I parsed the team make up of the top 600 arena teams here:
Spec Distribution in High-End Arena / Alcaras' Blog / Subcreation

For 5v5 (2v2 and 3v3 data are at the link), here are the specs, including the # of characters with that spec and the average rating of arena teams those players are on:
516 Pal Holy 2351.52
478 War Arms 2348.64
329 Mag Frost 2354.2
222 Shm Ele 2362.97
219 Pri Holy 2363.8
185 Lock Demo 2353.41
168 Pri Shdw 2353.88
162 Shm Resto 2349.47
153 Lock Aff 2339.32
76 Rog Combat 2336.93
71 Mag Arc 2343.92
61 Dru Resto 2371.1
54 Hunt Marks 2354.96
51 War Prot 2334.31
49 Pri Disc 2321.37
48 Hunt Beast 2348.27
44 Rog Ass 2338.91
41 War Fury 2351.15
26 Shm Enh 2348.42
25 Mag Fire 2402.24
17 Lock Destro 2359.06
16 Pal Ret 2337.88
15 Rog Sub 2399.53
13 Dru Bal 2381.85
12 Dru Feral 2349.58
11 Pal Prot 2376.91
2 Hunt Surv 2357.5

Caveat: The armory may have captured the wrong spec (e.g. Prot Warriors) because the character had respeced since doing arena.

In my opinion Blizzard knows far more about how to balance this game than anyone.

Face it, anyone who plays this game has a bias when it comes to class balance. Almost everyone thinks their class is less powerful compared to other people, because when they lose they can blame it on class balance rather than their own skill. This is called cognitive dissonance. But when Mr. Warrior/Paladin/Hunter/Shaman/Druid/Rogue/Priest/Mage complains that his class is weak, there are 7 other classes saying the same. Oh and I guess every once in a while there's a warlock complaining too

This holds for people who play multiple classes too, because even if you play more than one class you still have an emotional bond. Also, the way you play affects how good you are with particular classes and the strategies you use.

That's not to say this game is balanced, of course it's not- i don't think a game of this scope can be fully balanced. The best data for class balance (from our perspective) is arena desirability, or ladder populations. But then we have to define balance. Balance can be: 1v1 (Blizzard has stated the game is not balanced aorund this), 1vsMany (like in BG's), 2v2, 5v5. We find that certain classes shine in smaller arena settings. Others shine in the larger 5v5 setting. Others are not well populated in either, and a couple are mainstays in both.

But the fact is that our data gathering devices are not Blizzard's. Blizzard has much more data at their disposal than we do. But nor, do I think, does Blizzard think this game is entirely balanced. HOWEVER, it is much more to their advantage to bring in buffs and nerfs slowly than to completely change class balance all at once. Rogues and Hunters, which were at the bottom of the desirability ladder are seeing significant buffs. Classes at the top of the chain, Warriors and Warlocks, are not seeing many changes at all.

All in all, yes I do think Blizzard has a better idea of what they are doing than the players.

Because unlike a 2v2 team, where there are only 2 people coordinating the action, a 5v5 team is much more complex in terms of strategies and organization. Replacing a healer of even the same class is somewhat of a challenge that the team has to adjust to.

Now replace a healer with a Druid, who arguably changes the entire dynamic of how a 5v5 will execute strategy wise? Please.

Oh and one more anecdote: Find me a 2200+ 5v5 that's recruiting a Holy Paladin. Not many. Find me a 2200+ 5v5 that's recruiting a Resto Druid. Tons in comparison.

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As for Blizzard's knowledge of the game. Of course they're right at times. Then again, they're human and of course they're wrong (and sometimes painstakingly wrong) at times. To list a few:

- Mage damage tax (Chilton's "jaw-dropping DPS" comment)
- Retribution paladin "ruling the PvP universe" if they weren't careful about the 2.3 Ret buffs. My initial thought was: WTF do you consider warlocks?
- Protection/Retribution Paladin itemization in general is a complete failure
- Retribution Arena sets having no resilience for S1/S2... I'm not too sure what was going on in their minds when this was designed.

From a top-down, entire game as a whole perspective I'd agree Blizzard has a better idea than individual players. From a nit-picky, what is this class's very specific issue (whether too strong or too weak), I'd lean towards the best players of that class knowing more than Blizzard.

An example would be weapon skill and Rogues pre-TBC. Rogues knew they wanted more damage, and it was the community's suggestion of a talent that added to weapon skill (and a subsequent reworking of Subtlety to make sure Daggers could take advantage) that ended up giving most of that extra damage. From an entire game perspective, meanwhile, Blizzard decided weapon skill was out of whack and tried to rework the entire mechanic in TBC (and seem to have decided they failed and are changing it again).

From my armory parses of the top 150 5v5 teams for each US battlegroup (1725 teams in all), here are the team combinations that Druids showed up for (limited to combinations that had 2 or more teams show up): (listed first is the number of teams with that combination, then the combination and finally the average rating of the teams).

So you are implying Druids are just plain bad at World of Warcraft and Paladins are gods---based on skill alone? It isn't a class balance issue at all?

All the "good" Druids haven't yet learned to play and need more time to develop their skills? The 3 years since release wasn't long enough compared to the 7 months Horde paladins have been given?

edit: I doesn't change the team's strategy, it changes the other teams': spam hamstring every global cooldown on the druid, he goes to bear form, it becomes a 4v5 arena at that point. The failings of Druids in 5v5 has already been rehashed over and over in separate threads.

The acquisition of resilience and the lifebloom bug fix was a monumental change.

Both of those happened well before the end of season 1, and yet it was only (relatively) recently that druids started dominating as 2v2 and 3v3 healers. The shift has been far more a result of finding effective combinations than any sort of actual changes to the class.

It's also a response to the rise of warlocks, who for a very long time were unaffected by resilience. Druids have the easiest time countering warlocks, because of HoTs directly countering DoTs, the fact that they can Remove Curse and their heals, if devoured, heal the target (Lifebloom).

Despite all that, Warlocks are still my least favorite to play against.

I guess armor pen Warriors top that list, nevermind.

Druids were always fine in arenas. The change to lifebloom was a nice step in the right direction for sure. Arena water was also a big deal for druids. Teams such as the popular Druid Lock Warrior never would work without the addition of arena water.

5v5 arena was great in season one. Now it's a complete joke in my opinion, and by far the least interesting bracket. I can appreciate good play, but I can't stomach people mashing DPS keys in arenas. It's not interesting.

That's a good point I didn't consider. Arena water is a big druid buff, in particular, since they have the best tools for escaping to drink.

I completely agree. Arena is the kind of thing that you can't really theorycraft effectively - you need to go in there and experience it for yourself. This is the basis of my concerns on Blizzards ability to balance the Arena game. I don't know how often the developers play Arena, nor which bracket and what rating they are. But my guess is they are not "experiencing" the super-high end of Arena, where the imbalances are most paramount.

At the end of the day, you really can't argue that there isn't something wrong with how powerful Warriors and Warlocks are in comparison with a class like a Hunter or Mage. Both Class abundance statistics + anecdotal evidence are united in this conclusion.

People have said before in this thread that WoW generally isn't balanced for the top 1% of players. Nor is it balanced for the 1% of RP'ers, or the 1% of deaf players, etc etc. The nature if this game is that it can't be perfect for everyone, and naturally they're going to pick the option that benefits the most players possible.

I think tachycardia answered the original question posed by this thread quite well. People are going to believe that their class is being treated unfairly by Blizzard, or that Blizzard are really incompetant when it's simply a matter of them not being able to perform.

Of course there are imbalances in this game, but that doesn't mean that Blizzard doesn't understand it, or that they don't understand as well as the players. It just means that they're not perfect, and that balancing this game takes a hell of a lot more than getting 400 players to sign a petition to give mages plate or whatever.

This whole "Blizzard-doesn't-know-what-it's-like" line of arguing just comes off as either whiny (Blizzard won't buff me obviously they're too busy counting their money and designing more stupid yearly festivals), or arrogant (Blizzard didn't buff me and therefore are stupid because I understand the game better than them).

When I look at everything Blizzard has done right in WoW and compare it to everything that they've done wrong, I'm simply overwhelmed at how much they actually do know and do understand and do manage to get right. I haven't played a single game like it. Since early beta the game has been improving, I don't think it's ever taken a turn for the worse. Every patch makes it better, more balanced, more interesting, and more fun. That's why I haven't stopped playing yet. Sure there are some hiccups, some backtracks for certain classes, and some nerfs, but with their track record, and the fact that the game is exceptionally well balanced 95% of the time, I have faith that Blizzard will only continue to improve WoW.

I actually really hope they implement 1v1 and 4v4, part of the enjoyment of arena for me is playing different makeups during the week. I play a 2dps team with a spriest in 2v2, more of a versatile 3v3 with spriest and resto shaman, and a strange 2 healer setup lately with a new 5v5. It's not like they're managing any of the brackets, and it wouldn't cause any type of watering down the competition really.

In response to a bunch of posts.

Having played 4v4 in Fury I am not a fan of the bracket. Odd numbers seem to work better for some reason.

Druids and especially druid/warrior dominates 2v2 because of warlocks. Druid/warrior has muliple very strong counters, most of which are double DPS. Rogue/spriest is hard and rogue/mage pretty much requires divine intervention to be winnable. But those counters rarely get to the top because the warlock/healer teams filter them out. Overall the consensus among most druids I have talked to is that warrior/druid is easier at 2200 than at 2000. If the warlock class did not exist, druids would not dominate 2v2.

People in general are risk averse (or more bluntly, most are sheep). They follow the proven cookie cutter. As an underrepresented class, fighting perception is just as hard as fighting your oppponent. It does not matter how good you are, unless you can convince a quality partner to play with you its all for nothing. Because of that, uneven representations get exaggerated. Blizzard, having many years of experience, knows better than almost anyone that signals are almost as strong as buffs when it comes to evening out numbers. Hence minor buffs instead of complete redos as the forum trolls often demand.

This game will never be balanced for both 2v2 and 5v5 simultaneously. And, honestly, balancing a game with pure support specs for 1v1 and 2v2 is pretty much hopeless. Support specs will always scale better with player numbers, since their point is to enhance others. A pure healer in 1v1 is pretty much garbage (resto druid vs warlock - riiiiight). A pure healer in 5v5 is amazing. Unless you make the classes very similar (think chess) this game will never be balanced across all of PvP. So when someone asks "why did class X get buffed when they do so well in 2v2", the answer is always "because they don't do as well in 5v5".

1v1 can be balanced if you introduce 1v1 arena, people can spec specifically for 1v1, like they've done in the past for dueling.

Er, pure healers in 1v1 are garbage? Maybe resto druid, but resto shaman, holy priests and holy paladins utilized by smart players in a obstacle-laden map can wear down many dps classes. The big problem would be 2+ hour gladiator healer matches where the victory is determined by the player with the flattest ass and least responsibilities. But they could introduce a sudden death auto-buff that could be a stacking zerker buff as time passes (increase output, increased incoming). I think they'd also find the 30% spell damage from +healing to be a bit overboard (which I do see happening down the road before the expansion).

Err - you're misunderstanding what I said. The lifebloom change was obviously huge, but that wasn't a recent thing. The rise of druids as dominant small bracket healers occurred very late in season 1 and into season 2 - there have not been huge changes to druids in that time, that I'm aware of, unless my timeline is off as to the Lifebloom fix. I actually play a druid in arena, as well, so I'm quite aware of how important lifebloom is :-P

Quote taken in regards to "soft factors" of classes being unenjoyable for whatever reasons (in this case race) playing a potentially major role in class representation.

Example, my choice for classes/races to roll to pvp with on the alliance side and I believe I would play competently, I choose from the following: mage, warlock, druid, shaman, warrior. These are the classes whose mechanics interest me and are viable competitors in some form of pvp. 5 choices that are in my informed opinion equal viability for overall arenaing (equal interest in 3s, 5s, and 2s), but shaman and druid are automatically scratched from that list because I can't stand the races they play. Arguing that top players don't care about aesthetics is somewhat absurd in a role-playing game that forces you to be married to your characters for 70 levels prior.

If you have 5 choices that work equally well, and 2 of those choices are displeasing to look at/play as, why would you ever pick them?

Eheheh sorry I know this isn't entirely relevant, but Spoh was in my battlegroup and his 5s team was first place for almost the entirety of season 1. Nothing more to add here, I agree with the general point.

I agree with most of what you said there, but not the part about Druids wouldn't dominate 2v2 without warlocks. I believe Druids are the best healer against 2 DPS teams (all Healers fall a bit short due to good CC and CS, but Druids have a distinct advantage - the ability to not have to spam cast and the ability to CC one DPSer, as well as two instant emergency heals)

Druids are the best overall healers in 2v2. There not just good with Warlocks, they are good with any of the primary arena DPS classes, ie Warrior, Warlock, (to some extent Hunters), rogue. Druid heals provide the most effective healing, whilst having the best survivability IN 2V2.

In 5v5 this is not the case at all, while they have extremely good damage avoidance, they don't have good direct defences against Stuns, Fears and incapacitates. In other words, with more than 2 DPS classes on a Druid, its a safe bet that the Druid is going to be killed or made ineffective. Where as in 2v2, they can avoid damage against 1 DPS, and at the same CCing that same DPSer and avoiding close to full damage.

I finally got around to testing the Resiliance Bug fix that was supposed to happen in 2.2, and it definitely hasn't been fixed. By my calculations, it's being upped by 50%.

For example, my team mate who is a mage was attacking me with Frostbolts while I was wearing 178 Resiliance (9.03% damage reduction on Crits). What's nice is that he averages 1500pts a hit, so it made the math nice and easy. After extensive testing, his Frostbolts were critting for 2575, or a reduction of approximately 14% from what he should be critting for if I had 0 Resiliance.

Then, we brought our Shaman friend out who had 292 Resiliance for a crit damage reduction of 14.81. Now he has Elemental Warding, so the numbers were a lower. He was averaging 1345 a hit (approximately 10% down from 1500), but he was only critting for 2110, a reduction of 21.56%.

So we have 14% instead of 9% and 21.56% instead of 14.81%. Both are 150% of what they should be, so they definitely haven't fixed the problem yet.

I am not one to cry about different classes being OP or not OP enough or w/e, but I do feel there are some mechanics in arena that are truly OP. Horde racials are far more beneficial than the majority of alliance racials in arena. The silence, the immunity to fear, the war stomp... all things that can easily get someone killed. Since this is one of the few ways horde fight each other, I was wondering if they might slightly agree? There will always be classes going against other classes which might have an advantage over one and not another. This is where skill comes in and players who are better at using every function of their class is beneficial. IMO, racials should be taken out of arena... alliance and horde.