Blizzard Q&A time

Blizzard have just published their death knight Q&A (at least their initial one). That means we have less waiting to do before it’s our turn. A lot of questions have been asked all across the board, some of them even serious and without the “gief buff plxploxnaokekek?”

The themes have been many, and there have been at least two variations of each theme? As I write this we have 13 pages full of questions, so despite some doomsayer suggestions (“Why don’t you just remove warriors, you don’t like us anyway”) our class is very much alive and kicking.

So what kind of things do our fellow furies have on their minds? Quite a few things actually. Here follows a list with the highlights (and I will refrain from listing “buffs plx” as a point, since it is quite honestly too vague and Blizzard aren’t likely to touch it):

• TG…the bastard child. Understandable, but at the same time futile to ask about
• Rampage…part of our raid utility. The little useless brother of Leader of the Pack
• The lacklustre performance of fury, when compared to other so-called hybrids like DK’s and Druids
• Gameplay…the latest changes to fury have locked us into rotations more than ever

Starting with Titan’s Grip…well, what to say that hasn’t been said, screamed, hollered and whined about already? It is the bastard child of fury, and it will never become a talent that 100% of furies will love. Rather, it will divide the waters from now on and in perpetuity. Will it disappear? No. Blizzard have said that they find it cool, and that they’ve wanted it in since TBC. It’s staying, and the damage nerf is also staying.

Would all furies take it, if it were proven that 1-handed fury builds were viable? Heck no. Many people still share the view that furies should hit hard with onehanded weapons, for a more furies and frenetic pace of playing (more on that later). If I’m honest, I’d probably go for a 1-handed fury build if I could. But, it would require Blizzard to redo much of the loot, so I think it’s fair to say that TG ain’t changing. For better or worse.

Ever since Blizzard changed the buff system, people have been complaining about Rampage. And despite trying to see the logic, I still fail to see the logic in the LotP vs Rampage priorities. The duration, application requirements and limited range of Rampage all make it decidedly inferior to LotP (even in its untalented form). Oh sure, it does come into its own if there is no feral druid in the raid, but honestly, and this goes especially for 25-man raiders, how often are you in a raid without a feral?

Blizzard need to up their game on this supposed buff. How many other 41 talent point abilities are this inferior and mainly usable when soloing? Ultimately it has its place in solo situations and 5-mans, but as one of “the big 3” talents, its suprisingly useless in the endgame. It used to be grand, but required micromanagement. Now it requires nothing, but is very nearly useless in a raiding situation. Which would you prefer?

I’ll not enter into the “hybrid vs. pure” debate at this stage, since I’ve already done so in the past. The point being raised this time round is this however: How can it be, that other hybrids can spec both DPS and tanking in the same tree, essentially gaining a decent spec for both by one application of points…and THEN outperform another hybrid in all aspects of their job. This crosses over into one of the big topics for our protection warrior brethren, namely that of protection warriors being underperforming compared to druids and death knights. So, essentially, a druid will beat us in DPS, and if we both go to our tanking spec, a) the druid will do better and b) they can very nearly do it without changing specs.

While it may seem whiny and complaining, it’s worth asking the question, as some have done: “Should a class with 4 different roles in a raid be able to outperform a class with only 2 roles decisively in both roles?” While I don’t necessarily agree that there should be tiers of hybrids, I would like to see equality between hybrids, especially if hybrids are not allowed to equal pures in damage.

Finally, we come to the last point…gameplay. It’s not the most commonly named point, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Back in the day, fury used to be as frenzied as rogues nearly. It was a lot of button pushing. Along came TG and halved our button-pushing frequency. And add to that a couple of very short cooldowns on our staple abilities. The result is a very very stifled and locked way of playing, provided you want to maximise your DPS. So basically, our furious playing style is less furious than ever. In fact, it begins to resemble a paladin from the old days. Judge, Seal, Judge, Seal, Bloodthirst, Whirlwind, Bloodthirst, Whirlwind. In a time where Blizzard are moving most people out of the gridlock of rotations, it’s quite interesting that they’re seemingly burying their furious players under a layer of locked rotations.

The above is just a little sample of the multitude of questions that have been asked of Blizz. I have no hope that they can manage to answer them all. But I would hope that they will find the time to answer the above at the very least. And the blues hinted at it not being a single session, so keep the questions flowing.

When all things are equal

Guestpost on BigHitBox on Feb 26, 2009

Blizzards view, according to the blue posters, is that pure classes, should “all other things being equal” do slightly more damage than hybrid classes.

I’ll assume that hybrid classes are defined as: “classes that can multirole (i.e. heal, dps, tank)”. If this is incorrect, please correct me.

The justification is that since hybrids can multirole, they shouldn’t do quite as much damage as the pure classes. Which seems fair enough?

However, what is the benefit of being a hybrid, if your hybridization is not needed in a raiding situation? In other words, am I to be penalised as a fury warrior, because I can tank? Is the elemental shaman to be penalised because they can heal?

Some will say: “Yes of course, because you can tank. At a moments notice, you can switch to tanking, and the elemental shaman can switch to healing. With 3.1 even more so, albeit out of combat.”

While that is correct, the inherent ability to do things, does not equate to actually having a need for doing things. You can argue that its semantics, yet if Blizzard insist on the hybrids-vs-pures line of reasoning, I, for one, would like to see the examples of it utilised as more than a simple argument for differentiating between damage output.

Taking an example in a 10man raid (I raid 10 mans only, due to being in a small guild). The agreed upon setup for entry level in a raiding instance is usually 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 dps. How many encounters need 3 tanks, or 4 healers? None. However, you do need at least 2 tanks in most cases, essentially taking the offtanking position into the realm of fulltime tanks.

The main point is here: How is it justified to say that hybrid classes should do less DPS, if the utility gained from their hybridisation is nullified by the encounter mechanics, or not used by the majority of raiding groups?

Are we going to see encounters that need more tanks in Ulduar? Are we going to see encounters that need healing rather than DPS? Somehow, I doubt it, since it will grossly favour small raiding groups bringing hybrids rather than pure classes. Which isn’t fair either?

So if hybrids are not needed to perform their multiroling, because the risk of pushing pure classes out, why are they doing less damage? If you bring a fury warrior, fully intending them to do nothing but DPS, why aren’t they allowed to do the same DPS as a mage, all other things being equal?

Perhaps it is worth considering bringing back the viability of CC? Or even the need for it in raids. Currently, most CC is done by the tank, and consists of holding mass aggro while mobs are being nuked post haste. It’s a topic all of its own, so I’ll merely pose one question here:

Given that the pure classes are traditionally the ones with most of the CC, would it not make sense to let that offset the hybridisation ability of other classes?

In other words, let “…but you can tank!” be offset by “And you can sheep.” It will take a lot of encounter design, and will cause problems of its own. But seeing as most people would rather be of use apart from “just being there to bring the numbers”, would it not be a way forward? Let DPS be equal, but let people have a use for their class abilities, which in reality differentiate classes much more than the name or size of their nuking ability.

The above is of course taken from the perspective of a DPS warrior. From a protection warrior, or other mainspec tank, it would be quite a different position. Is it wrong? Is it right? Is it completely irrelevant? Is it just me asking silly questions?