Discussion with Senior Technical Game Designer Kris Zierhut

[Deleted]

-DoT snapshotting removed.
-He agrees that warlocks are too OP (Affliction specifically ) and their skillcap is WAY too high with dot snapshotting. He wants to rip up the warlock changes (with the basic idea intact - i.e. the different secondary resources) and rebuild the class.

Oh dear, guess I have a second thing to not like about the expansion.

I'd love him to rip up the affliction changes, I despise malefic grasp, but removing DOT snapshotting would be absolutely horrible unless he plans to give affliction 5 dots again.

[Chickat]

4-7 was Naxx - Ulduar level. Even without the buff good dps was above 10k in ICC.

I think you are wrong. I remember people doing 2k in Naxx, and people on my server spamming lfm dps 5kdps minimum.

- - - Updated - - -

My data's a bit fuzzy, but ICC era had between ~8-15k DPS (before the +5%) (on a fight with a fairly average amount of movement, you could probably hit higher than 20k on a tank-and spank with minimal movement, like saurfang for melee); And that's considering that the budget was inflated due to an extra tier, and heroic loot.

Edit: To clarify, that'd be heroic player numbers, and not what average joe would be doing.

Bull. People in tier 11 were doing under 20k dps.

[Treeba]

Without the buff good people could pretty easily hit 10k. I personally remember breaking 14k a few times on Saurfang and I quit raiding that expansion at the 15% buff mark. If it's super important to you I can probably find some old screenshots, but I'd really rather not dig through my screenshot folder for something so trivial.

I think the big difference is going to be between what your average player remembers and what skilled and highly geared people remember. 5k dps was good in Naxx, but not much past early Ulduar. If you couldn't break 5k dps in late Ulduar/ToC/ICC fights it was either a odd fight or a lesser skilled player.

I remember rogues could get way above 5k in Naxx with the bugged Honor among thieves and tricks trading. Mages as well.

I mean people regularly broke 2k in Sunwell. We even had a few locks break 3k on Brutallus BEFORE the 3.0 changes.

[anaxie]

Sweet so i did some math and this is was heroic warforged gorwhowl will look after the squish roughly.

Xal'atoh, Desecrated Image of Gorehowl

1567-2351 damage
544.3dps
144 strength
232 stamina
86 crit
103 mastery

socket bonus 4 strength

This is the current one. http://www.wowhead.com/item=105644

Here is a 10 man icc heroic 2h axe with slightly worse stats, so expect us to be doing the dps we were doing during icc without the icc buff. http://www.wowhead.com/item=47446

Im guessing that something with stats similar to this will be top tier items for level 100s next xpac. http://www.wowhead.com/item=65145

[Violetti]

I think you are wrong. I remember people doing 2k in Naxx, and people on my server spamming lfm dps 5kdps minimum.

ich only remember ppl asking for gearscore

dot-snapshotting removed makes me sad, dotspeccs like shadow or affliction just got destroyed.

[anaxie]

Im thinking like 4-7k without icc buffs. I know i was a noob in wrath and the best gear i ever got was icc 5 man gear and my dps has about 30k hp and i did like 3-4k dps so yeah.

More like 16k 5-6.5k was naxx

All of you are wrong or did awful max dps. Truth hurts.

[incindeary]

Without the buff good people could pretty easily hit 10k. I personally remember breaking 14k a few times on Saurfang and I quit raiding that expansion at the 15% buff mark. If it's super important to you I can probably find some old screenshots, but I'd really rather not dig through my screenshot folder for something so trivial.

I think the big difference is going to be between what your average player remembers and what skilled and highly geared people remember. 5k dps was good in Naxx, but not much past early Ulduar. If you couldn't break 5k dps in late Ulduar/ToC/ICC fights it was either a odd fight or a lesser skilled player.

I remember rogues could get way above 5k in Naxx with the bugged Honor among thieves and tricks trading. Mages as well.

I mean people regularly broke 2k in Sunwell. We even had a few locks break 3k on Brutallus BEFORE the 3.0 changes.

# agree I was mediocre at best and i was doing 6k+ in toc and in late wrath i remember doing 14-15k on festergut and easy fights like that

[Shaetan]

Devs looking at MW monks, specifically mentioned infinite mana as a concern. Implied looking at the class as a whole and being unhappy with them with unspecified fixes.

He thought absorbs were a bit much early on but are alright now (note: I don't believe he mains a healer so this might not be a shared feeling)

They like hybrids bringing healing cooldowns.

Not worried about the 25/10-->20 transition, 25m guilds can drop players and 10m guilds can merge.

Unsure how Mythic unlock will work (i.e. if it will require a clear of 'heroic' mode)

They liked the delay between MOP release and raids being available.

Personal loot is something they want to keep for LFR but they want traditional raid loot for normal/heroic/mythic.

Haste breakpoints are not a thing anymore (not sure how this is being implemented or if I understood it correctly)

[anaxie]

I think you are wrong. I remember people doing 2k in Naxx, and people on my server spamming lfm dps 5kdps minimum.

- - - Updated - - -



Bull. People in tier 11 were doing under 20k dps.

Max dps isn't the skillcap of unskilled doing less then 60% their potential. Sorry

[Wow]

http://i.imgur.com/soES5Ur.jpg

Thats just about in line with icc weapons, in mop the doubled all weapon dmg on everything. And this is a lfr piece so the lowest ilvl there compare that with the lowest ilvl in icc and cut the weapon dmg in half and you get a 690-1070 dmg range. So it looks like WOD will be cata stats.

[Glorious Leader]

, 25m guilds can drop players and 10m guilds can merge.

Oh well I mean that'll work out well I'm sure...

[anaxie]

Thats just about in line with icc weapons, in mop the doubled all weapon dmg on everything. And this is a lfr piece so the lowest ilvl there compare that with the lowest ilvl in icc and cut the weapon dmg in half and you get a 690-1070 dmg range. So it looks like WOD will be cata stats.

This is right above black temple Torch of the Damned

[Deleted]

Warlock OP?

[Xyronic]

Devs looking at MW monks, specifically mentioned infinite mana as a concern. Implied looking at the class as a whole and being unhappy with them with unspecified fixes.

He thought absorbs were a bit much early on but are alright now (note: I don't believe he mains a healer so this might not be a shared feeling)

They like hybrids bringing healing cooldowns.

Not worried about the 25/10-->20 transition, 25m guilds can drop players and 10m guilds can merge.

Unsure how Mythic unlock will work (i.e. if it will require a clear of 'heroic' mode)

They liked the delay between MOP release and raids being available.

Personal loot is something they want to keep for LFR but they want traditional raid loot for normal/heroic/mythic.

Haste breakpoints are not a thing anymore (not sure how this is being implemented or if I understood it correctly)

Verified. Dis guy is an officer in vigil and was there with us

[Treeba]

Oh well I mean that'll work out well I'm sure...

I think it's going to suck a lot more for 10s. Once you get past the top 10 or so 25m guilds there aren't too many that couldn't afford to lose a few of the weaker players. Obviously that's not comforting in guilds were all 25 people are fairly close, but that's probably more the minority. 10 man guilds are really getting boned though.

[Wow]

This is right above black temple Torch of the Damned

He is right though, they (approximately) doubled all weapon damage on items in MoP. So he's talking about stats from these times, not stats from the current items.

This sums it up its not comparable after you take it back down to it original bc stats.

[Reyzzz]

Warlock OP?

The best raid utility, the best dps output, so yeah they are op from pve perspective.

[Zka]

10 man guilds are really getting boned though.

Lots of 10man guilds have 2 raid groups, just like the one I founded. We'll just merge these 2 groups and the tanks will sourt out role changes if needed. With a new expansion, there are a lot of role and class changes anyway.

[Shaetan]

oh, re: item squish and old raid soloing

If you are significantly higher level than the content (example given was 20 lvls, not sure what the threshold is) you will do more damage (e.g. 5x) to the bosses and they will do less damage (e.g. 10%) to you.

[DrIvoRobotnik]

So no fourth spec for Locks?