A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

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dgreenbe
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A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#1 » Post by dgreenbe » 20 Aug 2017 08:39

There is a straightforward solution for helping balance level 70 characters against the imbalance of how Blizzard balanced Wrath classes but balanced them at level 80, primarily harming hybrid classes (for whom blizzard piled on talents towards the bottom, and spells after 70):. This is a well-known and oft-debated issue here, but it is clear at this point that a lot of the gameplay on this special server is either missing the benefit of this server combining wrath and TBC or still stuck in vanilla, where it is optimal to use Warrior tanks, Hunters and Rogues and Warlocks for DPS, and Paladins for healing (Ret being kind of an exception). Here we go:
  1. Unlock the next level of talents (not the final tier)
  2. Provide Level 70 Characters with 1 extra talent point
  3. Make class spells/abilities of up to Level 75 available (edit: this was originally suggested after looking at a bad Wrath database and might have the most issues and biggest change to gameplay, but should still work OK)
I'm aware this sounds dramatic--indeed, any one of these changes alone would strike me as offensively wrong--but after looking briefly at talent trees and at what level spells are available to various classes, I believe that this will be surprisingly plain, not a big deal overall, yet focused in the right areas and balancing. Indeed, blocking 2 levels of talents and not just 1 is somewhat arbitrary, and is an additional imbalance issue on top of Blizzard only making some abilities available just after 70. Furthermore, this should be less intrusive to gameplay than patching spells and abilities left and right.

Also, keep in mind that all players still have total empty glyph slots, final talents are still unavailable, profession bonuses are unavailable, and almost all of the higher rank and wrath-level spells/abilities require a level above level 75.

Some examples:
  • Protection paladin:
    Divine Plea ability will be available, improving mana sustainability. Shield of Righteousness for threat. 1 extra talent point will also make it possible to get a little more seal damage or movement speed since Paladins have no charge/gap-closer.
  • Feral Cat:
    Feral Druids will finally get Savage Roar ability, the druid equivalent of the combat-point finisher ability Slice & Dice that Rogues have had since vanilla.
  • Shadow Priest:
    Boosts Shadow Priest ability to gear with and benefit from spirit through an unlocked talent, allowing for more Mp5, and buffing spellpower more so as to benefit better from Shadowfiend. This should help a lot with mana, especially as gear improves, just like in TBC (where mana came from Vampiric Touch, which was totally different in TBC patch).
  • Feral Bear:
    This is a little complicated, but significant. Savage Defense--the replacement for removing armor from offpieces after TBC--requires crits for decent uptime, and a steady source of these crits is Lacerate critting (in both single target--especially fast-hitting bosses like Prince that rapidly use up Savage Defense--and AOE situations), which becomes available through Primal Gore talent (this combines unlocking a level of talents and also granting 70s 1 extra talent point). Maul will also do more damage on mangled targets, allowing Druid tanks to weave mangles in between swipes so that swiping on aoe mobs while tabbing and mauling will provide threat that can scale better with gear.

There are some more examples, and of course every class and spec will benefit from this, but it will help balance hybrid classes and specs and allow for gameplay in TBC that was balanced by Blizzard in wrath (the whole point of this server), but not intended to be balanced before 80.

While this will obviously change gameplay tuning, T5 is coming very soon and most T4 content is still incredibly difficult for anyone not in one of the few top guilds. Gruul, Maghtheridon, and the later bosses in Karazhan should still be challenging for raiders even if they are decked out in preraid bis.
Last edited by dgreenbe on 22 Aug 2017 07:16, edited 1 time in total.

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papastrumff
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#2 » Post by papastrumff » 20 Aug 2017 11:02

Feral druids are one of the strongest classes in pvp, this was alrdy tested and we came to conclusion savage roar would break it otherwise we would add that abbility at level 70 instead of manually buffing abilities inside instances.

These changes would do nothing to balance classes, it will just make some benefit from it and some wont have any benefit and as a result you will have same imbalance.
Could happen that classes that are alrdy top tier in pvp or pve get a boost in their field with any of these changes.

To me this feels more like a biased suggestion since your main is feral druid.
I doubt u invested hours and hours looking into all the talent trees, all the spells up until lvl 75 and available specs for all the classes that opens up with each of these changes, let alone that u tested all of it yourself. While the current state of things was indeed tested by various ppl for days. It might not be perfect but it surely is better than what it could have been without it.

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dgreenbe
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#3 » Post by dgreenbe » 20 Aug 2017 11:05

As I've gotten feedback so far, just a few comments on what this would not do:
  • This would not add final talents like Titan's Grip, etc., which I'm sure everyone agrees needs Wrath and is designed for 80s
  • This would not add imbalanced higher tanks of abilities for classes--while this is a reasonable fear, if you look at spells/abilities the higher ranks are available after level 75

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dgreenbe
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#4 » Post by dgreenbe » 20 Aug 2017 11:13

papastrumff wrote:
20 Aug 2017 11:02
Feral druids are one of the strongest classes in pvp, this was alrdy tested and we came to conclusion savage roar would break it otherwise we would add that abbility at level 70 instead of manually buffing abilities inside instances.

These changes would do nothing to balance classes, it will just make some benefit from it and some wont have any benefit and as a result you will have same imbalance.
Could happen that classes that are alrdy top tier in pvp or pve get a boost in their field with any of these changes.

To me this feels more like a biased suggestion since your main is feral druid.
I doubt u invested hours and hours looking into all the talent trees, all the spells up until lvl 75 and available specs for all the classes that opens up with each of these changes, let alone that u tested all of it yourself. While the current state of things was indeed tested by various ppl for days. It might not be perfect but it surely is better than what it could have been without it.
Thank you for your feedback. I checked the talent trees as well as the spell lists. It seemed it would be balanced, although I did not test it. I also admit I did not have PVP in mind at all. However, I do have to say that while my viewpoint is of course biased from my experience on the server so far and my knowledge of the various things druids are missing from both Blizzard and this server, either these suggestions would balance classes imbalanced by the current arbitrary rules about talents, or they would mostly buff already-OP specs--I'm not sure how it would do both, as you're suggesting, although perhaps it could result in a mix of both (however, I think it would be generally balancing).

The current state of affairs displays imbalances early in content that will likely only grow as some specs gain more gear. Perhaps my solution is not optimal and my view is biased, but I'm not the only biased one: a lot of people on reddit, etc. knew specs would be imbalanced and didn't join, and others on the server already are focusing more on specs that work and avoiding neglected specs. I'm biased, but I also don't see the point of this project if the game is designed around Prot Warriors, Hunters, Holy Paladins, Resto Druids, and other people just to buff them and fill raid spots while they level their hunters. I don't know if that's the reality, but I do think it's a legitimate fear players have that should be addressed.

Edit: one possible option for avoiding PVP issues is disabling certain things in PVP that are too strong, which was the case even in TBC.

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papastrumff
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#5 » Post by papastrumff » 20 Aug 2017 12:33

dgreenbe wrote:
20 Aug 2017 11:13

I checked the talent trees as well as the spell lists. It seemed it would be balanced, although I did not test it.

Yea maybe u did but I doubt u know everything about every class, especially in this meta with wotlk mechanics TBC. We would need to find a player for each class to tell us what exactly a class gains with each of these changes and estimate how OP that is.
For example adding savage roar would also add kill shot for hunters that are top tier pve even with pets being bugged.
Shamans would get lava burst and would make them gods of pvp.
So the bottom line you cant go around and add things just like that, lots of problems come to mind and I am far from someone who knows everything about every class.

dgreenbe wrote:
20 Aug 2017 11:13

The current state of affairs displays imbalances early in content that will likely only grow as some specs gain more gear.

CLASSES

Druid - Shred damage scaling increased by 10% in PvE environments

Druid - Rip damage scaling increased by 50% in PvE environments

Druid - Rake DOT damage scaling increased by 42% in PvE environments

Druid - Rake Initial Damage scaling increased by 75% in PvE environments

Druid - Ferocious Bite Damage scaling increased by 25% in PvE environments

With more gear druids will scale better than other classes so no it wont get worse I suppose.
Also in immersion there was druid tank that did fine, also he is top 10 dps in another guild so I dont see the point in buffing druid even further. They simply do not need anything mroe than this scaling buff.
I suggest u try to look after some advice on druids tanking and dpsing.

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dgreenbe
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#6 » Post by dgreenbe » 20 Aug 2017 13:44

I definitely agree it would require looking into every class and spec, but that's not really a big issue. I missed Kill Shot because I was using a bad wrath database that didn't list all of the spells and abilities for some reason--I would appreciate any good suggestions on that.

I appreciate the suggestion about druid gameplay, but I'm talking about basic mechanics (which I've already mentioned here and others have mentioned elsewhere), not myself and not just druids.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, and maybe it's because I'm relatively new here (I left before AQ40 due to too many specs being unplayable, but I have faith this patch can offer a lot of interesting gameplay), but if there is so much tuning with class spells/abilities, why is gameplay so imbalanced? Especially with abilities that scale with stats like crit much more than others (for example, you mention feral druids in your example, but their dots scale poorly with AP and do not scale at all with crit), isn't there a lot of potential for the problem to get worse?

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flosr1
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#7 » Post by flosr1 » 20 Aug 2017 15:57

in theory, all of this is a good idea and it would solve a lot of the problems which some classes and specs are suffering from atm....

..... BUT, i have to agree with papastrumff here, this would fuck up a lot of things again and would require a lot of changes, rebalancing, tesing, etc. again. i can understand that this is probably too much amount of work to do it properly.

what about enabling inscription and glyphs? atm. at lvl 70 we would "only" be able to use 2 major glyphs but it would help people to costumize their classes and choose the upgrades that they benefit the most from.

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dgreenbe
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#8 » Post by dgreenbe » 20 Aug 2017 16:20

It would require testing, but so does everything, and at least it would be a change that applies to everyone and allows everyone to incorporate more wrath mechanics into their gameplay without it being wrath or the characters being 80. The talents are right there and they're blocked off.

The inscription idea is interesting. and perhaps you could use a ton of badges or something to buy a glyph. But I'm not sure if that would balance anything, and it might just make the strong classes even stronger. For example, since papa was talking about Cat Druid: the player would get glyphs that help with Rip rotation--yet Rip doesn't scale with crit, doesn't scale amazingly with AP, and there isn't really a rotation or duration issue since without Savage Roar it's really the only decent finishing move anyway. However, I can also see it having a balancing effect, such as glyph for Shadow Priest to get mana back based on SW:P ticks. Would it be enough to make up for the boost the already-strong specs are getting? IDK.

The difference is that glyphs were something that were piled into Wrath by Blizzard for everyone, while some talents and abilities/spells were piled into higher levels by Blizzard only for certain specs/classes (primarily hybrid specs and non-traditional-vanilla specs). So while it's a cool idea, I would want to see whether it would balance the game.

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rikkisix
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#9 » Post by rikkisix » 20 Aug 2017 21:48

I think some classes do need help with dps, if there is any way to up them. Since most if not all content comes out overtuned, Dps is a huge issuse in every raid, You eaither have the numbers to do the raid or you do not, There is no middle ground. I'm pretty bias since my guild isn't a hardcore min max guild, but we are unable to do certian bosses because of this, Healing and tanking is over the top easy, if there is some way you could maybe make healing harder or tanking, then dpsing that would be a nice change, but the fact that everything is based on Doing damage can be quite annoying. But that's just my two cent, i do think having some classes (Shadow priest come to mind.) Have there before last tier talent it would help.
The same guys who's been hitting on Tauren woman since... 05?

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jetteroo
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#10 » Post by jetteroo » 21 Aug 2017 04:12

I can understand why heroic and instance bosses are overturned - to give hardcore raiders a challenge - so at the moment it's gonna be tough for entire raid to be similarly geared well.

The dilemma I can see from the developer and gm view point is how to tweak so that it doesn't become too easy when better gear becomes available.

The issue is how to tweak every situation to suit everyone. That's quite impossible. But definitely one thing that needs to be relooked at is how some encounters get dumbed down to pure dps due to buffed hp and enrage timer (Curator/illhoof in Kara, shaffar in MT) rather than changing mechanics to enable players to capitalise on certain tactics to win.

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dgreenbe
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Re: A Simple Solution to Rebalancing around Level 70

#11 » Post by dgreenbe » 22 Aug 2017 06:28

After talking to some warlocks I think this would also make some specs like Destro much more viable, since at the moment it doesn't seem like that's much of an option.

Also related to this is a post on tanking here:
dgreenbe wrote:
22 Aug 2017 07:12
What would be the go-to solution for helping Paladin with mana and threat, boosting threat multipliers and reducing mana costs?

Would Divine Plea help with mana, and would Shield of Righteousness fix the threat?
Anesthesia wrote:
18 Aug 2017 14:54
the game offers a perfect solution for aoe situations --> https://truewow.org/armory/item.php?item=28774&realm=p
This means that even if the damage taken is slightly higher, healing required will be about the same, or even lower for druids in AoE.
Am I missing something? It doesn't seem like Glaive of the Pit (besides not an easy item for most players on the server to acquire) procs enough or steals enough life per proc for that to be the case. I tested it attacking 8 or so demon hunters on BT roof and it healed about as much as a healing potion, which is definitely a cool use of the item but not much of a game changer (plus it has no other stats except 3 gem slots, so is a major loss to stamina/agi/armor).

The primary method of establishing consistent mitigation in single-target situations and higher mitigation in AOE situations is getting Lacerate crits, requiring Primal Gore.

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