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Q u o t e:
Players tend to think of things in terms of whether their class got buffs or nerfs. We tend to think of the overall balance of the game.

The metaphor that gets (over) used a lot is the wobbly chair -- you can cut one leg off or try and extend the other three. We would always prefer to buff rather than nerf, because frankly it's more fun. It generates goodwill and makes players excited about playing. But buffing isn't always the answer. Often a nerf involves far fewer changes the game as a whole. Because testing time is usually our limiting factor for releasing changes, we prefer to change as little as possible.

It's impossible to measure things, especially healing, in terms this simply, but imagine your class can heal 5000 health per second and the other specs can heal 4000 health per sec. Sure we can buff the other three because that's more fun than nerfing you, right? But it might also mean that PvE fights are too easy and PvP damage is too trivial (yes I realize that is an amusing thing to say right now while so many people are concerned about burst damage). Just buffing your spells affects spell balance too -- when you don't care about efficiency because even your light healing spells heal for a lot, then suddenly your toolbox looks pretty shallow, and that Spirit and mp5 on your gear starts to look like a wasted stat.

TLDR version: we prefer to buff when we can, but nerfing is typically far less risky in terms of the amount of data changed.

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You kind of dodged the question though.

Why was the longest leg of the chair in the RET tree as opposed to the holy tree?
Sure you knocked it down, but that doesn't really answer the question that the deep holy tree had some darn short legs.

JotP was lackluster for a long time and 15% helped a ton. 25% damage is a nice large number but on ptr it makes little difference.

Sacred Cleansing and Blessed hands are again... not great talents. Just like Blessed Life really isn't all that appealing either... ALL pvp talents that don't shine, which is part of the reason that a huge swath of holy PvP was stuck deep in ret in the first place.

See, here's the problem with your "wobbly chair". You go ahead and cut the leg off now, but then you turn around in 3, 6, 8 months and say :

"oops, looks like we cut off too much, we didn't expect the people using the chair to keep growing. We'll be inspecting the chair over the next 8 months and see about rebuilding said chair 'soon'."

Then it's :

"It looks like the chair is no longer compatable with other chairs. We are looking into the other chairs to determine why they are so different from the first chair."

Then we get :

"We've found chairs to be lacking when it comes to tables. We don't want people to feel like they need chairs to be able to use tables. In the next patch, we are going to be replacing some chairs with stools and others with floor cushions."

Eventually we get :

"We've had numerous complaints that floor cushions, while comfy compared to stools, are not quiet able to reach thier mark on the table. Players are feeling like they have to stack cushions to be able to compare to stools. Meanwhile, stools are vastly overshooting where we expected them to be, making reaching things on the table trivial.

To try to balance this, we are going to use a 3-fold approach.

Stools will be getting nerfed so that they no longer stack so well. Stools with backs will have their backs removed and swivelling will be removed altogether. This should bring stools to the level that we expected them to be at in coffee table, dining table and breakfast nook settings.

Cushions will be replaced by ottomans and should find themselves much more viable with the ability to spec themselves into divans.

Finally, we will be nerfing the table by about 50%. I know it sounds like a huge nerf, but we think with the buffs to cushions and the changes to stools, you will find that you lose 0 viability as a table, while gaining much more compatability with cushions and you will no longer feel required to surround yourself with stools to be successful."

Not long after that :

"We have had some unexpected results with the latest changes to tables, stools and ottomans. When we set out to create this dining set, we did so with all our players in mind. In the past, we designed our dining areas with large ballrooms in mind. With so many people, it was easier to balance the furnishings as people only expected the table to be large and flat and the chairs to be elegant and high-backed.

Unfortunatly we learned that most people simply don't have ballrooms in thier homes nor do they frequently have access to ballroooms on a daily basis. As such, we attempted to scale down our designs to include more home diners. We think we were very successful with this, bringing tables and chairs to many, many more people and making meal time much less exclusive than it was when we launched.

When we decided to continue on with the smaller, more intimate designs, we learned that not all people like to eat at a diningroom table. Some people do not even have a dining room. Some simply prefered to eat at a breakfast bar or breakfast nook. Others tend toward using a coffee table in the living room. Still others eat at thier computer desk and some don't want to use tables and chairs at all, opting to eat standing up or pugging their meals outside of the home.

Trying to balance all these options has prooved to be a large undertaking and we think we have succeeded in many ways, however, there is always room for improvement. And there are always mistakes.

Recently, we made changes to tables to try and balance them with the differnt seating options we have been working on. This resulted in a nerf to some seating options, buffs to others and what appeared to be a very substantial nerf to tables. Our testing showed that a 50% nerf to table would allow all sides of said table to be at a comfortable level with both ottomans and stools. However, nerfing the ottoman end of the tables by 50% has lead to a huge increase in mealtime wipes. Stool users are now starving while ottomans are getting buried.

We have now determined that the problem was not with chairs at all. Nor was it with tables. We have found that the problem lies with the floor. Starting tables, stools, ottomans...even chairs and cushions on the same level is becoming problematic as scaling becomes more prevalent. To keep everything even at the top-end, we need to start balancing at the bottom. As such, we will be revamping floors over the next few months and reverting some of the major changes we've made to seating and tables."

It's a bad, bad cycle.

But then, we can't even get forums that don't log you out a million times before you can finish posting, so what else can we expect.

if they were following this...... chair logic...... dps would be nerfed and healers would be buffed.

anyways i'm going back to my bean bag....... TO THE GROUND BABY!!!!

What GC is saying in diplomatic terms is that people tend to only care more about their own characters than they do about overall game balance. Heck, I'm sure if a class were accidentally given an ability that did 15,000 DPS you would see lots of forum trolls trying to argue that the whole game should be rebalanced around it rather than just nerf the ability.

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Q u o t e:
It's a bad, bad cycle.

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You know, rather than spend lots of time writing schlock you could have attempted to write something concrete with specific examples.

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Q u o t e:

TLDR version: we prefer to buff when we can, but nerfing is typically far less risky in terms of the amount of data changed.

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But after going all about how much everything is a domino effect, a "slippery slope" about giving buffs you honestly think nerfs dont do the same? For the same reason buffs can, a nerfed ability can, make the other abiltiies seem like the only ones you should use. Looks at warlocks and SL/SL, the changes to it made the spec give a lot less survivability, and the changes to the class as a whole(away from SB spam, more towards dots) really affects their use in the current arena incarnation. A damage over time, cloth class, with limited escape mechanics in a burst damage tournament doesn't end well.

Maybe nerfing is less risky, I mean I can only recall the nerfs that have dramatically affected me or my freinds so most players are probably biased.

I'm honored GC posted after me, much <3 for the continuous feedback from blues, most of us realize you dev's carefully plan everything, measure, remeasure, and check every change but we put a lot of time, and care into our toons, our raids, our arena teams, and my orignal post was that you should trust the community more. We're supposed to trust you guys are balancing our favorite characters to be relatively equal, and fun so you should show you trust us on occasion.

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Q u o t e:
Players tend to think of things in terms of whether their class got buffs or nerfs. We tend to think of the overall balance of the game.

The metaphor that gets (over) used a lot is the wobbly chair -- you can cut one leg off or try and extend the other three. We would always prefer to buff rather than nerf, because frankly it's more fun. It generates goodwill and makes players excited about playing. But buffing isn't always the answer. Often a nerf involves far fewer changes the game as a whole. Because testing time is usually our limiting factor for releasing changes, we prefer to change as little as possible.

It's impossible to measure things, especially healing, in terms this simply, but imagine your class can heal 5000 health per second and the other specs can heal 4000 health per sec. Sure we can buff the other three because that's more fun than nerfing you, right? But it might also mean that PvE fights are too easy and PvP damage is too trivial (yes I realize that is an amusing thing to say right now while so many people are concerned about burst damage). Just buffing your spells affects spell balance too -- when you don't care about efficiency because even your light healing spells heal for a lot, then suddenly your toolbox looks pretty shallow, and that Spirit and mp5 on your gear starts to look like a wasted stat.

TLDR version: we prefer to buff when we can, but nerfing is typically far less risky in terms of the amount of data changed.

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I don't post but I read every day pretty much every post made on these forums. Everytime a post is made by Ghostcrawler priest issues never get answered straight forward. There is never anything said about resolving these issues. Ever. I read patch notes and blue posts on other websites such as mmo-champion.com. I always see large blocks dedicated to tank and dps classes. The blocks of text concerning priests are always small and have non game changing information such as the levitate "buff".

Your comment about the wobbly chair is a good analogy. The problem with it is this. Eventually you have cut so much off the legs that there is no more to cut and a class is "nerfed to the ground" in quite a literal sense. I foresee this happening to priests in the future.

I see quite a bit of information about CoH being thrown around as well. Personally, as you can see by my armory profile, I don't spec into CoH. I honestly believe that priests have done nothing to deserve this nerf. The fights that have been talked about that are driving this nerf are few. These fights were specifically designed with large amounts of raid damage. The fights were designed by Blizzard. What did you honestly expect to happen? Did you honestly expect priests to not use the tools given to them by Blizzard? Did you not see this happening in Beta testing that lasted for so long? Did you honestly think you could make an encounter where the hardest thing about the encounter was healing the raid damage and priests were not going to use the best tool they had for it?

I do not expect these questions to ever be answered in a direct, straightforward way. Questions are never answered by Blizzard in a straightforward manner. Ever.

In regards to pvp. Did you honestly not foresee the amount of burst damage that is happening right now? In the months of Beta testing did you not run the numbers and foresee this? I am nowhere near a professional pvper or even a very good one as my 2v2 rating shows. I do not profess to be and I never will. I just see what is happening in BG's and the few arena games I have played as well as what is being shown by the numbers on sk-gaming.com.

Blizzard, your wait and see policy will be your own undoing in my humble opinion. Your job is to find problems with the game and resolve them in an appropriate amount of time and resolve them in a way that does not put the integrity of the game as a whole at risk. This has not happened since wotlk has come out. I suggest you take the resources that are out there that already have the numbers. Your very own Armory numbers, which im sure you have ready access to, will show you what classes are completely dominating pvp.

I played Everquest for a long time and I see Blizzard taking the same path that Sony did with that game. They ignored their player base and did not offer solid customer service. There is a severe lack of customer service here as a good portion of your customers are very very unsatisfied with your product. I enjoy this game greatly and I continue to play because I have made many friends and I enjoy the game. Please look at your policies and procedures for fixing problems and fix them.

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Q u o t e:
Players tend to think of things in terms of whether their class got buffs or nerfs. We tend to think of the overall balance of the game.

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You need to get that stupid word "balance" out of your ^%$#ing heads. Replace it with the word FUN.

And GC, you have yet to answer the question I have asked many times on this forum. How do the upcoming priest nerfs make playing WoW more fun? What do they achieve besides making it less fun for some people?

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Q u o t e:


You need to get that stupid word "balance" out of your ^%$#ing heads. Replace it with the word FUN.

And GC, you have yet to answer the question I have asked many times on this forum. How do the upcoming priest nerfs make playing WoW more fun? What do they achieve besides making it less fun for some people?

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So that hunters have a class that they can consistently farm in arena. STEALTH HUNTER BUFFS OMG

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Q u o t e:
You don't need Resto shamans to raid.

If Chain Heal ends up being the only spell that gets used to heal, or the spell that pushes Holy priests and Resto druids out of a raid, then we'll nerf it. We don't think those cases are likely, but we always try to leave the possibility open.

I've already said we'll adjust the content with the assumption that CoH and WG aren't going to be as huge a percent of total healing.

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I always liked GC and still do however i really DONT like this comment at all.
Oh, we made 2 spells useless, Lets make the only useful on useless so there equal!!!!

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Q u o t e:


As i have said over and over, shaman shot themselves in the foot by asking for these AOE healing nerfs....since once stacking of shaman occurs in 3.1 again they will just Nerf CH instead of buffing the other two and dealing with balance....because THAT IS THE EASY WAY OUT.....

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Totally agree, this mentality that it's easier to nerf then buff is starting to get to me. imo they aren't holding back for dps classes. but for us it's nerfs? lol we already suck at pvp now you want to nerf us more? seriously i love this game, but if this line of thought doesn't stop here. i'm finding a new game.... seriously i would hate to do that. but i can't play a game that the creators don't test, and instead buff and nerf on what other classes think

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Q u o t e:


You need to get that stupid word "balance" out of your ^%$#ing heads. Replace it with the word FUN.

And GC, you have yet to answer the question I have asked many times on this forum. How do the upcoming priest nerfs make playing WoW more fun? What do they achieve besides making it less fun for some people?

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Bad advice is bad. Unbalanced games aren't fun. Balanced ones have a higher potential for fun.

GC, I demand that all priests be given rocking chairs!

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Q u o t e:
GC, why can't you say that you aren't going to buff holy dps past the paltry amount currently in ptr? Just say it.

I think healing for holy pally is fine, sorry for the short post (waiting for a release on new years eve = makes me terse lol). I'm not sure why pallys expect to be OMG godly healers over others, we all have our strength and weakness and I think we're pretty balanced vs. other healers now.

However I think that our DPS is definitely lacking, and the 25% increase to judgement damage is a joke. I'm not complaining because I can solo quests and farm endlessly because I have 0 downtime, it just makes PvP extremely hard in some situations (where that little extra dps would be really valuable) but if that is SUPPOSED to be a weakness of the holy pally class, I wish you would just say it :)

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You don't need confirmation from a developer to analyze class direction. Paladins have been oriented around defense since the beginning of their conception in Dungeon and Dragons. We are at baseline a defensive class - even retribution gains things like instant flashes and stun-removing utility in place of more offensive options. In a defense-oriented class, offensive utility is going to be the weakness. Ret lacks interrupts, snares, healing reductions, and gap closers, just like holy lacks cyclone, hex, mana burn, or similar effects. We make up for that weakness with our wide array of defensive utility spells.

If you can solo and grind fine, I'm positive that the talent is working as intended. There is no intention to give holy paladins enormous offensive utility.

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Q u o t e:
I don't want to derail this thread, but you do need to get it out of your heads that shaman or paladin QQ caused us to nerf CoH and WG. Those spells were too good. CoH was too good at the end of BC.

As a few players have pointed out, for them -- for a lot of people -- balance is fun. It's certainly not the only aspect of fun. But games in which players feel like they won or lost the game at the moment of character creation, because some abilities are just overpowered or underpowered, tend to not have the kind of legs WoW has had.

Fun is the most important concern. Trivializing content (whether PvE or PvP) may seem fun in the short term, but like playing any game with a cheat mode on, the novelty quickly wears off. Overcoming challenges is a big part of what makes games like WoW attractive.

Fun is also subjective. It's easy to say "Circle of Healing is fun for me and Renew isn't," but that may have a lot to do with the relative balance of those two abilities or your personal preference. Some players think stabbing things is fun and others think tanking is fun. We can continue to come up with cool new toys for each individual spec or role. However it also may be that nothing we are willing to do will make tanking fun for *you* specifically.

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Then can we get our other spells LOOKED at? We have a lot of buttons yes...but some are so bad there isn't a reason to push them.

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Q u o t e:
Players tend to think of things in terms of whether their class got buffs or nerfs. We tend to think of the overall balance of the game.

The metaphor that gets (over) used a lot is the wobbly chair -- you can cut one leg off or try and extend the other three. We would always prefer to buff rather than nerf, because frankly it's more fun. It generates goodwill and makes players excited about playing. But buffing isn't always the answer. Often a nerf involves far fewer changes the game as a whole. Because testing time is usually our limiting factor for releasing changes, we prefer to change as little as possible.

It's impossible to measure things, especially healing, in terms this simply, but imagine your class can heal 5000 health per second and the other specs can heal 4000 health per sec. Sure we can buff the other three because that's more fun than nerfing you, right? But it might also mean that PvE fights are too easy and PvP damage is too trivial (yes I realize that is an amusing thing to say right now while so many people are concerned about burst damage). Just buffing your spells affects spell balance too -- when you don't care about efficiency because even your light healing spells heal for a lot, then suddenly your toolbox looks pretty shallow, and that Spirit and mp5 on your gear starts to look like a wasted stat.

TLDR version: we prefer to buff when we can, but nerfing is typically far less risky in terms of the amount of data changed.

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1. What was wrong with healing classes in BC?

2. If you owned Yugo and a Ferrari, and liked driving the Ferrari more then the Yugo, would it make sense to change the Ferrari's fuel tank to a 1 gallon tank to make you drive the Yugo more?

3. If you had one bright developer, and one developer with an IQ of 50, would it make sense to bash the bright developer in the head with a hammer a few times to bring them more in line?

4. If you had 11 million customers that joined the game because they liked the play style, would you drastically change that play style because the like the previous style too much?