My Class Imbalance

So. . .

I'm still plodding along with my druid and warrior. I finally got the [Essence of Gossamer] from heroic Azjol-Nerub last night and replaced my [Sonic Booster]. This puts me up to a solid 27111 health unbuffed, while keeping ~37% dodge+parry (before diminishing returns) and 20ish% block. All of the drops in Naxx-10 are either side-grades, or minor upgrades, except for tier pants and shoulders and a pair of boots.

My poor, poor druid on the other hand can't seem to get any gear to save his life. I still have a half dozen or so relatively significant upgrades from heroics that I can get, and of course everything in Naxx-10 is zomg good compared to what I'm wearing. I did manage to get my enchanting up to 440 though, so I can do all of the enchants from the shard vendor. But my pitiful 1550ish healing when specced resto, and 1660ish damage when specced balance are churning out numbers that I would yell at anyone else for having. But I can't get any upgrades from normal instances (except for a couple wonky trinkets that are too good for where they drop), so I feel sort of stuck.

I was amazed at Northrend when I leveled through it with both of my characters. It felt very natural to progress, and I never felt like I had "strayed" into a high-level zone that I shouldn't have been in. My warrior continued this progression all the way through Naxx. I've never felt like I wasn't geared enough to tank something on him. But my druid makes me feel like I missed a step somewhere. I keep looking at gems and enchants thinking that I missed a +150 spellpower upgrade. My glyphs are for resto, but I don't believe that swapping them to balance ones would increase my dps by the 500 or more that I need. All of the gear from normal instances are downgrades, but the heroic instances kill my tanks when I'm healing, or just leave me sputtering at 1500 dps. Maybe I just need more practice like my holy pally brother keeps telling me.

In any case, druid gear is what I'll be doing this week. I think another 2-3 solid upgrades, and I'll be set for Naxx.

A Summary of Suggested Paladin Stat Change

I've been running some numbers to determine how to homogenize the plate armor for paladins - specifically holy paladins - so that spellpower plate is phased out, much like feral attack power is being worked towards. With the conversions I've worked out, the combination of a spellpower 1h and shield will still be superior, but trinkets, rings, and necks will be a toss-up between strength and spellpower. So without further ado, here are the conversions:

1 str -> 2 SP, 1 int
4 stam -> 1 mp5

With these conversions (at 70, at least), a retribution pally with 1800 attack power and ~10k health will have (when specced holy) about 1200 spellpower, ~10k mana, and 175 mp5. I haven't looked at the conversion for prot yet, but without real numbers I think that the current talent can be reduced to 10% of stamina from 30% so that the str -> SP can be baseline. The str -> int and stam -> mp5 can be deep holy - at least 30 points. Sheath of Light could probably be done away with, or simply reduced to the HoT portion.

This opens up a door to new healing styles, since holy will have a significant amount of attack power. Healing spells based on damage done to an enemy, or similar engaging mechanics. Also a big bonus is that ret/arms gear now becomes ret/arms/holy gear. The dependece on spellpower doesn't make me too uncomfortable, since the weapons/shields will still be shared by elemental/locks/mages/priests. The same goes for jewelry and trinkets.

Of course, there's nothing inflexible about these numbers, and I haven't thought of every possible combination of gear that might make either ret or holy completely overpowered. I'd like to get this posted to the healing forums and get some feedback on it, but I think I'll need some more number crunching first.

Quick Note About a Pally Change I Came Up With

I had an idea last night about how to keep holy paladins able to solo while allowing ret to have seals and judgments nerfed for whatever reason.

1. Put two talents of however many points into holy. One that has some conversion of strength->spellpower and the other that converts stamina->mana/5. Exact conversion rates can be determined later.

2. Scrap all plate spellpower gear.

3. Profit!

The basic idea here is twofold. First, holy paladins are the only spec in the game now that has a set of gear all their own. Second, it's very flavorful to have a "holy warrior" type character that can heal more the stronger he is, and can last longer healing if he has more stamina.

Using str/stam/crit plate dps gear, the holy pally would have spellpower/mp5/crit which is exactly what they're after. If they stack too much tank gear, then they can heal forever, but they lose spellpower. This may not be a complete fix for the entire class, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

Weaksauce!? No, Just Equilibrium

I see a lot of people complaining on forums about their class being too underpowered with the release of the 3.0.x patch. The weird thing to me is that every class is saying this. And no class is getting weaker than they are now. So people are assuming that other classes are getting more buffs than their own class is. How paranoid can you get?

Having never been forced to sit out due to min-maxing, it's a lot easier for me to see the buffs at face value. I can understand how people would be worried that they will get side-lined, but if Blizzard's statement about role equity is taken as true no class will be sidelined. Only certain players will be sidelined. I support this change.

As I understand it (and have seen for myself), there will still be "specialization" among roles for each class, but these abilities won't be head and shoulders above the other classes in those areas. Since tanking is my "forte," I'll give some examples of that.

• AOE tanking - Thunderclap and swipe will now hit all targets, but consecration will still be more threat per target.

• Off tanking - Druids will still have a "larger-than-average" health pool, but paladins and warriors scale with stamina exceptionally well compared to non-tanks.

• Main tanking - Every boss will be tankable by every class. Warrriors still have the most tricks up their sleeves, but that gap is narrowing fast.

I haven't mentioned death knights in these comparisons because I don't have a 70, and haven't done enough playing on one to know exactly where they fit. But everything I've read indicates that they will be a high avoidance/low(ish) health tank class. Threat won't be different to any significant degree on a single target, and will only slightly vary on AOE targets, between all classes.

I can't see any reason for anyone to worry about their class not being wanted by a raid. Except perhaps healers, but that would be a rare case indeed and would require serious construing of raid makeup.

I admit that the ones hit hardest by the changes are dps players. With healers and tanks able to do some notable damage, dps have to bring some truly remarkable damage to be beneficial to the raid. But I think this is a great change. One of my biggest pet peeves is a dps class who can't do more damage (or dps) than my tank. Having a reason to push those players to do even halfway decent damage can be nothing but good.

So to all the people who think that they won't be able to get a spot in a raid after the changes, maybe you should consider whether the problem is your class, or your ability.

[Enhancement Shaman Semi-Spoiler]

Since my last statement that enhancement shaman wouldn't make the exceptional list, I've played a bit on the beta with mine. He hasn't suddenly become über-awesome, but I think I missed a couple things, or they have been added.

There's a huge synergy between melee and spell damage now. Maelstrom Weapons encourages the use of heals when needed and offensive spells otherwise by making them instant. The new Flametongue Weapon gives bonus spell damage in addition to the on hit effect of fire damage each swing, and using Flametongue on your offhand weapon is hugely encouraged by a new spell (Lava Burst? I can't recall at the moment, and the realm is down) that deals instant offhand weapon damage as fire, and deals 25% more if the weapon is enchanted with Flametongue.

Couple this with the new Stormstrike that is only useable by the shaman who put it there, but also increases frost and fire damage in addition to nature, and suddenly my want to not be able to afk through a fight is fulfilled. I have totems every 5 minutes to place, and Stormstirke, Lava offhand, and Shocks every 8, 15?, and 6 seconds respectively.

A side benefit (or maybe hugely intentional) is that if you're using Flametongue on your offhand and Windfury on your mainhand, then you can follow the fury warrior/rogue model of having as slow of mainhand as you can get and as fast of offhand as you can get, which in turn reduces the number of weapon sets that have to drop, so everyone can get their gear faster.

As a side note, I think that having fewer pieces of gear drop, while hugely beneficial to raid progression, is a bad thing. No, I don't like waiting in Kara 8 months to get my last two enchants. But I think that it takes the uniqueness away from your character. There's no way to differentiate between Paladin and Warrior tanks just by seeing them from across the field, except if they have tier sets on. Rogues and feral Druids are the same, as well as enhancement Shaman and Hunters; Mages and Warlocks. Of course, resto and balance Druids get leather, resto Shaman and holy Paladins get mail and plate respectively, and holy Priests get cloth. So at least the healing classes will have different armor models. Maybe.

The collapsing of damage and healing to spellpower means that resto and balance Druids get basically the same stats. This goes for holy and shadow Priests, and elemental and resto Shaman. So now you won't be able to tell what spec someone is, either. I know that it's a small thing, but I liked being recognizable by what I was wearing. I like having [The Sun Eater] on my Warrior. I like having antlers and a [Squid Stick] on my Druid. (I have the [Wildlife Royalty Staff] now, but I'm trying to make a point ;))

Anyway, I think the change is good (for now). We'll see how it plays out on the live servers, and with raids and WotLK endgame.

The State of the Game Address

Hmmm. . . where to begin? The beta is shiny. And I mean very shiny. I think the graphics have been souped up a ton. But the really exciting thing to me is that the patch is coming! I want to share the shiny with my friends. 

The new talents are promised to make content super easy, and I think that ZA won't be challenging at all, except to learn the dance of the new fights. We still have some time to get a bear mount or two if we hurry, but honestly, I'm not too wound up about them. Might and Aeon (as well as a couple other guilds) have been selling bear mounts forever, so every dumbass who can scrape together 10k gold can get one. I much prefer my Raven Lord.

This isn't to say that I won't enjoy ZA. I want to get in there and just destroy Zul'jin. The fight seems interesting, Hex Lord's fight is complicated (which means fun!), and if I can get another potential "achievement" before the patch comes, I love it. I think the guild is plenty geared, and we just need practice at taking down the trash before the dragonhawk and lynx bosses. The bosses themselves we one-shot on their respective first attempts.

Without going into any detail about the new talents or abilities or anything, I think that feral is weak, and resto is strong. Balance is strong like a bodybuilder at Venice Beach. I love the conversion of damage/healing to a single stat, and have long thought that it should be that way. It means that healers can actually solo without taking a year to kill something, and that the caster specs (elemental, balance, shadow) of those classes can toss around heals in need without being at half-power.

Sadly, I don't see my shaman making the list of exceptional specs. He's enhancement, and I really have no desire to play as elemental (since balance is so good) or resto (since resto druids are so good). Fury is making awesome headway due to their 51-point talent, so melee dps will probably be my warrior. Rogues are reported to be zomgsupergood with assassination, while combat is decent and subtlety is still PvP only. So I might try to level my rogue (currently 12, lol) and see what happens there. And it's not that enhancement will be bad, it just won't be good, either. Just sort of hanging out until a future patch.

But here's to new content, new abilities, and sharing them with friends!