Your DPS is irrelevant. Does your group kill the dragon? That's all GC cares about in terms of PVE class balance. As long as a certain class comp isn't *required* to beat the boss, they've done what they set out to do.

Ah you’re not the brightest spark are you?
The problem was getting the buffs needed for that extra 1000 dps was class specific in BC.
It is now easy to get all raid buffs such that "bring the player" can be called a success, which is what the thread is all about.

They did spread out who can give the buffs, like Replenishment, which they compared in importance to binging healers on the raid, then said that you can do the raids without if you are a bit higher gear level than the raid.

So... Does blizz not understand how analogies work, or will we see raids of Nax with just a couple tanks then all dps once T8 comes out?

As I posted in another thread the other day - GCs contradictory statements in a single post.

"Players often wish for a buff so awesome that it guarantees them a raid slot. But that is exactly the mentality we were trying to prevent with our big buff and debuff overhaul."

"The new model is designed to let you get as many buffs as you want through several different configurations of classes and specs and still have some slots left over to bring who you want."

From the post this atricle is drawn from-

"What it does mean is that you have a ton more flexibility than in Sunwell over which classes you bring and you should be able to get all of the buffs you need (and yes Replenishment is one of those) and still have enough free slots to double up on whatever classes you want or just bring the guys you like to raid with."

There you have it, from the man himself. It is not the oft touted "bring the player, not the class", but rather, bring these mandatory class/specs and maybe you have a spot left over for the player you want to bring.

I'm not saying that we should be able to bring all rouges and locks and be ok, just that "bring the player, not the class" is not an accurate description of reality.

"We aren't seeing anyone sidelined on raids or being stacked in raids..."

Really??? Once again, I don't know what data Blizzard is looking at or how they draw their conclusions that certain classes are not being shunned or stacked, all i can do is assess the situation based on my experiences on my server. Those are:

-DKs are being shunned (almost all you see in trade is "LF5M 25 man Naxx - NO DKs" then join the group to find no DKs in the group to begin with. I believe this is due to the 5 FotM ret pallies not wanting to have more competition for loot and that no one really views and of the DK buffs as necessary.)

-Rogues are being shunned (mainly because they are putting out sub par dps and have nothing to offer the group as a whole)

-Warlocks might be shunned (I don't see many locks in raids nowadays, however I don't know if that is due to a lack of raid buffs or that many locks rerolled DKs and most of the rest rerolled something else. While I don't see a real bias against locks, I don't see raids actively seeking them either.)

-Paladins are being stacked (I have seen, on average, raids being comprised of 30% paladins. Buffs, auras, replenishment, great tanks, great dps, and insane glyphed healing... if it weren't for loot I wouldn't be surpirsed to see all pally raids.)

@max_bmw


These statements actually are not at all contradictory, they're just in different contexts.

What I think the dev team wants is an environment where there are some buffs that are just great... so great that pretty much every raid should have them, then there are other buffs that are good, but not good enough to make them so good that they severely affect the raid if the raid doesn't have them. The difference is a boss encounter needs to be designed presuming the great buffs, since they affect a group so much, but not necessarily the good buffs.

Now if a boss is designed with a specific buff in mind, then that buff approaches 'required' status. It would be hard to beat the boss without it.

So, let me go through these quotes:

1st quote:
Yes, it would be nice if you had some insane, killer buff, only you. So that way your raid would always have to take you, no matter what. That makes for trouble though since you effectively wield massive power over the raid that isn't based on how well you play, but what button you clicked on character creation. It does feel nice to be indispensable and unique, but that doesn't make for good game design... so no buff should be completely necessary. GC does say there buffs that are 'required', but that's only a way of saying they're so good, that they affect the design of an encounter. No player buff should ever be required to beat a boss, and no player buff so be so great that you always need it no matter what.

2nd quote:
It should now be possible to bring a wide array of different classes and specs and still get all the buffs you want since so many of them are equivalent and overwrite each other. This way the really good buffs are more common so no one gets benched just because they happen to want to play a certain class.

3rd quote:
Let me paraphrase this quote... 'Replenishment is a really good buff, it is really useful, and we design encounters presuming your mana-users have it. We also gave more of these really good buffs to multiple classes and specs so that it is more likely you'll have them so while maybe one person may want to respec to bring replenishment, at least they're not getting benched for a PuG player that does'


Here is an alternate suggestion... since you seem to dislike how buffs are handled... how about Blizz just drops all of them. Out. Gone. Now.. did the list of reasons to bring certain classes get longer or shorter?

DK:
Personally I have not seen DKs being shunned. That's just me on my server though... in fact, sometimes my guild's Naxx-10 raids have up to 3 DKs in them. My guess would be though that the DK class is new, and cool, and there are lot of Deth Kaniggits that are really, really bad... making PuGs call for non-DKs.

Rogues:
I definitely agree here. Actually I think the Rogue class really just needs a reworking, a lot like Paladin. The problem is Rogue was always too strong in PvP and often too strong in PvE. Steadily their PvE use has fallen off while their ability in PvP has just recently started to erode... so really, only recently, has Blizz ever been in a position where they kinda needed to buff Rogues. This likely won't be fixed any time soon. I've never really liked the way Blizz has handled Rogues from day 1, but I'm not a Blizz dev.. so... too bad for me. Blizz has posted they are concerned about Rogues.

Warlocks:
I don't think so. Blizz has been very conscientious with locks. I've seen them doing very nice DPS and they now have their uber summon. Demo needs some help and Destro I think could use some tweaks, but Blizz has posted saying this already, and I've seen locks filling their ranged DPS role just fine.

Paladins:
Yes. Paladins are way, way too useful I think. Paladins quite possibly border on the edge of 'way too good'.

Actually, I don't have a problem with the buff system as a whole, though I wouldn't say there aren't things that could be improved.

While those statements are contradictory in that GC said that they wanted to get away from buffs that were so important that it guaranteed a raid spot while simultaneously adding a new buff (replenishment) that he has said is mandatory as all current encounters are designed expecting your raid to have it, I think the point I was trying to illustrate was missed.

The point those quotes were meant to demonstrate is that as much as people like to say/think/wish/demand (as evidenced by the title of this post) that "bring the player not the class" is the new law of Azeroth, it simply is not the case.

As for the classes, DKs are given the shaft on my server - random pug, organized regular pug, guild run - it doesn't seem to matter. In my guild run, we have a DK tank and we aren't looking for any other DKs. While there is certainly an apprehension concerning most DK's ability to preform in the roll they join for (there are so many DKs saying they can tank and haven't the slightest clue what they are doing), the flip side of that coin is that the good DKs aren't getting a chance to prove themselves due to an overabundance of "established" (pally/war) dps plate.

As far as warlocks go, yes, they fill the ranged dps role beautifully. My lock is always high on the meters if not leading. As I said, I don't know if they are being shunned, just that I don't see many in raids. I don't know if that is because raid leaders feel they only need one lock to provide utility, or that in this new world of DKs and ret pallys there just aren't many locks left.

The point of those class evaluations was that when I see the lead developer state that "We aren't seeing anyone sidelined on raids or being stacked in raids...", I have to look at the situation on my server, and come to the conclusion they are missing some portion of the reality what is happening.

*Sarcasm inc* Perhaps on other servers 25% of the population didn't roll ret and 75% of the warrior tanks didn't go dps and 95% of the feral tanks didn't go resto. Maybe elsewhere everyone loves DKs, classes are balanced and Danita Stonemantle, the mysterious vault manager of Ironforge, gleefully distributes everyone's Gnomish bailout gold. If this sounds like your server, please let me know so I may transfer immediately.