Infraction for Brista: Grammar

Kaubel · 05/23/07, 9:07 PM

Post: IRC Developer Chat - Round 2 (May 21)
User: Brista
Infraction: Grammar
Points: 1

Administrative Note:Message to User:

Your keyboard seems to have a broken period key.

Original Post:

Originally Posted by pewsey

This is what I call "the curse of the dynamic duo". Prot warriors and holy priests both have the inherent advantage of being highly desirable for 5 man and raid content. The opposite side of the fence is that their life outside those particular roles is more limited.

Compare that to my rogue, which is far less desirable as a 5 man, yet my solo and farming life is relatively painless.

Should "2 specs" be possible, then what would be the disadvantage of having the (arguably) most desirable classes in the game for group content ? I know I'd pick up a warrior or a priest immediately as I could swap between solo viability (via arms/fury/shadow) and group preference (via prot/healing) with no penalty.

This isn't a "nerf warriors" or "nerf priests" thread, and it's not a troll. This is a comment on class viability and balance and why I feel it's important that multi-role capable classes, especially the dynamic duo, are "penalised" for spec choice, one way or another. While I understand the frustration expressed by prot warriors and holy priests (my best mate was the guild MT, and is now a holy raiding priest) having such desirable classes with no penalty would potentially be unbalancing from a population issue.

I will also say that right now, I feel that druids have crossed the line and are too capable in their ability to play multiple roles without paying this penalty. I can MT all 5 mans, heal most of them, DPS in all of them and not have to be concerned about respec issues. (Druid is Spotboy/Dragonblight should you care to look it up).

I don't see why the holy grail of population control should be balance. Surely it's better to have enough tanks and healers around for everyone to be able to find pug groups and quality guild recruits?

I mean does someone sit there and think, hmm 15% Warriors that's a bit high let's buff Warlocks when 90% of those Warriors never tank pugs either because they're dps/pvp or because they only play in their guilds

Whether you do pugs yourself or not it's very very unhealthy that other players can't get non-solo stuff done. On my server even healers struggle to find 5 man groups at level 70

Pewsey, you state that your Rogue is not very attractive for a 5 man group. Does it not seem the case to you that if tanking and healing were more attractive there would be more pugs and your chance of grouping would increase? I don't get it why some dpsers oppose free respeccing. I just don't see it. Surely free respecs = 3/9ths of the classes can tank and 4/9ths can heal instead of people not wanting to join your pug because they don't want to struggle to tank as Fury or heal as Feral

Are you really willing to spend boring hours in the LFG queue just so the number of Warriors on your server is lower than the number of Rogues? Hell when I was playing my Rogue the less other Rogues around the better. Balance of classes ftl

The least popular classes on most servers are Shamans, Paladins and Druids. Oh look: tanks and healers. So if we want class balance we need to make things significantly more attractive for them. Free respecs would allow them to display the versatility they were designed to have

Another point of the lack of soloing and pvp self-defence of hapless healers and tanks is that these classes have options. For many of us there is a progression whereby we join a decent raid guild that needs another tank/healer then once we're established try to use our leverage to change role. The reason for this is it gives us the best of both worlds. We get to join a guild that a dpser of our original gear and experience wouldn't get in, then once we've got the gear and experience we get to become dps with the accompanying arena pwnage and lucrative grinding. Unless you love tanking (or healing) for it's own sake it's the smart thing to do viewed in a purely personal context. The two packages available to you are
1) great raiding
2) great raiding, uber pvp, fast grinding
Well guys 1) or 2) which do you choose?

This isn't healthy

This is in effect a brain drain of the best tanks and healers towards more rewarding specs once they achieve the guild status to negotiate the switch. So in a game where the only material reward of tanking and healing is social acceptance once you have achieved acceptance into wherever you want to be there is no reward for tanking or healing

I am very pessimistic about Kalgan's proposed solution

<Brannoc> *lizarb* One major complaint healers/tanks have is that they can not grind very well. Have you ever considered letting people have 2 specs they could swap freely between? Like the weapon swap in diablo 2. Having respec cost simply cost alot of people off from trying strange builds/tatics.
<Kalgan> Well, it's a bit different conceptually than a diablo 2 weapon swap. There aren't any plans to give players multiple specs, since that really kind of defeats the purpose of having to "choose" a spec.
<Kalgan> However, where necessary we'll add grind power to trees/specs that traditionally have a hard time in those areas. In some ways I do believe that some of the specs have gotten overspecialized over time.

This sounds like more of what we already have in those trees. 5% lightning crit in Shaman Resto, 10% melee damage in Druid Resto and whoop-de-doo an occasional free Smite in Priest Holy tree

These talents don't cut it. A few more of them won't cut it