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

[TheBigBB]

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.

[Dominian]

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?

[TheBigBB]

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.

[elo]

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.

[Havelcek]

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.

[TheBigBB]

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!

[Rudi89]

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.

[Havelcek]

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?

[entoptic]

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.

[TheBigBB]

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.

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 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.