworks earlier (sPriest, Balance, Elemental) and they are now just setting gameplay adjustments for core to feel more enjoyable/work less clunky.

I was hoping to see few changes to classes that i play, mostly the stuff that class communities were talking about since early BfA beta, then trough early BFA, then trough BFA and now trough alpha and beta.
But majority of that was simply.. ignored. If not all. For some classes "unpruning" even do more bad than it actually helped, example like SnD for Rogues, Hunters Mark for Hunters, and despite all the feedback that Blizzard received that those and similar buttons are not fun to press they are keeping them in game simply because there are borrowed powers tied to those spells.

As you, i was waiting and waiting patiently for some changes. Then ANY changes. Now im just down to the point that ill simply play the game with classes that i enjoy with, the rest will be just leveled or used to get alternative transmogs until i get bored. Then move to another game probably and wait for next major patch and for blizzard to introduce majority of changes fixing issues for which feedback was provided in beta-alpha.

My bigger concern are actually Soulbinds and conduit's since it looks like they will matter quite a lot and there's a lot of controversy going around them that i agree on.
You are locked on weekly basis for resetting Soulbinds/conduits. This means that you will either need to pre-plan your Soulbinds and spec for the week or play sub optimal with conduits set for a different spec.

Example: You play, as you say MW. You will have raiding Soulbind, dungeon Soulbind and WQ Soulbind. Logically since Soulbinds come with different default passives.
WQ soulbind might be BrM or WW. But again, setting up Soulbind for a offspec gives you less options for your main spec.
However your Raid leader asks you to go WW for fight xyz since you need less heals. Or you just want to.
You have two options:
1. Sacrifice weekly lockout, reset Soulbind and set it up for WW for that one fight and perform optimal.
2. Play WW sub optimal with Soulbind set for MW.

This becomes even bigger issue when you layer on top of it Soulbind passives with which they come, since putting on side your pick of conduits, theres a meaningful difference in Soulbinds passive conduits that they come with.

So, now you not only that you need to take into consideration Covenant ability, but also Soulbinds them selfs and plan the content that you want to play in advance.
This gets worse on hybrids like Druids, Paladins, Monks, Shamans..

[Cyanu]

balance is irrelevant on anything other than live and even if some mechanics are 'meh' they can still be balanced by numbers alone

still i suspect that Shadowlands is an attempt to return to the golden days of wotlk, blizzard is constantly looking at the past in order to move forward and in the past people were happy with LESS balance and more 'cool' stuff instead, so that's what they've been doing

after all the 'best' wow xpac wotlk was infamous for it's shitty balance, people are still making memes about the original itteration of DKs and that was only one of the problems, wotlk was also knee deep into class homogenization: everyone had everything and people were still happy

obviously it's impossible to balance convenants+ conduits + legendaries for every spec, but i suspect that people don't care that much, or at least that's what blizz is betting on, give them what they want now - worry if it's balanced later

[Gurg]

balance is irrelevant on anything other than live and even if some mechanics are 'meh' they can still be balanced by numbers alone

still i suspect that Shadowlands is an attempt to return to the golden days of wotlk, blizzard is constantly looking at the past in order to move forward and in the past people were happy with LESS balance and more 'cool' stuff instead, so that's what they've been doing

after all the 'best' wow xpac wotlk was infamous for it's shitty balance, people are still making memes about the original itteration of DKs and that was only one of the problems, wotlk was also knee deep into class homogenization: everyone had everything and people were still happy

obviously it's impossible to balance convenants+ conduits + legendaries for every spec, but i suspect that people don't care that much, or at least that's what blizz is betting on, give them what they want now - worry if it's balanced later

It will be fun to see top guilds having 4 characters for 4 covenants all geared up and ready to go.
At least we will see more than just few usual faces and there will be more content on Twitch and YT.

[irdsyd]

I'm on beta.

There has been very little class balancing I am aware of. I think their priorities are fixing levelling bugs (it still has persistent bugs, some stopping getting to 60) and fixing the initial content when you get to 60 (they have recently remade the post-60 quest chains and changed the ways you get into torghast - in its remade state it is bug ridden). Without fixing these two things they cannot launch - so my guess is balancing goes down their priority list.

I've been on a few betas. This soon before launch there are a lot of bugs. In the past it has often come together at the end but there are other factors this year (a pandemic, fires in california and a very contested presidential election) that may impact on their ability to deliver - as someone who has been stuck in social isolation for months due to phase 4 restrictions for corona I want the game to launch and am prepared to be forgiving about balance and non game breaking bugs. I guess I;m resigned to balancing happening in the weeks and months after launch.

[Konthos]

You do know that marking a PTR patch is not the equivalent to them announcing the patch will go live in a week?

Another point to bring up is also that Blizzard usually gives a 2 week notice before any PvP season will end. Blizzard notified us about that this week. This would put the launch of the pre-patch in 2 weeks, not one.

Quit spreading misinformation...the "Blizzard usually givess a 2 week notice before any PvP season will end" thing is not true at all.

[Drejjmit]

I fully expect they'll be balancing classes up until the middle of the expansion tbh, so I guess it's still early lmao.

Say that to MM Hunters that's been down with Prot Paladins/Blood DKs/Prot Warrios in DPS for the whole expansion.
https://youtu.be/ezsL9i7sicA?t=1544

[Jastall]

"Wait for 9.3 to fix the game"

is basically the mantra for blizz these days it seems.

These days? Do you think the game was somehow more balanced 10 years ago?

[Lindon]

Quit spreading misinformation...the "Blizzard usually givess a 2 week notice before any PvP season will end" thing is not true at all.

Ease up on the glue mate. It's not good for you.

[Tyze]

It's because of borrowed power. A class is not balanced around it's abilites anymore but rather the covenants, legendaries, soulbinds and whatever

[Cyanu]

It will be fun to see top guilds having 4 characters for 4 covenants all geared up and ready to go.
At least we will see more than just few usual faces and there will be more content on Twitch and YT.

honestly i don't care, if someone is so determined to milk every last drop of advantage let him, it's their sleep

after all what are they going to do? leave? how likely is that they're better at something else than WoW? they have nowhere else to go and they're a minority as well, no reason to cater to such a tiny part of the elite

[Gurg]

--- snip ---

As someone who has been stuck in social isolation for months due to phase 4 restrictions for corona I want the game to launch and am prepared to be forgiving about balance and non game breaking bugs. I guess I;m resigned to balancing happening in the weeks and months after launch.

While im in the same boat as you do, my only issue with balancing during expansion, which will happen for sure, is that a covenant which was previously less appealing pulls ahead due to balancing. Mid patch switch, possibly during progression even, whole gated questline behind it (which is not yet completely implemented on Beta) and Renown catchup makes me feel a bit uneasy. Its unnecessary foot work and time consumption.
I wouldn't like to see difference in numbers that are testers currently mentioning go Live, 10-15% difference, somewhere even 20% for some classes, depending on dungeon or raid composition.
That means that stuff is still waaay unbalanced.

honestly i don't care, if someone is so determined to milk every last drop of advantage let him, it's their sleep

after all what are they going to do? leave? how likely is that they're better at something else than WoW? they have nowhere else to go and they're a minority as well, no reason to cater to such a tiny part of the elite

I, as you, dont care about that part of elite community.
It was a sarcastic/dark humor reply to this part of quoted text: "but i suspect that people don't care that much, or at least that's what blizz is betting on, give them what they want now - worry if it's balanced later." implying that while majority of us doesnt care about "perfect" balance there will always be people that do care.

And it really will be nice to see different faces on streams than those which we usually see lately. Nothing more, nothing less.

While tuning/balancing is one of my concerns, my biggest concern in fact is strange decision of weekly lockouts behind Soulbind/conduit reset, how limiting that will play out and how will that affect us as players.
Its something that, in wake of current bad tuning so close to the release, minority of us are talking about but its something that will become an issue as soon as you experience it.

Imagine a set of Azerite Gear with which you are stuck for next 2 years with reforging being on weekly reset. Something like that.

[GrinnersGrin]

It's only 9.2.5 dude they will definitely balance the covenant systems with another contrived borrowed power system that's even more RNG than the launch one dude have faith

[dcc626]

It's because of borrowed power. A class is not balanced around it's abilites anymore but rather the covenants, legendaries, soulbinds and whatever

the game cant be balanced. it has never been balanced. it will never be balanced. the sooner you get that thought into your head the sooner you can move on.

and, as has been said time and time again, numbers tuning is the last thing that happens. no point in tuning numbers when you will change systems and have to do it again.

[Elias01]

Considering 10 years ago we didn't have borrowed powers that systems that completely wrecked havoc upon class balance, yes I do.

It sure as shit was more fun back then in terms of class design/balance.

Than you are delusional becouse every single expansion was unbalanced every single one no matter if we had power progression systems or not. Game was more fun becouse of exclusivty no becouse of class desing.

[oplawlz]

I fully expect they'll be balancing classes up until the middle of the expansion tbh, so I guess it's still early lmao.

Nah, after launch they'll give up entirely on the underperforming specs.

[StillMcfuu]

They aren't going to get a fair bit of the balancing in until a week before to a week after the raid comes out, and expect more when Mythic releases. It's been this way since Legion. There will be base level balancing, but expect issues.

[Jastall]

Considering 10 years ago we didn't have borrowed powers that systems that completely wrecked havoc upon class balance, yes I do.

It sure as shit was more fun back then in terms of class design/balance.

Because class balance was shit without the borrowed power lol. That's never changed and if anything has gotten better since WoD or thereabouts, to say nothing of shit like OP Horde racials still having dire demographic effects to this day. This game has never been anywhere close to the balance some people would like, it's an impossible task.

But yeah, I'm sure Covenant ability X contributing 15% more DPS than ability Y is the last straw of class balance and stuff.