Please read GC, not trying to troll, but I'm sincerely concerned about the pvp future of wow.

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/8424/vblizzqw2.jpg

"It's likely the game would devolve into silencing or ccing the healer"

What do you mean by this GC? (I apologize if it seems like I'm putting words in your mouth) With your quote, "Bring the player not the class" you at least acknowledge that there is skill in this game.
However, in regards to arena, do you simply want it to be about sheer brute force and the team that can hit their globals quicker to win?

Devolve? Sorry for picking at this one word, but that's what arenas were about for S1-S4. Even in certain comps that were based around heavy melee, CC was never completely ignored as part of the plan for a match. What is wrong with silencing (including interupts) and ccing the healer in order to setup damage on a dps class? Isn't that the way it should be? Coordinating interupts and CC in such a way that one of your opponents becomes susceptible to a quick kill?

I'm sorry for sounding so harsh, but understand that when one of the lead developers of wow's content is saying that interrupts and cc should be irrelevant to who wins an arena match it's hard not to feel sort of worried.

If that's not the way the game is supposed to played then what is? Do you want healers to simply spam their heals on their dps, dps spam their damage buttons on players, and see which team will win through sheer attrition?

"Players complained endlessly about being chain feared and stunlocked too. Still do. It's the reason there are so many ways to break CC in the game now. You can't pretend that crowd control was an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."

Again, why is CC such a bad concept? Effective use of crowd control, not damage, or healing, was what separated a mediocre arena team / player from a good one. The team that zerged damage or healing would lose. The team that could avoid and apply cc would win.

GC, will players like me who enjoy arenas / pvp for its competitiveness have a future in wow?

Way to take the quote out of context.

Just a scrub here, Nothing to see.

you said the s word, skill.

I have been playing my hunter for 4 years and I get my faced rolled by every single death knight reroll scrub. I am glad to see that my 1850 rating, 50,000 hks, 266 days played has left me less skilled then that dk that has been playing there class for 2 months.

if you're worried about pvp balance in a video game, you need to go outside

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Q u o t e:
Please read GC, not trying to troll, but I'm sincerely concerned about the pvp future of wow.

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/8424/vblizzqw2.jpg

"It's likely the game would devolve into silencing or ccing the healer"

What do you mean by this GC? (I apologize if it seems like I'm putting words in your mouth) With your quote, "Bring the player not the class" you at least acknowledge that there is skill in this game.
However, in regards to arena, do you simply want it to be about sheer brute force and the team that can hit their globals quicker to win?

Devolve? Sorry for picking at this one word, but that's what arenas were about for S1-S4. Even in certain comps that were based around heavy melee, CC was never completely ignored as part of the plan for a match. What is wrong with silencing (including interupts) and ccing the healer in order to setup damage on a dps class? Isn't that the way it should be? Coordinating interupts and CC in such a way that one of your opponents becomes susceptible to a quick kill?

I'm sorry for sounding so harsh, but understand that when one of the lead developers of wow's content is saying that interrupts and cc should be irrelevant to who wins an arena match it's hard not to feel sort of worried.

If that's not the way the game is supposed to played then what is? Do you want healers to simply spam their heals on their dps, dps spam their damage buttons on players, and see which team will win through sheer attrition?

"Players complained endlessly about being chain feared and stunlocked too. Still do. It's the reason there are so many ways to break CC in the game now. You can't pretend that crowd control was an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."

Again, why is CC such a bad concept? Effective use of crowd control, not damage, or healing, was what separated a mediocre arena team / player from a good one. The team that zerged damage or healing would lose. The team that could avoid and apply cc would win.

GC, will players like me who enjoy arenas / pvp for its competitiveness have a future in wow?

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Did you read the whole post or just that one line?

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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Everybody can deal damage. In fact, every single class has a dps tree. Why are certain dps trees able to kill other dps trees with no significant retaliation? Why are certain dps trees able to ignore resilience while other dps trees have to stack it?

DPS should never be able to completely shut down the healer--there would be no point to healing otherwise. DPS should be able to create windows wherein they can shut down the healer, but after that window the healer should be able to fully recover.

Arena should be a strategic game. Burst should be a part of it. However, when burst is ALL THAT SUCCEED, then arena stops being strategic and becomes class-stacking. The rogue combo point system is a nice analogue for burst: Takes time to set up and creates opportunity-cost questions: to stun or to Eviscerate? However, now rogues are able to stack 5 combo points in about 2 GCD, and certain classes (Ret Pallies and Mages) can front-load damage with so little effort to prepare that burst is rewarded over tactics. Resilience does not fix this, as it requires one to actually win matches before getting gear--unless you count the Vault of RNG.

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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I agree but right now everyones mega burst is stopping that.

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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I just got out of a fight where my 550 resilience healer died in a 3 second blind to a single rogue.

Go priest power ? Dunno what to tell you. Burst is obscene right now. Meanwhile I can't out damage the HoTs on a warlock while his shaman partner goes and drinks. Wahoo ? Burst or lose, burst or lose !

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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You do understand that at present there are specs fully capable of extreme levels of control AND lots of just plain killing power simultaneously?

I'm one of the specs focused on dealing damage, and it's pretty easy to get grumpy when you get killed before you CAN do any. I've gotten killed with my Malygos shield on, with 500 resil, with my wolves out, through Shamanistic rage, in the opening salvo of 3v3 matches. Warlocks feel the same way.

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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It's a fine balance, a frighteningly fine balance to work on. I play an Enhance Shaman GC, and I "feel" you when you say damage matters because... it feels like by design, the Enhance archtype was meant to be a Berserker, all -out class in PvP. To go all out and not need to CC his target due to his abundant power.

This design is something you WANT to work, because it shows that the damage concept works in this game, but it doesn't. I know you know it doesn't, because the groundwork for heavy CC is already in place.

From a design perspective, you are correct in that damage should matter in a CC world, but due to the fact that damage cannot occur in a CC'd state, you've left out the important detail that the player must be able to control his character in order to fulfill his role. When a class like the Shaman is unable to fill this role, you leave this design concept in a state of flux.

This is difficult to fix, even I can't figure it out right off the bat. I would need a group of people to bounce idea off of, because to be honest, the only solution I can get offhand would be to damage cap all CC, but then you have the opposite end of the spectrum... where there are classes dependent on CC to fulfill their roles (like Rogues for example).

You have to go all out, one way or the other at this point, or you're going to take alot of time and effort and have it wasted on the simple fact that it cannot MOVE, or ACT in any way due to CC. It's time to really consider what CC has done to this game in PvP and it's limited use in PvE and time to figure out exactly how it needs to be something we should rely on, or something that we can use as garnish to our other plentiful abilities.

I think most players would agree, that they have the most fun in this game, when they have control of their character. :)

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Q u o t e:
I think most players would agree, that they have the most fun in this game, when they have control of their character. :)

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It's true.

The melee classes have more control of their characters than casters do. Even when a melee is "chasing" somebody, they are controlling their character. When a caster is caught up and stunlocked... the caster is not in control of his or her character.

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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ret paladins couldn't effectively kill a healer without rogue(s) or warrior(s) on a leash 100% of the time. and resto druids are still in fact dang near invincible, and if it weren't for us death knights, they still would have no counter at all with 3+ super buffed heal over time spells on them at all times.

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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It requires more skill to know when to cc or silence and create a burst opportunity than it does to simply mash dps buttons over and over like a pve instance. This also allowed for strategic use of terrain and cooldowns to avoid cc or prevent silences.

It was possible pre 3.0 to burst someone in a few seconds, the difference was that it required coordinated ccs and cooldowns to do so. I played as warlock rogue in 2s, and we never had problems bursting someone down, it took strategy to force healers to blow important cooldowns, then capitalize on the opportunity. A shaman using ns on himself then swapping to his teammate or tricking a team into blowing cooldowns on the wrong target then swapping to the intended one. Coordinating sheeps, fears, silences and others to bring down a target.

Arena took finesse to play in BC, now it has devolved into brut force damage and praying for crits. If the game is balanced around 2 dps overcoming 1 healer through raw damage, then what happens when one of the dps throws a silence? It's one of the reasons you see healers complaining about dying within the duration of a counter spell, etc.

It wasn't fun to play 30mins+ druid lock mirrors but it's also not fun to play 30second games.

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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Crowd control has counters. It can be dispelled, it can be interrupted, defensive outs can be used, burst healing methods can be used, attackers can be CC'd, un-CC'd members can increase pressure to force defense from the other team, teams can go for counterkills while the other team is overextended, CC chains can be botched, critical CCers can be CC'd.

Each of these counters has further counters.

Healing has counters. It can be reduced via Mortal Strike, healers can be CC'd, targets can be pulled out of line of sight, heals can be interrupted, DPS can be spiked, offensive cooldowns can be blown, healers can themselves be focused.

Each of these counters has further counters.

Silence has counters. It can be dispelled (generally), it generally lasts only a short period of time, it can be pre-empted with HoTs, defensive outs can be used, damagers can be CC'd, counterkills can be scored and/or enemy teams can be pressured to go back on the defensive, some silences can be trinketted (hex).

Each of these counters has further counters.

Drain has counters. Games can be finished before mana runs out, drains can be dispelled or LoS'd, drainers can be CC'd, drainers can be killed, drainers can be pressured to do other things, drains can be interrupted, drained targets can sneak drinks in, drained targets can use mana-regen methods, drained targets can lure drainers into bad positioning.

Each of these counters has further counters.

"Just plain killing someone" has no counter. By definition, "just plain killing someone" literally means killing them before they can react, thus is in fact uncounterable. Uncounterable wins are never skill-based.

Uncounterable wins cannot be countered. When a player drops from 20k life to 0 in less than one second by two stealthed targets, there is no counter.

And thus there is no need for a counter to the counter.

Uncounterables ruin the game and truly do "devolve" it.












As a footnote: If truly the intent was so that "pure damage" would be more favored, why are classes that HAVE many CC methods the ones that also have the pure damage? Ret Paladins, Death Knights, Mages, and Rogues are the main offenders in the burst damage world, especially in PvE gear which those classes have the unique advantage of being able to wear, and yet Rets have Repent and HoJ, DKs have DG, Strangulate, and Mind Freeze, Mages have Polymorph and Counterspell and Frost Nova and frost snares, Rogues have Wound and Cripple and Mind Numb and stuns and Kick/Gouge interrupts. The "pure damage" classes are in fact the ones suffering most. CC has not been de-emphasized -- it has merely been "baked in" to some classes. A Mage CCs the target while throwing out an Ice Lance on top of a Nova. A Rogue CCs the target while Cheap Shotting for CPs. A Ret CCs the target while stunning for a guaranteed crit. A Death Knight pulls the target out of LoS of his healer, effectively CCing that healer, when getting into melee range of it. Classes that CC and do damage at the same time are favored, not damagers and not CCers.

Since every dps class/spec has been changed to do similar damage in PvE situations wouldn't that mean that the PvP issue isn't that the damage is too high but rather that everyone's defensive capabilities aren't on the same level?

I can understand and appreciate the concept of leveling the playing field when it comes to damage output. I actually really like the concept and I think it has worked pretty well so far, in PvE. PvP is definitely suffering, however, due to those changes. Instead of boosting the power of resilience and possibly pushing the PvP balance too far the other way, perhaps the best fix would be to give more "get out of jail cards" to the other classes (or to power up their existing ones). Then the damage stays at it's current level but all the classes gain equal ability to survive incoming burst at least for a few seconds.

Another option would be to reduce the offensive capabilities of those defensive abilities.

Compare Dispersion to Divine Shield. Dispersion, basically is 90% of the bubble except the shadowpriest can't attack or cast spells while under it's effects. The arguement could be made that Paladins were designed around having their bubble and being able to heal and attack while under it's effects but they were also originally designed to do significantly less damage as well.

Then look at Shield Wall. The warrior has to be in defensive stance and using a shield to activate it so they are reducing their damage output in exchange for additional survivability. Then look at Bone Shield and Unbreakable Armor, they actually increase the DK's damage when activated along with increasing their survivability.

So the other option would be just to go to work on those defensive abilities that are currently being used offensively and bring them all to the level of dispersion and shield wall, where popping them will buy you a few seconds of life but doesn't allow you to use those seconds granted to damage others with impunity or even increase your damage output while they are active.

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Q u o t e:
CC isn't a bad concept. But damage isn't a bad concept either. We designed quite a few specs to focus on dealing damage, and when they don't think that's effective, they get just as grumpy (and understandably so) and feel like their spec needs some new tool to shut down the healer.

I'm not talking about the state of S5 specifically or the S2-S4 for that matter. I'm just saying that in general there should be a place for crowd control and for healing and for silencing and mana drain and also just plain killing someone.

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crowd control + silencing + mana drain + plain killing someone vs. healing

There was only one healer that was out of balance. Instead of bringing them in-line, you went after healing as a philosophy in PvP. As a whole, healing was not too strong in Arena, Druids were.

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Q u o t e:


It's true.

The melee classes have more control of their characters than casters do. Even when a melee is "chasing" somebody, they are controlling their character. When a caster is caught up and stunlocked... the caster is not in control of his or her character.

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On the other end though, getting kited is almost just as frustrating as getting stunned. You do have control but you're sooooo close...yet soo far...

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Q u o t e:
On the other end though, getting kited is almost just as frustrating as getting stunned. You do have control but you're sooooo close...yet soo far...

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I imagine it is.
The solution is to make sure that casters cooldowns and abilities to get range are equal to the cooldowns and abilities that melee have to close range.