• Bad Luck

They should increase party size to 6. :)

 

Falcon24

48 man raids would be just weird now you've gone too far Bad

 

jubelio

I cant bring my self to read beyond the words "Greater Totems" or "Raid Totems" anymore, also it lowers my opinion of whoever is saying these words.

 

Tuco

BE and Draenei being paladins and shamans would be less lore breaking than Draenei being the new alliance race to begin with.

Based on lore I could easily see BE being Paladins, just because they're a bit zealot. Draenei being shaman is a bit of a stretch. The lost ones in SoS are not the draenei we'll be introduced to.

I'd actually be fairly happy with the change, because I might get to reroll shaman because of it, hah!

 

Falcon24

I can't see Blood Elves being Paladins at all. A race that has been entirely consumed by the raging lust for magic to the point that they would siphon that energy off of demonic creatures to sate themselves being dedicated to the preservation of a holy and just order? Uh, no.

 

◊ Praetorian

Yeah, as Digo said, while it feels like a bit of a cop-out, it also would solve a shitload of problems and allow them to produce much more balanced content in the long run. Starcraft analogies are inapt because that was a game balanced solely for PvP, as it were.

My main concern would be what Wodin pointed out, though I suppose if they ever add whole new classes in expansions beyond TBC, that would have the same effect too. It's hard to think of how I'd fit 3-4 paladins into my existing raid groups without really screwing some people over. Unless 25% of our druids, priests, and shamans all want to reroll paladins -- then everything will be fine. But I'm skeptical of that.

 

jubelio

I hear dwarves have raging lust for gold to the point they would carve the innards of the earth.... or is that the wrong lore?

 

Whion

Why is it a crappy idea? How do you fix the mechanic besides allowing totems to affect the raid?

 

tenarius

What the hell, inapt is a word! You learn something new every day.

This change would be awesome to balance things, but as many other people have said the greatest issue with it would be that successful guilds have x number of priest/druids/shaman who are responsible for their success and raid frequently, and with paladins as a Horde class you'd be strapped for spots because who the hell wants to play a paladin if they already have a geared priest or druid? I predict it will be mostly raid min/maxers who get sticky in the pants for BoK that play paladins for raiding guilds.

Of course for Alliance guilds it will be a much simpler decision, because they can just tell all the rogues who are not human to piss off and roll Shaman.

And, just from the character models, Dranei look much more like Shaman and Blood Elves look much more like Paladins.

 

Falcon24

Re: Fork

But see, the point is that Blood Elves as a race pursue an alternate form of energy and power (wild magics, potentially demonic) that would be diametrically opposed to "the Light" which is what Paladins use and what Draenei are supposedly the embodiment of. It works for Humans and Paladins because those races aren't fundamentally ruled by opposing energies. Besides, I'm fairly sure dwarves in WoW lore are more on the exploration side than the greed side of treasure-hunting, unless you count the dwarves in the Venture Company. But I'm no expert on Alliance-side lore so w/e

 

Gauss

Not going to lie, I never quite got the humor in that comic. I absolutely love PBF though.

Noobing it up on Mal'Ganis since '06

 

Digo

Dwarves could be mages in beta, so it wouldn't surprise me if they yanked paladins from the available list of classes for Draenei.

 

Xizorz

Blizzard seems incapable of balacing the 2 factions for PvE. This is the only way i can see such balance occuring.

http://ctprofiles.net/298322

 

• Wodin

Not precisely - what we do now is saying "you're on the bench now, but if X can't come you're in." Whereas if you change up the group composition, now it becomes "you're on the bench now, and you're on the bench till we're out of Y to sub in." Much more permanent.

That said, the idea of Salvation, Kings, Might, SoE, and Windfury all at the same time makes me giggle a little. No tank could hold aggro against that :)

 

Falcon24

Wodin the only buff they'd give you would be BoS and you'll like it

 

Malan

incapable and unwilling you mean.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

jubelio

I dont know where it is right now, but gurg has made posts in the past outlining his totem improvement ideas, I'm not going to waste my time looking for it because frankly there are so many people that think they have solved world hunger by saying "HAY GREATER TOTEMS" that I'll just continue to get pissed off at them. Where were you when the shaman review was on the cusp of being released when most of the discussion happened? Did you ignore the shaman forums? Gurg's post was pretty prominent for a week or so at least and explained in detail why greater totems are a dumb idea and a much more elegant way of dealing with current totem issues.

 

Copernicus

Only the really high-end guilds would have an issue with having too many healers. There's enough turnover right now that by the time something like this becomes official (I'm assuming 3 months before the expansion is released), most guilds could simply stop recruiting more healers and be fine by the time it comes to the expansion. And even there, I think some dedicated players would want to reroll to Shaman/Paladin.

 

Beaggie

From a lore perspective, I think that losing the faction flavour isn’t worth it. One of the main differences between both factions is the class choice. Flavour plays a role in immersion, and as Jeff Kaplan pointed out, they are actually pleased with Horde hating Paladins and vice versa.

From a gaming perspective, TBC is yet to be released and I think Blizzard can look at other ways to fix the faction imbalance in PvE. More class abilities/ranks, more talent points, a better approach at making end-game raiding more balanced…there’s room for improvement there, rather then fixing a "problem" with the easiest solution.

 

Graham

In other news, Funder and I caught a paladin trying to steal her thorium last night. I rooted him to stop his horsey and he shield hearthed before she could even get a shadowbolt off.

I don't want that kind of crap on my side of things, so thanks but no thanks, Blizz.

 

Falcon24

Graham would you be a boy or a girl night elf druid if we were an Alliance guild

 

◊ Zoid

Paladin would be my new main.

 

SquattingCow

I can't think of anything I'd want to do less, really.

Seriously though, say average 40man guild raids with an active roster of ~60 people. To rebalance (assuming you're balanced already) would require 5-8 people rerolling. You really want those people to be your healers or your raid balance is skewed. ~15 days later to level 70 (maybe) and you've got a paladin. So at least a combined total of 75+ man-days just so the Dev team can cop out and unfuck the mess that is endgame raid balance. I know you can't get 9 women to make a baby in one month, but I'm sure I could come up with a better fucking totem mechanic in less than 75 man-days.

And besides, I like the difference. Makes it interesting.

 

Nite_Moogle

Me too.

 

◊ Kaubel

That's because Dr. Seuss did it better with the Star-Belly and Plain-Belly Sneetches.