Saruk

This is from a blue post in response to Shaman dps:

"Thanks for the post. A lot of tuning still has to be done, but it's safe to say your DPS is a lot lower than what should be expected. All DPS classes/specs after we are done tuning should yield a pretty similar DPS with similar gear/"min/max" speccing. It's going to take a bit of time until we reach that goal, though." link here

This is not a comment about Shamans, but rather the stated intention of making all dps classes/specs 'pretty similar dps'. I think we have been down this road before, but at what point does Bliz stop all this silliness and admit that the original design of this game was around class based, not spec based, differences?

I can't respec and become a healer yet I am expected to compete on a even footing in dps with a class that can - and hence has a lot more 'utility' (at very least for the individual playing it).

They have also stated they want to keep classes distinct - surely that meas in roles they play, not just different buttons pressed?

I said it earlier in this thread, but I feel these changes are very adhoc in nature. There really doesn't seem to be an over-arching plan or vision for what this game is meant to be like at lvl 80. It seems like they are going to work it out when everyone gets there.

Bliz, do you mind if I stop paying $15/month until you figure it out?

 

TimWischmeier

From a feral perspective ( we are wiping at Felmyst currently) I just can say this argumentation has it's flaws, seriously. I just cannot respec and become a healer, because I neither don't have the gear for it (I spent my DKP on feral gear) nor have I the needed experience and skill.

But lets say I collected appropriate gear and skill to be able to heal. I still don't consider stoning and respeccing raid utility. It's nothing more than convenience, because you don't have to swap people, just specs. It's nothing different from logging onto an alt, except 3 or 4 more weeks of leveling. Utility is to give your raid members more damage, more heailng, more survivability / longevity. Utility is not to make up for design flaws who depend on 10 Healers for twins, 7 for Brutallus.

I choose to be a melee in the raid (in LK I can even chose to be a good bear tank, leaving cat dps aside), and I specced for that, and I spent months of raiding to get equip for that. Yes, I can respec, but than I would have to do something I neither wanted to do (remember: i wanted to be melee, not a healer), nor have I gear for it (i.e. invested months of raiding for healing gear).

If I could tank and heal with the same gearset but different spec (ie taking another role would just take 50g and not a completely new set of gear) I would fully agree with our opinion.

 

Pucc

I am sorry but going back to the same old tired argument of "my class can not perform XXXXX job so why should i not do more damage" is about as useful as pointing out that mages were meant originally to be a glass cannon. If you are speced for gemmed for and geared for damage then that is your role. All damage dealers should be within say 5% or so of each other at similar level. Get past the thought that one class should be better at it than any other and move on.

If and this is a big IF blizzard manages to level the playing field it will be a good thing. It then comes down to player skill over inflated class superiority . I play and have both mage and elemental shaman at raid levels and gear. They both offer different utility and options and are equally enjoyable to play.

 

Slander

I think his point was that spending 50g + re-gearing is a lot more convenient for the player than re-levelling and re-gearing.

 

Zhai

But isn't that exactly what Blizzard is trying to achieve with the homogenisation of the gear (Spellpower instead of +Heal and +Damage)? Granted it's not the case with Feral Druids and their gear but I fully expect Moonkins to be able to just respec and have pretty good Healing stats in their Moonkin Gear. It might not always be best in slot, but it's far from having to collect a second set of specialised gear.

There are probably other classes where this will work aswell (Resto and Elemental Shamans, Shadow and Holy Priests etc...).

 

• Juice

Don't get into a long, drawn out discussion on this. It's an old argument we don't need rehashed because you're afraid your raid slot is going to vanish. Blizzard has demonstrated they are willing to modify content to make certain classes required for progression (A mage on council, a gaggle of priests on Felmyst).

I'm not going to infraction anyone on this up till now, but if you start circling the drain with this discussion we'll get it arrested quickly.

 

Lileith

I agree that in your case (in the case of melee hybrid) the dps shouldn't be balanced around the idea that they could heal, but only balanced around the buff they provide (totems , auras ect...), because you would need a complete different gear set to be efficient.

On the other hand I do think, considering the change to spell power, that It should be taken into account that Elem shaman or Moonkin can provide a very decent back up heal in some situation, and may even respec to full heal keeping the same gear. On Brutallus we usualy have our elem shaman to heal during Stomps and with the change to spellpower it will be even more efficient. Also beeing able to heal ,even if not as efficient as a full healing spec is something that they have to consider for arena, in 5v5 elem shaman often use their heals to counter 4 dps teams. And I have often seen feral druid fleeing to full heal themself behind a pillar in 2v2 (feral currently perform very bad in 2v2 but you see my point).

Of course taking this into account doesn't mean pure dps class should be 30% ahead of hybrids, but 2/3% sound fair.

 

Enthorn

Two blue posts concerning Mirror Image:

source

source

 

Jonny_Monroe

Edit: removed in response to the above post.

OMNOMNOM.

 

erragal

EDIT: Delete this post please, was being written before Moderator request to not go through the heal/dps hybrid argument.

 

Saruk

That was my point - but I can live with it and am not going to start a discussion around the merits/non-merits.

 

Althor

Mind Flay does still retain a 5% "tax" for it having a snare.

It went from a 57% coefficient (95% * 3/5) to a 81.4% coefficient (95% * 3/3.5).

And yeah, like Frostbolt it's no longer binary.

 

Lhivera

I think we need to stop worrying about the anomalous FFB coefficient. If anything, it probably needs an increased coefficient so that an elementalist spec has a chance of working.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

[DRF]Solmyr

Done and done, but I think the last person to request something like this got an infraction. =P

 

Roywyn

Frostfire Bolt is always walking an extremely thin line.
1% too weak and nobody will use it. 1% too strong and it will completely replace Fireball/Frostbolt.

Frostfire Bolt weaving for Fire was a decent bonus until the 5% Glyph appeared.

It wasn't worth it for Frost because frost has no crit chance talents (fire has 9%+comb) to favour it.
Also, the improved/empowered Frostbolt talents are stronger than the Fireball counterparts, so Frostfire Bolt is even more at a relative disadvantage compared to Frostbolt.


I find the DoT solution quite appealing really.
If Blizzard figures other whether the DoT should scale (rank 1) or not (rank 2).

I doubt that they want us to downrank it to chose the scaling. Rank 1 has no downranking penalty at 80.

Although, the possibilities!
In every expansion, use the odd ranks for DoT scaling and the even rank for direct damage!

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> [REQUEST] Give Spirit use on mage
Well, it seems that they're at least aware that mages don't want spirit pushed onto them when it tends to be of no effect.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Vektor

Thoughts on fiery payback (and making it not reward a PVE mage staying at < 35% for an entire encounter)

Drop the pyroblast cast time reduction.
Make it drop a strong blastwave-style knockback effect centred on you (no damage, so as not to break your own CC unintentionally) when you drop below 35% hp with a moderate internal cooldown.

Fits the "fire flavour", gets melee off the mage so his healer can top him off. Could be a better fit. Gets it firmly outside the realm of PVE and into PVP where it belongs (and who's going to stop and cast a spell at 35% hp with melee on them anyway).

I guess it might have a problem of being a knockback outside your control (triggers based on hp) and knocking a focus target away from melee dps or something

I don't really want to fall back into "build-a-talent"/"build-a-spell" mode, but I notice payback is a hot topic of discussion in the "fix the fire tree" beta forum post...

 

Drayerina

As I understand it, Frostfire Bolt should provide us with a better dps spell if the target has Forst/Fire Invulnerability then just switching to an untalentet schools spell. I'm not really happy with the concept behind this, because it could be a sign that we will encounter many fights whith frost/fire imunities in wotlk.

I think it is somewhat sad that we get a new ability that is so highly situational. I really hope Blizzard is able to make something more out of ffb then a counter to immune bosses.

 

Salmon

I am perfectly happy with Frostfire Bolt as it stands. It gives Blizzard the freedom to develop encounters exaclty as they desire without forcing mages to respec or toss around completely untalented spells.

While it may be slightly disapointing that elementalist mages didn't fare better from the spell, but at least now fire and frost mages won't be completely boned by immunity based encounters as they always have been in the past.

Frostfire Bolt exists to fix a previously existing problem with frost and fire mages. Mirror Image is your new "fun" toy.

 

Nurru

The problem with this line of reasoning is that if a boss is immune to an element then the good players will simply respec for that encounter so long as it is progression content. Frostfire Bolt won't really change that until things are on farm and by that point it doesn't really matter.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

epiphenom

I don't think that was FFB's purpose, at any particular time, only a use that it could theoretically be put to. Even if it was, it's not a niche that needs filling. In serious raid content, you can bet that if something's got an immunity, I'm going to be respeccing to a non-immune school, not trying to awkwardly shoehorn my current spec into working by spamming FFB. Especially with their as yet NYI two-spec system, there will be even less incentive to try to make one spec work when another is readily available.

 

Kugala

Unless they toss in bosses that are alternately immune to Fire/Frost, at which point you might wind up in an otherwise ignored hybrid spec. *cringe*

FFB feels like a solution looking for a problem. At the current point I don't even see the fun/comedy factor that Spellsteal had in levelling.

 

Drayerina

In my book it doesn't fix anything, unless there will be shadow, nature and even holy immune enemies around as well. It's just an excuse to do more of the fire/frost immune type encounters, because mages are so versatile, they can just use ffb, even if it's lower dps.


This is exactly why I am not happy with the concept. For maximum efficiency, you still want to respec.

 

Celani

Mage is the only class that can apply the spell crit debuff, and if you can't do so against immune mobs because your scorch or winter's chill is ineffective, it's not just your DPS that suffers, it's the entire raids'. I still see respeccing for all such fights, unless the content level is beyond trivial (and even then, min/max guilds and players will want a respec for the WWS epeening). Because of the importance of this debuff, frostfire bolt fails at even its most basic task. The only thing it'll be good for, as it stands, is farming "eternals" (the new primals), water or fire depending on your spec.

 

Skallewag

But if stacking the crit debuff on immune bosses was one of the intended areas of use woudlnt they have added that ability to it or made a glyph like that? Currently its only frostmages that can use it like that since firemages depend on scorch for the debuff. But the next mage polish might just do that to it. Thsi concept however would work better if they roll the fire and frost debuff into one.

Wouldn´t responding to something you claim to ignore, per definition make you a liar?
If so then what does passing judgement on an idea you claim to not know make you?

 

Jarlyn

So it's acceptable to you to do sub-standard DPS on immunity encounters compared to other classes?

I (and others) made these predictions about FFB months ago and they came 100% true. If FFB is not more DPS than Fireball spam as Fire or more DPS than Frostbolt spam as Frost, then it's pointless. In any situation where we're dealing with immunities, you should be respeccing to help your raid, not content to use a sub-par spell. As mentioned above me, FFB is good for killing same-spec elementals out in the world and for extreme farm-mode content (ie. Al'ar and Illidan for me now), but that's it. In any sort of progression raid environment, I'll be respeccing.

Personally I'm fine with FFB staying in the game (they put a lot of work into it, obviously), but I think we should get a third ability. I've always been under the impression that new abilities should be spec-neutral, and even if FFB does get fixed to be useful, Arcane specs will still have nothing to do with it.