[WotLK] Bloodlust/Heroism change - no more round robin

I don't think shamans teams were nerfed that badly, just not as much overpoweredness as before. A single shaman was actually buffed! Also, come WOTLK my druid in my team will suddenly add so much more synergy with nature damage buffs that he doesn't have now, so for some combinations it's a great thing. We will see more legitimate choices for MBers than just all shaman teams. I think the drama in here is because people are worried about having to make new characters to be the best, which does suck. It's not because these changes are really that bad.

Even if a guild only usually wants to bring 1 of each talent spec to the raid, right now is there really room for a lot more than that? With 25-man limits, you won't even have room for ONE of each talented class type. Two of the same build won't stack as well, but then again, at least there's a REASON to bring other classes other than that they're what you had available. Like, a moonkin won't be a liability to have around at high end raiding because that moonkin is now granting a lot more things.

ALSO, aren't they allowing free change between two different specs now? If one guy in your raid is elemental, go resto for the night with your free switch. Your spell power gear will allow this seamlessly.

Aw welcome to the every expanding universe of "World of Meleecraft". The game where Rogues will continue to stunlock casters into oblivion, warriors are able to duel wield 2 handers and the rest of us just suck.

Classes are still going to be pigeonholed into specs. Arcane, frost, or fire, one of them is going to be a better dps spec than the other two, so mages will be forced to raid as that spec. One of them will be best for pvp, so pvpers will be forced into that spec... Affliction, demo, destro, same crap. One will outshine the other. You think they'll invite an enhancement shaman if he can't out-dps a titans grip fury warrior and totems/BLust is covered by resto and maybe 1 Elemental shaman(assuming elem can keep up dpswise)?

These changes aren't being pushed to open up raid spots for different specs, they're be pushed to open up raid spots for wotlk new players and to make sure the game isn't too complicated for the beginners and casuals. Dumbing it down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Naysayer

Dumbing it down.

---

Yeah ever since 2.3 made the sparkling quest items this game has been constantly on the slope of dumbing down.

As it stands these nerfs are very depressing for both my main teams. With the lack of synergy and stacking of ferocious inspiration and totem of wrath my teams will go from something very close to matching the sum of their parts, to something seriously less powerful than 4 or 5 random classes. As it stands this sucks and I hate it. I like the optimisim of some of you guys, and I live in hope, but at the moment it doesn't look good. Maybe time to dust off some of those old 70s and see what group I can put together that actually does have some synergy now.

From the Blue post:

Quote:

---

[size=small]With the release of upcoming content
patch players will see a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs
to stack exclusively in a raid.[/size]

---

Are we sure that all of these changes affect 5-man groups? I'll have to hop on the beta this weekend to check as I do have 2 of my accounts on it, but I'm wondering if this means they'll be implementing different rules for 5-mans versus raids.

People tend to forget that we get Hex and thunderstorm something that i have a hard time to see nerfing my pve experience.

Hex bacisly means that i can chain cc 2 meeles while i kill the casters or chain lock them down with groundings. Bloodlust for that matter is something that i only need on bosses and i havent realy done manny instances that allows you to do 2 bosses withing 5 mins. There are some sure but not manny...

TOW and Bloodlust vs thunderstorm and HEX... hmm hard to say but who knows??

Getting a cc is actually something huge and i dont think people realise it yet.. Sure it wont be to usefull on bosses but we will still have bloodlust ready there and for Arean its always hard to say...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Shogun',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112540#post1 12540

Something to remember is not everyone MB's 4-5 shamis, the changes aren't aimed at MB, or a personal attack on them.

These changes are made with "normal" players and group/raid mechanics in mind. If you have to bring certain classes or specs for a raid to be viable, then you're screwing over anyone who isn't playing that class/spec. The changes aren't aimed at making all classes the same, that's never going to happen, what they're aimed at is ensuring you can build your raid around tanks/healers/dps regardless of class or spec, not "you must have 3-5 shaman, 2-3 shadow priests, no rogues, only 1 of this blahblah"

---

QFT

Shaman (to a normal person) are the smallest population class in the game. They are also REQUIRED for certain sunwell fights due to how well they manage AoE healing -- and rotated between groups for heroisms.

For example, my sunwell raid yesterday contained 4 resto shaman and myself (enhancement). In a 25 man raid, that's 1/5th of the raid.

If shaman are the least represented population-wise, but the most represented raid-wise....


Now you see where they're getting at? They want to make more OPTIONS available so you aren't FORCED to bring a specific class/spec combination to round out your raid. Granted, I'm not happy with the changes as a solo shaman either (because I'm specifically a buffing class), but I expect them to tweak individual DPS to compensate, if my buffs are going to be less useful.

Remember, kids. It's still BETA. Anything can change between now and the patch -- they're still doing testing.

The problem (which may not be a big one at all) for multi-shaman teams is that the class's totem power USED to be balanced for providing only a single buff type for only 5 people. This made them generally pretty darn good buffs. When you could stack shaman in a 5-man team, you could receive a very large boost to certain attributes for those useful totems that stacked (like, say, ToW). They've changed everyone to have basically the same kind of raid buff system now, which will probably help putting together balanced raids... and will, perhaps more importantly, allow the developers to develop raid content for a wider variety of group setups.

Stacking buffs aside, the other nice MB Shaman totem advantage is layers of defense we get with Grounding Totems, Poison Cleansing Totems, Tremor Totems, Earthbind, etc etc. I think we're still going to have that.

The real bummer from a MB perspective is that the flexibility we'll gain from not having to spec into multiple buffs can't really be used super effectively in other places. If Ferocious inspiration no longer stacks, you can say "Yay, 3 more talent points for a couple of my hunters!"... but you're still going to want to take the same "top talents". If you pass on ToW on all but one shammy, it's not like you can use those extra talent points to get Thunder+NS.

It's early too, we'll see how it all sorts out.

Unfortunately I think this all represents another example of Bliz reacting to the minority of high-end arena and high-end raiding with sweeping changes that make the game suck more for the other 99% of folks out there. When you think about the breadth of their raiding changes in WOTLK you have to ask yourself, what's the point of all this?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Naysayer',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112707#pos t112707

Classes are still going to be pigeonholed into specs. Arcane, frost, or fire, one of them is going to be a better dps spec than the other two, so mages will be forced to raid as that spec. One of them will be best for pvp, so pvpers will be forced into that spec... Affliction, demo, destro, same crap. One will outshine the other. You think they'll invite an enhancement shaman if he can't out-dps a titans grip fury warrior and totems/BLust is covered by resto and maybe 1 Elemental shaman(assuming elem can keep up dpswise)?

These changes aren't being pushed to open up raid spots for different specs, they're be pushed to open up raid spots for wotlk new players and to make sure the game isn't too complicated for the beginners and casuals. Dumbing it down.

---

I don't see how the game's being dumbed down. Simplification of useless and boring gameplay design is not the same as dumbing down. Changing how things stack isn't dumbing down the game just because you liked how it made you more powerful.

It's not so simple that one spec is better than another, because it all depends on the fight, raid comp and situation. For mages, for example, fire is usually the best pure DPS, but has more aggro problems which could be limiting, whereas arcane has the best burst damage in the whole game when the mage pops his cooldowns, while not being that far behind on pure DPS. At least, the arcane mage can dump his mana into dmg more quickly than the fire mage if there's a final burn. It's just NOT that clear cut all the time, and more specs are viable now than ever before. There was a time when you pretty much had to spec your druid resto for raiding, had to spec a priest holy for raiding, had to spec mage frost for raiding, had to spec a paladin holy for raiding. Not because the other specs weren't there, but because there weren't even drops to support the other specs, or they were so terribly far behind. A balance druid was completely unheard of in a raid not all that long ago. A shadow priest was a hard sell pre-BC. The only real tanks were warriors. Etc etc. More specs are viable now than ever before. The only spec I really never see in raids at all is retribution paladin.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Havelcek',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112812#pos t112812

Unfortunately I think this all represents another example of Bliz reacting to the minority of high-end arena and high-end raiding with sweeping changes that make the game suck more for the other 99% of folks out there. When you think about the breadth of their raiding changes in WOTLK you have to ask yourself, what's the point of all this?

---

The point is to allow people to spec whatever they want for raids and not force everyone into a certain spec... Certain specs will certainly be better but unless your in a super hard core guild it wouldnt realy matter.

Why did TOW stack in the first place and not moonkin aura?
Why does blessing affect raids and not only groups unlike totems?

1 bloodlust each 5th mins and these changes overall will make the encounters hopefully more balanced.

I also fail to see why 1% of the population will benefit over it and 99% not?

HERE'S ALL THE INFO ABOUT THIS:


As Ghostcrawler has been posting recently, we've decided to make a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs which were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs which only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance. Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications. Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. Do not assume that the classes' current performance relative to others in the beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many will complain the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.

Ok, given that preamble, here is a comprehensive list of the changes which were made. If testers find additional changes not documented, or additional changes that need to be made ("Hey, buff XYZ got left out of the plan!"), please post and we will investigate.

There are thirty or so different categories buffs and debuffs fit into, and I will list each category and which spells/talents are in that category.

Armor Debuff (Major): Acid Spit (exotic Hunter pet), Expose Armor, Sunder Armor
Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
Physical Vulnerability Debuff: Blood Frenzy, (2nd Talent Spec TBA)
Melee Haste Buff: Improved Icy Talons, Windfury Totem
Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage
Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination's Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage
Ranged Attack Power Buff: Hunter's Mark (only Hunters benefit, so no need to exclude against other class abilities)
Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma
Spell Haste Buff: Wrath of Air Totem
Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath
Spell Critical Strike Chance Debuff: Improved Scorch, Winter's Chill
Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery
Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution
Percentage Damage Increase: Ferocious Inspiration, Sanctified Retribution
Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath
Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap
Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Insect Swarm, Scorpid Sting
Healing Debuff: Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Mortal Strike, Furious Attacks
Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
Stat Multiplier Buff: Blessing of Kings
Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
Agility and Strength Buff: Strength of Earth Totem, Horn of Winter
Stamina Buff: Power Word: Fortitude
Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary
Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life, Improved Devotion Aura
Armor Increase Percentage Buff: Inspiration, Ancestral Healing
Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison.

In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants Spirit and Intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the Spirit value from Fel Intelligence.

In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the "Increased Spell Power Buff" category are also not all the same potency, as they scale in grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of Attack Power.

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.

I will also list the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that changelist:

Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
Winter's Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
Elemental Oath: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.
Blood Pact: Grants health instead of Stamina.
Fel Intelligence: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
Frost Aura: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
Rampage: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
Hunter's Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
Improved Hunter's Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
Sting (Hunter pet): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
Waylay: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
Icy Touch: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
Demonic Pact: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
Focus Magic: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
Totem of Wrath: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
Heroism: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
Bloodlust: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
Vampiric Touch: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
Judgements of the Wise: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.

As far as the individual and MB effects of the different changes, I'm just gonna wait and see. My plan is, however, to ditch my 4x shammy team and level up a mix class team. Not so that I'll be able to "solo" all of my own heroics, but so that I'll have class options to run them with other people (my first 60 was a Warlock and I quit the game twice because Warlock LFG = fail). And don't say I just needed to find a good guild because guilds expect you to be there every friggin day or they forget who you are and don't want to run with you either. I've been with my current guild for 9 months, I took 3 weeks off because of work, came back and they were seriously like 'WhoTF are you?'. /rant off

As far as the raid changes, I /love/ them. Raiding has been a part of the game that I've never been able to participate in, in fact it's what drove me to multiboxing. I've always wanted to raid, because it's new content/encounters/gear, but the realities of it clash harshly with the rest of my life. The changes I've seen aren't about dumbing down the parts that are important, they're about simplifying the parts that are just annoying. If anything this just annoys the hardcore raiders but makes a whole aspect of the game more accessible for people with families. From a MB perspective all raids being 10 man accessible is very exciting. Ever since I heard it I've been trying to talk an EQ2 MB buddy of mine into switching over so we can try to 2-3 man these raids. I'm certain they'll be hard as H*LL to do but when all I've got to do is coordinate with 1-2 other people on schedule I'll actually be able to raid.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Dominian',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112824#pos t112824

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Havelcek',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112812#pos t112812

Unfortunately I think this all represents another example of Bliz reacting to the minority of high-end arena and high-end raiding with sweeping changes that make the game suck more for the other 99% of folks out there. When you think about the breadth of their raiding changes in WOTLK you have to ask yourself, what's the point of all this?

---

The point is to allow people to spec whatever they want for raids and not force everyone into a certain spec... Certain specs will certainly be better but unless your in a super hard core guild it wouldnt realy matter.

Why did TOW stack in the first place and not moonkin aura?
Why does blessing affect raids and not only groups unlike totems?

1 bloodlust each 5th mins and these changes overall will make the encounters hopefully more balanced.

I also fail to see why 1% of the population will benefit over it and 99% not?

---

I didn't say anything about the population benefitting. I said that Blizzard continues to change the game in reaction to arena and high-end raiding. If Blizzard didn't want TOW to stack all this time they could have changed it in any one of 30 patches since TBC came out, but they haven't.

These changes are going to have the opposite effect of what you say. Guilds are now going to force people to spec certain ways and favor those folks in raids who brings certain abilities over others more than currently. Players are always going to min-max the game as much as possible, especially in high-end raiding, and this simply reinforces that fact and makes it even more important. You are now going to be told that you cannot come to a raid as an ele shaman spec because someone already has your buff covered. You must come as resto or enhance or go home. Blizzard is further pigeon-holing people and certain class/specs will become even more popular than they are now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Havelcek',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112845#pos t112845

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Dominian',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112824#pos t112824

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Havelcek',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112812#pos t112812

Unfortunately I think this all represents another example of Bliz reacting to the minority of high-end arena and high-end raiding with sweeping changes that make the game suck more for the other 99% of folks out there. When you think about the breadth of their raiding changes in WOTLK you have to ask yourself, what's the point of all this?

---

The point is to allow people to spec whatever they want for raids and not force everyone into a certain spec... Certain specs will certainly be better but unless your in a super hard core guild it wouldnt realy matter.

Why did TOW stack in the first place and not moonkin aura?
Why does blessing affect raids and not only groups unlike totems?

1 bloodlust each 5th mins and these changes overall will make the encounters hopefully more balanced.

I also fail to see why 1% of the population will benefit over it and 99% not?

---

I didn't say anything about the population benefitting. I said that Blizzard continues to change the game in reaction to arena and high-end raiding. If Blizzard didn't want TOW to stack all this time they could have changed it in any one of 30 patches since TBC came out, but they haven't.

These changes are going to have the opposite effect of what you say. Guilds are now going to force people to spec certain ways and favor those folks in raids who brings certain abilities over others more than currently. Players are always going to min-max the game as much as possible, especially in high-end raiding, and this simply reinforces that fact and makes it even more important. You are now going to be told that you cannot come to a raid as an ele shaman spec because someone already has your buff covered. You must come as resto or enhance or go home. Blizzard is further pigeon-holing people and certain class/specs will become even more popular than they are now.

---

Read what I posted up there, it's a Blizzard post. What you're saying here is TOTALLY FALSE and based on incomplete understanding of the actual changes. What's happening is that SO MANY buffs are stacking now, that you can't even avoid overlapping, so you will fulfill your buff/debuff limit WAY before you hit the 25 man cap. They are trying to reduce min/maxing or get rid of it as much as they can to allow more people into raids. If these changes don't do that, then they are going to keep trying to do that. You can probably get 95% of all your necessary buffs from 10 people now!

I find it odd that Blizz sez they're trying to encourage folks to take whoever they want to to raids... and then they nerf stacking. Doesn't the lack of stacking do exactly the opposite of what Blizz sez they're trying to do? The lack of stacking seems to make min-maxing of raids even more class and spec intensive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'TheBigBB',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112859#pos t112859

Read what I posted up there, it's a Blizzard post. What you're saying here is TOTALLY FALSE and based on incomplete understanding of the actual changes. What's happening is that SO MANY buffs are stacking now, that you can't even avoid overlapping, so you will fulfill your buff/debuff limit WAY before you hit the 25 man cap. They are trying to reduce min/maxing or get rid of it as much as they can to allow more people into raids. If these changes don't do that, then they are going to keep trying to do that. You can probably get 95% of all your necessary buffs from 10 people now!

---

I read Blizzard's post hours ago on the beta forums and I think you're the one who is wrong, but since neither of is on the Bliz dev team I guess we're just going to have to see how it pans out, now won't we?

I play WoW strictly for PVP and of course I have to instance and daily for all my gear however with this patch I feel WoW has and still is heading in the direction of raiding and world style gameplay.

I am looking forward to WarHammer for PVP however I still hold a candle in the darkness for WoW but I feel its days are numbered for hardcore pvpers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Havelcek',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112864#pos t112864

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'TheBigBB',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112859#pos t112859

Read what I posted up there, it's a Blizzard post. What you're saying here is TOTALLY FALSE and based on incomplete understanding of the actual changes. What's happening is that SO MANY buffs are stacking now, that you can't even avoid overlapping, so you will fulfill your buff/debuff limit WAY before you hit the 25 man cap. They are trying to reduce min/maxing or get rid of it as much as they can to allow more people into raids. If these changes don't do that, then they are going to keep trying to do that. You can probably get 95% of all your necessary buffs from 10 people now!

---

I read Blizzard's post hours ago on the beta forums and I think you're the one who is wrong, but since neither of is on the Bliz dev team I guess we're just going to have to see how it pans out, now won't we?

---

You JUST said you don't understand the point of all of this about an hour ago.

Quote:

---

When you think about the breadth of their raiding changes in WOTLK you have to ask yourself, what's the point of all this?

---

Quote:

---

The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance

---

How could you have both read the post and not understood the point? It was pretty freaking clear. If you disagree it's one thing, but you're basically arguing that the game is going to be ruled the SAME min/maxing philosophy always was, which is true, but completely besides the point because to min/max your raid with these changes will not involve leaving classes out to get X and Y buffs. You won't have to do that anymore. So going from there, how does this hurt the game in any way? It's not a huge breadth of changes. Things don't stack. It's pretty simple.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Havelcek',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112845#pos t112845

I didn't say anything about the population benefitting. I said that Blizzard continues to change the game in reaction to arena and high-end raiding. If Blizzard didn't want TOW to stack all this time they could have changed it in any one of 30 patches since TBC came out, but they haven't.

---

I wasn't necessarily using the population as the reason for blizzard's tweaks, just as an extreme example of why class stacking is negatively impacting the raiding community.

As a sunwell raider, it's HARD to find decent (i.e. smart) people who know how to play their class. It's made harder by the fact that you sometimes HAVE to choose the "ideal" group composition for a certain fights.

As an example, stacking shaman in certain fights means you'll take a less skilled shaman over a more skilled warlock or mage -- despite the fact that shamans are harder to come by due to population size -- because the mechanics of the fight tell you that "you need more AoE heals" or "you need 8 healers, but also keep up with the dps". Shaman were ideal because not only were they great healers, but when put in a dps group they also uberbuffed dps through heroism (not to mention totems).

You're right -- if Blizz didn't want 3% hit and 3% crit to stack up to 5 times in a 5 elemental shaman party, they would have changed it ages ago.

They're changing it now -- but it's no longer 3% hit and 3% crit. It's no longer limited to just 5 elemental shaman in a party, max. It's now raid-wide, and it's now +damage and +crit. They're essentially rewriting the talent. It's a nerf to certain aspects of the game that were rarely used (yes, we multiboxers are rare, and even as rare multiboxers not all of us use ToW).

I already did the math in another thread. It's a +hit nerf and a +damage increase. It balances out no matter what way you slice it.

As it stands now, you have to stack multiples of some classes to get the buffs to beat the fights. This eats up a lot of slots, when you are bringing 5+ of one class instead of the average 25 slots / 10 classes = 2.5 of each class, then some other classes are getting the shaft on raid spots.

Now Blizzard is making it so you both:
* Can't stack buffs/debuffs.
* Have more sources of a buff.

So now you can bring either a Warlock w/ imp -or- a Warrior for the +health buff. And you only need one for the entire raid. Or if you have both, then the Warlock can run whatever pet he likes.
And most importantly, you spend less raid slots getting the buffs, so you can fill out the rest with what you have, not what you need.

I think it's a good change overall, I am a bit worried about it 'dumbing down' the game, but as it stands you have an awful lot of content that 95%+ of the people playing the game never get to see. If this change allows more of them to see it then it's probably a good thing.

Not speaking specifically to shaman here, speaking to these changes (buff stacking) in general: this is a good thing for everybody.

If you follow raiding at all in the game currently, there is a really unfortunate trend with raiding guilds. Because they are generally comprised of min-maxers, they will "stack" the raid with exact numbers of certain classes (and usually of specific specs of those classes) to get the absolute most they can. This means that other people who happen to choose classes (or specs) that don't add to the bottom line as well as another get left out.

Then, because a certain raiding guild can put up X dps after stacking their raid, blizzard has to balance the bosses against that much dps (otherwise the 'stacked' guilds would just roll over everything). This means that ALL raiding guilds HAVE to do this stacking to be able to compete (since the bosses are tuned with that expectation), essentially mandating this behavior. Obvioiusly, this is not ideal as friends, or good players of "inferior" classes or specs, get left out of the game.

What they are trying to do here is homogenize the RAID BUFFS. Not all the classes, only those buffs that these classes bring. The upshot is, now I don't *need* 2-3 shadow priests in every raid, because there are 3 classes that can bring mana regen. Also, since it doesn't stack, I don't have to worry about 5 shadow priests being > some other 5 class. There will be one of each buff at a time, and more than one class can bring it. As long as you have one of those, you're gtg.

This means that blizzard can tune the fights assuming all of these buffs, but NOT assuming a certain raid composition since there will be many different ways to achieve it. Not only is that easier for them (meaning, hopefully, better quality tuning out of the gate, and less "gimmick" fights to try a present a challenge), but it also means it's simpler to balance segments of classes. As it exists now, certain classes, because they bring this OMGWTFBBQ buffs to raids, have to do less dps (for example) to balance this awesome utility. Now, since that utility is spread out (and can be assumed to always be present for raiding guilds), they can balance the classes based strictly on their hierarchy in whatever part of the game they fit (tanking, healing, dps).

Again, this is a good thing for all of us. You can argue that blizzard will screw it up if you want, and it's a possibility, I won't deny. But you have to give them credit for trying. It's a good plan, and I, for one, am happy to see them trying to address this very real issue.

I think the totem or wrath only working on target within the totems range is a very HUGE HUGE nerf.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Catamer',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112900#post 112900

I think the totem or wrath only working on target within the totems range is a very HUGE HUGE nerf.

---

Its a nerf for pvp indeed but now that it dont stack it wont be THAT important.. Will it have a outcome on my pvp situations in most cases? nope not for me atleast...

Its a HUGE buff to pve raiding however since the shaman can place it in the area were the mob will be since in alot of encounters its impossible to place everyone inside 30 yards wich makes the totem nearly useless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'TheBigBB',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112821#pos t112821

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Naysayer',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112707#pos t112707

Classes are still going to be pigeonholed into specs. Arcane, frost, or fire, one of them is going to be a better dps spec than the other two, so mages will be forced to raid as that spec. One of them will be best for pvp, so pvpers will be forced into that spec... Affliction, demo, destro, same crap. One will outshine the other. You think they'll invite an enhancement shaman if he can't out-dps a titans grip fury warrior and totems/BLust is covered by resto and maybe 1 Elemental shaman(assuming elem can keep up dpswise)?

These changes aren't being pushed to open up raid spots for different specs, they're be pushed to open up raid spots for wotlk new players and to make sure the game isn't too complicated for the beginners and casuals. Dumbing it down.

---

I don't see how the game's being dumbed down. Simplification of useless and boring gameplay design is not the same as dumbing down. Changing how things stack isn't dumbing down the game just because you liked how it made you more powerful.

It's not so simple that one spec is better than another, because it all depends on the fight, raid comp and situation. For mages, for example, fire is usually the best pure DPS, but has more aggro problems which could be limiting, whereas arcane has the best burst damage in the whole game when the mage pops his cooldowns, while not being that far behind on pure DPS. At least, the arcane mage can dump his mana into dmg more quickly than the fire mage if there's a final burn. It's just NOT that clear cut all the time, and more specs are viable now than ever before. There was a time when you pretty much had to spec your druid resto for raiding, had to spec a priest holy for raiding, had to spec mage frost for raiding, had to spec a paladin holy for raiding. Not because the other specs weren't there, but because there weren't even drops to support the other specs, or they were so terribly far behind. A balance druid was completely unheard of in a raid not all that long ago. A shadow priest was a hard sell pre-BC. The only real tanks were warriors. Etc etc. More specs are viable now than ever before. The only spec I really never see in raids at all is retribution paladin.

---

Min/maxing synergies, buffs, and debuffs was useless and boring gameplay? LOL Just remove it completely and that will make things more interesting? Yah, right.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Stabface',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112891#pos t112891

So now you can bring either a Warlock w/ imp -or- a Warrior for the +health buff. And you only need one for the entire raid. Or if you have both, then the Warlock can run whatever pet he likes.
And most importantly, you spend less raid slots getting the buffs, so you can fill out the rest with what you have, not what you need.

---

I'm going to have to disagree. You're not going to have warlocks bringing what they want, you're going to have warlocks spec'ed for maximum dps with the most important pet needed for the encounter if they aren't already DSing their pet for the sac buff that is optimal for dps.

Same as today, guild leaders are not going to take a demo lock that does 80% of the damage a destro lock can do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Stabface',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112891#pos t112891

So now you can bring either a Warlock w/ imp -or- a Warrior for the +health buff. And you only need one for the entire raid. Or if you have both, then the Warlock can run whatever pet he likes.
And most importantly, you spend less raid slots getting the buffs, so you can fill out the rest with what you have, not what you need.

---

I would think that min-maxing raiders would, in the case of your example, take 1 of whichever class does more DPS and none of the other. Again, I don't see how removing stacking is going to diversify high-end raiding. I would imagine that to min-max you cover each buff/debuff slot with the highest DPS class and then fill the rest of your raid with the highest DPS class in game.

oops - please disregard.

To me what we are going to see is a break away of say 5 shaman teams to a mixture of classes. We are going to start seeing teams made up of maybe even 5 different classes. I think it comes down to what is more important 1) Easy of playing 5 x same class or 2) having the most buffs you can have in a boxing group. That being said I still stand behind Shaman being a great 5 box makeup even without stacking. But as for me I am seriously going to consider mixing up my groups a lot more.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'Stabface',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112374#pos t112374

Also, this means Purge/Dispell > Heroism in Arenas... just have to get rid of it once now, unless the match runs longer than 5 minutes...

---

If they make it like Bubble/Forbearance, when you get purged before the effect has run its course you won't be affected by the Exhaustion.

Also, if what I understand from the little beta i've been playing, they're changing spell hit mechanics to match melee hit mechanics (9% I think is what they're looking at) so people like Paladin tanks don't have to stack 16% hit to reach the PvE spell hit cap when their melee hit cap is so much lower (5% in fact as a tank). So the change to ToW, I beleive, was in response to this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 'voodoogriff',index.php?page=Thread&postID=112950# post112950

So the change to ToW, I beleive, was in response to this.

---

QFT.

Lots of mechanics behind spells are changing, including a nerf to the +damage coeff to lighting bolt. Why? Because there never were damage modifiers for nature damage, until now and it has existed since pre-BC as the only 2.5sec cast dd that had an 80% coeff. That's the math behind it, the reality of it all. I do more damage with less spell power on beta. 10% more.

+hit and +crit boosts were traditionally disproportionate for melee vs. casters with melee swinging 3x fasters than most casters can nuke, with higher crit % and not having to worry about mana. What all these changes boil down to, is a relative boost for caster classes. Less hit to stack, less crit to stack - it overall makes it more effective and easier to gear up. The stacking buff changes, in all reality, do not effect multiboxers outside of ToW. And, as Vyndree has already pointed out, the effect of this change is overall positive for boxers. Did you really want to drop old school ToWs x4 or x5 when the +hit cap is 9%. It'd be a wasted totem regardless.

What I see a lot of people here and on the Wow forums neglecting to mention is, we no longer have 25 mans trying to be filled with 9 classs with 3 specs (so 27 possible combos). We now have 10 classes with 3 specs. What they're attempting to achieve is if raid leader decides they need 5 dd caster classes, they can be filled by ANY of the classes available: mages, ele shaman, balance druids, warlocks. People will likely still min/max, but this opens content for people who don't want to.

Now, you'll no longer need x resto shaman for chain heal, as CoH and nourish/flourish will have similiar effects. This in turn will open up raid spots for enhancement and elemental shaman.

Is it likely you'll see a raid with more than 3 shaman? No. Should there be? No. Are there currently? Hell yes.

The best part. Will you need drastically different sets of gear to change your spec? No. I'm still not understanding how these changes dumb down raiding.