#0 - March 27, 2008, 8:15 p.m.
Q u o t e:
Aedar:Q u o t e:
Where Elemental Shamans are used in arenas is in 5v5 teams for their burst damage, these teams will have a Paladin with Improved Concentration Aura, which means that the nerf to their PVP set from 70% to 50% push back resistance has no effect as the Paladin aura still pushes it over 100% resistance.
Where Elemental Shaman are under-represented is in 2v2 and 3v3 where they are weak. The nerf to the PVP kit simply makes them weaker in these categories.
How do you reconcile this nerf with the developers acknowledging our concerns about viability in 70 arenas
I'll use this reply as a basis for my rant. Vaneras, Aadar here explains exactly what's wrong with dev thinking. They see one action, think it's overpowered and nerf it without a second of thought.
Let's go back to patch 2.3 PTR, shall we? If I may remind you, two big changes happened to elemental shamans: Lightning Mastery got nerfed from 1.0s reduction to 0.5s reduction for Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, while Lightning Overload got buffed from 5% proc chance x 100% boost to 20% chance x 50% boost. In essence, the devs thought that buffing LO x2 will negate the 50% nerf of Lightning Mastery.
Within minutes of patch notes released, people were already posting on the forums with written proof and calculations, showing why this is a bad idea. Within hours of PTR opening, we've had hundreds of tests proving the same in-game. Still, the devs dismissed it as a "fan fiction" and declined the idea of them being wrong.
It's not first such example, Vaneras. Remember what happened when TBC patch notes were first revealed? Massive responses all over mage forums warned Blizzard that it's a bad, bad, BAD road they picked - yet the devs refused to listen. A group of players back then issues a warning with specific timetables, showing what they think would happen. Guess what - EXACTLY that happened and it was a hasted Improved Fireball and Frostbolt unnerf, along with several arcane tree and trinket nerfs that managed to somewhat halt this progress.
You know, we could have avoided all that, if only Kalgan chose to listen back then. Look, I know that designing stuff takes time. Hell, I'm the first to admit that some demands are just silly and your job on the forums is a hell of a hard work trying to separate the good from the bad. But when you have valued people such as Faxmonkey posting, when you have valued ElitistJerks theorycrafters warn you about things, hell, when you have half the internet making fun of you for a silly idea, something MUST be done.
The 2.3 change eventually got solved, probably in no small part due to player feedback and PROOF, as well as possible solutions and actual numbers as to just how much scaling is missing. Even though you'll never admit it, I'm fairly certain the dottalution played a part in that too.
Then, there came the leaked 2.4 patch notes. You and your team, as well as those in USA didn't want to confirm them and to date, they remained unofficial and officially, unimportant. Unfortunately, they're not. Given the progress of 2.4 on PTR, we are now certain that those notes were real. A vast majority of those proposed changes made it to PTR and these reveal a terrible picture - the devs obviously believe that at least shamans are overpowered. In the mean time, we have numbers showing that shamans are by far the least played class in game. In the mean time, we have numbers showing that even with these low numbers, shamans perform massively subpar in 2v2 and 3v3 arenas, only narrowly above their low population numbers in 5v5. Yet still, the devs decided to act and nerf.
When asked what the *@%* he was thinking, Kalgan responded (speaking from my head): "We will fix shamans, but we don't want to do it by giving them a large burst." So logically, the burst is nerfed. Now where's the fix? One fix was suggested, MS on flametongue. I don't even know where to begin talking about why this was a BAD idea and completely out of touch with reality. Back then, I personally got pissed and called Kalgan names, receiving a temporary ban. I may have been banned, but my belief stands and these above are the reasons why I think so more firmly than ever that I am right.
The devs are, quite simply, out of touch with reality. Either they don't give a damn, they have no clue or they have a twisted perception of what should be done. Vaneras, I know you're an intelligent person. Think - you have designed a game. Your daily job is to keep the classes in this game balanced. If you have a team of intelligent people working on this balance, is it not logical that they will think of at least BASIC consequences of their actions? You can't just throw in an idea and let it be chewed up. It'll take you days to implement something, only to be taken right out because YOUR BASIC IDEA WAS FLAWED. That's not how you balance things, for god's sake! Sure, you brainstorm stuff, but before you actually go trying it out you HAVE to ask yourself if 2 + 2 is really 4 and not 3.5 or something.
Let's take the burst nerf. We have a shaman. He's balanced against, say, mages, weak against, say rogues and overpowered in a group. We want to nerf this overpoweredness. We ask ourselves - why is he overpowered? Answer: burst. Fine, let's nerf burst. We split NS-EM. What happens now? Shaman's burst was nerfed, this effect had no change on rogue battle and it made the shaman weaker against mages. So we've now reduced the power against a mage, which made him weak against this mage and he's still weak against rogues, but he's ok in groups. This is where devs stopped and put things up on PTR. But this isn't the end of our process. We have to ask ourselves further - Now what? Why are rogues and mages better? Because they can control our shaman. What can we do against it? Give shaman some way to regain control, enough to make the fight balanced, but not too much so he won't be overpowered. Will this improve the shaman's burst in pvp? No. As you can see, we've come full circle and we've managed to balance far more than with our initial question.
THIS is what the devs lack. They are simply SHORTSIGHTED. There, I said it. Kalgan - lacks - vision. His team lacks vision. They try to solve things, but they don't look an inch beyond their noses - and THAT, Vaneras, is why we're having pretty much all the main issues with arena balance and TBC balance in general. This won't change, it can't change as long as they don't change their way of solving things. This has been dragging on for an eternity now and we haven't progressed a bit. Devs simply see one point, totally focus on that, completely ignoring other consequences, which results in a disaster after disaster. Were it not for persistent feedbacks and occasional dottalutions, I'm pretty sure WoW would be a complete mess.
Vaneras, you're doing a great job, you really are. Keeping the forums stable is a great responsibility. If I ever insulted you or any other CM, I sincerely apologize, you certainly didn't deserve it. However, I also firmly believe that Kalgan and his balancing team need to get their acts straight. Set a long-term plan, see what you want to achieve, then work with community to achieve it. If people won't agree with something, they'll tell you. If something doesn't fit the idea of the class, you'll hear it. A good example is MS on flametongue - retribution paladins would kill to get it, yet shamans said "nope, sorry, it's a good buff, but it doesn't fit our class. It's not what we need". Quite frankly, it seems as if we're lately getting loads of "we don't really need that" as a supplement for class' drawbacks. Lack of knowledge about the class, "panem et circenses" tactic or inability to grasp deeper concepts? I don't know. Devs have to ask themselves which one it is. I certainly hope it's not the second, because that would be a shame long-term. I hope it's not the third, because that would mean my claim about Kalgan was justified. Number one, though, can be solved - as long as the devs are willing to listen and to learn from their own mistakes. And quite frankly, it's about time they do.
