The state of spec balance is terrible.

[trm90]

I will drink an entire glass of water if Explosive Potential isn't nerfed by the end of this tier.

It is getting nerfed next week by 30%, plus a couple of bugs which were massively increasing their Tyrant/Felguard damage. Demo is expected to be middle of the pack from next week.

And Nitros, I get your frustration, but you're a Mage. I'm not saying you shouldn't complain, Warlocks are busted as fuck right now - but Shadow/Elemental/Balance are specs that are under constant threat of being benched if their DPS isn't up to snuff because we bring literally nothing special to raids. Mages and Hunters, despite being "undertuned" (except MM), are always useful to a raid. They always show up in high number in top 50 progression guilds. I used to main a Mage and rarely worried about losing a raid spot purely because of DPS. The added mobility, immunities, and multiple specs at your disposal (including a mobile execute spec) is great for progression. So just chill out, you're tunnel-visioning on Demo locks which are clearly wildly overtuned right now, and conveniently ignoring the statistics that clearly show tens of thousands of Mages/Hunters contributing to their mythic prog guilds.

[Nitros14]

It is getting nerfed next week by 30%, plus a couple of bugs which were massively increasing their Tyrant/Felguard damage. Demo is expected to be middle of the pack from next week.

And Nitros, I get your frustration, but you're a Mage. I'm not saying you shouldn't complain, Warlocks are busted as fuck right now - but Shadow/Elemental/Balance are specs that are under constant threat of being benched if their DPS isn't up to snuff because we bring literally nothing special to raids. Mages and Hunters, despite being "undertuned" (except MM), are always useful to a raid. They always show up in high number in top 50 progression guilds. I used to main a Mage and rarely worried about losing a raid spot purely because of DPS. The added mobility, immunities, and multiple specs at your disposal (including a mobile execute spec) is great for progression. So just chill out, you're tunnel-visioning on Demo locks which are clearly wildly overtuned right now, and conveniently ignoring the statistics that clearly show tens of thousands of Mages/Hunters contributing to their mythic prog guilds.

There's something deeply amusing to me in that people are now arguing that hybrids have to do more damage than pure dps classes because the pure dps classes bring more utility. Maybe I've played this game too long.

This isn't Hellfire Citadel when mages could trivialize multiple mechanics with evanesce. Yeah there's tons of people that play mage and hunter and most guilds aren't going to sit them or force them to re-roll but the state of spec balance just feels real bad.

Once Demo is nerfed Shadow will still be 20% above BM (16% above fire mage, 15% above frost mage), ele will still be 17% above it, affliction 16% above it. These are huge gaps in performance.

You could argue that Battle of Dazar'alor is insanely favourable to multi-dot specs (which it is) but surely Blizzard should balance around that since it's the current raid?

[Woobels]

There's something deeply amusing to me in that people are now arguing that hybrids have to do more damage than pure dps classes because the pure dps classes bring more utility. Maybe I've played this game too long.

This isn't Hellfire Citadel when mages could trivialize multiple mechanics with evanesce. Yeah there's tons of people that play mage and hunter and most guilds aren't going to sit them or force them to re-roll but the state of spec balance just feels real bad.

Once Demo is nerfed Shadow will still be 20% above BM (16% above fire mage, 15% above frost mage), ele will still be 17% above it, affliction 16% above it. These are huge gaps in performance.

You could argue that Battle of Dazar'alor is insanely favourable to multi-dot specs (which it is) but surely Blizzard should balance around that since it's the current raid?

Have they ever done this? I don't remember them ever changing Warlocks/Shadow priests/Boomkins because a raid is heavily favored towards multi-dotters and there's been a whole lot of those, correct me if wrong though I'm actually curious.

[Nospmas]

Have they ever done this? I don't remember them ever changing Warlocks/Shadow priests/Boomkins because a raid is heavily favored towards multi-dotters and there's been a whole lot of those, correct me if wrong though I'm actually curious.

Well they did nerf Arms warriors in Uldir where almost every fight favored them, either due to AoE burst phases lining up perfectly with AoE cd's or extended or buffed execute phases. Now that fights are not tailored to them in BfD you can see how far they've fallen. I kinda wonder what Blizzard should do in these situations if they buff/nerf classes too often people complain. If they hold steady for a tier then nerf/buff at the end of a tier, then we're in a situation where we are now where if you're one of the "lesser" classes you're green with envy.

[Marrilaife]

Well they did nerf Arms warriors in Uldir where almost every fight favored them, either due to AoE burst phases lining up perfectly with AoE cd's or extended or buffed execute phases. Now that fights are not tailored to them in BfD you can see how far they've fallen.

Same with frost dks tbh.

There's something deeply amusing to me in that people are now arguing that hybrids have to do more damage than pure dps classes because the pure dps classes bring more utility. Maybe I've played this game too long.

Yes, it's very sad that hybrids bring less utility than pures, but that's the monster blizzard created. Why bring a shaman when mage got a bloodlust too, and has better mobility, and has immunity, and has 3 different dps specs if a fight isn't favouring one on them, and has some niche utility like spellsteal which is beter than purge because the buff transfers to the mage. Oh and mage got back int buff too. What does a shaman provide that would make raid groups want a dps shaman? Except tremor totem that only was brought back after legion and is very rarely useful (handful of dungeons and only 1 boss in the current raid).

Same thing with boomkin vs warlock. Except innervate, warlock has more utility - gateway is often a mandatory part of raid positioning on multiple bosses, healthstones are basically an extra raid healing cd, both classes provide combat rez and warlock is more versatile dps, covering both multidot, split cleave and single target dps options.

[lqr]

There's something deeply amusing to me in that people are now arguing that hybrids have to do more damage than pure dps classes because the pure dps classes bring more utility. Maybe I've played this game too long.

This isn't Hellfire Citadel when mages could trivialize multiple mechanics with evanesce. Yeah there's tons of people that play mage and hunter and most guilds aren't going to sit them or force them to re-roll but the state of spec balance just feels real bad.

Once Demo is nerfed Shadow will still be 20% above BM (16% above fire mage, 15% above frost mage), ele will still be 17% above it, affliction 16% above it. These are huge gaps in performance.

You could argue that Battle of Dazar'alor is insanely favourable to multi-dot specs (which it is) but surely Blizzard should balance around that since it's the current raid?

Oh fucking NOES BM is 20% behind Shadow in a Raid with a lot of SPREADED Targets

What a SHOCKING Twist


hope you got it

[ydraw]

I don't think BM is meant to or should sim higher than MM or SV because it is a 100% mobile spec.

Didn't seem to matter last tier where it was one of the top specs for the first couple of months.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Have they ever done this? I don't remember them ever changing Warlocks/Shadow priests/Boomkins because a raid is heavily favored towards multi-dotters and there's been a whole lot of those, correct me if wrong though I'm actually curious.

Dunno about Locks or Boomkins, but they have at some point nerfed Shadow DoTs every single expansion since Cata.

Going from t11 to FL in Cata, dmg was shifted around from DoTs to Mind Blast/Mind Flay, because our multidotting was extremely OP.

Then in MoP, we had the famous 12% buffs to VT and SW:P going into ToT (because Shadow was underperforming), only to be reverted after 1 week, despite Shadow not even being close to top Dps even WITH the buffs. This exact pattern of "buff DoTs and revert after 1 week" was also repeated going into SoO. Shadow was rock bottom Dps from launch of MoP to the launch of WoD. Truly a dark time

In WoD, going into HFC, they prematurely nerfed Devouring Plague by 15% or something, because they were afraid that Shadow with AS would outscale everybody else with HFC gear. Pretty much the same Crit/Haste stacking that we're doing now, except that back then each Apparition generated an extra Shadow orb, while now they just do a truckload of dmg. This outscaling never happened though, and instead Shadow got outscaled by everybody else, and was very close to the bottom of the Dps until they buffed the Shadow class trinket into the sky, making the CoP MS spam spec the way to go for the rest of the expansion.

In Legion, going into NH, at the same time as S2M was nerfed, they also did another shift of our dmg just like they did in Cata. Nerfing DoTs while buffing our direct dmg.



As for the current situation, nerfing our DoTs wouldn't really do anything, as it's the Apparitions that are doing the dmg, not the DoTs. A nerf to SA or CoI would be expected, as it's the synergy between those two traits that is making Shadow do insane dmg atm. And ofc the fact that the entire raid except for Mekkatorque and Opulence are pretty much designed to play perfectly into SPs strengths.

All of the above things were supposed to nerf multidotting in general though, not because the current raid at the time had a lot of multidotting. Nerfing Shadow/Warlock/Boomkin because Blizzard designed a raid around their strengths would be batshit retarded. If you look at Mekkatorque, the only real ST fight in BoDA, the only real outlier is Demo Locks, and their nerf has already been announced. Mages, Hunters and Rogues are suddenly up there again, because there aren't tons of targets to multidot anymore.

[ryjkur]

As specs get more gear we're really seeing the imbalance take off.

Demo warlocks are now doing 22% more damage at 75th percentile than BM hunters overall in mythic.

Gets even worse at 90th/95th/99th. At 99th Demo Warlock does 25% more damage than BM hunter.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/21#
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st.../21#dataset=90
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st.../21#dataset=99

A 25% spread between top and bottom is like burning crusade levels of balance.

You are comparing 1 button no brain spec to actual spec... and BM has 100% mobility so they can't sim high. In actual raids BM shine because of mobility.

[Daan]

Prot Warri damage is too high and having Rogue as a must have class for M+ because of his great utility AND great damage is a bad design, too. Guardian Druid is still in a poor state.

I hope we will see some tuning soon.

[MrExcelion]

Any other tuning coming next week or just Demo/BM?

[ydraw]

You are comparing 1 button no brain spec to actual spec... and BM has 100% mobility so they can't sim high. In actual raids BM shine because of mobility.

It doesn't shine though. It's dead last on nearly every boss, even when taking mobility into account.

The fact is that "mobility" is a terrible niche because blizzard can't ever design a boss that's meant to suit it without locking half of the DPS specs out of the fight.

BM is not balanced around "mobility", this is just an excuse people use whenever BM ends up on the bottom due to yet another Blizzard failure to scale BM's damage with ilvl.

If BM was balanced around mobility then it would never do competitive damage, yet it was one of the top specs in Uldir.

[Nitros14]

Haha 10 shadow priests on progression. Good stuff.

And guilds running 6 elemental shamans on Uu'nat, that must be a first.

[Gaidax]

Spec stacking for world first race is not something super new there.

These encounters favor specific skillset after all. Not sure whether it warrants crying murder there.

I'd say outside Spriests there are no huge outliers there.

[styil]

Spec stacking for world first race is not something super new there.

These encounters favor specific skillset after all. Not sure whether it warrants crying murder there.

I'd say outside Spriests there are no huge outliers there.

There isn't a problem with that. The problem is when it's always the same specific specs whose skillsets are needed, and the same specs whose skillsets are undesirable.

[Gaidax]

There isn't a problem with that. The problem is when it's always the same specific specs whose skillsets are needed, and the same specs whose skillsets are undesirable.

It's the usual seasonal fever for Blizz, like Tomb of Soakgeras or WoD AoE spams. We have a season of spread cleave now, apparently and I'm sure this fad will fade too.

Melee have some legit grievances right now with this new raid. Honestly though, melee seems kind of binary there - either retarded easy or completely fucked.

[Erolian]

Their problem is that some niches either don't matter or aren't allowed to be an outlier in the same fashion that spread cleave is allowed to take off when its applicable. When a shadow priest is tuned to beat a frost mage on single target (mekka), beat them in their primary niche of 2 target cleave (jadefire is primarily this), and then just absolutely slaps them with multidotting on something like conclave despite mages having a niche of spellstealing a gigantic haste buff for the majority of that fight that shit is never going to work or be balanced. You can replace every instance of shadow above with destruction warlock and frost with many hunter, mage, or melee specs on most of the bosses. The idea that powerful multidotting classes should also be competitive (or even just flat out better) during cleave and ST is not realistic if you actually want balance.

Shit like this is how you start only being able to balance by giving everyone dots. Those classes need to actually suck at something if they're going to be gods when its time for spread cleave. You can not have specs and classes designed to be utilitarian at all times as well as having a massive potential niche to leave everyone behind alongside specs and classes that simply aren't.

[omeomorfismo]

Their problem is that some niches either don't matter or aren't allowed to be an outlier in the same fashion that spread cleave is allowed to take off when its applicable. When a shadow priest is tuned to beat a frost mage on single target (mekka), beat them in their primary niche of 2 target cleave (jadefire is primarily this), and then just absolutely slaps them with multidotting on something like conclave despite mages having a niche of spellstealing a gigantic haste buff for the majority of that fight that shit is never going to work or be balanced. You can replace every instance of shadow above with destruction warlock and frost with many hunter, mage, or melee specs on most of the bosses. The idea that powerful multidotting classes should also be competitive (or even just flat out better) during cleave and ST is not realistic if you actually want balance.

Shit like this is how you start only being able to balance by giving everyone dots. Those classes need to actually suck at something if they're going to be gods when its time for spread cleave. You can not have specs and classes designed to be utilitarian at all times as well as having a massive potential niche to leave everyone behind alongside specs and classes that simply aren't.

but that is the same problem with burst aoe, immunity etc.
if there are priority targets, then gg, only burst specs are picked.
if there are adds (like hfc), then the same, only aoe specs are picked.
if there are soaks, then immunity.
and so on...
the problem here is only that the last tier greatly incentivize dotter instead of other mechanics and this is exacerbate by the fact that this raid only had 2 bosses

[Nitros14]

but that is the same problem with burst aoe, immunity etc.
if there are priority targets, then gg, only burst specs are picked.
if there are adds (like hfc), then the same, only aoe specs are picked.
if there are soaks, then immunity.
and so on...
the problem here is only that the last tier greatly incentivize dotter instead of other mechanics and this is exacerbate by the fact that this raid only had 2 bosses

The problem is not that shadow priest/warlock have a niche it's that they're too good at everything. They're the best specs on basically every fight.

Frost mage has a 2-target niche, but shadow priest/warlock beats frost on two target fights.

Also all those 90% reduction soak spells got nerfed to 60% this expansion.