Why Arms and not Shamans?

#0 - March 2, 2009, 3:22 a.m.

This is not a grief post, this is a genuine concern. GC has recently stated that they're trying to remove the RNG from Arms, and they've been steadily removing a number of RNG-related abilities such as procc stuns and converting "chance of resist" to "duration reductions." I approve of these changes: Arms sorely needs some love, and the overall effect of these changes is to make it easier to predict combat, and in so doing, to follow Sun Tzu's axiom and enter the fight knowing how to win it.

But Shamans in general are one of the most RNG-dependent classes in the game. With no class is it easier to lose a fight just because all of your abilities failed to proc.

Let's tally things up, shall we?

Baseline:
Windfury: 20% chance to proc; can be parried, dodged, missed, and blocked (more RNG love); no way to increase proccage (except Glyph)
Frostbrand: PPM; no way to increase proccage
Earthliving Weapon: 20% chance to proc; no way to increase proccage

Talented:
Clearcasting: Crit-based; effected by resilience
Lightning Overload: 20% chance, no way to increase proccage
Flurry: Crit-based; effected by resilience
Unleashed Rage: Crit-based, effected by resilience
Static Shock: Flat 6% chance to proc, no way to increase proccage
Shamanistic Rage: Chance on hit, no way to increase proccage (dependence on this ability somewhat neutralized by Improved Stormstrike [3.1])
Maelstrom Weapon: PPM

These are not "bonus" abilities, like a Druid's Omen of Clarity (nice when it happens, but you CAN live without it), these are bread-and-butter abilities that absolutely must work for shamans to have a chance in PvP. Otherwise, the equivalent scenario is to give abilities like Mortal Strike, Arcane Barrage, or Wrath an 80% miss rate!

The problem here is that all these random abilites are balanced in a raid environment; even at a whopping 6% proc rate, Static Shock is guaranteed to proc some time, and since raid balance takes place over a long period of time, the rest of Shaman DPS is built around a certain percentage of procs over time for major abilities. In PvP, you have mere moments instead of hours, and every ability that is outside your control is a liability, not an asset. In such an environment, that "20% of the time" looks awfully small when an ability absolutely has to procc in the next five seconds. And an ability that does 400-800 damage tends to look pretty miniscule when it only proccs 6% of the time. You tend to ignore it because you can't depend on it, regardless of how much it supposedly "contributes" to your DPS.

In short, because of the RNG, shaman damage is far less reliable in PvP, and there's no way to control your burst. I'm not trying to argue that shamans are not well-equipped; I'm trying to ask why Arms is getting buffed in this way, but not shamans?

To be honest, I prefer slow-but-steady over random and bursty; we have enough to worry about wondering whether or not we're going to get dodged/parried/missed (to say nothing of staying in range!). Classes that can control their burst and have cooldowns at their disposal can look back at a fight and say, "Well, if I had done something different, I might have won." Shamans do not have that luxury. "Well, if my Windfury had procced, I might won." Which is why my shaman is 70, not 80.

Make no mistake: I thoroughly approve Blizzard's recent buffs to enhancement Shamans, buffs that neatly circumvent two of our most irritating problems without giving us an extra GCD or two to manage. With Frost Power we're MUCH less kiteable, and the mana return with Improved Stormstrike nullifies the dilemma over Shamanistic Rage (making it possible to use SR for its intended purpose, survival, without having to worry about mana recovery later!). Nevertheless, our RNGs remain integral, rather than external.

Any comments?

#41 - March 2, 2009, 4:48 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I don't think blizz has a problem with RNG abilities, their problem imo is when other players feel helpless against it.... There are many abilities in game that players really have no control over, and it goes to show that blizz approves of certain RNG behaviors.

This is a good summary. We have no problem with RNG to a point. WoW is an RPG and we think part of that is having a random component to the outcome of some events. We realize some players would like to remove most RNG from the game, but that isn't our stance. Where RNG is a problem, especially in PvP, is when the outcome has too much influence. RNG is bad when it feels like who wins or loses an Arena match too often comes down to a single random roll.

A few examples:

-- The dispel system started to feel too random. Chance are you wouldn't be able to dispel something, but once in awhile you could, and that changed everything.
-- Random stuns became a problem. An ability with a 100% stun chance can be balanced around say its cost or cooldown. Random stuns are just an unpredictable bonus.
-- Too much random damage. Sudden Death (the Arms warrior talent) was a problem here. It approached the point of having a percent chance to kill a target or a percent chance to do almost nothing. (Don't confuse the fact that Arms damage is too low at the moment with their burst being too high before we changed this ability.)

One of the keys is whether you are talking about a few random rolls or many. If it is many random rolls, then the probability tends to even out over time. A 50% chance to proc something will happen about half the time as you approach infinity. We don't think the RNG nature of Windfury is a huge problem because it isn't always coming down to a situation where if WF had proc'd, you would have won the match. (Having that happen once in awhile is fine -- that is probably the definition of a very close, exciting match.) Over the course of an Arena, WF tends to proc with about the same frequency. If WF was a 2% chance to boost damage by 50X, then that would be too much RNG. The balancing problems we've had with Windfury have a lot more to do with its total contribution -- whether it does too much or not enough damage overall, and less about the random nature of the proc.

We have also backed off the design where all certain specs bring to PvP is MASSIVE DAMAGE LOL. We have been trying to give more specs more utility-based abilities (say on-demand CC, or on-demand CC breaks). If Enhancement is not competitive in PvP, we'd rather address the problem through this direction.