Lower-level Class Balance Issues & Solutions

Since patch 5.0.4 was released, our Class Design Team has been working around the clock to tweak and improve all eleven classes’ damage, healing, and survivability in both PvE and PvP. As those developers look on here (and possibly reply), we thought this might be a good place to talk about balance issues specifically for characters at level 84 and below.

• In-game today, at lower character levels, what class/spec/playstyle do you feel most needs attention?

• Which talent/spell/action do you feel is currently overpowered or underpowered?

We will be participating in this thread as much as possible, and any off-topic discussion will be strictly moderated.

Thank you for your feedback and enthusiasm!

There have been many complaints about Holy Paladins at lower levels and how spells like Holy Shock and Denounce are hitting far harder than they should be, effectively killing players in two casts or even a single hit. I'm specifically mentioning the 10-20 bracket, but this issue seems to arise in most brackets below level 85.

A fix to these issues would be nice as long as they don't affect maximum-level Holy Paladin performance.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6489879376?page=4#68

:-)

09/07/2012 05:01 AMPosted by Tarutur

The water and food for lower levels should be modified to compensate for changed mana and health pools since cata. This is something that really has been asked around a lot and still something to be looked at.

We did buff these values when we made the mana change, but it’s possible they yet require another look. We're considering making adjustments to them after all of the mana and health numbers have settled.

I would say the most common issue in this thread so far has been some variation of this:

I don't particularly mind the damage done by healers right now in PvP, with Holy Shock, Denounce or Penance. What I DO mind is the fact that they can spam these spells endlessly while mixing in Flash of Lights and bubbles and CC and NEVER go OOM. I've been doing some BGs with a couple different classes from 10-54...and I can't say that I've ever seen a player (including Mages, Locks, Shammies, and even Rets and SPriests that spam heals) drop below 50% mana. If even that low.

I'm not a huge PvPer, so take it with a grain of salt. But I think mana regen rates really need to be looked at.

We’re working on identifying some tweaks we can make that will address this without throwing everything else off-kilter. Stay tuned.

Pvp power needs to be introduced to lower level gear. Atleast earlier season pvp sets.

We’re looking into doing this. It’s a pretty big task that doesn’t have a very high bang-for-buck value, because it’s about putting small numbers on gear that very few players use, and anywhere you add power, you have a lot to consider and balance around it. And it risks exacerbating the healing problems mentioned above.

But it’s on our radar.

09/06/2012 09:39 PMPosted by Kroryyk

All this talk about every other class/spec except Warriors. Fury is THE most underpowered spec at the moment. It's damage is so low we're not even able to have achieve 400-rough number-NON crits. It's that ridiculous. There needs to be some focus on this.

In just the first few pages of this thread, Fury has been mentioned many times.

We need to figure out if the problem is strike damage itself, or missing crucial abilities like Bloodsurge or Battle Shout, but we’ve heard you loud and clear. We're looking to give Fury some love.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Since this game was first designed, we've had to deal with a certain degree of non-balance at low levels. This is a result of the fact that every class and spec obtains their abilities one at a time as they level (as opposed to, for instance, getting 8 new abilities at level 20 and then nothing until level 30, when you get another 8 new abilities). This is complicated by the fact that some people will twink and use heirlooms, and some will not.
• We have to find tweaks that we can make that don't force us to then make wholesale changes at level 90.
• What we're really focusing on here is abilities that hit too hard or too weak (relative to how they feel at 90.) Again, we hear you loud and clear that overall, melee abilities are running low and healing is running too hot.
• When the solution is "I need very-high-level ability X at a very low level," we're at an impasse, since we have to hold back some abilities and only make them accessible at a higher level, and we want those abilities to feel well-earned.