Fully agree with the issues listed. There are of course more solutions than listed, and one that is particularly close to my heart is spec tuning.
Specifically the way I see them do balance changes can be split into 2 categories:
- Design changes. This is a hard nut to crack, and basically becomes a question of “How would we like this class to play”. There is no “correct” answer. Most of their balance changes fall into this category, like buffing holy priest serenity by 25%, because they specifically want that ability to be more impactful.
- Power changes. This is simple. Examples include “Resto druid healing increased by 4% in PvP combat”. This is very low effort and doesn’t change how the class plays, only how strong its buttons are.
What I would like for them is to spend as much energy as they feel is neccessary to fix the design of classes. I think they did an amazing job with the MW monk rework!
What I don’t like is that we have known for months that holy priests need to heal more. They have been busy trying to figure out why and diagnose which aspect of their kit they specifically need to target for better gameplay. Instead, I believe they should just have buffed all healing by holy priest by 2% in pvp combat every single week, until it is competitive. Then they can take their time worrying about which specs need design changes later.
This could be as simple as asking “What is this spec’s win % at 1800 rating? less than 49% and they get a 2% buff. More than 51% and they get a 2% nerf.”. This would surely not add too much labor on their end, and would result in all specs being decent. And if some specs are too strong at high/low rating, THEN spend effort on redisigning those.
But also the rating system in partiular seems outdated, and largely disincentivizes players from pushing for the first 80% of the season … there are still many specs for which you reach rank 1 (top 0.1% of the ladder) BEFORE you reach elite … that makes it challenging for most players to attain rewards. 86% of the solo shuffle ladder is still below 1800 rating and has received zero rewards - so they might as well wait for inflation, until the last couple weeks.
It would mean a lot to me if blizzard would acknowledge that they have heard us, and give their perspective.
Which of these issues do they agree/disagree with?
Which are they looking into and which are beyond their current scope?