Excessive Design Overlap for Warlocks/Mages

#0 - April 10, 2009, 5:05 p.m.

This post isn’t so much about a problem as a design element. Overall balance whines don’t really fit either. And frankly, anyone who feels the need to mention the “sunwelling” of mages doesn’t really have much of a point. I’m not worried about my raid spot, I just see a problem

So here’s my concern:
There’s too much design overlap between mages and warlocks when looking at it from a PvE raiding perspective. And that design overlap is such that a warlock tends to eclipse a mage.
This isn’t about DPS. The stated goal of Blizz is that locks and mages bring approx equal DPS assuming all else is equal. While I don’t have the numbers to argue whether or not that goal is met, I assume it will be, or adjustments will be made in attempt of reaching that goal. Regardless, the problem, as I see it, still exists.

With the raid buff/debuff homogenization of 3.0, there are almost no unique buffs left. This is a good thing. Ideally, there would be none. If your without a shadow priest for the night, your still can get your replenishment from other classes and your spell hit debuff from a Moonkin. If your without an Enhance Shammy, you can get your attack power buff (Unleashed rage) from Abominations might or true shot aura, and use a Resto Shammy o provide totem buffs (or a frost DK for Imp Icy Talons and Horn of Winter).
No one class or spec is necessary. You can cut out a specific class and still build a raid that covers all the buffs and debuffs. The key thing is it usually takes multiple different classes/spec to cover the one that’s missing. Pulling a fury warrior out of your raid and you need a Pally to use might to replace Battle shout and a Feral to provide Leader of the pack because you don’t have rampage. Replacing a Balace Druid requires a Ret Pally for +3% haste, an Elemental Shammy for +5% spell crit, a Shadow Priest for 3% spell hit debuff, a lock of unholy dk for spell damage debuff. Lots of overlap, but no direct replacement. That’s the idea.

You can directly replace a mage with a warlock. That’s the problem.

It’s not everything a mage brings, someone else can bring – that’s fine. It’s everything a mage brings, a warlock can bring instead. That’s just bad design.
Given that mages and warlock seem fairly interchangeable already, it just builds on the problem. They are both pure magic casters that are ranged. They tend to be thought of as far more interchangeable than any of the hybrid range casters (Ele Shammies, Boomkins, Shadow Priests).
Another note, I hate when classes that fill very similar roles bring interchangeable debuffs and love when classes that fill very different roles bring them. Allow me to elaborate:
Elemental Shammies and Boomkins both bring 5% spell crit buff to a raid. Both these classes are quite similar (ranged hybrid magic caster that can throw offheals in an emergency). Direct comparisons happen between them. So this is a less desirable overlap in my view. Probably need overlap like this, but its not the ideal.

Enhance Shammies and Marksman Hunters both bring percentage attack power buff (Trueshot aura and unleashed rage). But theres a real difference between these classes, 1 is a hybrid melee dps that mixes in magic and physical damage and the other is a ranged pure physical DPSer. You don’t think of these classes in the same way at all and direct comparisons happen far less than in the other comparison. Overlaps between rogues and elemental shaman (3% crit debuff), warlocks and death knights (ebon plaguebring and CoE), Shadow Priests and Ret Pallies and Survival Hunters (replenishment) are quite cool.

So why has blizzard made all the mage overlaps with just warlocks?
Don’t have AI? Closest substitute is from a lock.
Don’t have the scorch or winters chill debuff? Locks provide that.
Hell they added new utility to mages in 3.1 (replenishment for frost mages) and gave it to Locks at the same time.

Again, I’m fine if you can replace everything a mage provides (you should be able to), but it should take more than 1 class to do it. And making it the absolute closest class in terms of comparisons and playstyles (warlocks) is kinda dumb.

Wouldn’t it be better if instead of Warlocks, Prot pallies were also putting up the 5% spell crit taken debuff, and Resto Shammies were providing excess intellect to the raid?? Or something like that? Or am I way off base?

Ghostcrawler

#73 - April 10, 2009, 9:37 p.m.

I think the OPs original point about how close the mage and warlock are in the design space (down to using similar gear) was the most interesting. After that the discussion kind of wandered into the same kinds of threads we have seen a lot of lately.

We don't think mages are in any realistic danger of losing spots to warlocks. If we're really down in the realm of "They'll bring the other guy because his debuff is easier to apply" then I think there are probably other things you can do to make yourself a valuable member of your group.

We don't think mages and warlocks are in any danger of losing their spots to evil hybrids. Groups that run with all hybrids are most likely going to have lower dps (though not as low as if they had brought all hybrids during BC).

We think mage and warlock dps are pretty comparable. Again, close enough that things like boss, gear, skill, luck and even lag are probably going to have more of an impact on the numbers you come up with than the base numbers in the spells and talents alone.

Things may work out different in Ulduar for one reason or another. Maybe players develop a new rotation that bumps their dps more than the ones currently being used. Maybe someone comes up with a glyph - trinket combo that does amazing things. Maybe the specific items that drop in Ulduar do more than the test shirts players had on the PTR. If any of that leads to what we think are bad outcomes, then we will adjust accordingly.

Ghostcrawler

#160 - April 13, 2009, 6:31 p.m.

Q u o t e:
________________________________________
Q u o t e:
Groups that run with all hybrids are most likely going to have lower dps
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Bring.The.Player.Not.The.Class.

Exactly. We don’t want to give you too much motivation to stack hybrids. :)

Q u o t e:
The entire homogenisation of dps and buffs is lazy game design. Instead of adjusting classes accordingly and watching each classes dps/buff benefits, it's much easier to lump them all in one heap to avoid the whole 'sunwell syndrome'.

It's not that Blizzard couldn't do it, it's just that this was the easier option. And it just means we're turning into the same toon but shooting different coloured lazer beamz. Except the fatal flaw in the system is that a few are still better than the rest.

Shamans still bring heroism and warlocks still bring soulstones. Two massive pieces of raid utility unaccounted for by other classes.

I don't care that they have them, but the fact that they do doesn't correspond with Blizzard's current PvE class balance design philosophy.

We disagree of course, and I think it may be because you are looking at the goal as “homogenize everyone.” We are looking at the goal as “You should get a slot because you know what you’re doing, not because you provide an awesome buff by virtue of what class you chose at level 1.” In Sunwell, you wanted A LOT of shamans for Bloodlust rotations. In Lich King, Bloodlust is still a really nice buff, but you don’t need more than a single shaman and you can probably live without even that. Soulstones are nice, and we can all tell a story about the one fight where the guy who came back helped to save the day, but I think those stories are compelling because they are rare. You can’t easily say that 10% of boss kills would have failed for lack of a Soulstone. When viewed that way, it becomes more of a nice thing to have and not a thing you must have. A guy who freely shares flasks or knows the boss strategy or keeps the team from getting too frustrated is really nice to have too, and we don’t mind if you stack them.

For the players who advocate a design where every spec brings a truly unique buff, I think in their minds they like the security of knowing they will always be wanted. But they might not think about the downside of that model, which is that there are only 25 raid spots. Imagine WoW eventually has 20 classes (I’m not saying that’s in the cards, but consider it for a minute). Are we really going to have 5 or 6 Bloodlust equivalents that are unique but equal? We could probably design that given enough time, but to what end? We’d rather the game be about whether or not you can beat the boss, not whether or not you can build the perfect raid group (which probably involves asking your friends to reroll or bringing players you’d rather not bring just because their raid buff is so indispensible).

Raid because you’re good, not because your class is good. For our part, we’ll try and make sure your class doesn’t hold you back (but neither will it bring the proverbial golden ticket).

Q u o t e:
Yes. The issue isn't that mages or warlocks are better or worse. The issue is that they're the same, in almost every regard. They provide the same benefits, do the same damage, play the same way, have the same gear...

Yeah, I still agree that this is the more interesting issue. Perhaps the classes would feel more unique if warlocks wore leather or mages could use different weapons or if the demon affected the second-to-second gameplay of the warlock much more (which does not necessarily mean having to microamange it in combat). Or, even if that niche was filled by (gasp!) Soul Shards.