HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Why does a DK not have to choose between horn of winter and desecration? Because that is pretty much all the DK gets.
The shaman on the other hand gets to choose among Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, Wrath of Air Totem, Flametongue Totem, Tremor Totem, Healing Stream Totem, resistance Totems and Earthbind Totem, which doesn't even count Bloodlust / Heroism, and things like Unleashed Rage or Elemental Oath. If your buff was as competitive as theirs and you had so much versatility, we fear we'd see raids with many, many shaman in them. As it is, there's still a good chance for 3 shaman in a 25-player raid, while the DKs might get 2 slots if they're lucky.
You should get a slot because you are a good player, not because your buff rules. (Source)
Shamans are Mandatory Throughout the history of WoW, the problem has typically been that shaman (and paladin to be fair) bring too much utility and are therefore considered too mandatory. They started out in vanilla as buff classes -- the guys you bring who don't really do much themselves but bring buffs and debuffs that make every other class perform better. You couldn't for example just stack your raid with rogues and mages because their performance would be low without the shaman and paladins -- and before LK you had to bring enough to stick one in every group.
Now, we decided to change that design because we didn't think it felt very satisfying to be the buff bot spec who got brought along as if the player were some kind of scroll or flask to improve the "real players" performance. On the other hand, we knew it would be really brutal to the shaman and paladin to just rip away all of their utility and give them the typical 2 or so raid buffs that most other classes or spec get.
But we've definitely eroded it a little, and I'm not going to apologize much for that because we want to give players flexibility -- and flexibility means you can do a raid, especially a 10-player one, without a shaman or paladin. Nobody should be mandatory, except for a tank and a few healers. Nobody should be left out either, but the specs who got left out in LK did so because of low dps -- Arms, Frost mage and Subtlety rogue. Shaman did fine.
Believe me, I have thought long and hard about scrapping the entire buff / debuff system because players focus on it too much. But I know that if we did that, players would then focus too much on damage per second and healing per second of the best players out there. We also think it would be unfortunate to lose that sense of being so much more powerful in a group than you are solo.
For now, in Cataclysm, we are just sharing even more of the buffs and debuffs across a wide gamut, especially very powerful ones like Bloodlust and Battle Rez, and chilling out the impact of some of the more potent ones, say Sunder and Curse of Elements, while also cutting back on the sheer number of buffs brought by say the Ret paladin and Balance druid.
I am much more interested in discussions about say shaman dps totems and healing totems than I am about buff totems, because we believe the latter have much less to do with either your getting to raid or your raid being succesful. (Source)
Enhancement Enhance does fine on stationary fights like Saurfang and Festergut, but drops behind on heavy movement fights, and unfortunately the fight that counts the most has a lot of movement.
But that's not a totem problem. That's because so much of Enhancement's dps is tied up in getting procs on quick attacks. If a warrior has to move, it may not hurt them as much because their abilities are on longer cooldowns anyway and they can even store up on the rage. For energy classes it's even better because they can just unload when they do get back in range. But Enhancement just lost out on those procs, and they aren't coming back.
We're okay with some specs doing better on some fights than others, but we think Enhancement suffers a little too much when they have to move (and they aren't the only ones - Balance druids and even Elementals are in a similar bucket). We're trying to address this in Cataclysm without removing what it is that players like about Enhance.
But again, this doesn't have a lot to do with totems. They might have to drop their totems again, but that dps loss is arguably neglibile compared to the loss of not being able to deal damage for short times. (Source)
Why does a DK not have to choose between horn of winter and desecration? Because that is pretty much all the DK gets.
The shaman on the other hand gets to choose among Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem, Wrath of Air Totem, Flametongue Totem, Tremor Totem, Healing Stream Totem, resistance Totems and Earthbind Totem, which doesn't even count Bloodlust / Heroism, and things like Unleashed Rage or Elemental Oath. If your buff was as competitive as theirs and you had so much versatility, we fear we'd see raids with many, many shaman in them. As it is, there's still a good chance for 3 shaman in a 25-player raid, while the DKs might get 2 slots if they're lucky.
You should get a slot because you are a good player, not because your buff rules. (Source)
I thought all the shaman player crying around here lately reminded me of another forum...
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
I still don't like the answer they have regarding totems. I'm about to give up on arguing it though.
Also, I can't help but feel he was bluffing with regard to "I have thought long and hard about scrapping the entire buff / debuff system."
Bluffing? Why? I'm sure that's something that the devs think about in the dark corners of their minds, because it really would ease their eternal hell of trying to balance classes and raids, but they're not going to since I think it would upset a lot of players who feel buffs/debuffs are an MMO tenant. They probably also fear not having them would water down the game too much, in addition to the reason GC actually mentioned (wanting individual player power to increase in a group).
If they really wanted to they could ditch buffs/debuffs and scale player power to group size.
Within 50 yards of a party/raid member? You do 2% more damage/healing/absorbs and have 2% more stam. Full 5-man group? 8% better. Full 25-man group? 25% better (slower scaling as you add more people).
Of course, that'd be a lot more boring than the current system.
You should get a slot because you are a good player, not because your buff rules.
Sure, gain the slot because you're a good player... lose the slot because an equally good player brought a better class.
And so, Blizzard will have to be even more responsive to balance issues to prevent the FotM mindset becoming a regular thing in both PvP and PvE. While that happens, new abilities and mechanics will be introduced as a means of assisting that balance, rather than a means of expanding those classes.
Then WoW stagnates, everyone quits, and a meteor hits the planet. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED
Seriously, though, he oughta consider dropping some new info about those DPS/Healing totems. If they're gonna keep restorative totems around, they oughta consider having it increasing the coefficient for healing stream along with a flat increase; y'know, make it something shaman actually think about instead of being a "no-other-options" totem. This is their opportunity to give Resto shammies a utility totem in PvP that isn't on a 6 minute cooldown. I mean, Searing totem's never been a spectacular thing on its own, either, but at least for enhance it'll be worth the damage and not just the interrupt now. Let's just hope Blizzard isn't including shots from it as a shaman's "next fire spell," eh?
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
They should make resto spec have a talent where all totems dropped have the effect that Healing Stream has.
I wouldn't mind if they got rid of all buffs with long durations (fort) or those expected to have a 100% uptime (inspiration) but kept short term buffs with cooldowns like bloodlust.
The steady changes to the buff system over the last several years should back up the idea that they aren't really all that happy with it. Even the cataclysm setup has the potential to lead to "well, we'd really like to bring X, but we really need someone who brings meleehaste/bursthaste/vulnerability/whatever." Which they've said over and over again they don't like.
Not really clear to me what the solution would be, though, except to proliferate buffs further and further across classes and specs.
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it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
I don't really comprehend why what classes have other classes buffs matters SO much. Honestly, I think the totem system is better than other buffing systems because I dont have to worry about individual raid members or whatnot. I have totems I drop, I drop then all the fucking time instinctively and its not really a major mana concern when I do. Therefore I dont even notice. I am more likely to do totem buffing than remembering all the buffs I need to do for an entire raid and making sure everyone is in range of them and being asked "DUD I NEED SUM PALLY BUFFZ" or the like. I consider THAT an advantage.
And the answer the devs have given before pretty much rings true. If you dislike using totems to buff people and feel they need some kind of compensation because you feel its an inferior way of buffing, you might be playing the wrong class.
That being said, Im damn glad more people have buffs because it gives me the OPTION to use the more interesting totems.
The only place I feel butthurt honestly is solo, because the buffs we do get honestly suck compared to some classes NOW, and much more in cata. For instance, my warlock is MUCH better off in a solo situation because he has quite possibly the best 3 caster buffs I could ever ask for (Curse of Elements, Spellpower from being Demo, 5% extra crit debuff). And two of them are automatic.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
People want their class to bring something unique to group experiences. Blizzard wants people to not get left out just because they're class x.
Frankly, I'm starting to think that Blizzard is fighting a losing battle.
apart from the obsessively high-tuned requirements of the sunwell, are there many cases where classes are excluded because of buff requirements? It seems like 10-mans would be the main place you'd see that, but I haven't really noticed it in the few weeks that I've been back.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Kai is going pretty oldschool for that avatar.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Homogenizing buffs isn't really that big a deal; I guess it's more of a vision issue. We used to have so much to do with totems; random boss spells working on grounding, shifting between cleansing totems, stoneskin's original mechanic in areas with lots of mobs that did small amounts of damage, kiting mobs around sets of earthbind totems, every boss and their mothers had a 20 second fear, maybe even totem twisting for the masochists. For a while, I was even willing to accept windwall in the hopes that they'd have us do more encounters like the cannoneer in Stratholme (all right, so the boss is at the end of a long hallway and there's lots of low level archers on the other side that we can't reach so we gotta pull the boss while under fire and drop windwall to wait where are you going come back). We weren't exactly a necessity, though; heck, alliance got along just fine without shaman, didn't they?
In each expansion, more and more of those totems are removed, those mechanics replaced with generic buffs. We've lost that sort of utility, and along with it those situations to really think and plan with totems. For the rest... well, Grounding totem doesn't work in raids anymore, fears are barely used (and when they are, the consequences are either minimal or we can't tremor 'em anyways), and earthbind's barely even an afterthought with two or three other classes using a targeted AoE snare.
Don't get me wrong; the UI changes have been a massive quality of life increase. At the same time, there just isn't much thought to the totem system anymore; they're not tools, just numbers. Drop the buffs nobody else brought, and fulfill your preset role.
apart from the obsessively high-tuned requirements of the sunwell, are there many cases where classes are excluded because of buff requirements? It seems like 10-mans would be the main place you'd see that, but I haven't really noticed it in the few weeks that I've been back.
When my guild was still raiding, they had to bring along an oomkin who did crummy DPS and would frequently die to avoidable boss mechanics just because of the 5% spell crit.
It should be obvious why grounding totem doesn't work on boss spells (I'm pretty sure it still works on some trash/adds like Deathwhisper's though).
Not just about grounding totem, but that's a good point to explore nevertheless.
I think there are situations where it would work. I recall back when it did, most of the spells that were negated generally wound up being afterthoughts on the developer's part that had little influence over the course of the fight. Things like the earth shock from Skeram when he was too far away from the tank (that he spammed anyways), or the initial mind flay ticks from C'Thun's eye tentacles (they spammed that too).
Actually, Deathwhisper's a good example of a good Grounding Totem fight. She spams a single target, interruptable ability that did little to alter the overall course of the fight unless completely neglected. A grounding totem wouldn't exactly revamp strats, but would be a godsend for those situations where melee had to run out for ghosts/adds, healers had to cover the idiots who didn't, casters had to deal with mind controlled folks/adds, whatever the situation would have been that led to the primary interrupters being unable to interrupt the boss themselves.
If they let the ability be groundable, should they also let it be reflectable? Because warriors have an equally valid complaint that spell reflect doesn't really work on anything either (again, for obvious reasons).
Wouldn't say equally valid, but considering we're discussing spammable, interruptable spells from the boss, why not? Last I checked, an extra 2k DPS on Deathwhisper wasn't gamebreaking, either.
Blizzard is weary, and rightfully so, of designing bosses where one class is by far the best option for tanking -- especially when it happens to the class that was the only true tank for four years.
Warriors and shamans already have interrupts anyway, so maybe they consider reflect/grounding totem to be lockdown overkill.
I believe that's correct. Huhuran was just plain negligence on their part, though; a case where Grounding Totem became a game-changer because they forgot to flip a flag somewhere.
Blizzard is weary, and rightfully so, of designing bosses where one class is by far the best option for tanking -- especially when it happens to the class that was the only true tank for four years.
Warriors and shamans already have interrupts anyway, so maybe they consider reflect/grounding totem to be lockdown overkill.
Yeah, lockdown overkill's a problem when it comes to those abilities. That being said, lockdown overkill sorta counters the former statement as well. If everything else is going according to plan, spell reflect would never have the opportunity to go off anyways. As everyone gets their own interrupts and counters, Spell reflect is reaching the point where Blizzard could introduce it to raiding again without disrupting the balance they're trying so hard to create.
Also, imagine those first attempts on bosses where warriors try to spell reflect the non-groundable abilities
New beta build brought with it new talents(shock!). Nothing up on sites yet, but it looks like the range extension is an enhancement talent (whoopie), Searing Totem's target is based on Flame Shock/Stormstrike (sigh), there's a tier 1 elemental talent to increase crit (no more forced convection woo), and Reverberation is a Tier 2 talent (HELLZ YEA BISHES).
Glad they're finally starting to beef up Elemental; Resto was far and away the best PvP off-tree choice for enhancement for a while there. Now there's decent survivability and utility choices in both trees again.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Reverb being tier 2 makes me reconsider the mock-enhancement PvP build I had planned out.
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
I dont think there is supposed to be a "making up for" lost boring stats in trees.
WTF is up with blizz going backwards and adding more boring straight to stats talents in our tree? acuity has to be a placeholder...
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Huh, static shock now has a big ol' chance to proc off two of your melee abilities. (well 3, but Stormstrike replaces Primal Strike)
Elemental
* Hex now lasts 1 min. Up from 30 sec.
* Searing Totem now prefer to target enemies that are afflicted by your Flame Shock or Stormstrike effects.
* Reverberation is now a Tier 2 talent. Down from Tier 3.
* Improved Fire Nova is now a Tier 3 talent. Up from Tier 2.
* Elemental Warding now reduces magical damage instead of all damage.
* Ancestral Knowledge is now named Acuity and Increases your critical strike chance with all spells and attacks by 1/2/3%.
* Convection now Reduces the mana cost of your damaging offensive spells.
Enhancement
* Heroism's "Exhausted" debuff now also affects Time Warp (Mage)
* Static Shock now procs from Primal Strike, Stormstrike, or Lava Lash (Old - All melee attacks and abilities). Chance to proc increased from 2/4/6% to 15/30/45%.
* Totemic Reach *New* - Increases the radius of your totems' effects by 15/30%.
Restoration
* Totemic Focus is now a 2-Ranks talent, down from 3-Ranks. Now also increases the duration of your totems by 20/40%.
* Cleansing Waters *New* - When your Cleanse Spirit successfully removes a harmful effect, you also heal the target for [ 1093 to 1164 ]/[ 2187 to 2330 ].
This seems very underwhelming. I'm happy the way all this reads on paper (or the internet, I guess) but they're essentially putting in a required talent to pick over your optional talent if you're splashing in Enhancement (which I figure most Elemental and Restoration specs are).
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
I give up on the totem situation. Totems are argued to be so special already because you can have zomg 4 at once and that's why they share buff space with other classes, but then they toss in these two talents that just... man what.
A) I lament the loss of old windfury on a seemingly daily basis What's the problem with the searing totem thing? Isn't the targeting logic good, or is that simply a band-aid fix on a gushing wound? (I totally drop searing totem all the time >_>)
What's the problem with the searing totem thing? Isn't the targeting logic good, or is that simply a band-aid fix on a gushing wound? (I totally drop searing totem all the time >_>)
Nothing about it jumps out at me. Searing Totem itself is pretty boring as an ability - the fact that they added in a gimmick piece of code so that you can target it doesn't change that for me at all.
Also, the very last thing Enhancement shamans want is ramp-up time on their DPS when movement or target switching fights are already pretty annoying thanks to the nature of totems.
Huh, static shock now has a big ol' chance to proc off two of your melee abilities. (well 3, but Stormstrike replaces Primal Strike)
Elemental
* Hex now lasts 1 min. Up from 30 sec.
* Searing Totem now prefer to target enemies that are afflicted by your Flame Shock or Stormstrike effects.
* Reverberation is now a Tier 2 talent. Down from Tier 3.
* Improved Fire Nova is now a Tier 3 talent. Up from Tier 2.
* Elemental Warding now reduces magical damage instead of all damage.
* Ancestral Knowledge is now named Acuity and Increases your critical strike chance with all spells and attacks by 1/2/3%.
* Convection now Reduces the mana cost of your damaging offensive spells.
Enhancement
* Heroism's "Exhausted" debuff now also affects Time Warp (Mage)
* Static Shock now procs from Primal Strike, Stormstrike, or Lava Lash (Old - All melee attacks and abilities). Chance to proc increased from 2/4/6% to 15/30/45%.
* Totemic Reach *New* - Increases the radius of your totems' effects by 15/30%.
Restoration
* Totemic Focus is now a 2-Ranks talent, down from 3-Ranks. Now also increases the duration of your totems by 20/40%.
* Cleansing Waters *New* - When your Cleanse Spirit successfully removes a harmful effect, you also heal the target for [ 1093 to 1164 ]/[ 2187 to 2330 ].
Thanks! It's always annoying being at work and seeing people post "OMG look at X new talent!" And I'm all, "I can't!"
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
So if I am picking up all the BoA gear for my enhancement shaman, I want the +AP trinket and +AP mail armor, correct?
Posts
Also, I can't help but feel he was bluffing with regard to "I have thought long and hard about scrapping the entire buff / debuff system."
Within 50 yards of a party/raid member? You do 2% more damage/healing/absorbs and have 2% more stam. Full 5-man group? 8% better. Full 25-man group? 25% better (slower scaling as you add more people).
Of course, that'd be a lot more boring than the current system.
And so, Blizzard will have to be even more responsive to balance issues to prevent the FotM mindset becoming a regular thing in both PvP and PvE. While that happens, new abilities and mechanics will be introduced as a means of assisting that balance, rather than a means of expanding those classes.
Then WoW stagnates, everyone quits, and a meteor hits the planet. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED
Seriously, though, he oughta consider dropping some new info about those DPS/Healing totems. If they're gonna keep restorative totems around, they oughta consider having it increasing the coefficient for healing stream along with a flat increase; y'know, make it something shaman actually think about instead of being a "no-other-options" totem. This is their opportunity to give Resto shammies a utility totem in PvP that isn't on a 6 minute cooldown. I mean, Searing totem's never been a spectacular thing on its own, either, but at least for enhance it'll be worth the damage and not just the interrupt now. Let's just hope Blizzard isn't including shots from it as a shaman's "next fire spell," eh?
Not really clear to me what the solution would be, though, except to proliferate buffs further and further across classes and specs.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
And the answer the devs have given before pretty much rings true. If you dislike using totems to buff people and feel they need some kind of compensation because you feel its an inferior way of buffing, you might be playing the wrong class.
That being said, Im damn glad more people have buffs because it gives me the OPTION to use the more interesting totems.
The only place I feel butthurt honestly is solo, because the buffs we do get honestly suck compared to some classes NOW, and much more in cata. For instance, my warlock is MUCH better off in a solo situation because he has quite possibly the best 3 caster buffs I could ever ask for (Curse of Elements, Spellpower from being Demo, 5% extra crit debuff). And two of them are automatic.
Frankly, I'm starting to think that Blizzard is fighting a losing battle.
Someone posted the comic recently, I felt it fit my love of my class of choice.
In each expansion, more and more of those totems are removed, those mechanics replaced with generic buffs. We've lost that sort of utility, and along with it those situations to really think and plan with totems. For the rest... well, Grounding totem doesn't work in raids anymore, fears are barely used (and when they are, the consequences are either minimal or we can't tremor 'em anyways), and earthbind's barely even an afterthought with two or three other classes using a targeted AoE snare.
Don't get me wrong; the UI changes have been a massive quality of life increase. At the same time, there just isn't much thought to the totem system anymore; they're not tools, just numbers. Drop the buffs nobody else brought, and fulfill your preset role.
is fine tho cuz theyr good in pvp rite
Not just about grounding totem, but that's a good point to explore nevertheless.
I think there are situations where it would work. I recall back when it did, most of the spells that were negated generally wound up being afterthoughts on the developer's part that had little influence over the course of the fight. Things like the earth shock from Skeram when he was too far away from the tank (that he spammed anyways), or the initial mind flay ticks from C'Thun's eye tentacles (they spammed that too).
Actually, Deathwhisper's a good example of a good Grounding Totem fight. She spams a single target, interruptable ability that did little to alter the overall course of the fight unless completely neglected. A grounding totem wouldn't exactly revamp strats, but would be a godsend for those situations where melee had to run out for ghosts/adds, healers had to cover the idiots who didn't, casters had to deal with mind controlled folks/adds, whatever the situation would have been that led to the primary interrupters being unable to interrupt the boss themselves.
Warriors and shamans already have interrupts anyway, so maybe they consider reflect/grounding totem to be lockdown overkill.
Yeah, lockdown overkill's a problem when it comes to those abilities. That being said, lockdown overkill sorta counters the former statement as well. If everything else is going according to plan, spell reflect would never have the opportunity to go off anyways. As everyone gets their own interrupts and counters, Spell reflect is reaching the point where Blizzard could introduce it to raiding again without disrupting the balance they're trying so hard to create.
Also, imagine those first attempts on bosses where warriors try to spell reflect the non-groundable abilities
Glad they're finally starting to beef up Elemental; Resto was far and away the best PvP off-tree choice for enhancement for a while there. Now there's decent survivability and utility choices in both trees again.
And depending on how much cleansing waters heals for, resto too.
Steam: pazython
WTF is up with blizz going backwards and adding more boring straight to stats talents in our tree? acuity has to be a placeholder...
Can't.
That makes it unique and nothing can ever be unique because then a class would be preferable.
But at the very least can we PLEASE scrap this goddamned Searing Totem idea and come up with something else?
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Nothing about it jumps out at me. Searing Totem itself is pretty boring as an ability - the fact that they added in a gimmick piece of code so that you can target it doesn't change that for me at all.
Also, the very last thing Enhancement shamans want is ramp-up time on their DPS when movement or target switching fights are already pretty annoying thanks to the nature of totems.
I know.
Just putting my own irritation with the concept of "everything must be the same" out there.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow