I'll make this a lengthy post to try and attract attention for possible Blue responses: I have several questions regarding a variety of classes which basically sums up what I feel to be the community's concerns (I myself am a feral druid, fire mage, and swords rogue):

Druids:
1) Some feral tanking concerns regarding gear are valid. While there are pieces of tanking gear out there that have our needs tailored into them, the vast majority of tanking filler pieces cater to the other 3 tanking classes. Is there anything being done about this?
2) Nurturing Instinct is a talent that still increases healing done by agility. I am sure several druids out there agree that this is not in-sync with Blizzard's shift to Spell Power. Is anything being done about this?
3) Feral Survivability in PvP got hurt a lot. I have heard that there are things in the works to try and fix this. Can you confirm whether this is being looked at?
4) Typhoon is a spell that is a main tool in PvP; but several druids feel that it is lacking. Is there any way to consider a 3 second daze or lengthening the distance of the knockback?
5) Typhoon and Force of Nature: Why two 41pt talents? Seems a little controversial to me. Poor protection paladins can get a single 11 pointer but here we stand with two 41 pointers? Can one of these become trained?
6) Base damage was increased on Starfire and Wrath, and numbers have changed in PvE DPS; but as we all know, increasing the base numbers doesn't necessarily increase your DPS on the long run. At tier 7, Balance druids compete fairly well, but I am looking more into tier 8/9: Do they still compete?
7) Restoration druids have had their HPS slightly nerfed from Lifebloom (their main arsenal). I understand that you want to give more diverse tools to handle different situation, but I am sure that everyone agrees that each healer has a "staple" role. The nerf, I understand, came mainly due to PvP implications, is there any way to bump this spell a bit though?
8) Survival Instincts is a great spell that we needed. It (along with Barkskin and thank you for it) gave us much needed buttons to press in stressful situations, but I must be greedy: why did we get an exact copy of the warrior’s 11 point talent? Couldn’t there have been a strong regenerative talent or something that play’s to nature’s theme in this stead?

Hunters:
1) Several hunters still feel that the 51 point talent is one of the weakest in the game. Is there anything being done to fix this?
2) The marksmanship spec is one that has been traditionally been made for PvP; but with the new ideology being thrust into the game (Every spec for PvP and PvE) Marksmanship has had its shortcomings in PvE DPS. Mainly, they run OOM very quickly and spend too much time in Viper in order to sustain competitive damage with other classes/specs. Anything being done about this?
3) Silencing shot is somewhat of a weak talent for a 41 pointer in arms, and would be a valuable tool for hunters of all specs to have. Is there any thought given to this or is Silencing shot the end-game?
4) Quoting a previous answer to a post:
2008-10-09 13:55:37
Re: [Feedback] Hunter Concerns, Civil Edition
“On Haste: I know our item budget is a little cryptic, and to some extent we like it that way. :) However, if we removed any haste from your items, we would have to replace it with something else that is probably equally sub-optimal. It's a "B stat" for hunters if you will. We can't just peel off haste and replace it with say Agi or AP (or if we did, the total would be a lot lower) or the item would be over-budget.”
What about armor penetration? End-game hunters in SWP adore this stat above all other secondary ones. Why isn’t that stat more evident in those pieces? Or another idea is pet/ability modifiers. Some pieces in BT like Beast-Tamer’s Shoulders were quite looked for; any way items like that could be brought back?
5) Trap mastery is still a 41 point talent but why? So many great things could be made for it and several ideas have been suggested. Will this talent change?
* Possible suggestions:
* Critical Flavour: Your ranged critical hits increase your party and raid member’s armor and spell penetration by 3% for 7 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
* Focus Fire: Increases your attack speed by 30% while lowering your damage by 10% for 20 seconds.

Mages:
1) There are several known bugs in the game; mainly concerning ignites and new FoF mechanics. These bugs are pretty internal and in patch notes we barely hear about them. Are they still existent? (Ignites getting stolen by others; FoF being consumed by ignites off Molten Armor; Torment/Molten Fury don’t exactly work with each other; Mirror Image is triggering GCD on non-GCD spells). An update would be nice.
2) My main concern with mages and their gearing is specifically the stat-allocation into spirit. Two thirds of the specs have no use what so ever

Elementalist Specs). Any way you could enlighten us on the plan?
3) The frost elemental, I admit, may be conceived by others as an extremely powerful pet; but, mind you, I still said it’s a pet, and a pet that costs at least 40 points into a tree to acquire. Is there any way to add AoE avoidance to it? Resistance? Etc Etc Etc. I do know that temporary pets did receive a very big buff in the game, but just trying to level the playing field with other pet classes.
4) Arcane Blast is a spell that you’ve used as a meter of “what” to do with the arcane tree. What is going to be the end-game of this spell? I know that others may feel the same way but its tedious to see something dangle up and down and get no stability.
5) Fire is currently the strongest sustained DPS build for mages in the game (while others may get mad at the statement and state that they are vastly superior in their frost/arcane specs; general information points in the other direction); and you (GC) yourself have claimed that hunters/rogues/mages/warlocks are to be among top damage dealing classes in the game. Why then have I failed to see a Patchwerk damage meter with anything BUT a mage on top of it? Generally, I have seen hunters and rogues up there, even a warrior, but no mage. Any plans to look into this?
6) Every single 51 point talent in the game can be used in PvE and PvP alike. Some have better uses then others. Listing some examples:
Druids:
Feral - Berserk
Balance - Starfall
Restoration - Wild Growth
Hunter:
Beast Mastery - Beast Mastery
Marksmanship - Chimera Shot
Survival - Explosive Shot
Priest:
Shadow - Dispersion
Holy - Guardian Spirit
Discipline - Penance

Now I could keep going obviously of me obviously listing 51pt talents from every class. I don't know if you noticed this, but every single one of those 51 pointers has 1 type of purpose in PvE or PvP and can be used in fights versus bosses etc.
Which brings me to this:

Deep Freeze
9% of base mana 30 yd range
Instant cast 30 sec cooldown
Stuns the target for 5 sec. Only usable on Frozen targets.

Paladins:
1) Several paladins have seen that their skills have a mirror-look-alike from their rage-fed friends. Any plans to change Divine Storm back to holy damage with nerfed base damage are this out of the question? I know you want to homogenize the classes but the similarity and lack of creativity with some of the functions is getting somewhat lame (Sorry cannot really put it any other way).
2) You have stated that paladins can sustain a rotation with Judge/DS/CS and would need Divine Plea to include a rotation with Consecration, but here in this post http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11855819834&sid=1 the paladin has to use mana potions and dark runes to keep up with the rotation. You gave it much thought. I want to hear a second opinion from you though. The community has provided numbers through several posts. What gives?
3) Holy paladin’s arsenal in raids has remained pretty much the same since Vanilla WoW. Can’t you possibly create a single spell to help with this? Maybe an HoT? Or a more reactive spell? There were reports in the early beta of paladins getting a reactive healing spell, what happened to it?
4) The protection paladin eleven point talent is non-existent. Here are some suggestions made by the community:
* Sacrament of the Defender – Increases parry chances by 30% for 20 seconds. The attack made right after a parry deals 150% weapon damage as holy damage. (5 Minute Cooldown)
* Blessed Attacks – Your next 4 melee weapon swings will generate an additional attack that will do 20% weapon damage as holy damage.
* Light’s Divinity – Absorb damage up to 50% of your armor, and you become filled with Holy Energy. Unleashing this Holy Energy causes damage increased by your spell power.
5) Can’t find the post at the moment, but I will go ahead and just discuss it: you asked for a reason to bake the 11-point holy talent; making it baseline? Don’t want to point fingers, but the 11-point restoration shaman point was made baseline why can’t paladins? The fact that paladins are supposed to be a support class but have auras inferior to shamans with totems etc make me skeptical about it.

At the moment I am tired; but I shall post again with the remaining of my thoughts on classes in WoW. Thank you in advanced for your time and efforts.

bump

Good questions, hope some are answered.

Bump for you.

Pretty comprehensive list. I'm scared for what you have to say about warriors.

I currently have three 70s and have finished end-game twice (and by twice I mean WoW Vanilly and TBC) ( you can armory me if you'd like ) on different toons. I try to maintain a scope on all classes. I'll try and make up the list on the remaining classes soon. Thank you in ahead for the support.

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Q u o t e:

Hunters:
1) Several hunters still feel that the 51 point talent is one of the weakest in the game. Is there anything being done to fix this?
2) The marksmanship spec is one that has been traditionally been made for PvP; but with the new ideology being thrust into the game (Every spec for PvP and PvE) Marksmanship has had its shortcomings in PvE DPS. Mainly, they run OOM very quickly and spend too much time in Viper in order to sustain competitive damage with other classes/specs. Anything being done about this?
3) Silencing shot is somewhat of a weak talent for a 41 pointer in arms, and would be a valuable tool for hunters of all specs to have. Is there any thought given to this or is Silencing shot the end-game?
4) Quoting a previous answer to a post:
2008-10-09 13:55:37
Re: [Feedback] Hunter Concerns, Civil Edition
“On Haste: I know our item budget is a little cryptic, and to some extent we like it that way. :) However, if we removed any haste from your items, we would have to replace it with something else that is probably equally sub-optimal. It's a "B stat" for hunters if you will. We can't just peel off haste and replace it with say Agi or AP (or if we did, the total would be a lot lower) or the item would be over-budget.”
What about armor penetration? End-game hunters in SWP adore this stat above all other secondary ones. Why isn’t that stat more evident in those pieces? Or another idea is pet/ability modifiers. Some pieces in BT like Beast-Tamer’s Shoulders were quite looked for; any way items like that could be brought back?
5) Trap mastery is still a 41 point talent but why? So many great things could be made for it and several ideas have been suggested. Will this talent change?
* Possible suggestions:
* Critical Flavour: Your ranged critical hits increase your party and raid member’s armor and spell penetration by 3% for 7 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
* Focus Fire: Increases your attack speed by 30% while lowering your damage by 10% for 20 seconds.

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1) Chimera is amazing. Exoctics are very meh considering Explosive and Chimera net more than a 15 DPSgain >> (Note: Number made up, but it is waaaay smaller than the 2 shots).
2) BAAAAAAH?!?!?? MM is currently king for hunters. (I was top before Thoridal too)
3) Don't PvP at all - no comment
4) Arm Pen is relatively bad now. I would prefer AP but we already have no PvE DPS issues.
5) Yea trap mastery is definitely not 41 point worthy.

My suggestions:
-Vastly increase mobility. Spamstring, Poisons, etc are the death to any hunter. This is why I don't even waste my time in competitive arena. How can this be done without making us the most OP class?
Have Disengage remove any movement impairing, stuns, immobilizes. Plus make it actually work, you're on that though. Adjust CD tto what you see fit, lower distance traveled. There are tons of ways to rebalance this.

PvE - Leave us alone, we do great DPS and have utility that is unique (rogues cannot MD pull).

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Q u o t e:

2) BAAAAAAH?!?!?? MM is currently king for hunters. (I was top before Thoridal too)

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Care to rephrase this please?

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Q u o t e:

4) Arm Pen is relatively bad now. I would prefer AP but we already have no PvE DPS issues.

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I currently understand that arm pen is still a comparable stat to haste. Am I mistakened?

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Q u o t e:

Care to rephrase this please?


I currently understand that arm pen is still a comparable stat to haste. Am I mistakened?

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Wow, I typed a response and it made me log in, and deleted it....
Short version-

Marksmanship has had its shortcomings in PvE DPS. Mainly, they run OOM very quickly and spend too much time in Viper in order to sustain competitive damage with other classes/specs
I was pointing this out to be false. MM has no problems topping meters and still brings 10% AP to the raid.

Haste is a great stat now that auto can fire whenever it's ready. Hunters have minimal stats that don't have a soft cap. Hit is very very low, expertise is completely unneeded, crit comes from agi and is undesired almost entirely. Haste and Arm Pen are the only 2 we need when were hit capped (95 hit rating can come from 3 items)

Haste doesn't lower GCD though. After steady hits a 1.5 sec cast time it's value drops significantly with the nerf to Mortal Shots and effecting Auto. But, until that point, imo Haste > Arm Pen.

Edit: And I just peeked at T7, wow, that is a ton of haste. Balancing there would be awesome if that ends up with us at 1 second attack speed >>

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Q u o t e:

I was pointing this out to be false. MM has no problems topping meters and still brings 10% AP to the raid.

Haste is a great stat now that auto can fire whenever it's ready. Hunters have minimal stats that don't have a soft cap. Hit is very very low, expertise is completely unneeded, crit comes from agi and is undesired almost entirely. Haste and Arm Pen are the only 2 we need when were hit capped (95 hit rating can come from 3 items)

Haste doesn't lower GCD though. After steady hits a 1.5 sec cast time it's value drops significantly with the nerf to Mortal Shots and effecting Auto. But, until that point, imo Haste > Arm Pen.

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I did not state whether marks can produce the highest DPS or not, but according to theorycrafters in my guild that are looking into level 80 numbers, marks can go OOM alot easier than either BM or Survival.
At level 70, with this currently nerfed content, encounters don't last more than 3 minutes, but what will happen when you progress into a fight like Brutallus for the first time (unnerfed) @ level 80? Several people like to debate/argue things about 3.0. Talents/new skills are built around gameplay at level 80, so this post mainly refers to that scenario.
And I am not arguing whether or not Haste is a great stat, I was arguing (if you look at the linked post) that almost all mail physical DPS gear has only haste as a secondary stat.

Bump for Responses.

Bump for the good hunter questions.

@Blizz: Disengage isn't our only ability. Seriously. We aren't nearly as thrilled or excited with it as you are.

bump for DS back to holy

Seems like there have to be more and more keywords in the post title.

Sorry I'm not adding anything to your discussion, but that simple fact kind of detracts from the whole discussion.

first

edit: aha, i have caught my elusive prey gc in a first first


Hey GC, are moonkins going to receive a downranked version of typhoon that they can use as an interrupt without spending too much mana?

also

Please can you give us some sort of idea of what a gap closer might be for a paladin? Holy deathgrip hmm?

Bump for holy pally justice!

I like what u had to say about the classes listed.
1 - think i must say with the current mana regen from raids arcane explosion spamming is possible and so is arcane blast spamming. With this it is possible to top damage meters and such as a arcane mage does this stand in 80 lvl content.
2 - Though the classes u listed were on par what about the others? Fury warriors have all but dropped off the map in damage and in existence. Arms is dominating pve if they know how to spec and stat out. But what about Prot i mean they made thunderclap actually work but why such a long cool down? We are supposed to be able to aoe tank but we dont have enough spread damage to hold multiple targets when running aoe heavy instance/raids.
3 - What about Rogues and the struggles they are having with all spec being good for pvp and pve i have not seen it.
4 - Warlocks god please look into them as well sad when i see most warlocks still going 0/21/40 just to stick around some where in the damage grouping but not even close to top.
5 - Yes palys are getting nurfed but in the wrong way. everyone knows the mana issue is bad and the ability to do damage while taking none ( i know u palys all think it is fair but no ofther class can do it so get off it) is unequal to most others. But dont nurf the damage balance it with others maybe change up front damage and put some as a dot. I mean arms warriors get bleeds and so does rogues. What do ret palys get, nothing of the sort dont nurf the over all just put some up front and some over time so it can get dealt with on a larger scale.
6 - Where is Elemental shaman on the map at 70 what we have to wait to be useful at 75??? why should we have to wait form something like that? Why not give us something else that doesnt mess up tanking with knock back though really cool and useful in PVP in pve used in a aoe messing up almost all tanking situations why not make a glyph that downs its cool down but takes away knock back or something so the pvers can still be glad they have it.
Well i hope the starter of this forum can look into the issues i listed and continue his postings seems like he is on the right track and maybe its time that people that actually play more then one class and see the effects of multiple sides are looked at by blizz and actually give a chance to be heard and get some solid response (most is slight or non exixtent) and get into a Q&A with us that take the time to look at multiple issues and come up with solutions that dont rip the wow community apart. I my self have some great solutions that i think have limited blow back. But will most likely never be heard sad to say. Well i hope this helps and i hope u can pick up the slack i have left LOL ty

All valid points /bump

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Q u o t e:
2) My main concern with mages and their gearing is specifically the stat-allocation into spirit. Two thirds of the specs have no use what so ever

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It would be nice if you could at least answer this one ghost.