So warriors are just screwed for all of WOTLK?

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
103

Listen man, we went from 2mil warrior logs in vanilla classic to 300k in Wrath. but

I don’t know who he’s angry at, but it isn’t the 15% of us left who like warrior enough to play it through even at its worst.
I have an idea, though. Those players always hated warrior, but felt “forced” to play warrior in vanilla classic. They’re happy that warrior is down, not because of current warrior players, but because they chase the meta while simultaneously never wanted to play warrior. The true irony is all the arguments saying “just play what you like” when we have 1.7mil warrior deniers. They argue in bad faith, since we can clearly see such a massive number of people don’t think that way - all they want is for us to shut up.

104

whining about not being defacto #1 should be a bannable offense

it’s utterly ridiculous

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105

“waaaahhh the spread of viable DPS specs went up in wrath and now I’m not super duper special anymore”

INB4 “lmao ret buffs” I main prot. So I already had the better spec for that with no buffs. Helps to enjoy what you play and not focus on a min/max mindset. only like one or two people in this thread are getting shadowmourne anyway in game.

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106

Blah, I’m required to make a post so some other group can verify me. I have nothing to contribute and I don’t care.

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107

fury warrior vs ret is a very very one sided dps chart, insanely so

MC - warrior
BWL - warrior
AQ40 - warrior
Naxx - warrior

TBC
T4 - Warrior
T5 - Warrior
BT - Warrior
Sunwell - Warrior

WOTLK
Naxx 25 - warrior
Ulduar (ret buffs) - Still warrior
ToGC - Warrior
ICC - currently predicted to be ret

uh oh! help! someone! help!, need buffs asap

Ret hasn’t even got to the patch where they are better than warriors and the “buff me and nerf them” threads are flying, its insane and it comes after the game is in cata waiting room mode

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108

Oh lookie, a warrior complaining again.

Being BiS for lvl 60 raids is not enough, you also need to be overpowered at 80. Mid-tier not good enough for warriors apparently, even though most classes are mid tier or lower (just by how these scales work).

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109

when youre playing classic, expect an authentic experience, but instead get Aggrend’s private server that moves class ranks around, making Feral and Ret, both high utility classes, as top DPS, any rational player would question the changes

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110

Well here’s your first mistake

111

haha, well, at least with class balance

wow tokens, H++ systems, are all whatever

what sucks is suddenly having class balance change wildly. Having high utility middle of the pack DPS specs become rank 1 or rank 3 is kind of stupid. Private server level shinanigans.

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112

Eh, doesn’t really bother me all that much. I’m no world first racer, and I never want to be, so being whatever is optimal or whatever vs just playing what’s fun to me isn’t really any sort of discussion, so long as it’s good enough to actually be viable. I’d rather be middle of the pack and be able to succeed with whatever I want to play, than at the top but whoever is at the bottom is literally trolling and needs to reroll

And if we’re going back to Vanilla balance arguments…woo boy, there’s a lot about viability to unpack there…

113

Wrath and beyond was never balanced with utility in mind for DPS. Warlocks also have a ton of utility and are top DPS.

It’s irrelevant. There’s so much overlap on these utilities that you are realistically getting very little from any individual spec.

Go back to classic era if you want warriors top DPS because of “low utility,” as that design is never returning.

The “private server” changes you complain about started day 1 of wrath, with rebalanced raids, Ulduar item and boss changes, heroic+…

The harder stuff gets, the more important good class balance is. Ret is now appropriately on similar single target grounds as warrior (and warrior still beats them on cleave). Warrior in full BiS is still a top tier DPS spec, why is it important that ret is considerably worse in similar gear? They certainly aren’t bringing enough relevant utility to justify it.

(And before you start throwing out DSac as a counterargument, remember that the sims showing rets ahead of warriors don’t have it)

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114

lol and just wait until Cata when Arms >>>> Fury in PvE. Do you think the warrior dps community will cannibalize itself?

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115

Blizzard does not balance based on utility.

Please read this, and take it in and accept it.

They balance on whether or not you are a hybrid.

If you can spec into at least 2 of the following roles.

Tank
Dps
Healer

You are a hybrid. There is no further balancing beyond that.

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116

Do you work at blizzard? lmao

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117

No. But the data is there.

Can respec to fulfill a different role = hybrid.
Cannot respec to fulfill a different role = pure.

The roles are tank, healing and damage.

In our design, having two healing trees (priest) or half a tanking tree (druid) or three dps trees (DK) does not put these classes in different categories of hybridness. A hybrid is a hybrid.

Likewise, the Blizzard definition of hybrid in this context has nothing to do with the power of certain buffs or class synergy. We want all classes to bring useful tools to the raid.

118

This is incorrect. Hybrid was always a tax based on the power that comes from the extra utility of a hybrid.

Imagine you have a warrior. Then imagine you have a duplicate of that warrior but they can also cleanse, heal, bop, bubble, freedom, etc. Obviously, warrior 2 will need some “tax” to make sure they arent overpowered.

Having an alternative role/spec that doesnt impact your other role/specs is not “hybrid” at least for the purpose of a tax or handicap. However, if your other role or spec bleeds over into your other spec, it does count as hybrid. Compare a mage to a shadowpriest for example. If the priest has all that support and healing, should they be as powerful as a mage as a dps?

Generally the answer is no. But overtime as they lowered the hybrid tax, they also added power and utility to the non hybrid classes to help compensate in the other direction as well. So the power of hybrid became weaker, the tax was reduced.

Saying a warrior is a hybrid in vanilla wow because out of 40 raiders, 32 dps, 6 healers, 2 tanks, does having the ability to be a tank count as a hybrid for tax purposes if those tank abilities have no impact on your dps role? No, it doesnt, it shouldnt, and it generally has not.

If a ret paladin by being ret lost its ability to cleanse, heal, freedom, bubble others, etc then it wouldnt make sense to tax it. Its not a hybrid anymore. Its not a multi-role class. Being a hybrid means it has a crossover spec. The actual definition of hybrid is “a thing made by combining two different elements.” The tax and label only applies if it can actually do 2 things at once, like a hybrid car.

Having a tank spec doesnt make you a hybrid unless those tank abilities bleed over into your dps spec and make you stronger as a class in a dps spec because of it. If the two are isolated, you are a multi-role class. If a disc priest had no dps spells and a shadow priest should not bubble or heal, its not a hybrid - its a multi-role class. But as you know, a shadowpriest can heal and use many of its discipline abilities, making it a hybrid.

It mattered a lot in vanilla, but by wotlk there was a lot of homogenization so the divide was weaker and as a result the tax was less. Later on classes in general become so homogenized the differentiation is almost entirely lost.

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119

I AM LITERALLY QUOTING A BLIZZARD DEV. How tf can you say it is wrong? ROFL.

In our design, the pure dps classes (hunter, mage, warlock and rogue) should do slightly higher dps than hybrid damage-dealers all things being equal. All things are rarely equal. Player skill, gear, raid comp, latency, random luck and most importantly the specifics of the encounter will often favor one class, spec or player over another.

The reason we want pures to so slightly higher damage is that pures can only fulfill one role. If your guild or raid has no more need for damage-dealers, there is no way for these classes to raid with you. By contrast, the six other classes always have the option to respec for another role either temporarily or for the long haul.

The Blizzard definition of hybrid in this context has nothing to do with whether you can perform multiple roles within a single fight or even within a single raid. It has more to do with the potential for your class to ever fulfill more than one role.

Likewise, the Blizzard definition of hybrid in this context has nothing to do with the power of certain buffs or class synergy. We want all classes to bring useful tools to the raid.

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120

Yes and a Fury/Arms warrior can still throw on a shield, go Defensive Stance and taunt. They still have Shield Wall, they still have Shield Block, they still have Revenge.

121

A mage can ice block or a shadow priest can dispersion, every class has a defensive cooldown. The original hybrid tax came from the fact vanilla wasnt a strictly raiding game. PVP, world pvp, and then in tbc, arena was big. Being able to taunt a player does nothing. Having shield wall in an ocean of defensives on every class in an element of homogenization. Being able to heal yourself to full multiple times over, however, is huge.

The ability to heal yourself and allies in combat has always been the core fundamental principle of a hybrid tax. Meanwhile a rogue can pop evasion and tank a boss… does that make them a hybrid?

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122

What year was that quote from? we have had numerous dev teams over the last 20 years. Almost no one that was there in 2004 works there today. Design principles have shifted majorly multiple times. The original hybrid tax in Nov 2004 was very obviously and blatantly built upon a classes ability to heal themself and allies. Secondary utility marginally affecting it as almost all classes had some form of secondary utility (cleanse, polymorph, sap, freedoms, etc).

A rogue being able to pop evasion and tank a boss for a bit never made them a hybrid just like a warrior being able to taunt and tank a few hits didnt make it a tank. If in a raid of 40 ppl, you had 32 dps, 6 healers, and 2 tanks, the ability to have a tank spec doesnt warrant a tax on your character because none of those talents or spells had any impact on your dps spec, unlike healing hybrids which could almost always heal in their dps spec. Hence why the hybrid tax in Vanilla only applied to healing hybrids. Calling a class with multiple roles a hybrid is nonsense in the english language, as you arent doing 2 things at once. A hybrid is something that can do two things at once. The closest thing we have to a tank hybrid is feral where you can tank a boss and then go cat and do real dps to another target if your tanking isnt needed in the encounter anymore. Because your spec/gear is locked in combat though, no other tank can do another role while actively tanking.

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