GC: The root problem in PvP is with melee

#0 - Jan. 7, 2009, 12:33 p.m.

It's been slowly heading that way since S3, but arenas have reached a point where if you play a ranged DPS class that is not a mage, you are fodder for every melee class. It's also the reason you probably don't see a lot of rogues in the top 100, despite the consensus that they're such an overpowered class.

With no casters to pick on, rogues now have to face a wealth of ret pallies, DK's, and mages at the top ratings. And for those still conditioned to facing Subtlety rogues with Cheat Death and Preparation, you'll learn quickly that mutilate rogues are a lot squishier. Warriors and enhancement shaman face this same problem (easily burstable and can't go toe to toe with any of the above classes).

But if/when burst damage is finally toned down, whether through broad nerfs or increased stam values, caster classes are still going to find themselves at the bottom of the heap. Warriors and rogues will once again move up in the rankings as MS effects become more critical.

I've PvP'ed on my lock since vanilla and I can freely admit -- we're not even the worst DPS caster in arenas atm. That title is shared by shadowpriests and elemental shaman. Boomkins are a step above primarily because of Starfall RNG stun (which wouldn't you know it, is great at CC'ing melee) and higher armor (that can't be dismantled). Hunters would be right down here with us if they didn't have a melee pet that does half their DPS and an instant aimed shot.

Here is the fundmental balance problem when analyzing melee vs. ranged -- If you focus ranged DPS, you effectively neuter their DPS. Even if you can't reach him/her, you're still forcing him to kite, to play reactively. Ranged DPS cannot afford to cast non-instant spells. By doing so, we lose our mobility and once melee close the gap, we're now at risk of stuns, interrupts, pushback, mortal strike debuffs, and some of the most ridiculous burst in the game. We're thus forever having to react and play defensively when melee turn to focus us, gimping our ability to DPS.

Giving us more kiting abilities such as a snare removal on teleport isn't getting to the heart of the issue. Giving us defensive cooldowns like Deterrence and Dispersion only delay the inevitable. Take a look at Fire Mages. They have Blink, Ice Block, Frost Nova, Blazing Speed -- more than anything us other casters could hope for. Yet they're not represented in arenas at all.

What ranged DPS needs to be effective in arenas is one of three things:

The third is necessary for dps hybrids like elemental shaman. If you simply give every ranged caster an ability to root/stun/CC, you'd make PvP frustrating as hell for melee, especially those who are easily kited (like enhancement shaman). Instead, casters that lack the ability to create an opening to nuke need to do more burst when that opening is created, whether through the help of a teammate or the opponent's mistake of ignoring you.

The more crowd control a class has, the less burst capabilities he should be given. The biggest imbalance of WotLK PvP has been to give more burst to classes that already had some of the best control and defensive cooldowns in the game (ie. mages and rogues).

The same template should apply for melee. If you're a spec/class that lacks a reliable distance closer, has few interrupts, and/or no MS debuff, your burst should be higher to compensate.

#41 - Jan. 7, 2009, 4:46 p.m.

IMO, it's not melee per se. It's classes that can do high damage who also have very potent defense mechanisms.

The four classes that seem to earn the most complaints are:

Death knight -- plate-wearer, many cooldown defenses (many of which are getting nerfed).
Paladin -- plate-wearer, bop and heals. Ret still has a lot of burst potential. Neither spec is running out of mana.
Mage -- fragile but slippery. Lots of damage from Arcane Barrage. Gets away with Blink, Frost Nova, Ice Block... everyone knows the drill here.
Rogue -- fragile but slippery. Lots of stuns, stealth and cloak.

Forgive the brief oversimplification, but I think that is basically why those four classes are doing so well. Now to some extent, that is exactly what everyone should suspect. High burst tends to dominate over high endurance or high sustained damage when resilience is low. Even if we did nothing (and I'm not saying that is the case), I think most players would expect paladins to decrease in effectiveness as the seasons go on. Over nerfing them now, or buffing everyone's survivability now, might mean that paladins never really come into power and then slowly collapse as time goes on. Meanwhile, warriors for instance stand to benefit from their mechanics (specifically a resource that can be limited in scales of seconds but infinite in scales of minutes) as defenses increase and seasons go on. Mage and rogue tools are good now and remain good, though the mages may shift from Arcane to Frost over time. I'm not saying that any of this is our design per se and working as intended. I am just outlying the risks from our POV.

My point is that these are natural cycles to some extent. It's the way the mechanics will play out. The questions are:

1) In the short-term are certain classes TOO dominant right now?
2) In the mid-term, will other classes improve while some decrease?
3) In the long-term, is it a good design to have some classes superior with low resilience and others superior with high resilience?

This is not a "GC sez no changes for PvP reroll GG" thread. I'm trying to outline the overall decisions we have to make about how Arena should work and then see if what is happening now matches that. Make sense?