Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsRaid composition and the role gap
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 17th 2011 at 4:00PM
It kind of drives me insane (yes, amazingly, I have more insane to be driven to) that at times, raid progress is stalled not by a lack of capable raiders, but rather by the design of raid encounters that punishes them for the type of DPSers they are. As a raid leader, I am not a big fan of telling capable players to switch from enhancement (a spec they may be skilled at) to elemental (a spec they may not have any experience with) because even if their DPS drops, it will be better for the raid and our healers to have them out at range -- just one potential example. Worse than telling people to switch roles is telling them you need them to step out for another player because they simply can't switch to a non-melee role.
Painting a broader picture
When I see a talented and skilled paladin tank powerleveling a druid because he can be a moonkin (and thus fulfill a ranged role) as well as heal or tank, it drives the point home to me. As much as we're always told that it's dangerous to use what happens in our personal gameplay to paint a broader picture of what's happening in the game entire, I can't help but wonder how many other raids are having this experience. It seems to me a failure of design that the raids themselves provide selection pressure to try and force my players into classes they don't want to play. If I'm intended to bring my friends because they're good players, why should my friends and good players be forced to roll classes they don't want to play?
We already have to divide raids into tanks, healers and DPSers. A further division of labor in the DPS ranks, especially when we're supposedly to be able to raid in either 10- or 25-man format, really makes things unnecessarily convoluted for no good reason. Fights designed to be punishing because you're standing too close or too far away from something need to be balanced out so that raids don't need to cherry-pick their roster to succeed (or at the very least, so they won't suffer unduly). This should go for ranged players as well; it should be just as viable to field an all-caster or all-ranged DPS squad. Right now, the all ranged squad is absolutely viable: there is no penalty associated with having an all ranged raid. Try an all melee and see what your healers say.
We've got more raids on the way, so please, let's see some flexibility in who you can bring.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, BlizzCon, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 6)
JLam Feb 17th 2011 4:38PM
I feel that some requirement for diversity should be included in design, but should not require more than two of any single role. This would ensure fairly balanced groups with flexibility for the team, without sugar coating encounters and discouraging uniqe mechanics. It is unfortunate that encounters like cho'gall are so punishing for groups that even slightly favor melée (ie. 3/2). This holds true for fights that would otherwise favor melée heavy groups as well.
MikeLive Feb 17th 2011 4:38PM
Oddly enough, before our raid team fell apart and headed to Rift, we had almost entirely ranged DPS - I was the only melee as Enhancement, and while I was interested in trying out Elemental more seriously, I really needed to stay melee (which I was still okay with, since I still very much enjoy the spec).
Candide Feb 17th 2011 4:38PM
Complaining about 10 mans, spare me.
Why don't they just make it easier on you, do away with 25s entirely and design all the raids around the inevitable class/spec restrictions 10s are going to face.
nymrohd Feb 17th 2011 4:40PM
At least your enhancement shaman actually switches to elemental . . . ours simply refuses to do so.
And it is not just ranged dps that is at a significant advantage this tier. Mass snares and knockbacks are also at a premium.
Rolly Feb 17th 2011 4:45PM
"Bring the player not the class"
Just another in the long list of Blizzard developers saying one thing and then doing the exact opposite.
GrumblyStuff Feb 17th 2011 5:08PM
Well, they have a lot they're trying to do.
Balance PvP
Making healing "interesting" again
Equalize 10 and 25 raids
Balance specs in comparison to other specs (tanks to tanks, healers to healers, etc.)
Maintaining some sense of uniqueness among classes and specs
That's all I can come up at the moment but even with that short list, they clash so much. I just wish they'd stop emphasizing PvP so much (don't even use gear in instanced or "serious" PvP) and, you know, throw in optional bosses that lean to ranged or melee or extra tanks or healers or CC. They could even drop gear more inline to the classes/specs needed to take 'em down!
Yeah, needing all range or all melee or five extra tanks or healers to progress would suck but why not an optional boss? Aren't raid IDs specific to bosses now?
I'd say I digress but I'm ending this offtopic. :P
wow Feb 17th 2011 5:17PM
Ignorant statement is ignorant.
As long as you fill each of the 4 rolls you are typically free to use what ever class you want.
The "bring the player not the class" statement never was "bring the player not the role", but people like to make over generalizations to make a argument.
laxcoach Feb 17th 2011 4:49PM
I'm leveling a druid to bring a different hybrid (currently ele/resto). In wrath, we consistently raided with 1 ranged depending on the day. In cata, we've been lucky enough to only have 1 melee dps (feral).
Ranged will always have it easier (minus hunters), because worst case scenario, they can stack where a melee heavy group would be. To be honest, while important, class balance is much more important to me. Giving Shaman/Druid a meaningful cd would ease our lives as a 10 man, but realistically, this is the best place the game has been since inception imo.
BMEgal2 Feb 17th 2011 4:48PM
This has really hurt some of my guild mates, because we have four DK's who all want to dps in our 10-man raids (we're a small guild, so we don't have the numbers for 25-man). They're all geared and skilled players, but bringing four DK's automatically means we can't down any bosses due to encounter mechanics. One is currently leveling his mage alt, and another is building a tank set. The other two will have to be rotated in.
It really pains me when I have to tell one of our dedicated guild raiders that we have to pug their spot because they're not the right class. There is blatant favoritism of ranged over melee dps in raiding atm; Blizzard may have balanced all the class abilities, but they definitely didn't bring that same balance to raid encounters.
Sterb Feb 17th 2011 6:16PM
You don't see something wrong with 40% of your raid being DPS DKs?
Blizzard has bent over backwards recently to make good raid comp easier, but making it possible to support a comp like that was never the intent.
matticus Feb 17th 2011 6:19PM
If you have four dks magmaw should be a breeze.
Pyromelter Feb 17th 2011 7:44PM
DK DPS has to be the most over-saturated end-game class and role combo in the game.
saregos Feb 17th 2011 4:56PM
To an extent, it's highly necessary to punish people for being in melee range. After all - With the exception of hunters, everyone can stack in melee range. Without that punishment (*cough* Festergut, Marrowgar, Magmaw, etc...) you'll have the entire raid stack on melee except for one or two ranged "mules" whose job it is to play target for all that ranged crap.
In fact, certain current fights (Erudax and Argaloth come to mind) they've acknowledged this inherent disadvantage of Hunters and, notably, have disabled the hunter minimum range on these fights. Now if only they'd do so on a few more, Hunters wouldn't be bearing that disadvantage as grudgingly. While they can shoot on the move now, there are several mechanics that *require* stacking in melee range (see the last boss of Vortex Pinnacle for an example)
Further, as melee are wont to complain that "we couldn't see it in time to dodge!" (not entirely without justification) the same punishment that is levied on ranged (by and large, many forms of avoidable AoE) cannot be levied upon melee. Instead we end up with the forms of punishment we currently have.
Kaphik Feb 17th 2011 4:58PM
I tank in two raid groups with two characters. My Prot/Fury warrior is in a 10 man with only a rogue as the other melee and a mage, warlock, shaman and moonkin as our ranged. My Blood/Frost death knight is in a 10 man group with both a rogue and Ret paladin as melee, two hunters and a warlock as out ranged. Group one is great, when we only need one tank I dps and we're doing great. Group two is less than ideal, but it's made up of friends, so we're going to have a much harder time on some fights just due to the mechanics. The only saving grace is that my DK is Frost for dps, so I can do some kiting and a bit of gimped range dps. If my characters swap groups, group two would be severely gimped.
I fully understand the dilemma and I wish that Blizzard would finally design raid encounters that had multiple ways of being fought that didn't consist of stacking certain classes, creative use of terrain or exploits.
Chris Feb 17th 2011 5:07PM
I play (and love playing) a Druid, so I can't really complain much about roles, but it seems unfortunate that no pure-DPS class has both a ranged and melee spec. The only classes given that luxury are Shamans and Druids, who *also* have the benefit of choosing healing specs (or tank).
Obviously, it would be a major change in the game, but giving pure-DPS both melee and ranged specs would probably alleviate some of the "I really like class X, but my raid needs an rDPS so I need to play class Y". Of course, you're still out of luck if you just enjoy a certain *spec* but then it's a little more understandable if you can't go raiding b/c of spec choice.
Hirumared Feb 17th 2011 5:10PM
This is why I'm happy my mains are a priest and hunter. (not before the latest patch though since i like to pvp as well, before the patch they were a joke in arenas.)
Hih Feb 17th 2011 5:09PM
@Mr. Rossi: "Bring the player not the class" gets overused by people upset that their raid composition doesn't work. It was never intended that a raid could take 25 fury warriors and succeed, no matter how good of a friend you are with those other 24 people. It isn't even meant to say that you can take 3 prot pallies, 7 holy pallies, and 15 ret pallies. Raids need a balance, and that includes melee and ranged dps.
Though I do think that current raids have mechanics that too heavily penalize melee stacking and not enough to penalize ranged stacking.
kworry Feb 17th 2011 5:11PM
I'm curious how far do you want to take that idea?
I like the idea of not having to re-roll just because you took the 'wrong' class, but where does that stop?
Every single person in my guild wants to dps. Several don't mind tanking or healing. Because of the tank/healer/dps model some HAVE to tank and heal even though they'd prefer to be hitting things.
We don't have a single spec that offers replenishment in our core group. The group is really good, but no replenishment and the devs have said they balance around it.
Do we stop the tank/heal/dps model? Do we remove all buffs, debuffs and benefits from players and just reduce the encounter difficulty or have all those buffs present automatically? Have them attached to the party or raid, letting the raid lead assign the "crit tabard", the "replenishment hat", and the "heroism wand" to people?
Maybe the differences, the benefits and punishments are what make the game fun? I'd hate to have to sideline a friend because they were the wrong KIND of dps, but that's sort of what the game is.
/2cents
Pyromelter Feb 17th 2011 7:50PM
Replenishment, in it's current form, is an awful mechanic. They should just buff everyone's mana regen by 10% or whatever and completely get rid of it. Forcing your warlock to go destro when he prefers affliction just because you don't have an spriest or a ret pally is bad design, IMO. Forcing a bit of raid balance beyond that is a good thing I believe.
Alexa Feb 17th 2011 10:53PM
I know that in Wrath, they designed encounters assuming replenishment. Is there a blue post somewhere indicating that was continued into Cataclysm?
I thought that it was, but my raid team assures me it isn't the case in Cataclysm.
I would love to know for certain, especially, being a healer in a 10 man without replenishment. We manage to get it done... but it would definitely be great to get a little more help in the mana department.
Thanks!