Ask the Devs: Damage Dealing

The Ask of Devs blog continues with Damage Dealing, where Blizzard offers answers to top rated questions!

Ask the Devs #10: Damage Dealing

Feel free to comment below what you liked or disliked about the Q&A. Also note that the Ask the Devs Q&A is now going to head towards the Healing aspect of the game. The forum thread to ask a question is already full and locked. If you wish a question answered that was put in the Questions thread, rate up the question!

For those too lazy to go look for the other Ask the Devs questions and answers, below is a list of all the links:

Quote:

---

Archive:

Ask the Devs - Answers #1: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2228225718
Ask the Devs - Answers #2: PvP http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2267599521
Ask the Devs - Answers #3: UI http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2301722463
Ask the Devs - Answers #4: Armor and Weapons http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2353015977
Ask the Devs - Answers #5: Achievements http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2369681189
Ask the Devs - Answers #6: Guild Advancement http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416158906
Ask the Devs - Answers #7: Professions http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2522165843
Ask the Devs - Answers #8: Firelands http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2580388888
Ask the Devs - Answers #9: Tanking http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2649805301

---

this was one of the worst Q&A's ever, i just dont get why blizzard dose not just spend more of a quality time with there community like live feed back instead of post. i know it seems a impossible feat to do this and they have more things they need to concentrate on but i think they would get more sense into there community as to what they are looking for.

Should have called it Ask the Devs 10: Enhancement Shamans

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rennadrel

Should have called it Ask the Devs 10: Enhancement Shamans

---

For once we agree on something. When I read the first few questions I thought to myself, "wow, this is going to be the longest QA yet, they are doing a whole page on every single DPS spec."

There are good questions and there are bad questions. The bad questions are those "my class/spec has a problem, can you fix it?" The better questions are those with a broader focus. Sadly damage dealers apparently don't have many good questions at all.

The best question I feel was asked so poorly that it lost its value. I feel the question about an in game combat log parser like Recount would be a valuable addition. However the person who asked the question asked for damage and healing meter which is completely the wrong approach. Combat log parsing addons like Recount provide way more useful information than simply a number. You can see singificantly better death logs. You can see damage/healing break downs by ability. So you can see when someone other than a tank takes a lot of damage its because they were standing in fire too much. Or you can see that another player of the same spec performs much better than you and look at what abilities they used in what distribution in order to hopefully improve your own performance. Because they asked for a damage and healing meter the question was severely devalued. I think everyone would agree though that the in game combat log is worthless and is overdue for some new ways to actually get at the information that is important while in the game and not needing to use an addon for it or wait to view a log parse after your night is done.

yes i have to agree that a log of your day for damage or healing, even as far to go as threat would be great. blizz see's this as a problem child instead of a better way to help those that could use this info to better one self. To be able to see what you could work on based on your spec, to be able to copy it and paste even to a guild your wanting to join. At least this way you find find out a better way to keep up times more frequent for your dps, of maybe if you had over looked a ability for healing or tanking that could help better yourself. To even find out how much burst damage you take on boss fight.

I found their response to Death Knight damage insulting. They flat out deny that Unholy was nerfed half way through T11, when in reality it was. The Mastery was changed, Ghoul damage was reduced both for normal form as well as the transformation, the Rage of Rivendare talent as well as the passive Unholy Might were all nerfed as well. To me, Unholy went from being OMGWTFBBQ overpowered and you could be in the top 5 on any raid boss while only half paying attention to your rotation. Frost was only made viable because of the Blood Rune change, it's damage is still only middle of the road on encounters with tons of uptime on the boss, and for some reason they decided to swing the nerf bat at the 2 hand talent due to it scaling further ahead of the dual wield setup because haste combined with mastery for 2 hand has more value then the mastery, hit and critical strike that dual wield users get. Rather then reducing the 2 hand talent by 1%, why not just raise the dual wield talents by 1% to keep it competitive?

Quote:

---

Q: A majority of the fights in T11 favored having little or no Melee DPS. Are there plans to fix this? – Merissa (NA), Espiritu (NA)

A: We view this more of a class problem than an encounter problem.

---

a.k.a

"our bring the player not the class failed.sorry melee dps"

Not a single warlock question...maybe thats cuz we are afraid they will nerf us again if they know we exist...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PimpJuice4

Quote:

---

Q: A majority of the fights in T11 favored having little or no Melee DPS. Are there plans to fix this? – Merissa (NA), Espiritu (NA)

A: We view this more of a class problem than an encounter problem.

---

a.k.a

"our bring the player not the class failed.sorry melee dps"

---

And which fights favored little to no melee after adjustments they made? Sure, bleeding edge guilds ran into this, but by the time the majority of guilds hit the fights, this was just a perpetuated issue fixed in the past. Moreso on 25 than 10, but it still holds true.

Granted, it looks like the same problems exist from L2Raids PTR fight videoguides... where one fight is "you may want to bring more melee" and the next is "you may not want to bring any melee".

Looking back at it, for the majority of the life of the 4.0 raids, there wasn't that much of a difference in complexity. Some fights favored melee, some favored range.

What frustrates me more is:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2956383#blog

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ghostcralwer

We also nerfed Arms and Fury damage across the board because they were doing too much damage in both PvP and PvE. While we are sensitive to casters outperforming melee on several raid encounters, having warriors handily outperform all other melee isn’t the solution to that problem.

---

So range does more damage compared to melee than desired in some encounters and the solution isn't to either adjust mechanics to neutralize or provide melee with tools to catch up or maybe bring down range --- but rather nerf the best performing melee class.

That... I don't know what to call that other than inane.

Quote:

---

And which fights favored little to no melee after adjustments they made?

---

i dont know but i know my guild generally doesnt like bringing in more then 2 melee dps and normally when they do they have a hard time healing so they end up benching 1 and bringing in 2

but maybe its just a problem on 10 man,cuz ive never did 25 man but my guild only does 10 man

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PimpJuice4

i dont know but i know my guild generally doesnt like bringing in more then 2 melee dps and normally when they do they have a hard time healing so they end up benching 1 and bringing in 2

but maybe its just a problem on 10 man,cuz ive never did 25 man but my guild only does 10 man

---

That's because your raid leader knows something you apparently do not. Tanks are melee. A fact many like to neglect. The reason why a lot of raids will typically balance with slightly more ranged DPS than melee DPS is because the tanks are also in melee. And on fights where fewer tanks are required your tank off specs are most likely that of melee DPS. Now granted a tank doesn't put out the same numbers as say a rogue typically, but they still are a damage dealing role that is in melee range of the target.

Twin Dragons was honestly the only heroic mode encounter prior to nerfs where melee were actually useful for something, because they didn't blow up your raid with an AoE explosion and didn't lose damage having to move for the debuff.

In all honesty. This "Melee dps are useless" crap its just that. I cant think of any situation where having more melee and range, or more range than melee, would give a game breaking advantage (or disadvantage).

The simple fact is, while it may not be 100% optimal, its not impossible to clear content with melee. people just complain about everything.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chamomilla

Not a single warlock question...maybe thats cuz we are afraid they will nerf us again if they know we exist...

---

Because warlocks are in a good spot right now. If your a good lock, you shouldnt be having many issues with damage.. maybe some quality of life issues, that is all.

My DPS as a warlock sucks, but that's because I stop focusing my my rotation to tell squats to stop sucking and battle rez him.

It's a dangerous job, being an enhance shaman...cut a brother some slack.

Melee DPS with high burst potential but no threat wipe. A friend of mine says Reincarnate is a threat dump :/

My DK loves to battle res now, its hotkeyed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rennadrel

Twin Dragons was honestly the only heroic mode encounter prior to nerfs where melee were actually useful for something, because they didn't blow up your raid with an AoE explosion and didn't lose damage having to move for the debuff.

---

And name a non-melee class with reliable interrupts aside from shamans, 10 second or less cooldown. Correction: or is a paladin or tank. Tanks have broad shoulders, but not for lazy dps to shunt responsibility onto.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aggathon

My DPS as a warlock sucks, but that's because I stop focusing my my rotation to tell squats to stop sucking and battle rez him.

---

PFT! Our holy paladin dies more than anyone. And i can brez myself!