We need better balancing in group content

Community General Discussion
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And I don’t mean “Why is that DK pulling 30% more than that hunter?”. I mean balancing between class roles. It just seems so off that tank can pull this and that and have no issues, but a DPS gets hit by one wrong thing and they go from 100 - 0 instantly and a healers these days are struggling to the point there are none.

Then you throw in Augvoker and all of a sudden every group wants one, so now M+ groups only have a spot for 2 DPS, and since Augvokers work better with this or that spec, people are now limiting which spec they accept more than they have in the past.

Previously players would not take the bottom dwellers for obvious reasons, now even the good specs that were being chosen last week are being limited.

Don’t believe me? Look at the top M+ runs over on the IO page, all Spriest, Mage and Augvoker and a couple of balance druids thrown in. Drop down and find lower runs, top 10,000 runs, top 20,000 runs, every third group has an evoker.

But this is not just about a new support class, the healing changes, the more healing changes, the off healing changes, it all changes the dynamic of the game, and all this in the same expansion.

Meanwhile, save for a few great players, monks are dead in the water, hunters are falling off the cliff, DK’s are somehow immune to nerfs, actual class balance is very bad on top of all the other changes that it means groups are nerfing themselves not taking a few special classes in every group.

As a tank main I can join literally any group at almost any key level in LFG, instant and free invites especially since I am almost 2.7K rated. Then the group leader sits and waits, wants to find this or that spec/class, so we wait, and wait, and wait, eventually a healer shows up, not high enough IO/iLVL, wrong class, wrong server, (not Rag, but OCE vs. NA), so we wait, find that class they want… then the other DPS leaves.

So what do I do? I am done with waiting, I only ask for invites to keys that have a healer already, why? Because I can, I am a tank, I can get in no issues. Aside from starting your own key and going through all the same issues in finding a tank and healer, a fair number of DPS specs are just not being accepted.

So, balance M+ better, balance the required dynamic of the group more. There must be a way that can allow anyone of any class and any spec to be useful in a group, because right now that is far from possible and the more changes made, the more you introduce things like support specs, the more changes to main gameplay dynamics like the health and healing changes, the worse it all gets.

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The top of the M+ leaderboards are always going to be whatever the current meta comp is. Especially since the top of the leaderboards are always the same handful of groups…

And “lower runs” in the top 20,000 range are still people clearing 24s and 25s. Keys higher than what the VAST majority of people who do M+ will probably never even attempt.

It’s literally already like this. What is “useful in a group” is completely irrelevant to what people have convinced themselves they need to invite. Any spec can do M+.

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Everything you described in your post is why M+ sucks.

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To be honest, did they finish the run? If so there’s nothing wrong.

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Maybe, depending on week, and the perceived needs from the community make it so some classes and specs do not get a chance. I’ve been in actual lower keys, like M10-15 range where the group leader wants to find a certain class and spec for reasons, and even passed up inviting over geared high IO players just because they were the ‘wrong’ class/spec.

This season is shows just how bad it can be, incorporeal and afflicted mean you have to take certain classes or specs and have to get players to take certain talents or fail. Like the afflicted run I was in where 2 of the DPS could not do anything about it and the healer refused to take improved purify, so it was up to me as the tank to purify one of the adds every single time, we did not last long before the group fell apart and that was an M11.

You have affixes like Spiteful and dungeons like UR where CC is super useful, but then affixes like Sanguine where the opposite is the case, you need less CC and more abilities like druids typhoon to move enemies out of the pools.

Not every class is balanced in every dungeon every week. And part of that is what the top players end up doing, it flows down to where the lower classes try and follow suit. I’ve been in a fair number of lower keys where someone has basically said “Hey ma, look what I learned” and just failed hard while trying to emulate what the top players are doing.

Seeing all the top players take an Augvoker, mage and priest means the lower players will start following suit very quickly, even if it passing up that 440+ 2.5K IO feral druid for your M8 because they are ‘not optimal’.

So many times in the past I have seen people, and have people in my guild who have been kicked from groups before they start because they are not using the ‘correct’ spec for their class, even if they can play that class well. It’s not rocket surgery to realise that not every class and spec is balanced and cannot perform the same each week and that needs to change, aside from actual DPS/HPS balances, classes and specs vary wildly to the point some people just cannot find groups.

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It’s impossible to balance variety in group content challenges (affixes, mechanics) for 36 specs so everyone is equally useful all the time.

You either reduce the number of specs, or you reduce the challenges. Neither one will make M+ better.

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Changing the affixes to be something positive rather than needing a specific so and so to handle would be 100% better. Then just tune dungeons to be X% more scaling to adjust to the positive affixes, so if you don’t do the affixes you won’t have the power to pass certain key levels, but than everyone and anyone can do dungeons up to a point without needing hyper specific group combinations.

I’m seeing posts come up where people are being abused and berated because they are not min maxing things, like just now found a post where a hunter was invited to a group that wanted a mage, the hunter was abused and kicked because the group leader put ‘MAGE’ in the title and a hunter signed up.

Not sure on what key level that was, but it’s an example, a group trying to min max a mage instead of a hunter because a mage is marginally better than a hunter for whatever reason even though I am 99% sure it would be for a key level too low to care, but the leader still wanted to do it.

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Seeing a DH solo all the bosses in the mega dungeon made me question the existence of healers, not from like a general stand point, but from an innovative stand point.

Literally just get rid of all the healers specs and turn the game into a psycho whack a mole thing where everyone is responsible for everyone’s survival.

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But you’d still have a point where some specs are unwanted/unable to do the content. This just moves the goal posts, doesn’t resolve anything.

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Too many variables in the game to balance. It even comes down to player’s input.
If “balance” is what you’re striving for it’ll never happen.

Should we just go ahead and just put an invisible DoT on the enemies that die in X seconds after entering combat with them, and that the damage you deal isn’t actually damage, it just an impression you did something?

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That would end up being a class balance issue, not a dungeon balance issue.

The problem we have now is two fold, your class may suck balls and cannot perform past a certain level just purely from a numbers standpoint, but also in M+ you need this or that in your kit to be able to push also.

Remove the requirements from the dungeons themselves to allow all classes an equal standpoint with mechanics and then it becomes nothing more than a class tuning issue that is far easier to balance around.

Just look at Afflicted, DK and warrior could not deal with it, warrior still can’t, and how many complaints have we seen from them saying they just don’t bother because it’s too hard to get into a group. What’s the fix? Give a warrior a 25 second CC? Change the class and talents entirely? Or just remove afflicted?

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To be fair, if I list a group and list something specific (healer, tank, mage, etc) and someone who does not meet the criteria applies? They kind of have it coming. If they link something like KSM or AotC for a 20+ key, they are literally asking to be laughed at.

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Warriors are pretty much as represented across all of m+ as every other season of m+.

The 3 warriors crying on GD don’t change that fact.

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Yeh but inviting them, abusing them and kicking them is not necessary, just don’t invite them. It does show though people of all levels will gate keep specific classes and specs even for keys that are not needed, I’ve seen it, I have been in groups where the key holder would rather take a lower iLVL/IO players of a certain spec when you 100% don’t need it, and this happens every expansion, it’s not just a DF healer change/Augvoker thing either.

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Yuh some tanks just have absurd self sustain right now making them less reliant on Healers to stay alive worst of all being Blood DK.

Well with the way this games going might as well just rework all Healers into support specs like Augmentation.

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That would actually be amazing. Revert the off healing changes, give other classes more sustain, make healers support classes and then players don’t need to rely on healers to keep them alive.

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Tanks will feel more skill based, healers will have a pressure valve released since all the onus of survival is no longer on them, DPS will have no choice but to be responsible for themselves or just die and be bad and recognized for the one dimensional dinosaurs that they are.

Of course you would have to give DPS more self sustain. Remember when Rogues had Recoup?

Then yeah, just turn all the healers into a support. Holy and Disc can just be merged into one tree, no reason for there to be 2 trees anymore.

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Or maybe Mythic dungeons are really easy and undertuned for good players?

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Since Hpal rework I don’t get any invite anymore with my Preservation Evoker. I wanna cry so hard

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Dang you got me I guess.