Streamers driving the class balance

Community General Discussion
1

Is there any certain viewer treshold in order to be involved in class/spec balancing? Anything official from blues.

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No, just be forehead bald and shower irregularly.

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Maybe? I’m about 30 of Hazel Nut Gamer’s subscribers right now, they should listen to her.

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Streamers will only drive the class ‘balance’ in a way that serves their streams, stop giving these rats a platform and just play the game the way it was intended.

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I’m confused, how do streamers drive class balance? When did that become a thing? I thought it was the esports 1% who did that?

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If you make a video demonstration a class completely broken beyond belief in a mechanic you won’t need that make viewers it’ll just be nerfed.

Once upon a time they were slow with the uptake but class nerfs/buffs seem to happen pretty fast nowadays.

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No no, it’s the individual class devs showing love only to their favorite specs what does it!

Or Ghostcrawler’s phantasmal claw reaching for the levers from beyond the company veil.

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8

Streamers don’t drive anything.

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9

Yeah if anything they just highlight the existing design by all rolling the same class.

Though it is funny seeing more casual players say the game is balanced around streamers/elites and then seeing the streamers/elites saying that Blizzard ignores their feedback at every opportunity.

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The streamers I watch all main either priest or hunter. (Taliesin, Evitell, Bellular, Mr. GM, Signs of Kelani, Hazellnutty, and Nubkeks.)

Which streams are you talking about and what classes are they rolling?

11

Blizzard balances the game around strengths and weaknesses.

Competitive players complain when their spec isn’t meta. Professional players are the same way.

Casual players don’t complain. However, the tryhards who perpetuate a competitive mindset in relatively achievable content (Normal, Heroic raids; Mythic+ 10-15’s) blame Blizzard for making content that is too hard – the carrot they want is out of reach → “Buff mages, dead class in M+”.

This can be applied to almost every competitive game.

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They’ve been doing it since vanilla, warriors were top dps and made up 20 of the dps slots since day 1 all to appease swifty

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Considering we’re on General Discussion, this made me laugh a lot.

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14

Casual players don’t participate in forums, consume 3rd party content, or delve into the fandom at large. We’re relatively hardcore.

For example, I’d say I’m a casual pokemon player. I enjoy the games, but I don’t read theorycrafting guides, purchase plushies, and I rarely venture out of my comfort zone. I play the way I want to play, and that’s really it.

So, in WoW terms, they just play the game in a way they find enjoyable – agnostic to these forums and other fandoms/communities.

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15

In general, I’d agree with you. It’s just funny saying it on the home turf of people who call themselves casual because they play 20 hours a week but it’s just doing laps around Dalaran.

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16

What does drive class balance, especially for PvP? I have no idea anymore.

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Divination through the entrails of birds.

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Now it all makes sense.

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It’s either that or a Magic 8 Ball, but the balancing department doesn’t have the budget for the Magic 8 Ball and pigeons are free if you’re quick enough.

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The ones op is referring to. I said “if anything” though.

In fps games there tends to be a few guns which everyone discovers are the bees knees and then in a few short days everyone figures out the “meta” which all the streamers tend to follow whether they’re great or mediocre and the whole community will complain about the weapon until it gets nerfed.

But they definitely don’t tell the developers which gun to make strong of course. Things land where they land and people just notice what’s strong.

At least that’s what I tend to notice.