Upcoming class and item balance changes
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 7th 2010 at 8:17PM
There has been a lot of good discussion lately concerning various aspects of the DPS status quo. Some classes are putting out too much compared to their cloth counterparts, and others have suddenly found themselves too powerful in certain areas of the game. Blizzard recognizes this, and this evening the Lead System Designer, Ghostcrawler, came out and enumerated a few things Blizzard believes are true.
Ghostcrawler has left the door open to these class and item balance issues being fixed (if Blizzard decides to pursue such fixes) in either a hotfix or through an upcoming patch. Chief among these changes are an increase in warlock DPS, a decrease in rogue DPS, a change in protection warriors to limit their utility in PvP, and refinements to Icecrown Citadel weapon procs.
When looking over this laundry list of areas to change, it's important to remember that Ghostcrawler is not promising a fix, and that he and his team are not ready to share specifics. He has not promised you the pony, so don't be mad if some of these changes don't happen.
Ghostcrawler's full statement after the break.
Ghostcrawler has left the door open to these class and item balance issues being fixed (if Blizzard decides to pursue such fixes) in either a hotfix or through an upcoming patch. Chief among these changes are an increase in warlock DPS, a decrease in rogue DPS, a change in protection warriors to limit their utility in PvP, and refinements to Icecrown Citadel weapon procs.
When looking over this laundry list of areas to change, it's important to remember that Ghostcrawler is not promising a fix, and that he and his team are not ready to share specifics. He has not promised you the pony, so don't be mad if some of these changes don't happen.
Ghostcrawler's full statement after the break.
From Ghostcrawler:
As many of you have suspected, we think rogue damage is too high. We will be making hotfixes to lower the maximum damage output of Assassination and Combat rogues. The Combat nerf will be slight. Both specs should still do just fine on damage meters (assuming skill, gear etc.) but shouldn't be beating out other specs to such a large degree.
Other things on our radar that you might see soon -- none of these are promises and we have no specific changes to announce yet:
- Warlock damage in PvE is a little low.
- Protection warriors have too much utility and damage for PvP. (We don't want to hurt their tanking in PvE of course.)
- We are considering adjusting (not replacing) the Elemental 4 piece Tier 10 set bonus.
- We'll continue to refine and look at the Icecrown weapon procs.
- Other stuff (yes, we've heard your concerns), but these are the big things we are focusing on at this time.
We usually don't make such general announcements before we're ready to share the specifics, so we'll see how this works out.
Filed under: Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
ryaneford Jan 7th 2010 8:23PM
Shadow Priest damage fix! OMG
KronosIII Jan 7th 2010 10:56PM
Amazing how they pick on warriors more when YET no melee can kill a prot pally.
Any melee here kill a prot pally? Please raise your hand. And no a pally in level 213 epics does not count.
AND YET BLOCK still doesn't work for warriors. Ya we were great on Anub adds. But seriously fix it already.
And I am tired of hearing the most guilds use warriors. Well ya?! Warriors have been tanks from day 1.
And pallys can also heal and DK's do the best dps compared to any other class.
And after the massive fury nerf when Ulduar came out every warrior went prot and stayed prot.
I mean for lords sake blizzard give warriors something. Pallys have overshadowed us all this expansion.
They beat us in numbers(stats), they beat us in pulling, they beat us in making healing them easier.
I would accept this prot warrior nerf if they would nerf prot pallys. Or at least make us as good as a prot pally.
Aedilhild Jan 7th 2010 11:17PM
Adopt a wait-and-see. If Blizzard's devs make a point of reassuring warriors that their goal isn't to undermine tanking, the change could be more interesting than a simple reduction of numbers.
KronosIII Jan 7th 2010 11:22PM
Actually I'm gonna rant 1 last time on how to fix our damage problem. The gain problem is with block value.
Yes we can rock out people in pvp as prot with allot of block value.
You know whats the easier way to solve this then a nerf? TO FIX HOW BLOCK WORKS.
Make block rating/value not able to stack up to ungodly amount from gear and make it a passive gain from STR or STAM idk..... Most likely STR.
Just in general make block value/rating not appear on gear and make it come from another passive source that scales correctly.
THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Oh btw I like how none of the warrior tier 10 has no block rating/value on it. Sure go ahead and make us not be a mitigation tank. But that would make us a DK. But WAIT dk's have more armor and other abilities to make them taking full on hits easier. When we don't....
They need to stop ignoring the problem and just fix block already. When we lose or block value from tier 9 we will be in trouble in ICC when we replace the gear.
Celeane Jan 7th 2010 11:40PM
I'm on a server that didn't come out until Burning Crusade, and we have VERY few Horde warrior tanks. Only Blizzard has the numbers on new warrior tanks, but I very strongly suspect that there aren't many and most are legacies from earlier times.
KronosIII Jan 8th 2010 12:09AM
At Celeane
I been warrior since vanilla. Was a dwarf warrior and now I'm a undead warrior. Horde for life btw
Anyway I have played all 3 tanks. And by far I find warriors giving the most trouble for healers.
The most overpowered tank by far is the pally. Ardent defender is way too over the top if the other natural abilities/stats/mitigation were not enough.
And I am too stubborn to roll a pally.
The issue right now is block
But to go even more far the main problem with prot. is our tree. Basically we have allot of fun abilities and too many talents based on giving us crit. hits on our abilities.
Where as the prot pally tree is all about staying alive. Where as the prot warrior tree just seems like a tree to annoy casters.
I am fine with working harder then other tanks, but I can't stand to have other players have to work harder to keep me alive. That is my main concern when the problem goes to others. My guild healers loves it when the pally main tanks. Because they don't have to break there keyboard to keep him alive.
KronosIII Jan 8th 2010 12:32AM
I see my comment get down rated and then uprated. Going up and down, up and down.
For the people downrating. why?
Because I leeched off of the main post that was about shadow priest dps? Sorry but I found a warrior tank qq topic slightly more interesting to talk about. With my opinion on what the problem is.
Malfura Jan 8th 2010 1:01AM
I think this commentary would sadden the currently cough-syruped up Allison. All three tanks? Poor bears....
Nirva Jan 8th 2010 4:26AM
@ angry prot warrrior
This is about a prot PvP nerf... if you wanna whine about prot PvE dont do it here.
paul Jan 8th 2010 5:57AM
"I been warrior since vanilla. Was a dwarf warrior and now I'm a undead warrior. Horde for life btw"
Well, thats isnt horde for life, thats horde for however much time you have left after you played alliance?
"Anyway I have played all 3 tanks."
Um?
"But to go even more far the main problem with prot is our tree."
Well ofc, other wise it wouldnt be a problem with prot, now would it? Summing up what everyone knows is skilled.
"I see my comment get down rated and then uprated. Going up and down, up and down."
Nope, just down. Down down down down down.
Squirr3llywrath9 Jan 8th 2010 11:06AM
You keep getting downrated because you are complaining about your class getting nerfed, but you are offering no viable solution to fix them. If block was determined by STR, then you'd have a bunch of prot wars running around in arms or fury gear with actual resiliance and high crit. You are getting downrated because you are calling for nerfs to other classes because your own is getting put into check. Prot is an intended pve spec and like the prot pallys of last season you are stepping outside of your role as a meat shield and taking on a role unintended for the spec (last I checked, prot wasn't described as being able to stunlock casters and destroy melee while taking very little damage).
Just like with pallys the good ones will adapt, the bad ones will reroll.
/walloftext
Rhabella Jan 8th 2010 11:16AM
@KronosIII,
Chill out already dude. There are many paladins on your side about their OP’ness right now and if you check out righteous defense or honors code, you will find that respected paladins agree some things need done in the balancing. Attacking an entire class like you know what in the bejesus you are talking about isn’t going to win you very many friends or influence that many people.
I’d also point out that complaining about the rise of a class in any form is absolutely asinine for any player, but especially insulting if you are a warrior. You are the only hybrid who lived 2 expansions and never was once asked to pay the hybrid tax, search hybrid tax here on wow.com and you will find GC exactly that about warriors. On top of the free pass warriors were given, they were the ONLY viable maintanks in the game, and though I don’t know you, my guess is you weren’t exactly screaming for balance back in those days. Classes exchange the top position all the time, so again, chill the F*&% out!
And last, though not nearly as important, the big baddie you want to take down in ICC is one of our (the paladins) fallen brothers. If any class “deserves” to storm ICC and slaughter that SoB, it is a team of paladins, just from a potentially cool lore perspective. If paladins were going to rise up during any expansion, why wouldn’t it be this one?
@Ryan,
I apologize in the participation of the hujacking of your comment.
Whiskeydave Jan 8th 2010 12:07PM
I had dream!!!
One day my Quick Decay
Would remove delay
From Immo and UA!
But in all seriousness Im happy to know that whatever buff they provide will affect all three specs. It would unfortunate to see a gross imbalance to three very nice trees.
tatsumasa Jan 8th 2010 1:03PM
@KronosIII
you are down-voted for hijacking a thread. it doesn't matter if YOU think it's more important. if you had a little more maturity you'd understand that each person as their own priorities and just because spriests aren't yours doesn't mean it's okay to hijack a thread because you are then in essence saying that what you think is important and what he thinks is not.
you are down-voted for ranting endlessly and repeatedly about the same issue. seriously, one comment will due. if someone responds to what you say you can respond (read not say the same thing again but actually read the response and formulate a new thought) to it.
you are also down-voted for
pressing
enter
after
every
sentence.
Gothia Jan 10th 2010 5:48AM
On thread - thank you very much tanks for once again totally disregarding Shadow Priest's.
Yes, we are a utility spec and we do provide buffs to include hit and replenishment. I do not want to be at the top of the meters on single target dps, but it would be nice to be on par with ranged dps on a whole. Our aoe damage on trash in ICC is a bit high and I wouldn't mind seeing a little tradeoff.
My question is why was the haste removed from shadow word pain - it would have been a dps increase to put Shadow on par with other ranged dps. Was it too much since flay refreshes pain?
TJ Jan 7th 2010 8:28PM
"ghostcrawler-promised-me-a-pony" tag is amazing.
wutsconflag Jan 7th 2010 8:28PM
Incoming rogue QQ?
SamLowry Jan 7th 2010 10:06PM
Considering that I was complaining just a few days ago that I can't get my 80 rogue in blues & purples to reach 1k dps, I'd say yes.
scherbaddie Jan 7th 2010 10:12PM
lawl.. don't put 71 points in the assassination tree and you'll be fine
Skrotus Jan 7th 2010 10:21PM
If you can't reach 1k dps then class mechanics are not your problem!
My main is a rogue, yes we're OP in pve atm (the Deadly Poison change was a HUGE buff). It was fun while it lasted but you can't really expect them to keep one class doing a few thousand dps more than anyone else. Saw this one coming a mile off.