Rossi on Hybridization

Over on wowinsider.com, Matthew Rossi had a great post on hybridizing the pure DPS classes so that they could have more utility. He has great arguments, but ultimately, the suggestion fails because of design issues.

If every class brought even more utility then the encounters would have to be balanced around the idea that you will have some of that utility. If you don’t have that utility then your guild could run into progression problems.

We are talking about things like replenishment here. It is now an expected utility to have in the raid and if you don’t have it, you should expect to run into problems. We all know that GC has said this over and over recently, and it is the primary reason it was given to Destro Locks, Frost Mages, Ret Paladins, Survivalist Hunters, and Shadow Priests.

I always thought it would be nice if affliction locks brought the same sort of healing that a shadow priest brings. Hell, with improved blood presence (prior to the patch), you had another class bringing a heal based on damage. Blizzard ultimately decided that improved blood presence was OP and it is now relegated to only the DK that has it. Why though?

Well the simple answer is that a constant self heal based on damage done would change encounters. Though it may not seem like a huge amount of healing, a class that was doing 4K dps was also doing 160 (4%) HPS on themselves. That completely changes an encounter when the damage taken by the raid is now combated with everyone doing self heals of 9600 per min.

Instead of sharing what was a fantastic raid buff, like they did replenishment, they decided to remove it altogether. Affliction locks, shadow priests, blood DKs and maybe even another class bringing that kind of buff would alter the design of encounters and the buff would then be required in much the same way replenishment is.

Replenishment is the trade off that we all received since Blizz decided to take away chain potting, but how does this help balance the game when you already have mana pots? Well instead of a mana pot increasing your mana by a set number, you have replenishment that increases mana by a percentage. It can be inferred that a low mana pool class and a high mana pool class probably use about the same percentage of their mana to maintain their dps. This isn’t exactly true, I know, but the premise is at least expected. Some classes excel at mana management and others often suffer. I remember seeing the cool down reduction on evocation deep in the arcane tree and reading that is was indeed intended to help arcane mages with mana issues since they were the mage spec that seemed to suffer the most. The point here is that Blizzard at least tries to balance the game, even if I think it’s a worthless yet noble cause. Replenishment allows a 20K mana mage to get roughly the same return as a 5k mana paladin. A mana pot that provides 4K mana (20% of his pool) is useful to a mage, but will allow a paladin to refill almost his entire mana pool and go back into the fray.

So when compared with a similar like Blood presence, it can be inferred that there would need to be a trade off of game mechanics. The possible solutions to the new blood presence buff could be any number of things, but would ultimately go back to the healers. Bosses would hit the tanks harder meaning more main tank heals for the healers and less dealing with raid damage. I say less and not “not dealing with damage” because there is always going to be splash damage that is unavoidable. Blizzard has stated that they believe this is a boring encounter mechanic and would like to move away from them when they can. Implementing an improved blood presence mechanic for any class, much less more than one that would make it required changes end game dramatically.

Instead of more hybridization and utility, I would advocate less. 10 man guilds are already at a disadvantage when it comes to content if they have too many of one class. A 10 man group that runs with 3 druids (2 balance and a resto) only has MotW and the moonkin and tree auras. Try having a guild with no hunters, 2 paladins, one who heals and the other who tanks, and no spriests. That means no replenishment. If replenishment is really mandatory, then just make it a passive ability of all mana classes. Blizzard currently has all classes with their own mana regen mechanics whether it be water shield, or talents, or mage armor, and those all stack with replenishment. It stands to reason that if they expect everyone to have it, then why not just give it to them. I know there will be people that argue that this is making the game easier, but if you stop trying to stack buffs, and let it be every man for himself, the game becomes less easy and more about skill. You then don’t have to ask your hunter, if you have one, to go survivalist because you need the replenishment. He can now compete with the other DPS classes with the spec he enjoys.

I know that Blizzard has said that buffs help a fight feel more epic because it allows you to put out numbers that you wouldn’t be able to put out on your own, but doing so means there is still raid stacking occurring, though to a lesser degree I admit. Less raid wide buffs allow you to work within the parameter of the talent of your team and not within the mechanics they have to buff the raid. Shouldn’t that be the real goal of “bring the player, not the class?”

-Rhab

Hope Springs Eternal

So it’s Tuesday and that means raid resets. I am a member of a small guild that recently got fjucked with some real life things like babies and moves so we have been having problems filling even our 10 man runs. We still need a healer for our Naxx runs, but I’m digressing.

Tuesday’s are always a good day, because I’m not allowed to play in the morning before work because of the regularity of the rolling restarts, so I often start the “play week” fresh on Tuesday afternoon. The first thing I always try and do is get into Obsidian Sanctum with my druid for a shot at the Majestic Dragon Figurine.

Blizzard has made me hate the RNG, as I always feel like I have the worst luck. I ran regular HoL countless times for the Eternally Folded Blade off Volkhan and the Seal of the Pantheon off Loken as I was setting myself up for heroics, and finally got them both on the same run, but only after an entire weekend of pugging the instance.

My luck with the RNG is bad enough, but it’s a part of the game and something I have come to expect and accept. What really can ruin a run, day (if it’s heroic), or even a week (if it’s a raid) are people that roll on gear that they have minimal use for when it’s best in slot for your given spec.

Last Tuesday, as the PuG for OS started to fill up, I purposely monitored the makeup. There was not a single priest or other resto druid. I never thought to confirm that the figurine would automatically go to me, and that was my first mistake. After we downed Sartharion, the trinket dropped. The loot master asked for rolls, and a warlock beat me on the roll and they gave it to him. I was floored, pissed, and cussing up a storm about dumb asses in guild chat. When I asked him why he rolled on the trinket, he said it boosted his spellpower. I literally wanted to throw up. See back before Wrath hit, my druid was my second 70, and my paladin was my third. Wanna know my first? You guessed it, a lock. I had abandon him for the paladin and druid when Wrath hit, though he’s now 74, but I have always watched their “re-development” and am thoroughly excited about 3.1, but spirit is at best, a secondary stat. There are green trinkets that provide better bonuses for a lock than the coveted Majestic Dragon Figurine. I can remember one that I received as a quest reward early in Northrend that provided more spellpower than the figurine would at even 10 stacks.

Now, on this Tuesday morning like every Tuesday, I am excited about this afternoon, because no matter how bad last week was, no matter how frustrated I was every time I was asked to heal OS and had to politely decline because I was locked out for the week, and no matter how many times I saw a lock last week and wanted to feed them to Sartharion, today is a new day, and a new chance at the coveted drop.

For this alone, I look forward to Tuesdays!

-Rhab

Fixing the Holy Paladin Itemization Problem

It’s important to recognize that the gear for holy paladins creates a problem in boss loot tables. There is a drop for every class and spec in every loot table, and when the developers give a plate drop with spellpower, they are dropping a piece of loot that is meant specifically for one of the 30 trees, the holy paladin. This seems in direct contradiction of the great gear consolidation of 3.0.2, and also requires developers to create a piece that is often going to be given to a prot or ret pally for an off set or sharded. This is more likely to happen in a 10 man where you may not even have a pally healer at all. The 25 mans are more likely a plate wearing healer just from the numbers needed.

I can attest that while gearing up, I was able to create a very solid healing set with nothing but unwanted drops in 5 mans. Those unwanted drops then turned into vendor rolls as I would tell the pugs that I already had the piece and for everyone to roll greed if we didn’t have an enchanter. I cant tell you how many times in my month long quest to get Lavanthor to drop his pretty talisman how many times we ended up fighting Erekem and saw his sabatons (that no one wanted) instead. I have yet to see the talisman, and have pretty much given up all hope, but that is a post for another day.

Let’s first acknowledge there is a gear issue with plate.

Cloth: With cloth, you have essentially 2 sets of gear for 3 classes. Blizzard (though the debate among mages, the kings of QQ, rages on) did a decent job of making squishies all want stamina, intellect, and spirit. The only thing that really separates a true DPS piece from a healing piece is hit rating. All other cloth can be used by everyone. Even the gear without hit can be used by the DPS as long as they don’t sacrifice too much hit on their total gear set. Blizzard’s grade for cloth: A

Leather: There are 2 classes that desire leather, druids and rogues. The caster leather can be shared by the boomkins and the restos. The spellpower from spirit that a talented boomkin gets is a nice way to make use of a stat that used to be considered almost exclusive to trees and make it useful. Allowing intellect to affect MP5 was also a step in the right direction for trees to grab upgrades that might be missing some spirit. The melee leather is a little less seamless. Sure cats and rogues gear up the same say, but Blizzard is completely lost with bears. Instead of making high stamina pieces and then showing concern over bears being too much of a damage sponge, why not, along with the new savage defense mechanic, just normalize all leather gear to have about the same amount of stamina per iLevel piece. It’s a little sad that the quest chest piece (Exotic Leather Tunic) that you can obtain from Utgarde Pinnacle and a BoE zone drop from heroic Violet hold (Chain Gang Legguards) have so much stamina that bears need significant upgrades before they can get a piece that doesn’t compromise their total health. If Blizzard would stop putting in pieces like this, they could stabilize bear stamina with a modifier that doesn’t send their health through the roof. Bears in iLevel 200 should have an expected range of HP based on the gear. The range should be just that and fluctuate some, but overall the gear should not have one or two weird pieces that are going to be sought by bears at any cost. Blizzard already understands this with regards to bears and armor on trinkets, rings, and cloaks, so why are they missing the point on leather gear and its stamina allocation? Blizzzard’s grade on leather: C+

Mail: Caster mail needs stamina, intellect, crit, and spellpower, while physical mail needs stamina, agility, intellect, AP, and crit. Total win! The only perceived additional gear is the caster gear with hit rating, but like the clothies, it can be easily balanced with other gear to stay above the cap. Blizzard’s grade on mail: A+

EDIT: After reading Rossi’s Totem talk from 7/11/2009, it is apparent there are a little more issues with mail itemization than I originally thought. After reading his article, it might be necessary to reevaluate the grade originally given to mail, and bring it down to a B. The armor pen issue and the MP5, though not game breaking, do mean that sometimes gear may drop that a certain specs doesn’t covet, but is willing to equip. This does not mean the gear is useless, only not as desired as first thought, which btw, I think we should all be more understanding. Not every piece needs to be desired by every spec and min-maxing gear means sometimes lateral iLvl moves are indeed upgrades for us.

Plate: Now the fun gear. As I noted before there is an entire set of gear that’s designed for only one spec in the game. Add that Blizzard is being forced to change the berserker stance bonus from AP to Str because they don’t want the warriors wearing leather, and they seem to have hit a couple of design flaws. I, personally, like the zerk stance change but only because I feel that Blizzard has put too much emphasis on secondary stats and often neglects the primary ones like strength, agility, intellect, and spirit to balance gear. Blizzard’s grade on plate: D

Now, like I said, I think the zerk stance change is a step in the right direction, but that still leaves holy paladins out looking for one piece. One thing to note in my solution is that caster mail allows you to dps and to heal, as does leather and cloth, so again holy paladins are getting cheated. Dual specs will help alleviate this problem, but a paladin will still be forced to carry around a ret set and a holy set. Why not help them out a little?

Solution 1. Get rid of divine intellect. It’s not a cross tree talent. This means that prot pallies aren’t spending points on it and neither are any rets. Replace it (though probably deeper in the tree) with a talent called Brains from Brawn.

Brains from Brawn: Increases your intellect by 33/66/100% of your str. The only foreseeable problem here is that intellect gear like cloaks could be less attractive to a paladin because they might want the one with equal str if they get bonus from divine str. The spellpower and MP5 on caster cloaks and rings will keep most holies honest though in my opinion. Few are going to pass up a cloak that has intellect and spellpower only for in the intellect bonus they get from strength.

Solution number 2: Dump Holy Guidance, and replace it with Light infused Armor.

Light infused armor: Increases spellpower by 4/8/12% of your armor. A pally with 20K armor would then have 2400 spellpower. Degenerus, a holy paladin in my guild, has about 20K armor and 1800 spellpower. That number may need to be tuned down to 3/7/10% of your armor, but it allows a paladin to scale as their gear improves and, in the same vein as punishing the warriors in leather, discourages them from using mail caster gear. Mail will now make paladins feel even more dirty that cloth does on my resto druid. Similar stat itemization or not, a paladin isn’t going to roll on a marginal upgrade that happens to be mail if they are going to lose a significant amount of spellpower.

I guess it’s probably time to address the possible consequences, and I would ask that anyone share the ones I didn’t see. The loot tables would go from 1 spec rolling on a piece of gear to adding another spec to a set of gear (DPS plate) that is already sought after by so many classes. You could leave the loot tables alone and turn the caster gear into DPS gear. The crit on the gear is still highly coveted by a holy pally, and will be so by the DPS classes. One advantage of the crit consolidation is that warriors and pallies can both benefit from a single stat in different ways. The introduction of death knights, all the warriors in love with the super sexy Titan’s Grip, and WotLK’s rise of the retadin means that another piece of plate in the loot tables isn’t going to hurt anyone. In fact, it could end up being more advantageous to the overall raid composition. You already have DPS DK’s with various specs, fury and arms warriors, and ret paladins all sharing gear. That’s more specs than any other set of gear, so adding one more spec to that ensemble and adjusting the loot tables would seem to be the logical solution. Blizzard adjusted the drop rates on tier tokens when they had to add a class to one set of tokens, why not do the same thing overall with the loot tables?

-Rhab

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