Valen

The problem is that you can hardly judge player skill in a short time (time is one of the most important factors, while trying to run a successful guild), especially if both are playing at a decent level. Building on that is hardly relevant.

You got 2 guys applying to you with a decent written applications for your 1 extra spot that you need to quickly fill to not fall behind on progress. In majority of cases people would go with the one that plays the "better" class and take their chance. Really, this is how the reality looks. You are not going to post a recruitment post stating "we look for a 25th guy, join us if you play dps".

 

◊ Praetorian

This is a bit far afield, but I disagree with this point -- I realize that we have a pretty nice applicant pool to choose from, but I'm confident that I can figure out with 95%+ accuracy how good a player is without ever having played with them, based on an app, past history, interview, looking at UI screenshots if possible, and also arena ratings (e.g., if someone has a background that indicates that PvE has always been their priority AND they also play one or two classes at a Gladiator level, odds are they're going to be skillful, and then it's just a matter of personality fit).

Ultimately, though, this is going to be one of those "let's see how it plays out" things. I'm not sure any of us can really predict the full impact of the changes and their dynamics until we actually hit 80 and start raiding again. Personally I find it encouraging that the step is being taken preemptively rather than reactively, as opposed to the consumables nerf or the gear rebalancing in TBC that happened in 2.1 and really messed up raid progression (even though they were needed changes).

 

Tyrian

I couldn't disagree with this more. Like aforementioned, you can ascertain someones skill very fast - without even needing to be ingame. My favourite way to test new players is to throw them into their first Kalecgos and Felmyst and watch if they sink or swim.

I think Sunwell - and M'uru in particular - was the strongest catalyst for some of these changes in WOTLK. Its a good thing they made an instance like Sunwell and a boss like M'uru that really exposed the problems to the extent they did.

 

Mano

Sorry, but if you get those two super applications, YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE BOTH. Especially because you think you can't judge them in a short time. Because in the end your opportunity cost of taking both is near zero and you can never have enough good players.

 

Benita

Recruitment follows longterm trends, the same way that character creation follows longterm trends. Otherwise the SWP raids would not look like they do right now.

I'm guessing the changes would be rather obvious if someone would calculate averages for the pve 25man guilds from starting BC to now. Recruitment in most pve guilds get "opened" for x specc of y class and those are the players that apply, to open recruitment with less info and then not looking at 80% of the applications because its the wrong class/specc would be a bit ineffective. Of course there are exceptions when you dont pass on an outstanding application, but longterm you just choose not to recruit a new pala if one of yours stops and instead look for a new shaman.


Back to the topic of synergy buffs, i don't see it boiling down to only 10 people you need for all buff categories unless they change buffing ranges. Min/maxing on encounters also includes positioning. Literally no fight in SWP would work for maximum buffs with the minimum 10 people you need to bring according to the new list to have all buffs present in a raid. Only Patchwerk will be a fight where this is viable and maybe a handful of others throughout a full expansion. You will need to bring almost all buff categories and besides melee buffs often enough two of the buff category because of said range issues. For min/maxing this means two of a certain specc because some buffs are plain worse than others in their category.

In the end you will still bring tons of these hybrid buffing classes even if they stick to the same principal of more synergy equals less personal dps. I would be guessing that the amount of synergy speccs you bring to raids will stay the same. The biggest difference is the new cap for shaman synergy and which kind of dpser you will stack up the most as there are no group restrictions anymore. It might end up being a more volatile flavour of the month variation on that part (which is what most "10 rogues" claims were about i guess).

 

Sprout

First, let me qualify my statement by saying that I am not a current nor do I expect to be a future RL. But I do know the game and understand how raids are put together, as most good raiders probably do just from playing for several years now.

One thing to consider is that getting the synergies right is not just a level 80 issue. The synergy impact is going to hit alot of guilds with the 3.02 patch. Currently my guild is on twins and doing fairly well (2% wipe on our 1st full week). Mu'ru and KJ are probably not going to be down by the time the patch comes out (maybe muru). So we are going to be finishing BC content after 3.02. Those of us not in the top 200 guilds (and every guild below us) will be dealing with this in 6 or 8 weeks, not 6 or 8 months.

And its much more complex than or which class/spec should be taken for dps and healing.

Quick example:
MM hunters, Blood DK's and Enh shammeis all bring an 10% AP buff to the party/Raid. (Trueshot, UR, AM). If you have all 3 in the raid then you may (depending upon positioning) want to limit how many of these you take. For instance, your Enh shammie may desire to increase his personal DPS by going 21/50/0 (lets assume this is better dps for the sake of argument). The DK may want to use 2 of his point for personal DPS as well. If the fight allows it should you let them both? If positioning is bad your melee will still probably end up close so you can at least have ONE of those two classes respec to min/max. The question is which one?

And that is just one buff. I can name several other talents just involving shaman that just by respeccing out of the raid buff I could increase personal DPS/healing.


Eventually we will have a rule of thumb for each buff/debuff catagory on which is best, but you still have to take gear and skill into account on top of everything else.

If you are truly min/maxing in LK, and even in BC for patch 3.02, then you will need to not only change classes and the primary tree, but possibly specs within those trees to get max dps.

Some may say that for most guilds this will not be much of an issue. Playing a true min/max game will have diminishing returns for guilds that are not pushing the envelope. But if Brut showed us anything its that when push comes to shove, almost all guilds will min/max as much as they can to kill a boss.

Is the new system bad....IMHO no, I think it is great and will allow for some seriously tightly tuned fights in LK. But I do think that people seem to under estimate how complex the new system is going to end up being for raid leaders trying to get their guild over the hump on new content. It is not a task I envy, thats for sure.

 

Pheroz

Sprout, thats a very simple problem that a few people have spoke of and needs to be addressed before te situation goes live.

Basically, for the redundant buffs/debuffs, a player must have an incentive to spec/play the same way regardless of whether or not that buff/debuff is redundant.

If blizzard did that, then people won't be able to 'game the system' with regards to stacking and making thse supposdly interchangeable contributions unequal.

 

PSGarak

The problem has been mentioned before, but only in the context of personal specing, not in the context of raid min-maxing, and you're right that its problems there are significantly magnified. Having a moonkin swap a point from IFF to E&M is annoying, and making pallies swap between sheathbot and BoL to cover utilities would be aggravating for all involved. The proposed solution of adding personal-DPS "riders" to all of the raid-utility talents is, I think, the way to go. It also narrows the divergence between a raid-spec and a solo/PvP/5-man spec, which I think is something blizzard wants to do as well.

There's two possible repurcussions about the general design of the talent trees with riders on buffs. There's a danger of bloataciousness in packing every talent with multiple effects for multiple situations, but adding riders to talents that are "mandatory" anyways isn't that big a deal. The other issue is that the riders have to be worth the talent points themselves, to make it that a respec isn't an improvement. But, keep in mind, you're only comparing the talent to whatever you could get instead, so if it's competing with a 0.3% DPS filler, it doesn't have to be that great to be worth the talent point itself, much less the flexibility.

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

 

Sprout

Putting riders on the talents will have some effect but in alot of cases I dont think it would be enough. Especially when there is a large discrepancy between talents in 2 classes, or when the talents have much smaller point pre-req's.

For instance, using the UR example, I would be willing to bet that becasue UR is 5 talent points, you can make significant changes to your spec without seriously hurting your DPs as long as you have an alternative. Thus the 21/50/0 option. For hunters and Dk they only get 1 and 2 points respectively, so their relative gain in DPS might be somewhat less (cant really speak to that).

then you get into the whole thing regarding multiple debuffs. For instace, if your Dk is dropping icy talons, and they are spec'd into imp icy talons, then you may end up not needing WF totem, which would allow an enh shammies to either drop WoA (possibly reducing the need for another shman slot) or just skipping the enh shaman all together. But to do that you need either another DK specd into blood, or a MM hunter in the raid because of the AP buff.

None of the above would be helped tremendously by putting minor riders on the buff talents.

Im not saying this is a horrible thing. As a person who enjoys that kind of interplay I think it will be alot of fun to help the raid leaders work this stuff out. My feeling though is that the work involved int this (especially the balancing) will be pretty hefty, and the sooner we get started the better. And lets not forget for smaller raids it will make filling out raids much easier

Does anyone think a seperate thread on raid configurations would be useful at this time, or should we wait til 3.02 shakes out more?

 

Smurrf

I think discussion can probably be placed in [WotLK] Listing of class synergies (talents and skills) before you open up another topic.

 

Prinsesa

What about a situation wherein NOT taking your raid debuff does not present a gain?

Speaking as a Paladin, the Swift Retribution talent is made redundant by a Moonkin with Improved Moonkin Aura, since those belong to the same Minor Haste category.

If I know that my Moonkin buddy is going to have 100% raid attendance and will absolutely have Improved Moonkin Aura, I'm going to wonder why I would ever take Swift Retribution, right? The thing is, a Retribution spec can spend on everything that presents even a fractional DPS increase and still have 2-5 points left over. Skipping Swift Retribution would not give me anything else anywhere else, so I'd take it regardless.

It wouldn't save me from a PvP spec either since I need more than the 3 points from Swift Ret to get all my PvP goodies, again even if my Moonkin buddy was also my arena partner and was in 100% of all matches.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

seminarca

Then the person who can't effectively use those talent points elsewhere (i.e. the Paladin) can take the requisite buff/debuff, and the other guy (the Druid) gets a few points for free to spec for utility or PvP. Seems like a simple enough solution to me 0o

 

Prinsesa

I was referring more towards the a situation wherein all talent trees/builds were like what I described, such that there's never a reason for you to NOT take your raid utility talent, even if you could somehow assume someone will always have your back.

EDIT: Really, I don't see why anyone would actually do this. The massive outcry from the Frostbolt glyph (+5% damage, no more snare) came from the fact that even if it's a sizable raid DPS increase, you still have 5-mans, PvP and soloing to consider.

The same thing could be said for raid utility talents.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Auororam

That makes sense, although I think I was just as confused as Seminarca, since you seemed to be incredibely pissed about the fact. At least, I read that as shouting, not sure about anybody else.

On the topic, I don't see any problem with people skipping their raid utility talent to min/max. 1-5 talent points can't give huge dps increases, mostly only various utility. And talent points are there to help people be different and various.

 

PSGarak

Some rogue and warrior revision blue quotes are up on mmo-champion (under blue tracker). Relevant for the raid-buff discussion: yes, rogues are going to be gifted with the 2% physical damage debuff. It is under the Combat tree, not replacing the hemo debuff as we originally suspected. It's replacing Stay of Execution (tier 9) and is applied along with poisons. Assassination rogues, not to be outdone with poison buffs, also get Heart of the Crusader (3% all incoming crit, Formerly known as sanctified retribution, and formerly formerly known as improved seal of the crusader, also known as New Totem of Wrath) and is part of Master Poisoner, now tier 9. Warrior changes are not relevant to current catelogued debuff categories.

Rogues also got group utility in Tricks of the Trade, allowing them to dump their agro onto someone else for 6 seconds every 30 (20 with 42 points into subtlety). Warrior Vigilance now transfers 10% of the threat from the vigilance target to the warrior, instead of just lowering their threat by 10%. I'm starting to think we should begin a catalogue of all the non-replaceable buffs that aren't covered by current categories. Off the top of my head: the threat thingies above, all paladin Hand spells, BoW, mana spring totem, mana tide, improved water elemental, improved disarm, PI, and pain surpression.

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

 

flyingtoastr

Judgements of Light and Wisdom, even after their wholesale nukeage, are still unique mechanics to the paladin class as well.

And I suppose if we ever come across a boss that has Sprint JoJ could be included. That would be an interesting encounter...

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Balance druids can save 11 talent points by skipping raid utility. We can spend these on increased damage, aoe damage, or mana. It's a real issue.

 

Auororam

Great! So do that and let somebody else bring your utility. Won't that increase overall raid damage? There will always be massively min/maxing guilds and they will have the player that loses the most bring their buff and the people who can spec out for bonus dmg/healing will probably do so.

I doubt that will spread to a general raiding guild. If it's a bit of mana here or there vs. having a spare copy of the buff for when the other raider is absent. And certainly nobody is going to re-roll for a minuscule increase in damage if they already play a buff-is-covered-by-others-dps class.

 

Sprout

I believe Wrath of Air also qualifies.

 

Pheroz

Why is that a good thing?

Blizzard is making these utility benefits of classes interchangeable to prevent raid stacking. If people are constantly respeccing out of their utility to find min/maxing gain, that makes some supposodly interchangeable buffs have different values.

That sucks for Blizzard and it sucks for the player base.

More frequent respecs for minmaxing purposes based on raid makeup/attendance is not fun. Blizzard having to balance around some raid compositions being 'more equal' then others is not fun.

If Class A brings buffs 1, 2, and 3 to a raid and does X amount of dps, thats what blizzard balances around. You wont need to bring another class that provides those buffs (although you certainly can). However, if a Class B is bringing buffs 1 and 2, and then your Class A can respec, not provide those buffs and gain a % damage increase, we're going to have a problem. Not only are you going to have 2 'required' raid slots instead of 1, but your also seeing an unintended power level increase totally independant of gear or player skill that likely wont be balanced for.

Thats not something that the crazy elite will do, thats the kind of minmaxing that alot of guilds will do.

Instead of simply saying do we have all the key buffs/debuff/utility covered then inviting our friends/best players/most deserving/whatever, we're going to be finding the inequalities between supposedly 'equal' utility, and there will be more raid slots that fall into the semi-required based on class balance issues. It undermines the entire point of this bufff/debuff change.

 

Tel

Exactly Pheroz. To be honest, I think they've shot themselves in the foot with this. All making the debuffs not stack has done is change the 'required classes' to those that provide a debuff/buff and aren't able to use those talent poitns for increased personal benefit instead.

 

Pheroz

It's not that dire Tel.

Jumping out of a burning building into a lake is something you may have to do to save your life, but its not without its own problems. You now have to be able to swim.

The current state of things with class utility is horrible. This change moves us in the right direction but presents new problems to be addressed. I think they can build on this change, corrent new problems and accomplish (to a degree) the goal they set out to with the major buff/debuff revision.

If they now tweak things so there is personal incentive to spec/play the exact same way whether or not someone else makes your provided buff/debuff redundant, then the goal is accomplished.

 

flyingtoastr

The first problem is that they tacked way too much utility onto Moonkins (7 unique for that spec alone). I'm sure that will be balanced.

The suggestion someone (for the life of me I can't remember who) made in a different thread is that these "utility" talents shouldn't be just utility. Each one should have some sort of nice perk so there would be a good reason to pick it up even if the utility was going to waste. Naturally this would require a bit of slimming on some trees, but I think it is a very good idea given the kind of issues being raised.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Mman

The problem with these buff consolidations is that Blizzard is balancing the "values" of these buffs, but is doing nothing for the costs of these buffs. The way different classes buff is significant. Assuming two buffs are equal in value, if it costs one class 2% dps to keep that buff up, but for another class that buff is entirely passive then those buffs are not of equal cost. Now, I'm not sure if this scenario exists, but you also have to consider mana cost, whether a buff is done in-combat or pre-combat. Then you have, and this has been mentioned here, the "hidden" costs of taking raid utility talents in lieu of personal dps talents. It used to be if you raided you took those talents, no question. If you only balance effects and not these costs then the values will never truly be balanced. Raids will figure out which specs/classes provide buffs with the least costs to their dps/mana and other classes will spec out of those talents unless they know specifically a buff would not be present otherwise (ie, you don't have the "best" class for that buff, or they are missing a raid or whatever).


Now for an entirely different problem with buff consolidation, does anybody else find the way this effects melee buffers is much harsher than ranged buffers? Melee, in the majority of situations, are within range of each other. If one person has a ranged buff (ie, windfury) then chances are that all of the melee will have this buff. This isn't true at all for ranged. They spread out regularly. If you have two ranged people providing the samed ranged buff it helps the raid because you can spread out more and still be buffed. Combine this with the historical inability to stack melee and you are going to run into the same situation as TBC where you have an "ideal" melee group (that includes tanks) with individuals who can provide the most buffs per person (this speaks well for enhancement shaman). This also probably means that you will never bring in a melee for a buff if a ranged person could provide it.

 

Sydane

The opposite point is that it is far easier for a melee class to provide all melee buffs to everyone who wants them than it is for a caster to do the same, unless they are debuffs on the boss. Casters frequently have to spread out and move more often than melee (depends a lot on the fight of course), and things like totems and auras are much more likely to be missed out on by caster than by melee who by their very nature are in close proximity.

Personally I expect these changes to weigh heavily on encounter design, where we will find ourselves split up, moving around, and having to position far more often to take advantage of proximity buffs and aoe healing. It has the potential to make buffing your group something you have to be personally aware of, rather than just passive.

It's very true that the "costs" overlap leads to unusual balancing issues and requires an additional level of communication, and we see it now in the few places of over lap such as Demo Shot/CoW. I think it's a good thing to remain in the game in a way, because it does give the min/max crowd something to tweak, but it won't be required at all of most guilds who will simply have the benefit of the buffs available to them without having to delve too deep in raid and spec tweaking and stacking. Clearly Blizzard wants there to still be some choices, or they would simply make every stacking buff identical in deployment and quality.

Empathy does not imply approval.