Dev Watercooler -- Critical Hits (And Misses)

[Crispin]

Is a shallower pool more fun than a deep pool? Quite a few people find "fun" in depth. You have no authority when it comes to defining "fun" for anybody but yourself.[COLOR="red"]

So you're seriously arguing that fixing crit values (for the 7th time) adds more fun than say, guildhousing, or guildkeeps, redoing crafting into a non-macro style game or w/e, the game lacks content outside of pve/pvp, but instead they're focused on details they'll never get right.

The game is OLD and classes are still far from balanced, and never have been, it's a lost fight, ofcourse they need to adjust for extremes, but hitting a sweet spot won't happen and they know it.


Ofcourse people wan't to see other "thoughts" than "uhm, we're still trying to figure out how to balance stuff, can't spend time on actual content"


People wan't awesome new features and additions, not the same old bs, classes will never be balanced, accept it and add content that doesnt evolve around said classes beeing balanced or not.


Ghostcrawler is fail, honestly, the game aint any different than it was when TBC ended, same type of content and raiders do the same as do pvpers.

[Deleted]

Also, the title says "And misses" but he mentions nothing on misses :X just sayin

It was pun relating to the saying 'Hits and misses', kinda like most of this expansion.

The 200% healing from crits is quite interesting from my resto shaman point of view. With riptide, earthshield and healing rain all going at once with heals i crit alot, my greater healing wave at the moment crits for about 35-40k with a non crit one coming in around 25-30k. A 60k crit is pretty absurd seeing as the best geared tank i've been with had 200k health with the luck of the draw buff. Considering the role mastery plays for us and how i'm in around ilvl 345 stuff i don't see how this won't be op better gear.

[Killtorz]

Is it me, or does the Blue posters seem more and more bitter?

[Caldrumr]

Again, the first thing they need to do is create a totally separate set of combat rules for PvP, so that they are not balanced together. This will solve (or at least simplify) a lot of the "what if this is too good/bad for PvP" stuff. They are two totally different environments, and should be treated as such, with separate design.

[Notos]

Actually its not debated at all. Crit is by far the worst state for geared resto shaman. I can only assume if you like crit then you have only just started raiding. At the heroic level, 10 man or 25 man, crit is horrible. All of the top resto shaman stack some combination of spirit, haste and mastery, with strong argumetns made for both haste (better TC spam) and mastery (better overall healing). The fact that you speak as though TC is an option (its not for heroic 25 progression as there is no way you can keep up healing without using TC lighting bolts) reveals how little you know about the status of heroic resto shaman healing. Crit mana regen scales so poorly (water shield orb mana does not scale) that its hardly even worth mentioning. The EJ resto thread, last I checked (a month or so ago) was outdated from early on in the expansion (when crit was a good option) and the thread in general has a poor signal to noise ratio (I'm trying to think of any resto shaman who post in there who are 13/13 and drawing a blank).

That the deves think crit is good for resto shaman because we have several talents that interact act with it is a total joke.

First of all, I can see that you have a preconceived hatred of crit so it seems pointless to argue with you. Think about this though, if GC says that "resto shamans favor crit" then maybe, just maybe, he has sources of information that point to this? You know, I imagine that most resto shamans aren't in guilds that are 13/13 heroic in raid progression, and the skill of a resto shaman isn't determined by his raid's progression because there are 24 other people that also have to contribute. You have to realize that there are many ways to heal as a resto shaman, and none of them are the "right way" for every situation. Yes, TC is an option...I would never run with it if I was tank healing, for example (gasp, some shamans tank heal omg noobs). I run with TC and haste is my favored secondary stat, but I still think that crit is a pretty decent stat.

p.s. yes the old resto shaman thread on EJ is a bit out of date, which is why there is a new one.

[Vaelyn]

Uh yeah. We "like" it so much, we reforge all of it to spirit, haste, and mastery. It is literally the bottom stat, so it is more than embarrassing that Blizz's lead developer would say we "like" it.

You reforge crit to mastery? Are you really insulting GC's understanding of the shaman class? Mastery is only useful on 2 or 3 encounters and it only affects about 2/3 of our heals on those encounters. I reforge mastery to crit, at least until 4.1 drops and improves it slightly :-P

[Bassnectar]

What about hunters?

[ghostblade]

for people who don't get

Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street is the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft. He crits on a 19 or 20.

its a RP board game joke where you use D20 ( dices with 20 squares)

[Brett Skullcrack]

Pick Assassination because you like daggers or poisons or maybe Rupture, not because you like small crits.

I am lost for words at the incompetence of this guy. Who picks a spec because they "like poisons"? Why would you "like poisons"? It's just another line in the combat log.

[Notos]

Pick Assassination because you like daggers or poisons or maybe Rupture, not because you like small crits.

I am lost for words at the incompetence of this guy. Who picks a spec because they "like poisons"? Why would you "like poisons"? It's just another line in the combat log.

Some people like the idea of using poisons as a source of damage? Kind of like some people prefer fire over arcane on a mage because the idea of roasting your enemies in flames is more appealing to them. It's the flavor of the class or spec.

[littlewisp]

I dunno about all the other resto shaman complaining, but I do like crit. I just don't find it as useful as the other stats. Would I like more crit? Absolutely. I just don't want to give up my other stats for it.

[masterprtzl]

It was pun relating to the saying 'Hits and misses', kinda like most of this expansion.

Oh! LOL that went right over my head :X

[kittenboots]

More pvp balancing that is detracting from the real issue plaguing the game (lack of content and "quality of life issues.")

When is Blizzard going to just realize that it's time to make PVP and PVE two completely separate game styles, with different gear and talent trees? As it stands, competitive PVP is all about finding whatever the current spec, item, ability, class or gear that can be used to create some sort of competitive advantage, and exploiting it. Blizzard constantly spends huge amounts of times designing, and redesigning, and retuning the game to work around these "exploits." DPS is too high, let's bump resilience. Now healing is too easy, let's nerf that. Now mortal strike is too effective, let's nerf that. Warrior charge is too powerful, buff escapes. Too many escapes, buff Rogue stuns.

Meanwhile, PVE players are having to endure the constant pendulum swing of class balancing for raiding and grouping. The only way it's going to end is to make the two gameplay choices distinctly separate. And the argument about people being confused is moot: if you want to be competitive in PVP, you can't just roll into an arena as a fresh 85 with quest greens and blues and expect to get a high rating. You have to research your class composition, create/grind a pvp gear set from crafted/BGs, and learn the ins and outs of all the specs in the game and how to counter them. With all that much research and prep going into it already, what's one more talent tree per class?

thank you for saying this!

[Brett Skullcrack]

Some people like the idea of using poisons as a source of damage? Kind of like some people prefer fire over arcane on a mage because the idea of roasting your enemies in flames is more appealing to them. It's the flavor of the class or spec.

Poisons are an entirely passive thing, which all rogue have. The only difference is what percentage of your damage says "XYZ poison" in Recount or WoL. I can kind of understand arcane vs. fire since the spells are actually different, but then again it's such an insignificant thing compared to picking based on a role (tank/healer/ranged/melee) for example. At the end of the day every spec boils down to a handful of abilities, some timers and some cooldowns, (and whatever goes with the role, e.g., tanks need to control the fight etc.etc.) what the animation or name of an ability is doesn't seem to make much of a difference to me.

[Failhance]

Uh yeah. We "like" it so much, we reforge all of it to spirit, haste, and mastery. It is literally the bottom stat, so it is more than embarrassing that Blizz's lead developer would say we "like" it.

Orly? Yea GC definitely doesn't know what he's talking about.... >_> <_<

Flame on...

[TK99]

First, since it hasn't been said yet.

GC - 'Oh hybrid dps classes? F*@k those guys they should be healers or tanks. Seriously.'

Even if GC didn't say that it helps to maintain the feel of Blizz class design.

But seriously I know Blizz employees and the only reason they don't say PvP balance has fucked the game is because people are making money off it (as is Blizz) so they are forced to limit how much they can nerf area in favor of raiders.

Titan is being designed from the ground up to be different so it 'shouldn't' have this problem but they say players tend to mess over any grand plans they have.

[Flaks]

Yeah, so then we can go back to balancing this game around requiring at least one class to have MS rather than the way it currently is where all classes can stand on their own (or theoretically). Going back to an archaic design where MS players are guaranteed a spot and balancing the whole game around Mortal Strike is quite possibly the dumbest thing ever. For example, what happens in 3's when a ret paladin and a dk want to play together? Right now the comp is possible and pretty good (not top tier but you can do well with it) but if the game suddenly went back to burst healing with 200% crit heals and a higher than 10% MS then that comp would be impossible. It's a dumb design and I'm glad they fixed it. More comps are viable now at the top end of arena's than there ever has been before and a lot of that has to do with MS being toned down and made a good debuff but not one you balance around.

No, no and no. MS is fine at 10%. And healing isn't even OP at all right now and anybody who actually plays in the arena or rbg's would know this.

Arenas, ok, healing is not OP. But you'd have to be blind to not see people stating that multiple healers makes it absurdly difficult, nigh impossible, to kill a flag carrier. Add the fact that they themselves stated that healing in PvP may be over the top right now and I really don't know why you're arguing against me on this.

Also, considering that most classes have some sort of MS effect already I really don't see why that would be a problem at all. Frost mage, shadow priest, arms/fury warrior, rogues, hunters, death knights have pseudo MS. Couple that with the fact that just about every single 3's comp already contains one of these classes of these specs and Blizzard's own logic is a failure.

[Gistwiki]

You reforge crit to mastery? Are you really insulting GC's understanding of the shaman class? Mastery is only useful on 2 or 3 encounters and it only affects about 2/3 of our heals on those encounters. I reforge mastery to crit, at least until 4.1 drops and improves it slightly :-P

Mastery has been better than crit for throughput since before the initial buff from 2.5% per point to 3% per point, it's arguably better than haste for throughput as is, and will definitely be the best secondary stat for throughput once 4.1 hits. Where have you been? >.>

@ Notos - EJ has been rather off for resto shaman information since mid-late wrath. Things have been beginning to get better, but it's still not a terribly good source of information. As strange as this'll sound, you're better off going to the community shaman forums in search of R-sham information >.>

Edit: And even then, if you actually go through and read their threads you'll note that crit doesn't really have a place in the discussion when they're talking about throughput.

[tusker]

Is it me, or does the Blue posters seem more and more bitter?

Not at all, in my opinion. It's just the community views them under a massive magnifying glass and wrongly cries foul over the slightest thing, no matter how benign it might be. Given the way this community acts I'm surprised they even try.

[Rennadrel]

It's interesting though how critical strike as a whole stat in this game is completely useless for a lot of classes and specs. The only classes that really benefit from it for DPS anyway are Retribution Paladins and Warriors, Agility classes get it regardless so ultimately they wind up with a higher rating then other players, or at least they did in Wrath anyway. Death Knights avoid it at all cost aside from DW Frost, and most caster classes don't look at critical strike until they have optimized more vital stats. It is an RNG stat with only a static opportunity to grant any benefit, all other stats are constant aside from fluctuating buffs from talents, spells and procs which may increase your stats. I think Blizzard should just pitch critical strike and give all DPS specs a flat 25% critical strike chance at level cap. I am sick of seeing critical strike which gives you sweet jack all and doesn't benefit certain specs yet still exists for some reason.