The statistics Smokescreen.

Q u o t e:
What you've just done is say that the representation shows that something needs to be done, and then listed all the nerfs Druids have suffered. (Nerfs happen for a reason. Chances are good that if a buff happens, it won't be to undo a nerf.) And then, developer conspiracy to keep DKs and Druids down.

The only meaningful feedback in this thread so far is that you wish you had more dispel protection, or maybe that you wish Lifebloom's dispel protection was better. That's the discussion to participate in. "I think my spec's representation is low because we're excessively vulnerable to dispels" is much more useful to their efforts to make the game better than "I think my spec's representation is low because we're not good enough and I don't get why you hate Druids."

Sound advice from Believe.

Q u o t e:
Hence the GC, quote above. He always plays the this is how you should post card and rarely plays the this is how we think card. By doing this blizzard gets to keep their customers in the dark whether by intention or some perceived feeling of necessity. "In another words things that have been said have come back to bite them." But that doesn't mean you should stop. It means you should do it more. While developing the game is not a democracy by any means. Regular and frequent reports to customers about intended changes would help.

I ask a company that I believe in that has made a quality product in the past to be a little more open. I realise that blizzard is more open now than any time in its history but that is not enough. I ask that they start to truly discuss changes being made to the product openly and honestly. I also ask that they stop trying to marginalise statistics posted on other sites.

Otherwise you will get people who think blizzard just doesn't care about x spec or y class. I feel bad because the original intent of this thread was not to search for a blue response but to discuss resto druids and how no matter how many statistics pages you linked blizzard would ultimately dismiss them as not relevant.

There are some risks with being too open. One is that you kill the discussion. If we immediately answer every question, then there isn’t much reason for players to go back and forth, and we lose the potential to learn something about what our players are thinking or feeling. WoW has a healthy theorycrafting community. If we over explain things, then we reduce or remove the need to experiment. We really want the forums to be a place for discussion, principally among players. If we want to get a message out, we have better ways to do it that have a chance to reach more players.

I know I personally slip into politician speak when I’m worried about players misinterpreting something or trying to use it as a big club to get their way. If we say “There is a bug,” then players might respond with “OMG Blizzard admits releasing unpolished content.” If I admit where we made a mistake, players can respond with “OMG Blizzard is just flopping around helplessly and needs to let the community make all the big decisions.” I don’t like slipping into that mode and I try to catch myself, but it has definitely helped me understand why politicians do it so often. :)

Q u o t e:
as an aside the only reason players continue to try to use class/spec representation as a defense is because its obvious Blizz DOES base a great deal of their class decisions off of representation ratios. When they do so is the trick and this is not one of those times. Let it go.

Representation is a data point. It’s not the only data point. Another data point is what the best players of that class / spec can manage. Another is what the worst players can manage. Another is whether players think that class / spec is fun to play.

When we’re dealing with who plays what class, we are trying to interpret a very noisy data set that probably has literally hundreds of variables that are difficult to measure or model. We can’t always tell you why some classes have 8% representation and others have 15% (though some players will try to boil it down to very simple and probably inaccurate explanations). Since it’s hard to determine cause and effect, the most useful information comes when there is a big shift. If you see representation jump or fall over a short period of time then it’s likely that something happened. Maybe one of the variable suddenly overwhelmed all the others and caused a shift. If we introduced a big PvP buff or nerf it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see PvP representation suddenly change (though I’m sure there is also an effect where representation changes just because players heard about a buff or nerf and not because power actually changed that much).

Q u o t e:
I also don't understand why people think statistics means nothing. Everyone agrees druids/warriors/locks dominated in TBC, not surprisingly, they had the highest representation.

Statistics are very powerful, but only when coupled with interpretation. If you look at say a medical study, what you will see is a bunch of numbers and graphs that are probably hard to interpret unless you are very familiar with the questions being asked. This nearly raw data is called “Results.” What comes after that is a part of the study called “Discussion.” This is the section that is the most important part of the study. In it the researchers try and interpret what is going on in the data. They are trying to answer questions, or at least explore whether they can reject a hypothesis. The data are really just there in case someone disagrees with their interpretation. When the mainstream media report on the study, they typically don’t do much with the data. They go straight to the discussion or the conclusion of the study.

Too many of the posts in the WoW forums (and not just the Blizzard ones) are results with no discussion. Linking to arena (or whatever) representation is step one of your post, not the entire post. Numbers can rarely ever just speak for themselves unless the situation is as simple as reading the temperature off of a thermometer -- a relatively simple measurement generally held to be accurate enough for answering the question being posed: what is the current temperature? If you’re asking a question more complex than that, and whether Resto druids are underpowered certainly qualifies, then you need to explore things a little more than just linking easily available numbers. That is the point I am always trying to make with responses like this.

I realize you might rather see me post “Here is how we’re going to buff druids,” but if we wanted to say that, we would (see my reply above). On the other hand, directing players a little on how to make more useful posts can potentially pay big dividends over the course of the entire game. I plan on reading these forums for years to come, so it’s in my interest to do what little I can to try to elevate the quality of the discussion. :)

Q u o t e:
The developers know representation is low (or high or constant or whatever)- they want feedback on why that it is. That feedback's going to be subjective, which is fine. It's going to be disputed, which is even better. It's not going to be cut-and-dried, even if a choice seems to you to be a total no-brainer- it's not. If it was, it would've already been made. Record your experiences with the game and be willing to discuss them. That's useful.

Yes.

Q u o t e:
You should not make statements like this directly under a post where GC just said the exact opposite. Here is what Ghostcrawler just said. If you discuss representation, as opposed to just quoting it, you are doing it right. If you discuss any one aspect that you find lacking, you are doing it right. If you provide personal experience, then some players may attempt to make it a L2P issue, but that players reply has nothing to do with what Blizzard thinks. And I imagine Blizzard does find personal experience posts informative, considering how often Ghostcrawler asks use to post them instead of raw QQ.

Personal experience is very informative. It's probably one of the most valuable things we can get from these forums. You will get more credibility if you phrase your points in terms of "My experience is..." instead of "My experience is... and therefore all players' experience is...".