Druid
Restoration druids mana issues
When I see Resto druids run out of mana, it is often because they stacked spellpower and forgot about spirit, mp5 and int. On shorter fights it can be attractive, but on the longer bosses like Saph and KT, that mana pool and regen really start to count for something. (Source)
Rogue
51 Point talents
I think you are expecting more out of the 51-point talents than we are. The death knight may be the best example. They are useful 51 pointers, but none feel mandatory and the trees aren’t balanced completely around them. Unholy Blight is probably the closest to feeling necessary, but really only for tanks.
We do still think that those comments about Hunger for Blood still stand. However, it’s not a simple fix because Assassination can do very high (if not the highest) dps (in a world without HaT bugs), but only for a skilled player who invests a lot of time into it and only on long fights. That means to juice up the tree in some places we’d need to nerf it in others in order to avoid Assassination becoming THE PvE spec. It is something we’re working on — just too early for any announcements. (Source)
Rogues in WotLK
The “lackluster talent” thing is something almost every spec throws around. In almost every case, we weren’t trying to make the 51 point talent the best in the tree and we weren’t trying to make the 51 something you use as part of your standard rotation.
As I have said before, what we wanted to do with rogues in BC included getting poisons back into the game, making sap a more useful CC, and getting rogues to pay a little more attention to the rest of the group (with things like Tricks). (Source)
Ranged vs. Melee DPS
I do think there is a melee disadvantage, and I do think rogues are probably not quite doing the damage they should in ideal situations.
Be careful with Patchwerk though. It’s an ideal situation for rogues, but it’s an ideal situation for any dps that doesn’t have to move or run around. You need to look at the LK equivalent of Void Reaver (and I’m not sure there is one — Grobbulus maybe) where the ranged dps have to move and the melee can more or less go crazy. Another problem with Patch is that the fights are short. You can burn all your cooldowns and have them active for a decent percentage of that fight. Rogues typically need to lay down a groundwork before they really start pumping out the dps, and they really start to shine in situations where the casters have to start worrying about mana.
We knew this was the risk with introducing the combat dummies, but some players do have the tendency to generate numbers from those tests and then expect to see that dps in a raid. Usually encounters are much more complex than that. (Source)
Rogue AE changes in 3.0.8
We aren’t trying to turn rogues into an AE class. We just want them to have something to do in AE situations besides making Heavy Borean Leather. The new Fan works pretty well for that.
We do think rogues might be a little low on single-target bosses, but we’re also cognizant of the fact that they tend to do much better with good gear and good buffs. We have some plans in mind. (Source)
Warrior
Developer Q&A (Source)
1) Is generating no rage on shielded targets considered to be a balanced mechanic or are possible alternatives being considered?
It’s not something we think is broken. Rage is not an unalienable right. You get it when you hit things. When you hit a shielded target, you aren’t hitting them.
2) Is it intended for the new Arms tree to be so heavily dependant on RNG or was it maybe taken a bit to that extreme, and if so are there any plans to making the damage from that tree seem more on demand?
We’re okay with it for now. Various specs have more or less RNG baked into them. Fire and Frostfire mages are enormously RNG at the moment, but many players are okay with that. Incidentally, it is usually the Fury warriors I see accidentally pulling aggro.
3) When comparing overall damage to survivability ratio between the three plate wearing classes (Paladin, Deathknight and Warrior) do you feel that things are balanced?
I assume you mean dps specs, not tanks? I gather from your question that you think it isn’t, so why don’t you bring up the specific issue instead of tying to test me on whether I am aware of it?
4) Are stance restrictions for certain abilities such as 1) Pummel 2) Rend 3) Overpower still considered a functional and desired warrior mechanic? Mostly in regards to Pummel as Arms is lacking a convinient interrupt due to it being balanced around battle stance.
Yes, we like stance restrictions. That is really the major thing that makes stances unique. Despite the changes we made though, I still think Battle Stance is a little neglected and that is something we’ll be looking at.
5) Is weapon swapping invoking the GCD while in combat something that is considered to be ok, namely for a class like warriors which rely on frequently switching between a 2 hander and sword and board to use basic functions such as spell reflect, shield wall, and possibly shield bash? This could also help with the issue of Arms not having a readily accessible interrupt if equiping a shield didnt invoke the gcd to interrupt.
It’s supposed to be a decision on whether to use a shield or not, not something you can macro around. If we wanted you to use spell reflect without a sheild, we would have just done that. (Trivia: we did consider a deep Arms talent to let warriors spell reflect and possibly even bash with a two-hander.)
6) Is changing charge to a 1 second root mechanic, similar to druids feral bear charge being considered, to help alleviate some of the issues warriors are facing in terms of not landing near their opponent, the stun not landing and lastly by invoking an early DR on stuns?
You’re talking about changing the mechanic just as a work around to technical limitations. That is a last resort if we can’t make the tech work the way we want. The movement code in WoW is something we need to update. We are using it a lot more (consider even things like Disengage and Death Grip) than the original architects probably intended. If we can’t make it work, then we might change charge. If we do DR on stuns, it won’t be because of warriors.
7) When comparing the damage sacrifice warriros take by equiping their shield and going into defensive stance to up their survivability to a druid going to bear form or a deathknight going into frost presence (which is further being buffed) are things considered balanced?
Yes. To really benefit from bear form, a druid has to have certain talents. If they have those talents, they probably do not have as many +dps talents. A death knight, like a warrior, gives up a lot of damage by going into Frost Presence. The buff was made because we nerfed abilities like Icebound Fortitude and Bone Shield. You also don’t have to use a shield and Defensive Stance together every time. It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
Now, I’ll assume you are wearing plate. I am less sympathetic when warriors wear leather “because it’s better for us” and then complain about survivability.
8 ) With a resource like rage which can be plentiful or crippling scarce, is the 30 rage transfer between stances (if speced) considered to be a reasonable ammount or are there any considerations of possibly slightly increasing the amount retained through stances?
This is something we might end up changing. Losing access to certain abilities might be enough. But again, the druid and death knight both pay a resource cost for changing. Remember it is supposed to be a decision, not a test of your reflexes to see how fast you can switch.
9) >>Open ended question<< Ultimately I made this last one for you to write anything you think the warrior or general wow community would be interested in.
I’ll just throw out a couple of thoughts on warriors, since I haven’t done it in awhile.
- Protection – very happy with the tree overall. One of our best success stories in LK I think. Still a viable tank, but with some more interesting abilities and actually a better PvP presence. Critical Block and Damage Shield may present scaling problems down the road.
- Fury – Titan’s Grip is cool overall, though we still worry about whether Fury has enough buttons to push and too much rage. Whirlwind Glyph change should be nice. Might generate too much threat (with no viable dump) when blowing cooldowns.
- Arms – probably the tree that still needs the most love. Some of the new talents are very cool, but mid-tree may be a bit lackluster (we don’t want to make the upper tree any more attractive to Fury). Deep Wounds is probably too high a percent of overall damage, but we don’t want to nerf it without compensation elsewhere. Sudden Death may be too RNG, but we’ll see. Bladestorm + Retaliation can make a nice tank.
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