◊ Lactose

Although not considered a hybrid class by most, I think Hunters have one of the best examples of this with the Survival tree, and the Expose Weakness* talent. Having 1 Survival specced Hunter is a massive boost for all physical DPS against that target, while adding another Survival Hunter does not double (or, in fact, noticably affect) the DPS boost given compared to having having only 1.
Even though Survival Hunters are able to hold their own in terms of personal DPS, a BM Hunter is generally better in almost any situation. Ideally, you want 1 Survival Hunter to ensure your raid has access to their unique DPS boost, but you do not want to stack them.


*Every time the Hunter crits, he has a chance to place a debuff called Expose Weakness on the target, increasing Attack Power (based on the Hunter's gear) for all who attack the target. This debuff does not stack.

Look, Lactose, we'd rather you didn't eradicate the whole human race.
- Sam & Max

 

Tanoshii

Don't have much to add except to say I love your totem idea. Especially as it can be quite frustrating (at least as alliance in my experience) to recruit enough shaman for progression, particularly for Sunwell. I also agree it's wrong when adding additionals of a class beyond 3 has significant benefits, 2-3 of a class should be where benefits max out IMO, and additional members of that class should bring acceptable personal dps or healing but not the kind of crazy benefits a shaman gives right now if you bring more than 3.

Although I'm probably just really frustrated by Sunwell and shamans and that's why I *love* the idea, and maybe this is sacrilege here but... shamans makes Sunwell feel badly tuned to me at times, when only bringing 2-3 of a class makes a fight THAT MUCH harder.


edit: know my profile is outdated, got to fix it one of these days

 

slant

Setting certain effects to hit the entire raid makes a great deal of sense. It's the easiest way to disincentivize raid stacking. Of course progression guilds are going to stack no matter what, because they're willing to min/max at the expense of long-standing members for that first kill. But it'll help the rest of us.

The alternative would be giving party-wide buffs to all non-hybrid DPS and healing classes in their talent trees to compensate. For example, sub rogues' crits give their party 50% more damage on their next autoattack, fury warriors' heroic strike applies a partywide small quick duration but stacking melee haste buff, arcane mages add a scryers neck type arcane damage proc to their party's damaging spells, holy paladins give a 15% illumination aura, etc. These buffs wouldn't have to individually compete with the unleashed rage/windfury totem one-two combo, but they should be sufficiently desirable to make classes worth taking for more than just straight damage or healing. But that would be a ton more work.

 

• Mjollnir

The only issue with your grand proposal Gurg, is that if we are balancing totems and such around a raid-wide benefit, it will still be either OP or under-balanced depending on 5, 10, and 25man content. I think the correct answer is to give synergies to all classes.
In the case of an Enh Sham, which is the queen on the chessboard so to speak... buffs its group in huge ways (WF, SoE, Lust, UR), but also buffs select raid members as well via SS (Boomkin/Ele Sham). But the issues here are that so much of what the class/spec bring are scaling attributes: Lust, UR, WF.
I've always been an advocate that each class be capable of bringing something to the table, either via group buff (Battle Shout), or raid buff (CoR), but that things be balanced around that asset, or assets. Otherwise, the aforementioned mage vs. lock issue will continue to run rampant. Also, set values (Bshout) vs. scaling (UR) need to be reworked so that both are always viable.

This is where the developers need to take things. With WotLK, 10x3 classes means 30, where raid leaders will need to balance and make hard decisions on who they are cutting from the lineup. Either this, or raise the cap to 30. Personally, I miss 40mans (albeit minus the stress of getting so many competent players together).

 

Wander

Balancing around raid size like that sort of limits how many Hero Classes the game can withstand, though; I think the best idea might to to make the first two of a class nearly indispensible, having the third add competitive but not overwhelming marignal utility and the fourth suboptimal; that way, you don't have to worry too much about raid compositions until your third Hero class, but you aren't punishing current raids for taking three of a class, either.

 

Hate Monkey

The problem of raid utility is far more in depth than one thread can possibly discuss as most class threads already deal with how to maximize your own personal dps, your guilds rdps, and personal utility buffing.

Raid-wide totems are a fine idea, but unlike paladin's blessings, it is too open for possible errors, and it doesn't solve the problem of the enhancement shamans "Unleashed Rage" being group only. Even if raid-wide totems is able to be made to work without error, you still have one of the biggest dps buffs in the game being a problem, Bloodlust is group only. How do you fix Bloodlust and Unleashed Rage at this point to work raid-wide?

As for Nature and Holy getting screw out of a curse spot, do you add a new curse, maybe a talent, or even re-do Malediction to be a new spell, which is a 10% increased damage to Arcane, Shadow, Fire, Frost, Holy, and Nature, and add another tier to it to add an additional 1/2/3% increased damage, for 11/12/13 total. But at the same time, you need to re-do a little bit in the affliction tree to bring its dps up to destructions dps level.

But as those two problems exist, the problem with a mages "raid buff" is that it lasts the shortest of all raid buffs, unless you count a warrior's blood frenzy not refreshing in 12s. Do you fix Improved Scorch to stack to 5 with scorch and refresh with every Fireball hit just like a SP's Shadow Weaving? Or do you increase the effectiveness of it to 20%?

Obviously the totems are the biggest problem, because you need 5 shamans for the raid to be complete and get maximum effectiveness. But at the same time, you bring 2 enhancement shamans for the main melee group, and the 2nd melee group with the tank, 2 resto for the the healers and left over casters, and 1 elemental for the best caster dps. But at the same time, you 2 get groups with Unleashed Rage, something that the other 3 shamans can't cover, so what do you do with the other shamans and their totems? Even if you manage to find out how to make that work, Bloodlust is still a problem. Doubt shamans and their totems will get fixed anytime soon. Only possible fix is increasing the duration a totem stays alive, and make them not be a target for most spells bosses do. Paladins buffing utility doesn't suffer from the same effects as a totem, so they are inherently stronger.

With the recent changes to the mana regen mechanics, a 3 SP raid has become less and less needed, but at the same time, a SP with healers can allow them to more freely just spam, and not have to worry as much on their healing choices. Do you make a SP's VT less powerful now and give them a better coefficient on MF? give them another damaging affect?

The whole problem with a shaman and their totems affects the whole game, as it makes shamans less require, which in turn can make other classes more powerful unintended.

As has been said for a long ass time, Totem-tugger needs to be implemented, and a totems duration needs to be increased.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

 

Liebestod

This is a valid concern, but it's not really something that can be addressed without getting rid of raid-wide buffs entirely. It's unavoidable that a spec that gives a raid-wide buff will have a higher marginal contribution in a large group than a small one, and this can lead to composition issues if a buff which is valuable enough in a 25-man environment would not be valuable enough in a 10-man one. Alternatively, one could make the raid buffs so amazingly awesome that they would be just as worthwhile to have in a 1-group raid as a 5-group one, but this tends to make these buffs so valuable in a 25-man environment that it would be a huge detriment to run a group without them. Hybrids should be valuable, yes, but at the same time they shouldn't be too much so, of course.

 

• Mjollnir

Synergy is twofold: what you put in, and how well you make use of what's in, the pot.

Points of inflection. These need to be defined, and clear, with regards to scaling and set value de/buffs.
From here, wrap output (be it tanking, healing, or dps) around what that specific class/spec puts in, and [assuming every class/spec assets are present] how well they use what's in the pot.

 

• Playered

I've never been a fan of the power of group buffs and have complained of their above-needed strength for the majority of TBC ("usually other healers are the complainers" - correct).

Things like Totems, Battleshout, Trueshot Aura(!) would be much better if they were range buffs instead of group ones - and with the knowledge we have seen of some group heals becoming raid/range based instead (CoH/Flourish) im going to be majorly dissapointed to find out they haven't considered this.

I've felt bad for Rogues and Mages through-out TBC as they are so dependant as a leecher class on having optimal group setups, and to actually get the good setup for them you have to replace half of them.



Im concerned why people are always pointing out the 27/30 possible specs that everyone has to fit into their 25 man raid - its stupid, your never really going to have all 3 different type of Mages, Rogues, Hunters*, Warlocks, Warriors, Priests etc within your raid at one time because one spec will always provide the highest yield in raiding and you will stack that one (not to mention Mages often synergize better when they are all the same spec).

If you took every melee for example: 3 Warrior, 3 Rogue, 3 DK, 2 Pala, 1 Druid, 1 Shaman (13)- you have 2 full Melee DPS groups (one without a Shaman) and 3 extra tanks that need another group, we haven't even mentioned fitting those 3 Hunters in yet nor any of the additional Shamans that are oft required.

The answer is not to add even more synergy, more group & raid buffs, but to limit them so that you are not forced to take 1 of each because they all provide such an amazing benefit your raid simply cannot live without.
Hunters are a perfect example here, you have Survival which is the *Raid Benefit* spec you want one of, and then you have the other two specs which are really just a matter of preference and rolled out as just a DPS slot.
Warlocks could be 'fixed' here by having CoE/CoS abolished (or weakened heavily in terms of raid function) in favour of a single heavy Affliction based Curse which is the *Raid Benefit* spec, leaving the others open as functional DPSers.

Other problems here come from Hybrid classes (Druid, Priest, Shaman, Paladin) where every spec is demanding some form of justification for their spot where I believe only Ferals have worked out right due to a class mechanic (Tank/DPS rolled in one with similar gear needed for both) rather than a calculated raid benefit (Imp Moonkin Aura in WoTLK is a bittersweet change).



Regarding Shamans:
Their utility has been incredible through-out TBC without any of the visable 'costs' you have on DPS classes (SV Hunter, SPriest, Arms Warrior etc) where they often have their DPS stunted as a cost for their benefit.
Then again having such a healer 'gimped' for utility would infact make them more situational than a similar DPS class (could you really afford 1/6 of your healers on M'uru to be gimped?) in the same spot, they would have to be an additional healer rather than a replacement one due to required output levels that lower numbers of healers cannot provide.
Not only that though, you have the intuitive Chain Heal (most visably seen on Twins where human reactions are often not good enough) which ends up being amazing due to its inbuilt AI bouncing to the targets with the highest need (for more purposes than just meters) - somewhat like Fel Hounds on RoS, when the server/game is in control of when/what your abilities do they are often superior.

I agree that Bloodlust is not the major calling point of them though, Totems have been -very- strong on the baseline (Wrath & Grace of Air) which made getting them even more important as it effectively came at 'no cost' and provided such an amazing benefit.
I would go as far as reducing their power (atleast) in half and having the appropriate Elemental/Enhancement talents bolster them back up again for the DPS class synergy 'requirement' - even that though is still very attractive for no fee Healer spot.

With so few spots for Healers in general, having this form of competition is a very bad idea because you end up with the current situation or worse, when you should generally only require Healers for Healing.
Im hoping at the removal of ToL aura this will be the case, as if not then the old ToL aura would be an amazing incentive for bringing more than one Tree provided the range was reduced accordingly.



Warlocks:
Their DPS has been amazingly good since the start of TBC (granted to stay this way the specs have changed accordingly), and they have synergized astoundingly well with Shadow Priests which resulted in several modifications over time.
Curses have always been an issue since CoR was known to be so good - resulting in you needing all 3 if you brought any Mages to your raid (strange considering how amazing Arcane DPS is eh?:P) - changing Malediction to a 1 point ability granting a homogenized curse would be much better and also provide even more reason for having an Afflic Loc (and it cuts back on a debuff slot, strange eh!).

The other issue here is their usurping of the general Mage role (AoE and single-target DPS).
Not only have they been able to step into this spot, they have ended up superior at it with better synergized nukes, and far better (and safer) AoE power with unlimited longevity in comparison (AoE has often tended to be expensive and risky untill Seed).

Generally it ends up as a class error overall than one specific area or ability and right now it seems that these type of issues have been ignored in favour of attempting to spice up the SB*X, LT*Y rotation - but hopefully as this is only Alpha they have just not moved on to addressing this issue yet.
Warlocks in TBC have had a mask of success due to their performance and its really ended up doing more harm than good with so many mechanics of the class being covered up.



Im hoping that Wrath will evolve away from the TBC trend, because as we have seen - this mass synergy has ended up doing more harm than good because if you attempt to ignore the majority of it in a raid environment it becomes trivialized with it and the only way to fix it is to strip down these factors significantly.

 

Nathariel

The issue with changing the standard group size to 6 is that it would mean redoing all the 5-mans as 6 as well.

This may work with the current lack of tanks and healers. But for any dungeon to have a challenge beyond a dps race it would need to have an offtank and an offhealer as requirements rather than options.

Although thinking about it this could work, there would be a lot of work required to set it up.

 

GSH

This is true. But most "synergy" classes are the healing offspecs. At 7-8 healers, two slots are taken up with the healing spec, so if you want to bring the other two trees, you're up to 4 of that class.

Consider a raid like:

Group 1 - Prot Warrior, Prot Paladin, Deathknight, Resto Druid, Holy Paladin
Group 2 - Rogue, DPS Warrior, Enhance Shaman, Ret Paladin, Deathknight
Group 3 - Balance Druid, Mage, Mage, Elemental Shaman, Shadow Priest
Group 4 - Warlock, Warlock, Warlock/Mage, Holy Priest, Imp. DS Priest
Group 5 - Resto Shaman, Rogue, Feral Druid, BM Hunter, Survival Hunter

That's a pretty decent raid, both synergy-wise and in terms of class and spec representation. Yeah, you could probably stuff in more shaman, but other-wise it's decent, I think. But it only has room for 5 healers. You add more healers and you start to lose your synergy specs or your pure dps classes.

 

spanko

I thought for sure Blizzard was going to announce either 6 man groups or 30 man/6 group raids for WotLK. 10 classes and 25 raids spots just doesn't work out unless huge changes like the ones Gurg has mentioned are made. Personally I like the idea of 6 man groups a lot, I think it would achieve the same effect as raid wide totems, and help curb the 4+ stacking of shamans going on currently. I also think its about time for Blizzard to up the maximum amount of debuffs on bosses. As it is now we have to restrict a lot of things on fights like Brutallus, its only going to get worse with Deathknights, not mention the possibility of another new class. With the talk of Archdruids in interviews it really makes me wonder if Blizzard has put enough thought into raid/group sizes and dungeons.

 

• Playered

Your not reading the point? those changes Prae mentioned do nothing for fitting in those extra 5 specs into the raid, it even cuts the requirement for a few of them out (3rd Warlock for eg - not that he was Demo speced in the first place).

Not to mention having group size increased means for each Shaman you get an additional +1 person benefiting from their Totems making them even stronger than now.
Raid wide means that 2 Shamans could cover the more significant totems for the entire raid and anything over a 3rd is mostly worthelss, granted your pretty much only needing this many because near all the good ones are Air totems (GoA, WF, WoA vs SoE, nothing, or vs MSpring, nothing).

Debuff issue.. well there are still some weak ones still lurking around (Fireball, Deep Wounds) and some stupid ones like Blood Frenzy not being incorporated into existing debuffs - but generally we were already hitting issues with more than 2 of SP/Ret/Moonkin/Afflic Loc and so forth ontop of normal raid setups.


The Archdruid was an educated guess from the interviewer I believe aswell, a side-comment rather than anything stated by anyone at Blizzard during them.

 

Addled

I don't think it would be too bad. MgT shows us that Blizzard has fallen in love with 8+ pulls of varied mobs. I fully expect to see WotLK 5mans to be cut in the same mold as MgT, Shattered Halls, Shadow Labyrinth, and the other "big pull" instances. The druid leaks show that Blizzard is beginning to give CC to even tanking/healing classes. If you increase the basic group size to 6, then you buy room for another CCer, or an offtank/offhealer/both to help control adds.

For 10mans being tuned to 12mans, just slightly increase the health/damage of raid mobs. Perhaps add in another add or two for the add fights. The rumors say that Blizzard has only started designing the raid encounters, so it won't be a massive issue to account for a 12man/30 man raid.


-----

TBH, (and feel free to flame me for this opinion) I honestly don't mind having certain classes having a better "stackability" factor than other classes. In fact, I feel it is essential (here come the pitchforks :-) ). In 5mans and 10mans, classes are required to justify their existence by their own personal tanking/DPSing/healing abilities, since groups are not stacked, and there are fewer people to get an advantage from any randomly chosen buff. Hybrids are boned in these types of situations (see: all the crying over "offspecs" not getting into MgT because they don't have CC ability).

But in 25mans, hybrids shine because there is enough room to stack groups; you can make a melee group, caster group, and so on. Shamans are unfortunate enough to be the kings of group buffing; you never see threads about paladin/priest/warrior/druid buffing being OP. If we nerf the buffing abilities of a hybrid class, you basically ruin the core of the class. You end up with a subpar healer/DPSer/buffer (and some paladins, right now, complain that this has happened to their class due to their Holy nerfing). If you buff a hybrid's personal DPS/healing/whatever, then you might as well play a "pure" class.

Aside from recruitment issues (and we could fix that if Blizzard would allow class changes, or something similar), I can't understand why we can't just say "Hybrids are king for 25mans". Besides, there's still room for every class x2, 5 shamans, then still 2 slots leftover to do whatever with.

It's a tough question, to be sure. I'm also certain that Blizzard has thought about everything we're arguing about here, and has made a design decision already. More than likely, we'll see their answer when the shaman and paladin talents/skills get leaked. I just wish Blizzard would drop in here more and share their opinions.

 

Liebestod

I think it's been touched on already, but it's also pertinent to point out that most 25-man raids run with 7-8 healers on average, but there are only 5 healing specs in the game (and arguably disc isn't much of a healer spec at all..) This means that there's always going to be some doubling up here, which leads to problems with healer hybrids... if you're already running 2 resto shamans, then enh and ele being viable will only lead to over-representation of that class. 2 resto druids and a bear tank would lead to over-representation of the class if you wanted to throw in a moonkin as well, etc. Thus we can't operate on the (2*10)+5 rationale very well because sometimes you'll be running 2-3 of the same healing spec and that'll leave no room for the others.

Obviously the next hero class should have 2 healing specs. Archdruid.

 

Wuff

Well, Blizzard already adressed this with the change of mage AoE coefficients last patch. I really don't think think that mage AoE power is currently weaker than warlocks.

Regarding affliction warlocks and malediction you are right. This talent is (and has always been) horrible. An affliction warlock spends lots of points to improve his dps curse (agony) but will never cast it during a raid. Improved CoS is simply far superior - especially if you stack shadow dps (our first felmyst kill was with one affliction, 5 destruction warlocks and 3 shadow priests, go figure).
The true problem of warlocks will remain in wotlk as it seems: 3 curses and demonic sacrifice - which destroys the underpowered affliction and demonology specs. Sadly, Blizzard obviously isn't impressed by the idea of affliction warlocks casting two curses at once ...
I'm personally fine with things like 3 different healthstones, it kind of adds flavor to the game.


Ignoring the many flaws of warlock specs for now, lets look at how many of one class would be ideal according to this thread:

0 of anyone class: Your raid should be gimped, not everything/every encounter has to be possible.
1: everything should be possible, but you might fail during progression raids.
2: the perfect setup, you are in for first kills in the current top raid instance.
3+: should never be necessary.

Am I correct?

Regarding shamans: I know most of you don't want to hear it (especially the thread starter) but some of their mechanics are currently to strong compared to the other classes. Intelligent use of bloodlust does more than delivering the final kick during encounters like RoS P3, chain heal alone forces raids to spread and move in group patterns, totems force group compositions more than every other class ability.

Raid synergy is currently going the wrong direction in my opinion. It's simply far to strong and rising. It gets even worse if you look at drums or some group buffing necklaces. If this trend continues it doesn't matter anymore how good your own gear is or your encounter skills are - the only thing that matters is how much you can buff four other people.

Edit: Wander (and Monkey) are correct, mage AoE coefficients have in fact NOT changed - only the number of full damage targets. I was thinking of raid encounters like Hyjal and Felmyst where this doesn't really make a differenence.

 

Wander

To be precise, no coefficients were changed. The only change was that the damage cap of AE was increased by 50%, which meant effectively that each AE cast was doing 50% more damage in raids like Hyjal; against fewer targets or in solo applications, AE would be doing no additional damage, which is what would have occurred if the coefficient itself had been increased.

 

PSGarak

You stack a class because, for whatever reason, they are the only class (or spec) that gives an irreplaceable, unduplicatable buff. Resto druids give a raid function--they heal people. You don't need to stack eight druids because there are other classes that can heal, so you bring some of those classes instead. You bring three paladins because their blessings stack with every other buff. If, for example, Blessing of Might did not stack with Battle Shout, and you only had one melee group, you could leave the third paladin at home and bring a DPS warrior. Or you could bring a third paladin and drop the DPS warrior from your melee group.

Think about this:
Enhancement shamans would not be so necessary if there were other weapon imbues that were within an order of magnitude of windfury (ignoring bloodlust because it's spec-independent) (note also: such an imbue might make DPS warriors/retadins viable on their own).
Warlocks wouldn't be so necessary if CoS and/or ISB didn't stack with shadow weaving, and CoE didn't stack with scorch, and CoR didn't stack with faerie fire.
Affliction warlocks wouldn't be so necessary if there were any other buff in the game that replicated Shadow Embrace, like a rogue poison or something. Shadowpriests bring several irreplacable unique things to the table, but Misery is most directly comparale to SE.

Currently the only cross-class buffs that don't stack with each other that I can think of are Expose Armor and Sunder Armor. The problem, of course, is that making classes not stack with each other is a direct nerf to both classes, as well as any class taking advantage of both buffs. EG, making BoM and BS not stack is a nerf to all paladins and DPS warriors for desirability, as well as a DPS nerf to every melee class. The first problem, we've already admitted, is actually the desired effect. The second problem could be fixed by doubling both buffs (or not--the X-Pack is a giant reset button anyways).

TL;DR: If multiple classes brought similar buffs that didn't stack, you wouldn't have to be so damn picky.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Kreoss

I think Raid wide Totems would be too powerfull. I think it works well the way it is now. The problem are not totems or synergies betwen SP/Hunters/Locks/Mages.... problem is a class like the Mage and Rogue don't offer nothing else then DPS. DPS is what Hunters/Locks/SP can offer + More = Buffs.

So, the easy way and for me the better way to fix it is to give Mages and Rogues more synergies. Give the Rogue 1 different buff per Tree, give the Mage the Same. Then you would have possible more viable trees for another 2 classes and more synergies. You wouldn't have to take them all, but at least you would have more to choose from without relegating anyone out just becaues they don't offer nothing.

Rogues could give based on Assassination/Combat/Sublety Something like a Discipline, aura, presence, whatever: Assassin Presence (+3% Melee Crit to Party) / Expertise Presence ( +3% Hit Chance ) / Shadow Presence ( +3% Dodge or Melee Damage). This was was just a quick thought.

For the Mage something like... Arcane / Fire / Frost Arcane Influence (+3% Spell Crit) / Pyro Influence (+3% Fire Damage) / Frozen Influence (+3% Frost Damage (not many frost exclusive classes) + 3% Increased Armor).

Also for the Rogue make Expose armor stack with Sunder Armor. That would make more rogues usefull... or at least that talente usefull in raids.

Just a rough thought. This wouldn't make the Rogue or the Mage, Buff specialists, but would give them something, something related to them that could help their partys in raids and/or 5 mans, even on PvP to give more choice.

 

Hate Monkey

Well if mages could cast AE at range like SoC can be, then that remains true, but show me a mage who can use AE on M'uru phase 1. It just isn't even close. What needs to be changed is the damage on Blizzard needs to be upped, the damage AND radius of Flamestrike needs to be increased. Without those changes, a warlocks AoE capability will always be superior to a mages.

If you think that's a bad thing, then I don't know what to say. It will more reliably allow others to gage your skill easier. If you can't buff up your group properly, then it shows that you are weak, and holding the other 24 people in the raid back? If that is a bad idea, then obviously you want an easier game, and WoW is to hard for you.

As a mage, I would gladely give up my personal dps numbers, not much, but a little just so I could boost the damage my raid does, and the only way now to do that is with Drums. I just wish each class acted more like a shaman in a raid. Have to perform certain skills so the group gets buffed properly, and if you don't, their dps suffers.

While the idea of raid-wide totems sounds good, but what happens when that shaman dies for some reason? Boom, all your buffing gone. Now if the idea in my last post is actually done, the longer duration and not able to be targeted part, totems will always be that superior buff, but at the same time, inferior.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

 

Wuff

I'm sorry, I had to edit/clarify the first part of your quote, I was misinformed about mage AoE spells. I can't comment on M'uru (never defeated the twins).

Yes, I believe it is a bad thing, that I as a cloth wearing caster, was forced to skill leatherworking for drums. Yes, I believe it is bad that I wear an itemlvl 115 blue necklace every hour vor 2% group spellcrit. Yes, I believe it is a bad thing, that we take a slightly worse playing healer sometimes, because he has the right profession/grp buffs.

But if you want to tell me, that group buffing and synergy should not be limited to some classes/professions and should never go too far I'm all yours.

 

• Philondra

I'm pretty sure that any Shaman who steps back and honestly assesses the class would agree with this statement. I agree, but with one caveat: Shaman mechanics (setting aside Chain Heal for one moment) only scale too well in multi-group content because unlike every other buffing class in the game, Shaman buffs actually become more valuable as you move up from solo content to 5 man, 10 man, and eventually 25 man content. Raid leaders tailoring group compositions for 25 mans based on Shaman totems is a natural consequence of this phenomenon. Coincidentally, this is the exact same reason why non-restoration Shaman are woefully suboptimal for heroics and other "difficult" 5-man content; shaman buffs cannot be optimized if you cannot give the shaman a synergistic group. Enhancement Shaman in particular are the biggest offenders, as their suite of passive buffs and totems are virtually required in 25 mans, and the way they underwrite a large portion of melee DPS means that their removal from the raid means a significant loss in rDPS, yet they are among the weakest of any class/spec for small group content.

Compare this with paladins and their blessings. Adding the first paladin to the group (Blessing of Salvation for DPS, Blessing of Wisdom for healers, tanks, Blessing of Kings for tanks) drastically enhances a raid's effectiveness much more than any combination of Windfury, Chain Heal, and Bloodlust/Heroism. The marginal utility of each additional paladin blessing, however, drops sharply, as the second blessing is by definition less effective than the first (otherwise, why weren't you using the second blessing to begin with?), and once you reach paladin #4 or #5, the raid starts seeing 30 minute Blessings of Sanctuary on the mages and other equally ridiculous scenarios. Paladins being able to tailor their buffs on an individual rather than group basis is also one of the reasons why Paladins (at least holy and protection; I've never had the pleasure of grouping with a skilled ret paladin) are excellent in 5 and 10 man content.

Fixing Shaman by making totems work as raid-wide buffs is one quick and dirty solution, although the details are a little hazy, but then we've only solved one problem (too strong in 25 mans), without addressing the second (too weak in 5 mans). I foresee two ways to solve this, and both involve nerfing Shaman group wide synergy while buffing a different aspect of the class: 1.) Replace the synergy with increased personal effectiveness, ala the leaked Shadow Priest talents. This method is actually somewhat of a copout, as it means that Blizzard will only have to do some simple number adjusting and will miss the opportunity to introduce new class defining mechanics. 2.) Increases the Shaman's ability to act as a hybrid class without needing to swap gear. What if Shaman could be changed around to become less reliant on intra-group synergy, and instead have more hybridization between class trees, with the totems as a nice bonus rather than the focus of the class? We have seen that Blizzard is trying to introduce cross-school or cross-tree synergy. What if Lightning bolt gave a stacking buff that decreased the cast time of Healing wave? What if Enhancement had a short-duration, medium cooldown buff that healed the target for X% of the Shaman's melee damage? Things like this could lessen the initial sting of a reduction in the overpowering 25 man synergy by providing a new kind of utility that doesn't encourage class stacking while also providing a moderate boost in 5 man desirability.

With regards to very specific nerfs, it's very clear that both Chain Heal and Windfury Totem are on the chopping block. Seeing the way that Blizzard changed Circle of Healing in the leaked alpha talents, it's very likely that Chain Heal will suffer a similar retuning. I will refrain from idle speculation about the fate of Windfury Totem, except to say that reducing its effectiveness actually gives other melee classes room to grow, as they no longer have to be balanced against an overwhelming ability that they do not have.

 

Oaken

I really don't think it is necessary to feel bad for them - its somewhat of a self-imposed purgatory many of them have put themselves into. The argument that a lot of rogues and mages make is "I don't want any utility or synergy - I want to stand alone as the highest dps/aoe dps class." Interesting argument to make - perhaps a little selfish when everybody else' value is in boosting group dps - but interesting nonetheless.

Back to the original post, making totems raid-wide for example is probably fine; certainly no different than having blessings raid-wide. I'm not sure its the only fix that's needed though. I think the overall solution in many ways is to give everybody synergy of some kind and balance the potential dps more closely. If nothing else it would give those people who value being top of the dps charts some real competition - it wouldn't just be a race between the rogues and warlocks. But really more importantly in that sort of model you'd be less inclined to stack a single class because maximizing dps, for example, would benefit from mixed groups across the board instead of, as the poster above puts it so eloquently, having buffers and "leechers".

 

Wander

When the class is designed to do practically nothing but DPS, they ought to be allowed to do that DPS. I think the argument they've been making is subtlely different from how you've put it; it's not "I don't want any utility", but rather "I don't have much utility - why aren't I standing alone?"

 

Northerner

To be fair, most Mages I know would be quite happy with some sort of dps synergy for the raid. I certainly know that I would have been. What Blizzard tends to proffer though is a furthering of roles that are not only somewhat artificial in nature (decursing and spellsteal tanking come to mind) but actually destroy what dps we would otherwise be able to do. To me and many others, that's not fun synergy and we've known that since BWL.

It tends to be the way Mages are designed though and such is life. While many classes seem to get their utility through usual actions (e.g. Misery, FI, Sunder, EA and so on) or through long-lasting debuffs (FF, Co-, etc), Mages and Rogues to a lesser degree seem to get utility through unusual actions like evasion or spellsteal tanking, casting a low dps spell in scorch, using a lower dps poison offhand, sheeping, decursing and such. Now, I think a Mage that wants to ignore the utility of that sort of action is being a bit silly but every time Mages ask for more synergy or utility, Blizzard seems to enjoy kludging in more of these sort of encounters. Many people seem unhappy with that direction.

I personally like how Rogues are functioning at present but perhaps they could use a tweak or two still. Having one or two dps classes that excel at leveraging buffs into damage is a pretty good role indeed and Rogues are still the premiere buff-to-damage class. There is nothing inherently wrong with encounters designed to use other elements of their skillset but when the non-core skills become the reason for having a class represented in a raid, they may well end up benched on progression content that doesn't require those skills. Of course this is heavily impacted by group design limitations and that's really what this thread is all about. If we can break some of that down then things would be far more flexible.