Getting very frustrated with Bliz (rant warning)

[Duese]

So you think that the hardest encounter in the game should be made trivial with a warlock pet?

Sorry, I don't feel that using a voidwalker pet trivializes the encounter. It may make it more manageable and take a huge amount of frustration away from the warrior and pally tanks because we flat out can't do it without relying on perfectly timed cooldowns and having enough of that class and spec to last long enough.

Our guild has the DPS for it, we have the healing for it, but we don't have the tanks for it, which is sad considering we have 3 warrior tanks and 3 pally tanks that all are damn near best in slot. We're getting the first drake down before the second one even lands. We're blowing our cooldowns but it's just not giving us enough time to get the second drake down before our MT ultimately gets 1-shot.

Our guild is basically giving up on it because we don't have any DK or Druid tanks. This voidwalker tank is pretty much the only light we've seen in the tunnel and now that's it. We've wiped enough on that boss that our raiders aren't showing up anymore to attempt it because only with insane amounts of luck are we going to beat it. And I can't stand fights completely based around luck.

So, again, the voidwalker is not the problem with that encounter.

"bring the player, not the class"

[kadaan]

So you think that the hardest encounter in the game should be made trivial with a warlock pet?

Sorry, I don't feel that using a voidwalker pet trivializes the encounter. It may make it more manageable and take a huge amount of frustration away from the warrior and pally tanks because we flat out can't do it without relying on perfectly timed cooldowns and having enough of that class and spec to last long enough.

Our guild has the DPS for it, we have the healing for it, but we don't have the tanks for it, which is sad considering we have 3 warrior tanks and 3 pally tanks that all are damn near best in slot. We're getting the first drake down before the second one even lands. We're blowing our cooldowns but it's just not giving us enough time to get the second drake down before our MT ultimately gets 1-shot.

Our guild is basically giving up on it because we don't have any DK or Druid tanks. This voidwalker tank is pretty much the only light we've seen in the tunnel and now that's it. We've wiped enough on that boss that our raiders aren't showing up anymore to attempt it because only with insane amounts of luck are we going to beat it. And I can't stand fights completely based around luck.

So, again, the voidwalker is not the problem with that encounter.

"bring the player, not the class"

You do realize that:
a) The voidwalker is immune to the debuffs, so gets none of the fire/shadow multipliers
b) Pets don't trigger the "off the island" pyroblast buffet, so the VW can tank him OFF the island, never having to dodge flame waves, and giving the rest of the raid the entire island to move around on
c) He gets 90% magic reduction when the lock is specced, glyphed, and channeling the heal thing on it
d) Ghostcrawler himself said "The health boost was largely for PvP reasons and the damage avoidance was to make up for limitations in pet AI and master control, not to let you opt out of having to manage tons of incoming damage on your main tank. :)


Also, once our dps got high enough we no longer needed a druid/dk MT. Shadron is usually around 10% when Vesperon lands, so one guardian spirit is enough to save the warrior from the insta-gib breath. The rest of the time we have a disc priest and pally on him. PoM + Shield prevents the shadron breaths from killing him.

[Souca]

Blizzard is going through a rather large change to game mechanics ever since they released 3.0.2 before Wrath. One the of the intended goals has seemed to be a standardization of how spells and abilities are classified and used. A prime example is the homogenization of buffs and debuffs. They were trying to make similar things behave the same way. This is a large change from the way things were handled in Vanilla and BC. Previously there was most likely one chunk of code to handle how a Cheap Shot stun worked and a completely different pieces of code that handled the stun from something like Shadowfury. From a logistics point of view, when you have lots of different parts, it's hard to make changes that cover more than just one piece and keeps thing consistant.

So Blizzard did what all companies do when they are faced with this problem, they started standardizing parts, or in this case spell effects. This isn't a short term process. This is a change that will pay off more in the next expansion than it will in Wrath, it's just that big of a change. What we are experiencing right now is Blizzard discovering what spell effects can't be the same even though they seemed the same when they started this change. At the same type they are trying to make classes distinct even if they use the same mechanics. It's kinda of like making 10 lego castles that don't look similar and only using the Pirate set.

This is a growing pain. It's perhaps one of the largest transitions in software to date, and certainly the largest within an MMO. This is the make or break for WoW. If they pull this off, they will be in a position to roll out content much faster. If they don't get past this, they'll have a 10 classes that feel the same.

Even looking at it from this perspective, I find the entire thing maddening. Just thought I'd share my take on what they are doing and why.

- Souca -

[Poetry]

It has less to do with why anyone started playing in the first place, and more to do with the fact that a lot of gearing and macro work have to be redone. AGAIN. It's one thing when abilities get tweaked. Its another when your entire gearing philosophy, spell rotation, and hotbars get screwed up.

LOL I think this is me. When I'm looking at the lists and lists of possible changes all I can think is ugh, just when I finally got it all working! A little frustrating but part of the game. As long as they don't pull a SWG NGE/CU thing I think I'll be ok. :P

[Poetry]

Actually I think it's those people who min max that _cause_ the changes.

I agree that a lot of the changes are driven by min/max'ers and I think it's a little unfortunate. Sometimes I feel like things are being tuned to the top tier rather than the typical player. 11 million players...we're not all the best! And I don't mean the old "casual vs hardcore" thing. Just that when I hear that they want to nerf mana regen, and I'm already having mana issues on my holy paladin, I'm wondering who they are observing. I don't consider myself a bad player. Anyway, they'll change what they need to and I'll adjust my techniques and roll with it as always. But I still can't help to ask who drives some of the changes that they feel are required to make the game more challenging. Sure isn't me!

[Souca]

Actually I think it's those people who min max that _cause_ the changes.

I agree that a lot of the changes are driven by min/max'ers and I think it's a little unfortunate. Sometimes I feel like things are being tuned to the top tier rather than the typical player. 11 million players...we're not all the best! And I don't mean the old "casual vs hardcore" thing. Just that when I hear that they want to nerf mana regen, and I'm already having mana issues on my holy paladin, I'm wondering who they are observing. I don't consider myself a bad player. Anyway, they'll change what they need to and I'll adjust my techniques and roll with it as always. But I still can't help to ask who drives some of the changes that they feel are required to make the game more challenging. Sure isn't me!

I don't think it's that the min/max crowd causes them to change things, but that the min/max crowd will be the ones to find the flaws in the system and display them in the largest light. Blizzard has to balance encounters for the hard core professional players as well as the casuals. It's a very large range to work with and Blizzard has stated that as their goal. You can't blame it on the min/max and say they ruin it for the casual or vice versa because Blizz has stated both are acceptable play styles.

The flip side is that a lot of hardcore blame the casual as being the reason for changes they don't like

When I was raiding Naxx 10 I didn't even have a single piece of tier and I never really worried about mana healing on my druid. Whether we should have to worry about mana as a core of healing is debatable, but mana isn't in short supply once you get some gear and the other healers pull thier weight.

- Souca -

[Poetry]

Actually I think it's those people who min max that _cause_ the changes.

I agree that a lot of the changes are driven by min/max'ers and I think it's a little unfortunate. Sometimes I feel like things are being tuned to the top tier rather than the typical player. 11 million players...we're not all the best! And I don't mean the old "casual vs hardcore" thing. Just that when I hear that they want to nerf mana regen, and I'm already having mana issues on my holy paladin, I'm wondering who they are observing. I don't consider myself a bad player. Anyway, they'll change what they need to and I'll adjust my techniques and roll with it as always. But I still can't help to ask who drives some of the changes that they feel are required to make the game more challenging. Sure isn't me!

I don't think it's that the min/max crowd causes them to change things, but that the min/max crowd will be the ones to find the flaws in the system and display them in the largest light. Blizzard has to balance encounters for the hard core professional players as well as the casuals. It's a very large range to work with and Blizzard has stated that as their goal. You can't blame it on the min/max and say they ruin it for the casual or vice versa because Blizz has stated both are acceptable play styles.

The flip side is that a lot of hardcore blame the casual as being the reason for changes they don't like

When I was raiding Naxx 10 I didn't even have a single piece of tier and I never really worried about mana healing on my druid. Whether we should have to worry about mana as a core of healing is debatable, but mana isn't in short supply once you get some gear and the other healers pull thier weight.

- Souca -

Druids use mana for healing? I don't think I mean that "it's the fault of min/max'ers", more like what you said...they amplify the problems and then things change. I think my main point is that I hope that when things are re-tuned it doesn't hurt joe average too much.

I'm interested in some of the comments about "creative" solutions to some fights. What comes to mind for me is people kiting the boss in Oculus with green drakes. To me kiting sounded like a valid strategy (although I never tried it) but Blizzard didn't agree. Anyway, their game, their vision, and they'll guide us to play it the way they want and I'll keep playing it.

[Souca]

I'm interested in some of the comments about "creative" solutions to some fights. What comes to mind for me is people kiting the boss in Oculus with green drakes. To me kiting sounded like a valid strategy (although I never tried it) but Blizzard didn't agree. Anyway, their game, their vision, and they'll guide us to play it the way they want and I'll keep playing it.

This has always been on of the things that I wonder about. How does Blizzard want us to handle encounters? I mean, we know how they don't, since they patch it or nerf it so we can't do it, but have they ever come out and told us the designed strategy for any encounter? I'm not expecting them to tell us how to beat Ulduar now, but surely they could tell us what they had intended to happen on fights in BWL, MC, and Ony? Heck, even Sunwell strats wouldn't be game breaking.

We spend a good deal of time trying to figure out how to beat these things, but we never know if we are really doing it the way they had intended. Kinda of seems like the blind getting mad cause the blind was leading them.

And everyone knows druids use the souls of gnomes to cast spells.

- Souca -

[Poetry]

We spend a good deal of time trying to figure out how to beat these things, but we never know if we are really doing it the way they had intended. Kinda of seems like the blind getting mad cause the blind was leading them.

There have been *so* many fights where we've said "I'm sure this isn't what they had in mind but wow, that worked great!" lol

And everyone knows druids use the souls of gnomes to cast spells.

HAHA I totally lost it when I read this. It might end up being the new guild message of the day.

[Gadzooks]

Funny, it was the nerf bat that made me shelve my Rogue, when the Hemo nerf happened. Back to combat, and a very boring playstyle, so I picked up this MB thing.

The one thing that irked me, is that Blizzard's very vague statements on it was that they wanted more players in another spec. As it all turned out, that spec, Shadowstep, was pretty cool for a lot players (although not my cup of tea), it was how they shifted the focus and killed a viable off-spec that angered people. It struck me that they were'nt doing it for balance so much as they were saying "we spent a lot of time on this new talent (and ego), and dagnabbit, you're going to try it!" I think they've improved a lot since then, explaining some of the changes and philosophies going on.

Seriously, remember 3 years ago? Some classes held regular revolts in their class forums because they'd get changes that made no sense, and got NO feedback at all. The class reviews would generate 50 pages threads, and none of the discussion would be reflected in the changes. It's gotten a lot better since those days!

I guess we have to keep in mind that it's their game, and they don't have to tell us anything. Ghostcrawler's new role in communicating the theory and ideas behind changes has done a LOT of good, even if the guy loves his ban hammer a bit too much. I always thought that they should have a blog or regular posting to discuss the "vision" that they always refer to, but never discuss. We're supposed to follow this vision...but we don't know what it is? Nah. That dog don't hunt.

Since the rogue nerf that made me lose interest in my rogue, one of the benefits of MBing is that I'm not tied to one class - if the nerf bat hits bad enough, then I can grow another.

Maybe there's a better way - and maybe that will be part of the new sooper secret MMO they're working on - but this is what we have, so we have to work with it, or move on. I'm wondering with Tigole out of the loop, that things wills change even more - it's one way to keep life in the game, as frustrating as it is. (And one must wonder how much of the issues were from Tigole himself...he was, after all, very vocal about his opinions on classes and their roles, before coming to Blizzard). The game has to evolve and change, that's the #1 reason I keep playing - I remember the years I spent on Diablo II playing the same maps, the same gear, the same specs, the same everything...and why to this day I have no interest in installing and playing that game again. Yeah, the nerf bat sucks, but when they buff...it's goooooooood.

As for the min/maxers being to blame? Of course - we know the core developers and leads are min/maxers, no doubt the development team is full of them. I can't see anyone who was'nt in part a min/maxer having any interest in developing and designing that kind of thing. They look to their own when looking for feedback, they even say as much, they talk to the top guilds and select players for feedback, and you know they're not asking some dude slowly leveling a Paladin in Dustwallow Marsh on weekends, they're talking to the min/maxers.

I don't know. I tend to think they make it up as they go along. I also believe that they had their best and brightest leave for the new MMO, so we get the second and third string effort - and I know that if they have any really, really good ideas, they'll go to the new MMO.