So, the current vogue thing to do on R&D (still refuse to call it D&R, sorry) is apparently to complain about warlock-stacking (usually mages are the complainers) and shaman-stacking (usually other healers are the complainers) when evaluating top guilds' first bosskills. I think they represent valid points to an extent. Blizzard has added all sorts of raid synergies (Totem of Wrath, VT/VE, Improved Faerie Fire, Crusader Strike (and refreshing Judgements), etc.) that encourage use of hybrids, offspecs, and a mix of different classes.

One of the challenges of a raid leader trying to min/max raid composition is to always keep these synergies in mind. Let's say you have 2 mages, 2 warlocks, and one open miscellaneous ranged nuker slot. Let's assume that all your mages can do 2000 DPS without CoE, and warlocks can do 2000 DPS without CoS (not entirely accurate -- warlocks probably are a bit better in this regard than they should be, given their other utility). With two warlocks you probably have CoR/CoS covered (assuming spriests present, and assuming a fair bit of physical damage). So your locks are doing 2200 DPS, and your mages are doing 2000 each. Total nuker DPS = 8400.

Adding a third mage adds another 2000 DPS, increasing total nuker DPS to 10400.
Adding a third warlock adds another 2200 personal DPS, but also adds CoE, increasing the DPS of the existing mages to 2200, leaving total nuker DPS at 11000.

And beyond this, warlock vs. mage is fairly balanced when the warlock is using a raid-synergy debuff with their Curse slot. Add a fourth warlock, who can now use Curse of Doom, and again you're better off bringing a fourth (or fifth) warlock over a third mage. That's not a synergy issue -- that's a basic class balance issue. Destro warlocks should probably equal mage DPS when they can use CoD, and lag 8-10% behind them when they have to use CoR/CoE/CoS. But that's obviously not currently the case. That's why you see people stack warlocks.

The two major offenders in this regard are Warlocks and Shamans. If you were to combine CoE and CoS into one "+10% from spell damage" curse, then two warlocks would cover raid debuffing. Now make it so that a warlock using CoD does the same DPS as a mage, all else being equal, and suddenly the mage vs. warlock dilemma for a fifth slot when you already have 2 of each becomes a complete tossup. Maybe you want an extra polymorph? Maybe a third rank of healthstone would be more useful on a given fight? It comes down to intangibles: who has better gear, who can push 2 harder, etc.

For shamans, the issue is a bit different. People complain about Bloodlust being OP, but I don't think Bloodlust is really the issue, except for very specific "burn" phases like M'uru P2 or RoS P3, where the value of burst DPS is vastly amplified. The problem is totems.

Another example: Rogues do great DPS, but let's say you have an enhance shaman, warrior, ret paladin, and two rogues in a group. If you add a third rogue, someone has to sit outside of the proper melee group, which will destroy that player's DPS. Thus the question, when making a raid comp, is often not just "who can do the most DPS" but rather "who can fit best into the setup we already have?" Enhancement shamans in particular are so crucial that if you really want more than 4 other melee DPS (perhaps excluding a feral druid who can fit well in a 3x hunter + resto shaman group), you need a second enhancement shaman to justify it. If not, then you should bring other classes.

But when it comes to stacking, if you have fewer than 4 shamans, your raid is gimped. They don't all have to be resto shamans -- we often bring 2 resto, 1 ele, and 1 enhance. But consider that you probably have four groups composed primarily of DPS. Let's say you have one melee group (war/rog/rog/ret), one mage group (spriest/mage/mage/boomkin), one warlock group (spriest/lock/lock/lock), and one hunter group (3x hunter + feral). In all four cases, the last group member absolutely must be a shaman. If not, you are leaving hundreds of DPS on the table needlessly. This is manageable now, and shamans are popular, raids recruit them heavily, and you see a mix of different shaman specs filling these slots. It's great for shamans, but it's still not ideal from an objective balance perspective.

And I'd expect that WotLK will only amplify this issue. By all accounts, DKs are going to be another class that largely demands Windfury and melee synergy. If nothing changes about totems or their mechanics, I predict that every raid guild will run 2 enhancement shamans full-time, along with at least 2 others, but more likely 3 others, for 5 total slots going to one class out of 10, in a 25-man group. Great for shamans, terrible for people without synergies (rogues, mages, etc.).

How to fix this? Make certain totems raid-wide. In particular, Windfury Totem, Wrath of Air, Strength of Earth, Mana Spring, Healing Stream, and Fire/Frost Resistance. Not Tranquil Air, for obvious reasons. People used to suggest this solution back in the 40-man days, and back then it would have been extreme and hamfisted. But in the current environment, going ahead to WotLK, the idea should be to ensure that 2 or 3 of a given class is close to optimal, and that there is never an excessive reward for bringing a fourth of a given class over a second or third from another less-represented class. Fix totems this way, and suddenly your one enhancement shaman can buff all the melee, hunter pets, etc., without having to agonize over who has to lose Windfury. Make positioning the key rather than group composition within the raid. On a fight like M'uru where the raid tends to split into two groups, one shaman on each side dropping Mana Spring can give all the casters the regen they need, for example.

Other candidates for this treatment include Battle Shout and Unleashed Rage.

At first glance it would sound like an insane buff, but take a moment and think through the practical applications on most existing fights. The key point is that, as good raid leaders, we are already setting our groups up to make sure that every rogue has Windfury, every mage has Wrath of Air, etc. We aren't gaining anything, truly, except the freedom to not need to stack shamans. Raid DPS won't increase drastically, but raid flexibility will.

Thoughts?

It is scary to think how powerful a single class+ spec hybrid could become with these ideas, with regards to raid synergy. If you usually have 3 shaman now - but only run with 2 one night, one group loses their totems. OK, its a loss, but workable... *Ignoring something like Muru*

But if you run with 2 shamans (providing raid-wide totems) and only run with 1 shaman one night - the detriments are amplifed massively. Raid encounters would have to be balanced around these 2-3 shamans permenantly being there, such is their hybrid power.

Maybe I didnt word it the best - but its scary seeing how powerful hybrids can become. It could get to the point where pure dps are the 'optional extras' to stuff in a raid, because we are so busy filling raid spots with Hybrid Class A, Spec 1 + 2 + 3, Hybrid Class B, Spec 1 + 2 etc etc. These ideas in one hand can help make it easier to manage with ~2 of that class, but it amplifies the problems associated with potentially not having 2 of that class. Of course, this isn't necessarily something new - but its a scary path to keep walking on..

How is that different from the current paladin situation? Salv is generally mandatory for DPS, so if you have 2 paladins instead of 3, you lose either Kings or Might/Wisdom, raidwide, depending on class. Those buffs are huge, with a budget every bit as high as shaman totems. Let's say you only have two shamans. You give WF/SoE to all your melee, and WoA to all your nukers/healers. Your hunters (and melee) lose GoA, probably. That's a smaller loss to the raid than not being able to have Kings or Might on your hunters and melee.

Bringing 3 would be ideal, but 2 would be workable. Kind of like most other classes already are.

But we're already there. Rogues are the things you fit into your open slots once you have the synergistic essentials covered. The point is to reduce the need, and allow 2 or at most 3 of a class to largely satisfy that need. Rewarding stacking 4+ of the same class in 25-man raids when you have 11 classes in WotLK is a recipe for strife. And if you can't even field 2 shamans at all, well then you're in trouble. But that's no different than only having 1 paladin, or only 1 warrior.

It's not only the Paladin situation, it's the same with Shadow Priests too. Running with zero Shadow Priests and not having Misery or Shadow Weaving is a huge hit to raid DPS.

Let's put it this way: in WotLK, changes are slated to reduce VT returns, add a similar return to healing spells in Disc, and amplify personal mana regeneration for all the Mana-based DPS classes, as well as increase the personal DPS of the Shadow Priest.

This seems to me to be a recognition of the fact that in a 25-man raid, making a class with "indispensible" party-only utility quickly causes raids to stack more than three of that class (1-2 SP for the healers, 1 each for the two ranged DPS groups, please!), and muscles out the pure no-utility DPS/Healers.

We haven't seen the Rogue, Shaman, or Hunter changes yet, but based on what we're seeing emerge in the caster department, I predict:

1) A scaling down of the power of any party-only buffs and grants
2) An increase in the personal DPS of the classes formerly brought for rDPS buffs
3) An increase in the personal sustainability, and DPS of the pure classes, but smaller than that of the Hybrids in 2)

It may very well be that Windfury totem finally gets a nerf, but Rogues get a buff such that they're much less reliant upon it. My hope is that they massively improve Poisons and Finishers to shift the DPS ratio for Rogues away from Auto-attacks, and more towards personal DPS. Poisons that scale with target HP or somesuch, so that when you're poisoning a Raid boss it ticks for significantly more than if you Poison a player character. That would probably be incredibly unfair and shift a lot of the Rogue's DPs away from how he gears, making it an uninteresting and overpowered balancing choice, but I just throw it out there as an idea.

Well this is an age old argument, going back to the ever popular Rogue motto "if all you do is damage, you have to do the most". I always thought this was fairly silly since the one time they did get to bring something 'extra' to the table a la decursing or polymorph duty, disarming traps in the BWL suppression room, they complained bitterly about it. Similarly I'm sure being brought for polymorph on trash didn't make Mages happy.

The easiest way to fix this IMO is to simply increase the DPS of the 'pure' DPS classes. If Rogues and Mages had personal DPS values far above and beyond that of Enhancement Shaman and Elemental Shaman then the two options would be equal. It would just have to be balanced such that Enh DPS + DPS gain from buffs = Rogue Personal DPS, etc.. Which, in my understanding, is how it was always meant to be.

We could always just nerf the effect of the synergy and utility as well, let's face it, we all know Heroism and Windfury totem are overpowered as hell, the 70-80 changes will give Blizzard an opportunity to perhaps give Shaman something new to bring to the raid. Similarly while no one would want Warlock DPS to drop to Pre-TBC levels, Curses + Healthstones + Soulstones is a bit much, especially in an environment where personal survival is paramount making healthstones and soulstones highly desirable. Though I suppose your ideas of merging the effects is a form of a nerf.

Just a minor nitpick:

Warrior, priest, mage, warlock, hunter, shaman, rogue, paladin, druid, and death knight makes 10 (rather than 11) classes I see in WotLK. Unless of course we have officially begun considering Shadow priests a class unto themselves and/or my brain has, like millions of American workers, taken the day off.

Yes, this is how the OP couched the Mage v. Warlock tension, for example: Warlock + a Damage Curse = Mage; Warlock + CoS < Mage; however, it doesn't quite work that well when the rDPS buff is party-wide, not raidwide, because then you end up with party restrictions preventing some invitiations.

For example, the ENH Shaman in Group 2 with a Rogue is doing DPS much less than the Rogue, but ENH + DPS gain from Buffs for the Rogue = Rogue Personal DPS.

But what about the Rogue in Group 3, with no ENH Shaman? He's doing the ENH Shaman's Personal DPS; in that case, that poor misplaced Rogue looks much, much better as another Shaman, in the eyes of the RL; you lose no Personal DPS and gain at very least a pile of utility, even if Group 3 doesn't actually *need* an ENH Shaman of its own.

Raid-wide rDPS buffs can maintain the equivalency you describe, but party-only rDPS buffs disproportionately favor the buff-granters over the buff-soakers when it comes to raid composition.

Yep, I can't count. Going back to edit.

How can you say this about windfury? A dps warrior is basically a waste of a raid slot without it, and the classes that are showing 2700+ dps in wws are Warlocks, Hunters, and Rogues, but only rogues with DUAL legendaries. Without Wf totem why bring any melee to the raid at all?

Thats my pet hate with slotting warriors and ret paladins into raids. Windfury or why bother? Im interested to see if they take any of the supposed priest changes (reduce synergy benefits but increase personal dps?) and apply it to the current over-dependance warriors and ret pallys have on windfury.

That is, of course, my exact point; sorry if I was unclear.

I have no problem with "This raid NEEDS X" of a class, provided X is less than three and the marginal utility for adding X+1 is very, very small.

It is for me to, when I used to show up for a raid and our resident enhancement shaman had a rare RL issue, I felt like a waste of a raid slot and honestly would try and replace myself with someone who would better help the raid (farm nights excluded, but they don't really matter for this discussion.)

Edit: On Paladins, I can't imagine ever wanting to raid without at least three, not having salv-kings might on the melee Wisdom-might kings on the hunters etc is a huge loss.

Agreed, but would letting Blessings stack, that is one Paladin can put up all three, really be bad? Though I concede it would be silly for 5 man's.

If every raids automatically drops their 3 mandatory Pallies to 1 then we all know something is wrong with Paladin healing, as Holy Pallies have been saying for a while now.

I know my current guild would most certainly drop to just a ret pally for jow and then not run with any holy paladins, actually 2 paladins, one for JotC and one for Jow.

Side: I just realized my profile is grossly outdated and I'll correct that.

While this is arguably not directly related, I concluded a while ago that warlocks were simply not balanced around destro-spec - as-if the spec was left out and never considered as far as dps goes. If you look at the classes that buff other players, namely:

-shadow priest
-enhancement shaman
-elemental shaman
-ret paladin
-moonkin
-feral
(and you could include here survival or dps warrior, although its a lot more debatable)

All of them rarely top damage meters. Which is fine because they buff other player dps. But here is what I never could figure out. Given that warlocks provide a huge dps boost to all classes, shouldn't they also have a personal lower dps, just like all of the classes listed above? My point here is not to ask for a nerf, but mostly I gave it a lot of thought and the most plausible conclusion I had in that regard was that warlock dps was probably never balanced around destro-spec. If that were to be the case, then the numbers make sense (or at least, a lot more sense).

I find myself agreeing with Praetorian, that raid comp should usually look like (10*2) + 5, but adjusting to balance raid utility and straight output is well-nigh impossible to do over the course of several raid tiers. Warlocks here are just one example; Destro spec was probably considered when the class was made, the problem is that it just scales WAY better than anything else we have. In T4, Affliction is better by a long shot. In T6+, Destro coefficients just overpower everything.

Blizz did not understand the power of demonic sacrifice while designing TBC talents and looking at the leaked alpha talents they still do not realize it. They cannot have intended for all high end warlocks to play without a pet and DoTs .

Back on topic, salvation is arguably the biggest dps buff and it can be applied to the entire raid so I do not see a balance issue in making totems (windfury) raidwide.

Lets not make wild assumptions, talents are not final in wotlk and blizzard wont allow them to be phased out like in early BC.

I don't see how that is a wild assumption when currently (Disregarding being lucky enough to have both 2% drop glaives) they have no group utility and their dps is at best third behind hunters and warlocks when comparing the best possible gear (again disregarding the hunter legendary).

Those thoughts about shamans are largely correct, but they operate under the assumption that the classes/specs will remain as viable as they are now. The idea that restoration shamans remain the best raid healers might very well change in Wrath of the Lich King, and thus in the Muru difficulty encounters may not even be brought in there if say an enhance shaman can cover a raidwide mana spring, strength of earth, and windfury. The loss of wrath of air, while somewhat big, can be compensated decently through totem twisting. Of course, Blizzard probably will not kill the pillar of success that restoration is enjoying, and overall this idea of raidwide totems would be a great idea, there's just that 'if' factor.

Considering warlocks have been using it in raid specs since vanilla, i think they know its power well enough, and that talent is probably the reason why the talent that cap out destruction always 'sucks'.
That said warlock dps is a bit beyond where it should be, i don't really think they should be lumped together with hybrids though. I think at the end of the day, the problem is 25 man raiding is not everything. Putting a warlock in an environment like a 10 man or 5 man, where his curses are a lot less useful, doing the same dps as an elemental shaman is just begging for the class to be phased out of low end environments. Unless every 5-10 man dungeon is going to be full of demons. We would love for 25 man raiding to be the only consideration obviously, but it really isn't.