Just something I was wondering today and would hope GC or a dev would chime in.

When you guys add new spells/talents do you know what people are going to spec?

Such as with a FFB mage spec, did you guys know people were going to spec fire and frost to get the crit talents to make it do good dps? Or did you have no idea this would be the optimal spec for using FFB spell until the theorycrafters did the math?

Would just be cool to know if you guys are often surprised what the top pve/pvp specs are or if you are already aware what is probably going to be the best?

Barring some extreme cases, do remember they *make* this game. They can spawn instances with pre-defined conditions i suspect, assign certain expected values to spells and raids and see how it scales ( like they did in the beta when they said mages were doing 8k DPS, which i suspect was FFB when it was double dipping in coe/other stuff.

They probably also have modelling programs which can trace the way certain things scale up etc.

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Q u o t e:
I should say players rarely surprise us with builds

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Out of curiosity was one of those rare surprises the lock Demonic Sacrifice/shadow and flame shadowbolt spam build? The build seemed so counter to what the class is supposed to be.

Be really surprised if they didn't see DS/SnF coming, since it existed in vanilla. The surprise was probably more like the way it ended up (just SB spam) instead of a toss up between incinerate and SB, and using immolate/corruption, both of which ended up getting tossed out the window as gear ramped up.

Just talking PvE

Surprising builds are rare because people are going to go down a tree and pick all the talents that boost damage.

Now I think surprising mix of either gear, bugs, or certain class synergies are much more surprising. For instance stacking warlocks and having a SP in the raid. Or the current form where stacking HaT rogue or BM hunters.

I think that stuff is alot more difficult to figure out without play testing then figuring out what would be the best builds.

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Q u o t e:

Out of curiosity was one of those rare surprises the lock Demonic Sacrifice/shadow and flame shadowbolt spam build? The build seemed so counter to what the class is supposed to be.

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I think the build may not have surprise them but the synergies between locks who specced it and keeping up ISB was more then likely a surprise, or an overlooked factor.

I really wish we DIDN'T have such set trees. I prefer to try and make my own spec. I would be more in favor of designing several builds for each tree, each with small variations for personalization, for instance a spec within a spec might have more sustained dps, or more survivability sacrificing some burst.

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Out of curiosity was one of those rare surprises the lock Demonic Sacrifice/shadow and flame shadowbolt spam build? The build seemed so counter to what the class is supposed to be.

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I would assume that we were allowed to use the spec throughout TBC mainly due to the fact that every other spec failed miserably in terms of scaling.

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We design the talent trees with specific builds in mind. We'll slide things up and down to make them more or less attractive to various cross-spec strategies.

Players rarely surprise us with builds. When they do it's something like the Holy paladin that goes all the way down Ret but intends to heal like Holy, or the Elemental shaman who goes very deep in Enhancement.

I should say players rarely surprise us with builds but they surprise us all the time in general.

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Would you say the warlock dominant specs from TBC surprised you? SL/SL and DS/SnF?

We all realize that a lot of the nerfs that occurred throughout TBC and into the WotLK release were directly related to those two specs. Ironically, a lot of those nerfs hurt the deep-tree specs more than the hybrids they were trying to discourage. They usually pushed more people towards those builds even if they wouldn't consider it before.

Do you feel warlocks are approaching a place where they can actually be balanced around deep-tree builds? As opposed to reacting to whatever bastardized hybrid people manage to come up with. :)

edit: I realize those are dangerous question for you to answer probably, but I don't mean them to be a jerk or anything, I am honestly curious. Since I started playing my warlock, strange hybrid specs have been the order of the day... just wondering if you feel that we're getting to a point where it won't be so common...

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Wow I actually got a blue post.

Thanks, I guess it kind of makes sense since you know all the mechanics of each spell and how the talents are going to interact.

What about synergy in raids, such as you didn't realize some combination of debuffs would make some spec do ridiculous DPS?

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Pretty sure this one was answered at blizzcon and the beta forums.

"We didn't like the current debuff system. It wasn't consistent and had big stacking problems.
Dropping a mage and getting another warlock when there was 4 warlock in a party example was given." - Blizzcon

"ISB was up to crazy levels" - Beta forums. (not the exact quote)

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So do you intend to see EVERY PRIEST regardless of spec at least 13 pts into DIsc??? or do you just want us to spec into those because there is just a whole bunch of garbage in all 3 trees. What about the priest having 0 synergy between Holy and Shadow

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in TBC shaman were basically required to go atleast 13 into resto for the +hit talent, and elemental were forced to go an extra 5 after that for the crit, you arent the only ones.

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Q u o t e:
We design the talent trees with specific builds in mind. We'll slide things up and down to make them more or less attractive to various cross-spec strategies.

Players rarely surprise us with builds. When they do it's something like the Holy paladin that goes all the way down Ret but intends to heal like Holy, or the Elemental shaman who goes very deep in Enhancement.

I should say players rarely surprise us with builds but they surprise us all the time in general.

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How did hunters using bestial wrath w/ readiness surprise you? ...fail

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Q u o t e:
So do you intend to see EVERY PRIEST regardless of spec at least 13 pts into DIsc??? or do you just want us to spec into those because there is just a whole bunch of garbage in all 3 trees. What about the priest having 0 synergy between Holy and Shadow

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All PvP warlocks are forced to spend 11-17 points in Demonology. All PvE warlocks are forced to spend 15-20 points in Destruction. Stop acting like priests are the only class that has to do something like that.
Edit: Changed one of the numbers

I've also noticed how many of the talents fit together nicely, and some are just out of reach like "Hah, no that would be OP you silly warrior" AGONEEEE

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Q u o t e:
I've also noticed how many of the talents fit together nicely, and some are just out of reach like "Hah, no that would be OP you silly warrior" AGONEEEE

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Q u o t e:
We design the talent trees with specific builds in mind. We'll slide things up and down to make them more or less attractive to various cross-spec strategies.

Players rarely surprise us with builds. When they do it's something like the Holy paladin that goes all the way down Ret but intends to heal like Holy, or the Elemental shaman who goes very deep in Enhancement.

I should say players rarely surprise us with builds but they surprise us all the time in general.

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Could you please consider putting the mana reduction for shifting (added to primal tenacity) to something a pve build includes? I don't mind questing etc.. as a tank. In some ways I prefer it. But having 3-4 shifts before I'm free to be ganked isn't fun. Am I mistaken in that one of the goals for this expansion was not to have pve builds be punished in pvp? Duel specs does not fix the issue.

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Q u o t e:
We design the talent trees with specific builds in mind. We'll slide things up and down to make them more or less attractive to various cross-spec strategies.

Players rarely surprise us with builds. When they do it's something like the Holy paladin that goes all the way down Ret but intends to heal like Holy, or the Elemental shaman who goes very deep in Enhancement.

I should say players rarely surprise us with builds but they surprise us all the time in general.

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The Shockadin build has been around for a long time. :P

It just got super enhanced when JotW came into the picture.