The nerfs to mage, shadow priest, augment evoker, holy paladin, guardian druid are warranted in that those specs are quite obviously over-performing, however, doing it now is not the correct move.
The problem is that these massively overpowered specs were left for two of the best affix weeks in m+ (a tyran “push week” and a fort “push week”) so nerfing the top end meta after these weeks have passed ruins the competitive integrity of the season.
Much like the nerf to warlocks when they are very overpowered in Shadowlands Season 3 was delayed until season end, these nerfs to the top end specs should also be postponed to season end:
It would have been okay to hotfix these specs the middle of last week but at this point I think the only option is to leave them be and buff other specs if the competitive integrity of m+ is to be taken seriously.
It’s better to ruin it by making it possible to push keys even higher than what you could before, because that still means you can break records and it’s still possible to contend for the #1 spot. You may need a very specific group composition to do it, but you can do it. If you ruin it in the other direction in the middle of a season because the nerf bat hits too hard, you risk making it so that those records are mathematically impossible to touch for the rest of the season and that’s not really good for anybody that cares that much about scores and records, and I don’t know why those people would even bother playing the game for the rest of the season once it comes to light that you cannot push any higher due to nerfs in the middle of a season.
Going by what you say, they shouldn’t have introduced the new Spec midway through the season. However, there is a solution, to remove all runs made with an Augmentation from the final score, which in fact is like cheating.
I expect that if these nerfs are impactful enough to put previously completed key levels out of reach we’ll see some sort of broad dungeon nerfs to set a new baseline and get players into keys they hadn’t already cleared.
There’s also absolutely nothing stopping them from going “The title will be awarded to the top 0.2% this season” or whatever to make up for mid-season mistakes.
That said, the idea of competitive integrity is already ruined anyway, and if anyone’s arguing that the last 2 weeks are the best “push” weeks and no other affix combo will let people score … well, that kinda points to an underlying issue with the affixes in the first place.
I also doubt there’s going to be that many issues on account of affix rotation. 10.1.7 hasn’t even hit yet, 10.2 hasn’t even made the PTR yet. We’re going to have the affix rotation recycle over until Season 3 hits.
Titles just need to be spec-based. It’s going to be just like seeing anyone playing a DK in original Wrath and wearing the Gladiator title. The title is meaningless if by far the most important thing you can do for it is to reroll.
“It’s not the correct move”. When is it ever the right move then? You really think that we shouldn’t have any balance changes at all and let the game rot as the community destroys the entire game because of Blizzards incompetence? Change needs to happen and it needs to happen sooner than every 6 months or else you get the garbage that was Sl S3/S4 which is currently repeating itself because boosted FOTM rerollers demand otherwise.
If you want any kind of real competitive integrity the rewards should be based on class, not in general.
We went from one week where you had 12-15+ competitive specs to all of a sudden you have to play 5 specs if you want a chance to get into keys. Literally every tank + healer is getting shelved except for 1 spec.
Yeah…and normally it wouldn’t feel too bad to play off meta. Last season I could keep up with/beat meta specs up until around 25 keys, where they were players who actually knew how to play well. This season it’s a noticeable struggle if you’re missing one of those 5.
If you’ve done a key with the current meta comp (Fire Mage, Spriest, Guardian Druid, Augvoker, Holy Paladin) then do one without that comp, you know the difference right away. It’s completely taken the fun out of pushing keys even ON the meta specs (I have one at 445 ilevel) since you are just playing queue simulator and then hoping nobody is a moron once you get started.