World of Warcraft™

So now with this latest patch 4.3.2, Fire got reduced slightly after receiving a buff. So this all just causes me to raise the same question I've asked probly in each xpac since I started playing 6 years ago.

Why not just make all 3 talent specs do equal dmg/dps? Each of the pure damage classes should have that luxury of being able to choose any of the 3 specs to play and still be a competitive DPS performer. I realize that yes Blizzard is trying to work towards this with MoP, but their ideas for that just don't seem right at all.

Not counting survivability as the factor on why certain trees might be dps-weaker, that debate is another story on its own but all 3 of the mage specs do have different survivability features that can't be compared, only considered. But in the end, that should not matter in regards to all 3 specs doing equal dps/dmg. This goes for hunters, warlocks, and rogues as well. Same with the double-damage specs for warriors/dk's; they should do equal dmg/dps too.

Please tell me you agree. If you disagree, you may as well just be a troll. This thread was made for Blizzard to read anyways. They need to get their priorities straight in the game. This, fixing bugs/imbalances/inconsistences, and righting all the wrongs with abusive players/customers are the priorities. Not making so much overly easy/new content that gets turned obsolete within weeks now and then left there to rot and never be touched again.

02/20/2012 12:05 AMPosted by Ginevra

Why not just make all 3 talent specs do equal dmg/dps?

Good question. If they gave Arcane the ability to do mobile damage similar to Fire's it'd go a long way to equalizing the specs.

Frost needs to do more damage. If only PvP didn't exist....

maybe all things do not need to be equal.

I'm fine with Frost being PvP, but I don't understand why Blizz keeps nerfing Fire PvE. What's the point? Back in 4.0.1, Fire was king and I loved it. Having to watch DoTs and time your Combustion and Impact for insane DPS, just loved it. Then in 4.1, Arcane became king (again) and I tried it out, it still hasn't changed from the typical 1-1-1-2 rotation like in 3.2 or 3.3, and playing that rotation is mind-numbingly boring.

Why shoehorn us into raiding as Arcane? It's boring and it's been like this largely since 3.2 or 3.3.

we dont live in a perfect world.

how is it possible to do equal dps/dmg unless every single spell is identical, rotation is identical and players abilities are identical as well.

So get rid of some of frost cc and give it more damage and a decent aoe again. I was and shall always be a PVE only frost mage (no i do not like playing arcane, in fact, I rarely play this toon anymore now that I was asked to go arcane for raids.. Give me back my main! Make me like WOW again)

I'm fine with Frost being PvP, but I don't understand why Blizz keeps nerfing Fire PvE. What's the point? Back in 4.0.1, Fire was king and I loved it. Having to watch DoTs and time your Combustion and Impact for insane DPS, just loved it. Then in 4.1, Arcane became king (again) and I tried it out, it still hasn't changed from the typical 1-1-1-2 rotation like in 3.2 or 3.3, and playing that rotation is mind-numbingly boring.

Why shoehorn us into raiding as Arcane? It's boring and it's been like this largely since 3.2 or 3.3.

I am not fine with frost being PVP. I am not fine with PVP at all. I am a frost mage. I am getting really fed up havin to play arcane or drop raiding.

Disagree in theory with making it all equal. It is very hard to do, with the different classes each having its own play style. What I believe they should do is give each spec a PvP branch and PvE branch they can choose between with whatever the talent point system that will be coming in with MoP will look like.

This gives a good solution to the age old problem of abilities being nerfed because they are too good in PvP, and then it makes the class sub-par in PvE. You have an ability choice system that allows you to choose different versions of specific abilities, which is in essence what they are doing with MoP, but with most of the abilities you can chose being PvP oriented. Sadly. How easy would it be to give a class a few different, fairly even play styles? Apparently hard cause because the Dev team apparently has trouble balancing the classes they have already and the specs compared to each other, let alone differentiation within the spec.

I know that they don't want to keep doing changes (Ghostcrawler did an article on that a little while ago). But something as minuscule as +3% damage boost to a warlock's incinerate, or +6% Icebolt damage is something that could be implemented now, and of course no one is going to complain. When you keep changing the play style of a class (for instance Elemental Shaman now have wicked AoE with Chain Lightning now that the cooldown is removed), then yes, you don't do that every week.

In the spirit of this thread, Frost Magi need a PvE booster shot to be viable, and that I agree with. Trying to make all the specs equal to the extent that their DPS is practically the same is not feasible. If there is a small difference, only hardcore raiders are going to change specs to milk the most out of their class. But I've seen many a person shelf a spec, or even their whole toon, because it was just no longer viable . I respect you brave Frost Mage PvEers out there, and feel the pain of your impotence.

It is not possible to balance all 3 specs to be equal. Period.

I parsed top 20 on many bosses in firelands with all 3 specs (had a few top 10 frost parses). The new talents in mists should make all 3 specs viable but on a fight to fight basis, some specs and talents will do better than others.

Frost may be quite viable in mists, with its lack of setup time required and its somewhat strong mobile damage that requires decent skill to execute properly. The issue holding frost back now (secondary stat plateaus too easy to reach and mastery too weak beyond that in pve) should be mostly fixed.

One of the best posts I've read in a while.

Frost needs a new spell and a frostbolt nerf. A large reason you don't see fire putting out nearly as much damage in PvP as in PvE is because fireball is very rarely a viable option in PvP. If there is any one ultimate flaw in balancing frost for competitive PvE dps without making it hysterically overpowered, frostbolt is definitely it.

I don't know why some of you guys are whining about being forced to play arcane. Fire should be used in pretty much every fight except HM-Spine. The fact that we have two specs that are viable in PvE and an awesome PvP spec makes us one of the best classes in the game at the moment. Don't see any point in whining about it. Other classes are far worse off.

02/20/2012 08:14 AMPosted by Montish

The fact that we have two specs that are viable in PvE and an awesome PvP spec makes us one of the best classes in the game at the moment. Don't see any point in whining about it. Other classes are far worse off.

If you view your character as nothing more than a tool to be reconfigured as needed to achieve an objective, you probably think so, yeah. If, however, you actually view this as a kind of RPG, and your character as a character, respeccing isn't really an option. This character isn't a Mage I happen to have specced Frost for the time being out of convenience -- she's a Frost Mage, conceived as such, named accordingly, who has never been specced outside of Frost in seven years (excepting only on test realms and in beta for the purpose of testing abilities).

So for me, and people who play like I do, the fact that Arcane and Fire are strong in PvE doesn't mean a thing. You might as well have said that Prot Warriors are good at tanking, or that Ice Cream is tasty -- both true, but sadly irrelevant when it comes to playing our characters and enjoying the game.

If you view your character as nothing more than a tool to be reconfigured as needed to achieve an objective, you probably think so, yeah. If, however, you actually view this as a kind of RPG, and your character as a character, respeccing isn't really an option. This character isn't a Mage I happen to have specced Frost for the time being out of convenience -- she's a Frost Mage, conceived as such, named accordingly, who has never been specced outside of Frost in seven years (excepting only on test realms and in beta for the purpose of testing abilities).

So for me, and people who play like I do, the fact that Arcane and Fire are strong in PvE doesn't mean a thing. You might as well have said that Prot Warriors are good at tanking, or that Ice Cream is tasty -- both true, but sadly irrelevant when it comes to playing our characters and enjoying the game.

So why do you feel they should nerf my frost mage so they can buff your frost mage?

seems a bit rude to me.

They try to keep the damage inline between all specs. The problem is that making a spec such as frost do equal dmg to the other specs might in turn make the spec deal too much damage in PvP.

They are playing a delicate game off buff/nerf to try and get the specs as close as possible to each other, yet keep the specs inline for PvP. That is really hard to do when each PvE boss has different mechanics and each PvP spec has a different style of play.

For instance, in Firelands nearly every fight was single target (or minimal targets). Baleroc, Shannox, Domo, Alysrazor (again, minimal targets). This is where arcane shines.

In DS there are a lot of encounters with more than a few adds (Gunship, Spine, Yor, Zonozz (heroic) and even madness for dotting up corrupted tentacle + arm tentacle)

Some fights just play better for different specs. So Blizzard has to deal with a lot of variables when balancing specs. Which is why they should really just separate PvP and PvE, or make the distinctions easier, to reduce the work they need to do.

If you view your character as nothing more than a tool to be reconfigured as needed to achieve an objective, you probably think so, yeah. If, however, you actually view this as a kind of RPG, and your character as a character, respeccing isn't really an option. This character isn't a Mage I happen to have specced Frost for the time being out of convenience -- she's a Frost Mage, conceived as such, named accordingly, who has never been specced outside of Frost in seven years (excepting only on test realms and in beta for the purpose of testing abilities).

So for me, and people who play like I do, the fact that Arcane and Fire are strong in PvE doesn't mean a thing. You might as well have said that Prot Warriors are good at tanking, or that Ice Cream is tasty -- both true, but sadly irrelevant when it comes to playing our characters and enjoying the game.

If that's your point of view, then that's fine, but maybe my frost mage has taken the time to learn and be proficient with fire magic. Perhaps my character can choose what school of magic he wishes to apply based on a situation. This is just one example of how the imaginations of all mage players simply cannot be put into equilibrium, so the basis of balancing off of RPG elements is just not practical (or possible, for that matter).

02/20/2012 12:05 AMPosted by Ginevra

Why not just make all 3 talent specs do equal dmg/dps?

THIS BRILLIANT! I don't know how blizzard never thought of this! All they have to do is make them do EQUAL dps?? IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!

But seriously. There are 30 specs in game right now. The majority of these are dps specs. If you think it's easy to keep that many specs equal, when each spec has completely different variables, equations, raw numbers, mechanics, play styles, ect. then you're welcome to make your own game and do it. And that's without thinking through other things like survivability of a spec vs it's damage, ease of play, boss mechanics, and everything else that could be influencing dps. Saying "Why not just fix it?" is a bit like asking a stock trader "Well why not just buy the profitable ones?". In theory, the question makes sense, and they both try their best. But it's just not that easy.

They tried to make Frost viable at the beginning of Cataclysm by buffing their mastery. That was good times, but unless they get rid of PVP, Frost will always have a lower damage output compared to Fire or Arcane.

Let's take a moment and be thankful we have two of our three specs performing about the same.

The choice to be fire or arcane comes down to your group, and the boss you are working on at the time. I do prefer arcane but we're working on H Yor and having trouble with adds dps so I'm fire.

So if frost does as much damage as these two specs, what will the choice come down to? Only taste? Probably not. There will be one of the three that has a higher potential on certain fights than others. People have said this but don't overlook what that means- if you are serious about what you do you are obligated to play the best performing spec for whatever fight you're working on. You'll be fine raiding with your preferred spec on farm bosses but that ends as soon as you hit a boss that takes progression.

If your team has to work hard on a fight and you aren't performing as well as you could, you're letting the other 9 or 24 people down. For what, so you can play a spec you find more fun? No, you won't have the luxury of sticking with one spec if all three did equal target dummy damage.

I think an ideal situation is where all three specs have serious trade-offs, and your decision isn't what does the most theoretical damage, but what your team wants to trade off on. Right now the trade-offs don't leave much of a decision- do you want a spec that can deal with HoT on H Ultra, or do you want one that can't? If arcane did a ton more damage on H ultra than fire, there might be something to consider, but since they perform about the same your decision is made for you.

In MoP, a theme from the devs seems to be removing the illusion of a decision. They're removing all the dull talents because most of them weren't actually a decision- most fire mages didn't choose to not take combustion. Hopefully this theme will apply to our specs and to the raid encounters, and the choice of our spec will be meaningful.

If I had to pick, I'd take a meaningful choice between two specs over a constantly changing obligation to play one of three specs any day.

So why do you feel they should nerf my frost mage so they can buff your frost mage?

seems a bit rude to me.

This.

Why should your gameplay take precedence over mine? You have 2 viable pve specs, and one that's behind on TOP END RAIDING, but is just fine in casual raiding.

Never got it.