Looking Forward: Thoughts on DR in 2's

[Venaliter]

To optimize in 2's(and somewhat 3's) the classes you are most effective with are dictated to you. The most effective Compositions (Comps) are ones that don't share DRs. If you DO share a DR with your team mate, you are hobbled from the get-go, and I'd LOVE to come up with a system that allows you to play with your friend, no matter which spec. and not have to worry that you're a Fear/Fear, or Hex/Paralyze or some other combination that shares DR. I'd also not like to totally shatter PvE by radical CC/CD rebalancing. These are the ideas I've come up with and I'd love some community input on this;

(Note: also violating the Spirit of Twitter and copying this to Holinka, in hopes he finds it worth the read. )


1) The One DR Solution: This is commonly purposed by the community, and it is a viable solution. It DOES work for other games, but it has a major drawback. It does ruin class diversity from a certain perspective. Are you still a Priest if your fear if Psychic Scream is basically group polymorph? Are you a mage if your Polymorph is a fear? It may be possible to implement a One DR system specifically in 2's, dictating all CC in that bracket share a DR. This may be possible, but instead of shining a bright light on type of DR, it shines a light on frequency of DR. EXAMPLE: One spec has a 1 min Stun. The other has a 30 second Stun. You will take the 30 second CD stun to be optimal. I'm not sure WoW could handle that a radical rebalancing of CDs that would ALSO mess with PvE. I don't think this is particularly a good change.


2) Trinket CD Reduction: It may be a simple matter of reducing "Trinket" effects to a 1 minute cooldown, allowing more use of trinkets to break CC chains. Intelligent use of trinkets is part of high level PvP, but allowing more frequent breaks of key CC spells may slightly shift emphasis from Composition to Skill. This has the advantage of being a painless change, having slight PvE affects, but being somewhat random in nature and difficult to predict effects.

3) The Asphyxiate Idea: Asphyxiate is somewhat unique among CC spells in WoW. If you are immune to stuns, it functions as a Silence. Although I am not certain of this, I believe it functions as a Silence if your immune to stuns in PvP. It may be possible to tweak certain spells with this in mind: What if Psychic Scream, should the target be immune to Fear, apply a Horrify/Stun or a new type of DR althought (Confusion?) that other classes in a similar position may utilize? This has the great advantage of not affecting class diversity or PvE at all, but would require a lot of individual spell tweaks and and a semi-secondary functionally of spells in PvP, which the developers are reluctant to do.

4) The Glyph Generalization: It should be possible to add Glyphs into the game to allow friends to PvP together, regardless of DR, by simply changing the DR of specific spells to something else by means of a Glyph. Having no effect in PvE, a glyph that changes a Fear/Stun/Horrify DR to another Fear/Stun/Horrify (CC that functions in a similiar way, complete loss of character control, but not the same DR) should be manageable. The major concern of this are Balance, specifically as mentioned above the frequency of CC effects (versus classes that can't apply them as frequently) it becomes the same situation of One DR Solution, albeit implemented more elegantly. Say a mage can apply DR 3 times a minute, VS a warrior who may only be able to apply two DRs per minute. (Note: Example only). While this is to be expected due to class diversity, I cannot predict the affects of such a change. I bet neither can the Developers. Too many moving parts. (IE: A warrior may have more Burst damage CD's then a mage, should CC =/= Damage Cooldown) but I think this is probably the best way to go despite the tweaks required. This change also has the con of possibly requiring a major glyph slot over a comp that doesn't require it.

Anyway, I'd like to hear community thoughts on such solutions, or one that I may have overlooked. Do you guys agree this would be a worthwhile experiment?

[Mormolyce]

I think a 1-DR solution might be a bit extreme, and frankly it would make a lot of CC useless (some classes have 3+ different kinds of CC, that might also need to change).

At the moment WoW has what, 8 or so DR categories? Why not just make it 3? And for god's sake, give players a debuff to indicate their DR status so you can track it in game without relying on addons (or gutfeel).

I would also personally argue that DR should be 100% - ie, no 3 poly in a row. You can poly once, then you have to ask your teammate for a blind, then you can deep freeze, etc.