It sounds like this issue will be explored further in the upcoming patches. Interesting ideas about class balance/choices for raids from Ghostcrawler, one of the main class developers:The idea that totally different specs/classes could provide the exact same debuff is an interesting one; they've played around with this before with the armor debuffs (Demo Shout, Demo Roar, Curse of Weakness) and others, but this sounds broader than those narrow options. It seems like a difficult task, to provide multiple ways to get the same buffs and debuffs, without making the classes too homogenized in abilities; there will no doubt be a lot of tweaks back and forth in beta to try to get it just right.
Guildwars does something like this. While their combat system is different, they do have 5-6 shared status debuffs (stunned, bleeding, on fire, etc) along with the different class based debuffs/dots/whatever. Several classes/builds have abilities that apply these debuffs on command (usually along with some class based unique effect or simply damage) and others have abilities to exploit them (or clear the debuff on healer-types.)
You *could* build teams/setups to more fully take advantage of a particular debuff, it was part of the whole pvp metagame.
All in all, the system works, and Blizz did try a minor foray into this a while back, using "Dazed" status. Several classes have or were given random low percentage chances to daze, Several others got "Do X, or Do X+Y if target's Dazed" abilities. Of course, the system wasn't fully thought out and failed to make an impact with the player base , but they tried it.
All specs are not 33%/33%/33% distribution within their class, so that's an unfair metric to use.
That's a totally backward way of looking at it. Talent trees don't have an even distribution because raids demand that you bring skewed numbers of specs so people have to spec that way, not because people all happen to choose particular specs anyway and they base the raid numbers around that.
That's a totally backward way of looking at it. Talent trees don't have an even distribution because raids demand that you bring skewed numbers of specs so people have to spec that way, not because people all happen to choose particular specs anyway and they base the raid numbers around that.
Nah, some specs just don't have the same focussed appeal as others. People who want to play healers will go for the heal specs (so, 4 to choose from, roughly). People who want to play dps have more choices. You'd expect the dps players to be fairly evenly spread over the available specs, all things being equal. And that means that for some classes, it won't be a 33/33/33 split even if every single spec was equally balanced and wanted.
I think I like what they're trying to do with the death knight class at the moment and would probably like to see elements of that applied to other healing hybrids.
For those that haven't been following it they've stated that they want to have a talent in each of the trees deep enough that you can't get two of them that is particularly good for tanking as well as the little nibbles in the lower tiers of all the trees that benefit tanking so you end up with 3 different distinct types of DK tank all with a similar base set of abilities while also having it possible to make a DK for a dps or PvP type role out of several of those trees too.
I guess we had semi leanings towards this with the dreamstate resto druids early on in TBC but it would be interesting to see same base spells but different definition healers through elemental/balance/prot trees, talents that wouldn't neccesarily be taken by people speccing that way for a pure DPS role but that could make someone a viable endgame healer of a different type from what already exists.
I suppose there are also leanings of this in the disc tree in that it's a semi DPS tree as well as a healing tree but that the DPS of it is sub par and falls short (perhaps intentionally) of other choices for DPS and is in general pretty sub par as a major spec line for healing too, maybe it tries to play too much to both strengths didn't work out.
How balanced is it when you have 11 / 25 people healing when only 5 / 30 talent trees are healing orientated? It makes no more sense than requiring fights to have 10 tanks.
My point wasnt that you had to bring alot of healers and thus it was balanced, my point was that they know how to balance between healing/dps required. Making it challanging. I agree that its kinda stupid that you have to bring that many healers for twins and then put 5 of them on standby for muru. But seeing as they obviously knew how hard the healing/dps check would be (given the enrage timer) it was well done, even if they didnt think of the big difference in raid makeup between the bosses.
I guess we had semi leanings towards this with the dreamstate resto druids early on in TBC but it would be interesting to see same base spells but different definition healers through elemental/balance/prot trees, talents that wouldn't neccesarily be taken by people speccing that way for a pure DPS role but that could make someone a viable endgame healer of a different type from what already exists.
Isn't the Healing Touch glyph a way to move towards this? I remember a quote being "Dreamstate Druids are a just Holy Paladins with a permanent Curse of Tongues", but the glyph turning HT into more of a Flash Heal type of spell might make it more viable.
With there only being 4 healing specs and needing 8 healers in a raid, those specs and classes will ALWAYS be overrepresented. This has to be something that Blizzard is realizing and evaluating now with raid makeup coming to the forefront of discussion.
There are 5 healing specs (disc is a healing spec which blizzard have said they intend to make a strong PvE single target healing build this expansion). I don't think they're too far off having 5 healers being a viable 25 man setup (which would be only a slight over-representation). In their current state, without overgearing them, the following are possible to do with 5 healers:
Gruul
Mag
Lurker, Leo
VR, Sol
First 4 Hyjal
First 4 BT
Not too bad a list. Admittedly, some of these are heavily nerfed since their release, and 6 or 7 healers is more comfortable, but it doesn't require that much balance tuning to get to the point where 5 healers is reasonable. Looking at the healing talent changes, the throughput of all healers should be fairly dramatically increased with the expansion, and there should be more AoE healing options, so they may not even need to change the encounters that much.
With there only being 4 healing specs and needing 8 healers in a raid, those specs and classes will ALWAYS be overrepresented. This has to be something that Blizzard is realizing and evaluating now with raid make-up coming to the forefront of discussion.
Depending on the talent trees that go live, this could be not true.
As there are 7 viable healing specs atm.
Shamans: Deep resto and 0/28/43.
Pallies: Deep holy and 48/0/23.
Priest: Holy and Disc
Drood: Deep resto.
Bigger problem is that certain specs are so good at certain task (48/0/23 holy pally for tank healing, holy priest for AoE healing) that we'll see stacking of certain healing classes without a doubt.
Quite the opposite is it in general raid setups, with all these specs getting skills and talents that no other class has, raids will have (maybe even demand) such a high amount of specs (which don't stack) that guild management will be harder then ever. You want (maybe need) that one balance drood in your raid but you don't want two, I doubt many guilds have 100% active people, so you'll need several people to fill that one slot, and that for around 14 specs....
This issue (who gets into the raids?) is something we are spending a lot of time on right now. Blood Frenzy is the kind of talent that could definitely present a problem if it means Arms warriors are really valuable for their debuff potential and Fury warriors have to compete for raid slots mostly on the merit of their dps. At least Fury still has PvP... oh, wait....
It may be that any class having to earn a raid spot just because it's an awesome class is kind of a tired notion. In an ideal world, everyone brings something to a group, yet a group has a few options for which class and spec it will bring to fill a role. Ideally, stacking more than 1 (maybe 2) of any spec wouldn't bring a lot of additional benefit. I don't think anyone wants to see raids with 4 resto shammies and 3 shadow priests (except maybe the shammies and shadow priests, but you get my drift).
TLDR: Class design isn't done. We are shooting for more parity. Nobody should get a raid spot because their one talent brings a huge dps (or mana or healing or health) benefit to the raid that no other spec can provide.
But they are keying on a difference that I think is getting glossed over. The want "one of each role" in a raid, and multiple classes to be able to cover the same role. Just like when you pug a 5 man you think "I need a tank and a healer and cc" not "I need a paladin and a shaman and a mage." They don't want you to think "I need a shadow priest for mana regen" they want you to think "my healers need a mana battery" and have 3 or 4 potential specs to do this.
It's actually a much smarter way to balance. Yes, each spec will have specific utility, and maybe they will cover different roles differently, but if you are balancing raids for roles instead of 30 specs, and each of those 30 specs covers some of those roles, all you have to do is make each spec viable within a role. Blizzard is less worried about the high end guild min/maxing then they are about the average guild not being able to do 10 man Naxx because they don't have a priest online.
If the baseline for a 25 man raid is one of each class for buffs, plus flexibility within roles, it's a much better system than 2 of each class plus 5 random dps. It shouldn't be required to take 5 shaman to every raid, but you shouldn't be gimped by doing so either, as long as you have the needed roles covered.
You are right for 10 mans, they're adding flexibility.
But not from a min-maxi PoV, the raid/group buffs or special abilities given to all these specs are so strong, not having that one doomkin online will gimp your entire raid, and those aren't flexible, as most of these buffs wont stack, there is hardly any flexibility.
And I disagree on the later, 25 man flexibility is huge atm, you can exchange almost any DPS for an other DPS, yes, you'll loose a bit on it if you replace a lock with a mage, but in WotLK that lock might have been your Demon Lock giving the entire raid a +10% spellpower buff, try to compensate for that with an other DPS, you cant.
Not too bad a list. Admittedly, some of these are heavily nerfed since their release, and 6 or 7 healers is more comfortable, but it doesn't require that much balance tuning to get to the point where 5 healers is reasonable. Looking at the healing talent changes, the throughput of all healers should be fairly dramatically increased with the expansion, and there should be more AoE healing options, so they may not even need to change the encounters that much.
The problem is the 'more comfortable' part. You could do the fights with 5 healers, but why would you when it's much less risky with a couple more. The fights don't force you to take only 5 healers so it'd be silly to.
As I see it the damage required : healing required ratio is just way off.
And I disagree on the later, 25 man flexibility is huge atm, you can exchange almost any DPS for an other DPS, yes, you'll loose a bit on it if you replace a lock with a mage, but in WotLK that lock might have been your Demon Lock giving the entire raid a +10% spellpower buff, try to compensate for that with an other DPS, you cant.
I think the idea that they're talking about is that the 10% spellpower buff is supposed to end up overlapping with some other classes 10% spellpower buff. How they make this work without then turning it into a situation where you say "we already have our 10% spellpower buff, so no demonology warlocks required" I don't know.
Originally Posted by Mendoza
The problem is the 'more comfortable' part. You could do the fights with 5 healers, but why would you when it's much less risky with a couple more. The fights don't force you to take only 5 healers so it'd be silly to.
As I see it the damage required : healing required ratio is just way off.
Well not everyone has a choice, if it's 5 healers or call the raid, what are you going to do? I agree that you take more if you have them, although I think it's fixable if they stop using raid damage as a punishment mechanism.
If you take out raid damage from alot of fights, healing can become rather trivial as of right now, once you understand the mechanics. No fight should be trivial only because you understand it. It should still present a challenge. Blizzard seems to understand the problem that this causes right now as can be seen by what they're doing to all healing classes' talents and ablilities in the beta by giving everyone some sort of multi-healing ability.
Can we shut about the whole arguement where we divide two pairs of numbers and get angry when one of them is bigger? The assumption that specs are, or are supposed to be, evenly balanced on the raid scene needs a shitton of justification before you can say the numbers mean anything. You'll have to deal with some simply and powerful counterarguements, such as: assume one PvP tree per class (on average) that can be ignored for raid populations. 5/20 ~= 7/25, imbalance solved.
Personally, I like the idea that there are like 10 raid spots out of 25 that are demanded, rather than 5 alone for shamans like it is today. I really want to see raid membership based on skill first with the necessary raid buffs coming as a matter of course. The problem is that the difference in power of 10-man lineups vary wildly. Remember, it's not a question of whether the min-maxed lineups are overpowered or the pickup groups are underpowered, it's a question of how much of a difference in total raid power can you expect to see from naturally-forming raid groups.
Here's your justification, straight from the horses mouth:
We are adding a new class to Lich King, as well as improving the raid viability of specs such as Arcane mage, Survival hunter and Balance druid. That means you have 30 available specs for 25 slots. There are two ways to design around this problem. One is that there are 25 mandatory specs and 5 that shouldn't be raiding. Boo. A more fun, interesting and ultimately fair direction is that you actually have some choices in who to bring. Imagine running a raid with no warrior tanks at all.
Which is more likely: that this means "We don't want to encourage Shaman stacking," or "We're busting our asses trying to make Shadowstep a great raid spec?"
We all know the DPS-only classes are, almost exclusively, going to spec the max raid DPS spec (and there will be one, there has to be- even if it changes based on the gear available in each Tier). Mostly this means the same as the most personal DPS for them, except for the Survival Hunter. But, the thing is that while this solves your problem in theory (2 rogue and mage trees unused, 1 hunter tree; 5 unused specs), it doesn't solve it in practice, because the goal is not "Take 1 each of 25 specs," it's "Take x healers, y tanks, and z DPS, with no one class being noticeably superior to other classes at whatever role it's specced for such that it's worth stacking them." The roles should be what's important; the classes (and damn sure the specs) should be fungible. X shouldn't consist solely of Priests (although it can if need be, you shouldn't accrue any benefit over having a more heterogeneous group), y shouldn't consist solely of Feral Druids, etc. I can't see that Blizzard means otherwise than this, even if they make odd statements that lead to strange conclusions when taken literally.
tl;dr- It's silly to relate the number of specs to the number of raid slots because raids are balanced around roles more than they are around classes or specs. This is true now, and it'll be more true in WotLK.
Improved Lay on Hands is really fucking good:
Originally Posted by Malleus
Unless there's a reason to save it for a specific point in the fight, someone should be getting laid every single time it's up.
I disagree, all the changes they're making and all the quotes to my mind say that they're trying to make all 30 specs raid viable, and the ideal raid doesn't have more than one of each spec. Whether they'll achieve that is debatable, particularly for DPS specs. Although if you look at the warlock changes, I think they're certainly trying their damnedest to do so with the carrot of utility to make you want all three specs.
I think their intention is to make the specs viable and tweak the encounters to make the number in each role fit that ideal. Which means 5 healers. You can't take a quote like this:
The classes that are the hardest to solve are the paladin, shaman and druid (and possibly priest) because the three specs bring such different abilities to the group. But we still would like to solve this problem. It's not fair that every raid have 3 druids and 1-2 rogues (or 1 druid and 0 rogues if you're talking 10-player raids). (I love druids -- I'm not picking on you.)
And not think they're trying to cut down the number of healers. I realise it's a hard problem, and they probably wont be entirely successful, but they can't get relatively equal class numbers without either making the non-healing specs crap or making raids need fewer healers. They've repeatedly reassured us they want hybrid classes DPS specs to be viable, so the only logical conclusion I can come to from everything they've said is they want to reduce the number of healers.
That quote in no way is saying that they only want 5 healers. What it is saying is that these classes are hard to balance for raid quota's because the can fill respectively, 3, 3, 4, and 2 different roles. This means that you can take 4 druids each specialising in a separate role and still not be "Stacking" the class.
If you take out raid damage from alot of fights, healing can become rather trivial as of right now, once you understand the mechanics. No fight should be trivial only because you understand it. It should still present a challenge. Blizzard seems to understand the problem that this causes right now as can be seen by what they're doing to all healing classes' talents and ablilities in the beta by giving everyone some sort of multi-healing ability.
Why does less raid damage automatically equal trivial? It would do if you took the same number of healers as before, but if you change the numbers to force you to bring more dps, then you don't have the luxury of the same number of healers. If you have less damage but less healers it's no easier or harder than before. It does mean you can tone down silly / boring damage mechanics like the whole raid taking x damage from a generic boss aura.
That quote in no way is saying that they only want 5 healers. What it is saying is that these classes are hard to balance for raid quota's because the can fill respectively, 3, 3, 4, and 2 different roles. This means that you can take 4 druids each specialising in a separate role and still not be "Stacking" the class.
It pretty much is. If you'd prefer 4 druids and 2 rogues to 3 druids and 3 rogues then druids are forcing rogues out of raid spots. If you want 3 of each, then you presumably want one druid from each talent tree or one tree is forcing the other(s) out of raid spots. If they don't want particular talent trees forced out of raid spots then by definition each tree should be equally represented and that means an average of 4-5 healers. If they've done their job right it presumably means it's (marginally) advantageous to have a healer of each spec rather than stacking a particular spec,
That quote in no way is saying that they only want 5 healers. What it is saying is that these classes are hard to balance for raid quota's because the can fill respectively, 3, 3, 4, and 2 different roles. This means that you can take 4 druids each specialising in a separate role and still not be "Stacking" the class.
It comes as close as you're going to get without explicitly saying so. They said having 3 druids every raid is "not fair" (presumably because you should have 2.5 on average). The only way you can make every class have 2.5 on average is either destroy the viability of non-healing specs, or reduce the number of healing specced players in a raid.
I see no possible way your interpretation of 4 druids being OK makes sense in light of 3 druids being called unfair.
Having three druids required for each raid is "not fair." If you have 6 healers with no druids, 3 tanks with no druids, and 16 dps including one boomkin and one feral, you should be able to raid. Likewise, if you have 6 healers with two of them trees, 3 tanks with two druids, and 16 dps with no druids, you should be okay. Neither may be ideal, but as long as the rest of your raid is balance appropriately, both should be functional. No single spec is entitled to a raid slot. That is the goal. You should be able to have any of the tank specs as tanks, any of the healing specs as healers, and any of the dps specs as dps, provided you have the necessary subroles covered. It's a pretty simple concept, and quite frankly, it's the way most guilds already play. They take the best people they have, in the classes/specs that they are, and fill roles.
The simple idea for 25 mans is one of each class minimum, no more than two of each class required. Again, they don't want a substantial advantage to having 5 shaman in a raid, but they also don't want a substantial penalty if you bring that either. Beyond a certain minimum point, class shouldn't matter. Beyond another point, utility shouldn't matter. Class overlaps role. Role overlaps class. Specs overlap both.
When it comes to 10 man balance, the class requirement is gone completely. All that matters is role. As such, these things need to coexist. I think the next couple of months are going to find a lot of angry specs, especially ones that have had all of BC with a guaranteed slot due to utility, as they see their utility overlapped with other specs. Things that we want to overlap aren't going to overlap any more.
There is always going to be an element of min/maxing to this game. There will always be precisely the best group for each encounter, and guilds that take advantage of that will do slightly better than those that don't. But the goal is to allow people to meet the minimum requirements of raid groups with considerably less trouble, fewer wasted drops, and fewer classes and specs left behind.
On the note about only bringing 5 healers to a raid, while it's hard to tell if this is what you would like to see, or just something you can do, I don't think shrinking the number of healers in a 25 man raid is the right way to go, admittedly some fights have way to many healers (9-11) but I don't think knocking 4 of the healers from my raid would make them very happy. I'm sure my life taps would go unanswered a lot more often, and you have to think about pvp transitions as well (as much as I hate to) but a healer that can maintain a Real 25 man raid against a difficult boss (say a Twins or a Muru) that can do it as just 1 of 5 healers would be so OP in arena's it would be laughable, no one would die, ever. Av's would become longer and more painful than they all ready are when a team with enough healers decided to turtle.
Apologies if I come off as rude but please, get a clue?!? If you want to tune raidbosses in such a way you only need 5 healers for a raid, you don't need to make healers more powerfull, you need to change the way the raidbosses deal their damage. Rather then huge abilities that deal large amounts of damage to large group of people, you give the bosses abilities that target less people at a time. With enough creativity Blizzard can easily pull this off in a way that keeps the raid fights fun and varied; with interesting mechanics and whatnot. In what way does this overpower healers in pvp?
The idea in WotLK is diversity. No longer will the prot warriors reign supreme as tanks. With the right specs, all classes will be able to fill their respective roles without problems. Yes, for most current guilds this means some people might have to change specs, but it won't be 100% neccesary. As said, if you have 4 resto shaman and 1 resto druid, that's just as viable as having a holy pally, a holy priest, a tree druid, a resto shaman and a disc priest. Then again, unless bosses have hard enrage timers, you can probably keep bringing your current amount of healers and still take the boss down, it will just take more time because you have less DPS.
08/02/08, 6:19 PM
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