Posts with tag class balance

Ahhhh, how I love the Elitist Jerks forums, the home of the most intelligent, informed, and well-written players of WoW. EJ produced another gem of a topic recently that made me think a bit about the purpose of sites like ours, and what function they serve in the overall scheme of WoW.

Malan, who plays the tauren shaman Keiji on Skullcrusher, recently posted in a thread on the shaman forums about an upcoming patch. Rather than complain about shaman mechanics, however, he asked the community manager Nethaera an important meta-question: If most WoW players don't read the forums, and the forums are the main way the developers and community managers tell new information to the player base, then isn't there a huge gap in communication for most players?

The cries to nerf warlocks have been so loud on the forums lately that it's nearly refreshing to see them replaced by something else. This week's nerf cries seem to focus almost entirely on druids, as forum posters run back and forth about whether or not druids are overpowered and, if so, how to fix them. And, of course, the there's always the constant cycle of "nerf your class, buff my class" posts.

Those claiming druids are overpowered say that druids shouldn't be able to tank like a warrior, DPS like a rogue (or, I suppose, a mage, depending on spec), kite like a hunter, and heal like priest. And the druids argue that they can't do all of these things at once -- and to be as good as any primary class, they have to spec for it and gear for it which limits their effectiveness in other areas.

And in a massively multiplayer game like this, where major class changes can come unexpectedly with any patch or hotfix, I wonder which class will be overpowered next week, and the week after. Taking all bets...