Is there room for min/max players?

#0 - May 22, 2009, 11:49 p.m.

The recent news about Jewelcrafting is just one more example of Blizzard taking away the potential to min/max.

I was a maxed out BS/Miner in TBC on my Ret Paladin.
I leveled Leatherworking to add to the drum rotation as we worked through BT in preperation for Sunwell.
I leveled my paladin to 80, and was raiding on him until it became clear there was 'within 5%' for Hybrids, and then there was 'maybe 5%' for DK's.
I leveled Inscription first so I could avoid the Rep Grind for my shoulders (And I had already leveled BS/Mining on my Pally and didnt care to do that again and would return to it after my rep grind was done)
I then leveled JC as it was the best for Min/Max PvE.

What is wrong with wanting your character to be 'the bes' it can be? Why are we constantly cut back in potential when all we are doing is taking a path that is open and available to everyone?

Is there any intent in allowing for an optimal path or are we to expect everyone be nerfed back (because you will not buff to match) to an equal standing?

Ghostcrawler

#20 - May 23, 2009, 2:34 a.m.

I find the flow of logic that nerfing an overpowered tradeskill leads to the game having no direction to be a bit tenuous. I suspect the actual issue here is "Man, it sucks to get nerfed," which I don't think anyone will disagree with.

There are plenty of min/max players in WoW. You will find them in Ulduar, at high ranks of PvP and even playing the Auction House. The trick to such a playstyle is to make the most out of subtle, perhaps small differences. When you choose something that has a big red arrow over it that says "Most powerful" then you're not being clever or insightful. That's not what I'd call min/maxing but making the obvious choice. ;)

Ghostcrawler

#126 - May 23, 2009, 6:28 p.m.

The question was asked on this (and other issues) if it was OP before why did it take so long to nerf it?

Usually the answer is some combination of the following (and not just with regard to JC):

1) It was only slightly OP until players really started gearing up with new combinations of items that things get out of control.

2) We had a long-term plan to do something differently and decided either that plan was going to get bumped or we couldn't wait for its implementation.

3) We have a really long list of changes we want to make to WoW. Some things just take awhile to get to. More critical issues do get bumped to the top, but sometimes it still takes us a bit to agree on the right change and often bug fixes get even higher priority than design changes.

If you see something that seems off, chances are good that we do too but just haven't gotten to it yet.