Lots of arena news as usual but lately the arguments have gotten pretty deep. The big debate is over which type of mechanics are dominating the arenas most. Right now it’s a weird situation where CC, Healing, and offensive amounts of burst damage are all competing for nerfs and buffs.
Survavibility and fun in Arenas
I would say we are definitely worried that players are dying too fast, particularly to a handful of specs that combine high damage with high survivability. We know resilience will make a difference, but they jury is still out on whether it will make enough of a difference. Regardless, it’s clear a lot of players aren’t having fun, so it is something we are talking about. (Source)
[...] All I have ever said was that damage will be lower when everyone is at full resilience. Will damage be low enough then? I have never answered that because I think the jury is out. I understand many players think damage will still be too high. We certainly take their opinions (and numbers) into account when we discuss it. (Source)
1v1 PvP
We do not balance 1v1 PvP. We make virtually no attempt to insure that all specs are viable at dueling. It’s a fun distraction at best, perhaps a way to test our your abilities against a specific class. (Source)
Damage / Healing / Crowd Control in Arenas
Yes, I said that. If you are disagreeing with that remark, then you are essentially saying “It shouldn’t be a viable tactic to kill a healer.”
If you aren’t saying that, then all we’re really quibbling over is a matter of degree.
I didn’t say it should be trivial to kill a healer. I purposefully didn’t specify how many people it should take to kill a healer. I didn’t say that we were happy with how easy it is to currently kill a healer. But if you are anticipating a point where you just laugh at warriors or shamans or other classes without brutal CC and drains, then you might be disappointed. (Source)
[...] I made an unclear post that ended up setting a lot of people off. I did not mean dps classes should be able to faceroll healers. I did not mean that one dps should be a match for one healer. I did not mean that CC should have no role in Arenas. I did not mean that healing should have no role in Arenas. I did not mean that we think healers are finally getting their just deserts in season 5.
The best way I can think to say it is: Burst damage should not dominate Arenas. Crowd control should not dominate Arenas. Healing should not dominate Arenas.
I don’t think this is really news to people who have been doing Arenas very long. (Source)
[...] My point was that we don’t give every spec the ability to stunlock, sheep or silence. And we’re not going to. But those specs still need to feel like they can contribute in an Arena. Understanding the concerns now, I should have said something more like “It should still be possible for warriors and shamans to take on and sometimes defeat healers (even if it takes 2v1 or 3v1 or whatever).” Crowd control should not be the dominant factor in Arenas. Neither should burst damage. (Source)
[...] I will just leave it at this: When you put a healer on your team, you need to feel that the dps you lose from not having another dps class is more than offset by the survivability brought by the healing. I’m cool with all damage teams existing, so long as there aren’t too many of them and they take big risks from neglecting healing. (Source)
Heirloom items and LVL 1-79 balance
We do take them into consideration. For example, we do put some thought into the structure of the talent trees based on when classes get new abilities. Part of the whole design of hierloom items was to give players who have reached max level a reason to go try another (for some of us, yet another) class.
We don’t spend much effort balancing PvP or PvE for levels below the max level, since nearly all player balance concerns are about max level. (Source)
No Deadly/Hateful Band of Salvation available
I’ll look into the healer ring issue. (Source)
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