First and foremost I want to say that I have the utmost confidence that the game will be ready by November 13th. It will be as balanced and solid as possible and I know for a fact it’s going to be unbelievably fun.
With that said there are many concerns though to the contrary where the game is not essentially expected to be balanced or working so soon. In this thread Blizzard is trying to set those fears to rest.
Class balance and WotLK release deadline
The numbers aren’t done. We changed an awful lot of combat mechanics and we’re still adjusting things to get them right. Unholy death knights (I assume that’s the spec you are talking about) have some nerfs coming (and I’ve already posted about them).
Don’t feel like Lich King is a deadline. If anything, it’s only a beginning. Even if we had everything absolutely 100% perfectly balanced to our liking, some smart player would figure out that if you combine this talent spec, with this elixir and this trinket and use this set bonus, then bam, your dps goes up by 200 points. That sort of thing is going to happen, and we’re just going to have to adjust when it does. Balance is a work in progress, not a destination. (src)
With all the class changes and cross class non-stacking buffs, we’re going to be looking at some almost unheard of raid compositions.
Raid diversity in WotLK
I undestand your concern here. It’s totally valid. But it’s actually the “OMG we need X” mentality that we’re trying to get away from. Even a 25-player raid stacked with healers is going to have ~15 slots for dps. Not every raid will have a rogue in one of those spots, but some will, and some will have 3 or 4. We want to restore flexibility back to the group. Our experience is that a lot of guilds are groups of friends, and it sucks when those groups have to sit out mage 3 and 4 just because “full on mages.” If you have a group with exceptional rogues, great. Bring them. You shouldn’t be punished for having too many good players.
Now maybe you’re worried that battle rez or battle shout or whatever is still too good and stacks so well that every guild is going to switch to stacking, oh I don’t know, 10 Ret pallies for their dps. If that happens, and we’re convinced it’s really an issue not just players experimenting, then we’ll squash it. Because the goal is you bring ~15 dps, not that you bring 10 ret pallies. That violates the “OMG we need X” situation. (src)
Speaking of raiding, I liked this comment because it was an issues I hated as melee in Burning Crusade.
Cleaves in PvE in WotLK
Assuming you are talking about PvE, a big part of that in BC was the boss cleaves that were so deadly to melee and the necessity for crowd control that could pretty much only be done by a mage or priest. That did suck and it wasn’t fair and we changed it. You shouldn’t be walking into that situation again. Now you can argue that your dps isn’t up to par, which is a valid concern (in the sense that I understand why you’d be worried about it, not in the sense that we think it’s true). But it is also a concern voiced by probably every class at the moment. (src)
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