What they really meant by "bring the player, not the class"
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 4th 2009 at 9:00AM
We here at WoW Insider and others around the WoW community have talked so much about the term "bring the player, not the class" that I'm a little surprised we haven't started shortening it to "BTPNTC." But apparently I, at least, have not really understood what Blizzard meant by it when they said it was part of their new philosophy of balancing for raids.
Ghostcrawler basically QFTs another forum poster who said the following: "Blizzard has repeatedly stated they didn't mean any class will be identical to all other classes in effectiveness for your last raid slot. Blizzard has provided a bunch of options you can choose from to get Replenishment, but expects you to choose one of those options. If any choice were a valid choice, there would be no incentive to think about the choice you make. Blizzard wants you to think about your group composition."
As you may have gathered, this is in the contest of "A plea to remove Replenishment." What Blizzard, then, apparently means by BTPNTC is that it's now easier to get your (semi-)required buff and debuff coverage, not that you can do it with any old group. Sort of like threat for tanks, the mini-game of group composition has been made easier, but not made a non-issue. Honestly, I do think Replenishment should be removed – I don't see how requiring my 10-man raid to bring one of five specific DPS specs, or face the consequences, makes the game more fun. But it's good to have some insight into the developers' mindset.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Vlatch Mar 4th 2009 9:05AM
"I don't see how requiring my 10-man raid to bring one of five specific DPS specs, or face the consequences, makes the game more fun."
Is it really that hard to find a group that includes one of 5 different specs? Your group would be imbalanced if it didn't have one of these 5 specific dps specs. BTPNTC just means that paladins are sitting outside of Sunwell again, waiting to buff the raid inside every 30 minutes.
I think it would be harder to find a 10 man group that didn't include a dps class with replenishment.
Angry Joe Mar 4th 2009 9:13AM
Saying "bring the player, not the class" is just hypocrisy.
Michael Mar 4th 2009 9:37AM
I do not see how it is mandatory to bring any replenishment class. I got tired of people bitching in raid about bringing one over another, so I ran one raid without using replenishment(shadow priest VT). The difference was definitely noticed by the healers but we still had no troubles until we were fighting boss' that we had not downed yet. 2d and 3d caused a major issue, but in Naxx there was only minor mana issues. Keep in mind that my guild is not one of those guilds who only brings 2 healers into Naxx and has top kills. Replenishment definitely helps but spec and gear make a much bigger difference. I personally do not drop below 50% mana in Naxx and still go all out making the top 5 in dps.
Vlatch Mar 4th 2009 9:42AM
I'm the raid leader of a small guild and I've never heard a complaint or argument about bringing a replenishment class to a raid. We've cleared all the current content (no Sarth 3d yet), and it hasn't been an issue.
I think people like to blow things out of proportion and make them a bigger problem than they actually are. Many people think that Shaman are great for heroism, but we usually don't run with one. I guess we've grown accustomed to running an unusual group and working with it, but I'd much rather bring someone who has high dps than someone who has replenishment and low dps.
Thander Mar 4th 2009 11:18AM
To the last two posters, Blizzard has specifically said replenishment will be required for Ulduar raiding. You can get away with it now when bosses go down fast or there's little breaks in the battle. When Ulduar comes out everyone will be taking more damage being undergeared and the battles will last longer. Even after everyone is geared, you might still need replenishment. Blizzard officially stated all the Ulduar fights will be balanced around 100% replenishment uptime.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Mar 4th 2009 11:36AM
Which soundskind of funny if you think about how they wanted to nerf mana regen on priests /druids/pallies.
Duckaholica Mar 4th 2009 1:47PM
Yes?
I have a raid group for ten mans that has no shadow priest - all our priests are needed for healing. We have a paladin - who cannot be ret as they are needed as a tank. We sometimes have a shaman who can drop a mana totem, sometimes. Our hunters aren't a regular contribution to the team either.
We are very melee heavy. Death Knights, Warriors. Overall, we are lucky to have three ranged dps. Replenishment is always something the healers are desperately craving on fights because we have no mana return and our group is very new to raiding and are a bit low on DPS still - meaning long fights.
We went up against the first boss in construct and it took us three attempts to get him down simply because the healers were OOM. One of them went and respecced to a holy priest crit build so she could have a lot of free heals and it made a humongous difference.
Without being able to use more than one mana potion per fight, and with the decreased mana regen outside of casting, the removal of a mana regeneration skill for priests - we are going to be BONED by the lack of replenishment and it really, really irritates me that our progression is going to be ground down by that.
We aren't hardcore raiders - we just dabble - but the idea of homogenizing skills and abilities was to make it easier for the 'casuals'. Well - it's made it harder for us.
Bryond Mar 4th 2009 5:07PM
"Honestly, I do think Replenishment should be removed – I don't see how requiring my 10-man raid to bring one of five specific DPS specs, or face the consequences, makes the game more fun. But it's good to have some insight into the developers' mindset."
I get frustrated at how this comment is so greatly misrepresented.
Saying that encounters are designed with the assumption of replenishment does not remotely mean that anything is required.
They make a bunch of default assumptions when they define encounters.
They assume X DPS.
They assume Y Tank Health
They assume Z damage avoidance
They assume Q downtime of melee effectiveness
The list goes on and on.
Replenishment is also on that list.
The sum of all these factors define the difficulty of the scenario.
All of them are assumed and none of them are required.
If you only have 90% of X DPS, you are going to need better health and or avoidance and better heals.
X DPS is the balance point. It is assumed for design purposes. And if the party doesn't have it they must make up for it in some other way or they will fail. But it is not required.
yeah, there are gear checks. For Patchwerk, your DPS = target or you fail. But those examples are clear cut. There is nothing like this for replenishment.
If you don't have replenishment you have in no way whatsoever failed to meet a design requirement. You simply have to compensate. DPS faster so the same mana gets the job done. Or last longer so you can regen the mana with replenishment. Either of those options work and I'm certain there are groups out there proving it.
To keep repeating the severe misrepresentation that a design assumption constitutes a "requirement" is a really counter-productive effort.
Drakin Mar 4th 2009 9:13AM
What's wrong with making certain classes feel like they're being wanted i a raid ?
Why the hell don't people just shut the hell up n stop moaning about every bloody f'kin thing that's "different" ?
Let blizz spend there time on making more or better stuff to compliment the allready good game that WoW is today, instead of "fixing" stuff that's not even broken.
sephirah Mar 4th 2009 9:20AM
If only some classes are "wanted" in a raid, automatically the others become "unwanted" as the content becomes more difficult.
trogdor7 Mar 4th 2009 9:52AM
That would make sense if every single DPS needed to have replenishment. As it is, in, say, Naxx 25, you really only need one. That leaves what, more than 15 spots for other DPS classes. Sure, in 10 man it's a little more tight, but still. No one questions the fact that in a 10 man naxx, you're gonna need at least 2 tanks and 2 healers. Those things can only be provided by 4 specs each OMG! And you need 2 of each? How are we supposed to find that?
"I don't see how requiring my 10-man raid to bring two of four specific healing specs AND two of four specific tanking specs, or face the consequences, makes the game more fun."
Please, stop complaining about replenishment. It's better than BC, where the only mana battery option was a shadow priest, and now that you can only use one potion per fight, it's very useful.
sephirah Mar 4th 2009 9:18AM
While they call "bring the player, not the class", they actually mean "bring the buff, not the class".
Except for shadow priests...
pkrockin Mar 4th 2009 9:31AM
Blizzard has stated that Replenishment is only an expectation for heroic raids, NOT the 10-man versions.
Besides, will it really be that hard to find a survival Hunter, shadow Priest, ret Pally, or frost Mage in 3.1 to fill a heroic raid spot? 30 possible specs in the game, and of the 25 spots to fill, you should be able to find 1 of those 4. Heck, having a heroic raid without a ret Pally seems impossible to me, since they seem to be everywhere on my realms.
M Mar 4th 2009 10:00AM
One or the other blue notes on MMO Champion did include a mention saying they meant 10-mans as well as 25-mans for Replenishment.
But it's not just one slot you need to fill with Replenishment. It only affects 10 people, so you will need at least 2 slots, unless you're stacked full of melee. And we know how well a raid full of melee will do against, say, KT.
The complaint is valid for some classes such as Rogues, who don't have stellar dps unless you stack groups carefully for HaT and who don't bring any "must have" buffs to the raid.
DeathPaladin Mar 4th 2009 10:17AM
Correct me if I'm wrong, M, but I am under the impression that Replenishment automatically targets the players with the lowest mana (out of those that have mana, of course). Bringing multiple replenishment specced players will cause the buff to refresh more often, not cause the buff to target more players.
bub Mar 4th 2009 9:32AM
It used to only be shadow priests that could return mana and then only to their own group.
Now there are 5 classes that can return mana to the entire raid and people complain that its not enough.
It is more then a little childish that after being spoon fed why "Bring the player" works several times, these players still demand more.
Why are people not complaining about a shamans heroism being unique???
Bloodletter Mar 4th 2009 9:35AM
"Why are people not complaining about a shamans heroism being unique???"
It will happen.
Trust me, one day, one day soon, it will happen.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Mar 4th 2009 11:56AM
Furthermore, I'm surprised people don't complain about the Shaman's 15 minute HS. ...especially if you glyph it, doesn't it cut it down even more? (Okay, this has nothing to do with replenishment, but couldn't help myself.)
Brad Mar 4th 2009 3:36PM
@Deadly
Oh No!! Shamans have a 15 minute hearthstone (glyphed to 7.5 minutes). What about mages who have a 10 second hearthstone to any major city they like at the cost of 10s (at friendly)? Nothing is completely unique in mechanics to any one particular class (except some talents). For example, mages have polymorph that works on humaniods, beasts, and critters (but who cares about critters) while shamans have hex that works on humanoids and beasts.
If you dive deep enough, every class has unique talents that help out a raid in one way or another. These talents make every class unique. I haven't seen anyone complain about the talent Focus Magic in the arcane tree for mages, but it is completely unique in nature. Even then, there are some talents that are the exact same for different classes just worded differently (i.e. nature's swiftness/presence of mind or the 3% hit given to almost any spellcaster class).
P.S. I'm sorry this seems mostly about shamans and mages, but those are my two 80s so I know the most about those two classes.
Bloodletter Mar 4th 2009 5:11PM
Thing is, WoW is slowly being homogenized, which means that everything is being made the same.
Combat homogenization is largely due to PvP and PvPers screaming "imbalance" and Class-Specific Utility homogenization is due to bad players.
:-(