PST - Episode 115

This week:
0:18 - Should there be a way to relearn hard-to-get recipes once you've dropped that profession?
2:32 - What's going on with healers doing DPS?
7:46 - Would a stacking debuff instead of a buff work better for 5.2 LFR?
11:07 - Should server first 10 and 25man achievements be separated?
14:46 - Why not just make Holy Paladins use intellect mail?
20:09 - Isn't Blizzard just giving PvP gear away for free in 5.2?
27:53 - Is there room for pure "support" classes in WoW?
34:04 - Can the game ever be balanced to where bad players you like won't be a strain on progression?

//\(',,')/\\

look out lore!

With respect to the last question about bad players gimping progression, I agree with Lore 100%. However, I believe the context of MrChumble is that support classes in the past were *less* than an equivalent pure class. In other words, a decursive spamming healer was less than a full healer; a windfury totem shaman was less than a full rogue; a mana regen shadow priest was less than a full mage. Since these bad players were playing a diminished role (other than their niche raid support), they impacted the numbers less. To throw out some math:

3 tanks
6 healers
16 DPS -- if one of the DPS is bad, your DPS goes down by 1 / 16 = 6.25%

3 tanks
6 healers
15 DPS
1 support worth half a DPS -- if this support is bad, your DPS goes down by 0.5 / (15 + 0.5) = 3.2%

The math works the same way for a decursive spamming healer.

3 tanks
6 healers -- if one of the healers is bad, your healing goes down by 1 / 6 = 16.7%
16 DPS

3 tanks
5 healers
1 support worth half a healer -- if this support is bad, your healing goes down by 0.5 / (5 + 0.5) = 9.1%

In all four cases above, bringing a bad player does gimp your progression. However, when support roles existed, the impact is reduced.

To expand on this topic a little bit, I believe that casual 10 man raiding guilds are more sensitive to this subject because in a 10 man, every player *absolutely* matters. I know Lore joked in the past about his recruitment issues and having to 24 man the 25 man encounters. Trying to 9 man a 10 man encounter is extremely taxing.

2 tanks
2 healers
6 DPS -- one of the DPS is bad, your DPS goes down by 1 / 6 = 16.7%

That 16.7% loss is probably what MrChumble is lamenting in terms of bringing the bad player that everyone likes, but the raid can't meet the enrage timer on normal mode.

-HP

I think you misread the intent of the last question, Lore.

Quote:

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34:04 - Can the game ever be balanced to where bad players you like won't be a strain on progression?

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I'd like to think that he is referring to normal mode's only. No one is talking about making heroic difficulty easier.

I'm a raid leader myself, and the normal mode raid difficulty in MoP thus far has been very unforgiving for us. I've had to sit good people, people who I have raided with for the last two expansions, in order to bring in new or antisocial players who could put out slightly higher numbers. All this, to complete normal mode raids. Not heroic. Not Achievements. Just normal mode raids.

To put it even further into perspective - our intent is to clear the normal modes. We don't generally do heroics.

The difficulty should go...

1-Raid Finder
2-Normal
3-Normal + Achievements
4-Heroic

Instead, what we currently have is this...

1-Raid Finder
2-?
3-Normal
4-Normal + Achievements
5-Heroic

To finish, I'd like to reitterate that we are normal mode 10-man raid team. If I want to bring 1 player who is slightly below the curve, it shouldn't mean that we can't clear the raid. We are not a Raid Finder raiding team, and we have no interest in ever becoming one. We've always done 10 man normal modes. And now... we have to sit good people in order to have the same amount of progress that we had in Tier 13, and Tier 12, and 11, and 10, ect.

The 10% nerf might help us, a bit, but it's too little/too late. We don't mind being a little behind the progress curve at the beginning, but after a few months it starts to become ridiculous. The Dragon Soul nerf worked well for us in normal mode (although it scaled a bit high near the end). It kept us motivated, and if we ever ran into a multi-week wall we were able to make progress again when the next 5% hit. Why can't we do that again? Everyone that I've talked to liked it, the only ones I ever saw complaining were the hardcore heroic players.

I am thinking that when the buffs start happening a lot of the LFR groups I will be in will go something like this....

"hey let's wipe so we can get the buff"

over and over again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elliot Walls

I'd like to think that he is referring to normal mode's only. No one is talking about making heroic difficulty easier.

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Nothing that I said changes with raid difficulty.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hega

I am thinking that when the buffs start happening a lot of the LFR groups I will be in will go something like this....

"hey let's wipe so we can get the buff"

over and over again.

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I doubt it. It'll take longer to wipe and rez than it will to just kill the boss at 0 stacks, and the vast majority of LFR groups just want to get through it as quickly as possible.

I am not gonna spam up Lore's inbox with even more int-plate discussion so I'll weigh in here instead. How about making Unholy Deathknight use INT instead of strength? Ie Unhonly (and their pet) gets their AP and SP from int?
1. It fits with the DK design being a caster/warrior hybrid.
2. It does not mess with levelling as there are plenty of int plate about.
3. It does not mess with transmog as you can transmog sets and peices regardless of stats.
4. A change like this would, unlike adding a 4th plate class, change the number of rollers on dps str gear from 5 to 4.

A few things would have to be designed. However much work that is would have to dictate if it is a viable option.
1. There are no int 2-handers so Unholy and Frost would have to swap that talent.
2. An int set would have to be designed for the DK starter quests
3. In the future an int based Deathknight tier set would have to be designed and balanced
4. A system similar to the now removed Warlock talent that turned spirit into hit would have to be invented as all int plate is designed for healing.

Or let DKs use staffs as 2-handed weapons. Plenty of Int staffs.

Or let them use onehanders and shields. :P Obviously not an option because then Blood would whine about not being able to use those shields they can hold as unholy. Onehanders and off-hand frills are also an option, but I'm not exactly sold on that. I'm also not sure if adding a 4th DK spec is a cleaner way to go around doing this.

Adding a shockadin spec as the 4th Paladin spec could also solve the issue of the DPS healer problem. A shockadin spec that's a caster but could push out some healing where required might be an option for the guy that had to relog his disc priest. Instead he could be holy/shock specced, and respec shock on those fights.

I still think that giving holy paladins an ability to imbue mail caster armor, converting them to plate (and obviously making them soulbound at that point) could be another option to go around 'fixing' it. It solves most of the issues that Lore mentioned about "holy paladins should wear mail".



The casual step in problem is a bit of an issue, especially with 10 man raids. One of the raiders in our guild has gotten his girlfriend to play the game. She leveled all the way up to 90, spammed dungeons and LFR, and now is asking if she can come raids. She seems however to inexperienced to 2 heal some of the MSV fights. We pugged 25 man like 2 weeks ago, and we could easily carry her there, and she got some experience there, but on 10 man I find it hard to squeeze her in somehow, and she won't get more experienced by just being benched all the time.

Fortunately, 5.2 is coming around, so perhaps we can take her to some of the nerfed 5.0 raids then.

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Originally Posted by Thels

I still think that giving holy paladins an ability to imbue mail caster armor, converting them to plate (and obviously making them soulbound at that point)

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I think, not to mock your suggestion, that if anybody at blizzard saw that they would laugh and say: "yeah, sure thing, you write the code for that and we'll put it in the game."

Hmm? Honestly I don't see that much problems with programming it... The spell would work very much like disenchanting/prospecting/milling does already. It only works on specific items, and you get other items back from it depending on the original item.

Not saying they would ever do it. But I don't see them NOT do it because it's too hard to script.

And if it really was too hard to script, they could make a vendor to do the same.

The question you will always have to ask after any suggestion is "is this actually better than just having only Holy Paladin use Int plate?"

I'd think so. There are no disadvantages to the "Holy Paladins can convert caster mail drops to plate", other than that people need to get used to the idea that holy paladins need mail drops.

Might not be something that Blizzard would consider, though.

I'm pretty sure they considered a LOT of options because plate intelect has been the bane of loot table for a looong time.

They probably came to the conclusion (I think they mentioned this once) that the solutions cause more problems than just letting it be.

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Originally Posted by Thels

other than that people need to get used to the idea that holy paladins need mail drops.

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That is bigger than you think, Blizzard says that they lose more customer due to changes (not the changes by themselves, but the fact that they exist) than to anything else.

Just for example:
- How will you handle transmog? Paladins will be restricted to plate gear even if they can gear mail or they can transmog mail gear too? none of this is the Right Thing(TM). And there are a couple of situations where you end with a non-ideal scenario in order to fix this non-ideal scenario; so you create one or multiple problems in others parts of the game in order to fix one. If Blizzard creates a gear based mmo, I think they will consider this as a potential problem and will do something about it, but for WoW I think this topic is done.

The idea of rogues & hunters tanking tickles me. Bring back 100% dodge for your rogues! Let slip the Panzerkins and Shadowtanks of war!

If Blizzard wants to tinker around with this idea, I hope they follow the current warlock model of enabling a glyph... and see where it leads. Which is likely not far.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eald

- How will you handle transmog? Paladins will be restricted to plate gear even if they can gear mail or they can transmog mail gear too? none of this is the Right Thing(TM). And there are a couple of situations where you end with a non-ideal scenario in order to fix this non-ideal scenario; so you create one or multiple problems in others parts of the game in order to fix one. If Blizzard creates a gear based mmo, I think they will consider this as a potential problem and will do something about it, but for WoW I think this topic is done.

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Please note that I was talking about holy paladins having the ability to convert caster mail drops to plate. Basically, any caster mail drop would be either a mail or a plate item depending on who needs it. So a mail item drops, it's handed to the paladin, who then uses his imbue ability to convert it to a plate item with the same stats but more armor on it, and perhaps slightly different looks since it's now imbued. It's still plate, so it works fine for transmo gear, they still get their set bonus, they're still balanced around the higher armor, etc...

It would only apply to (nonpersonal) drops. Tier pieces, valor items, quest rewards, LFR/World Boss/Coin drops, scenario rewards, craftables, etc... would all still be plate, and their mail equivalents would not be convertable.

Just to give an idea of how many items that would be: http://www.wowhead.com/items=4.4?fil...v=0:0:0#50-2+1

5 regular dungeon items.
11 heroic dungeon items.
13 regular raid items.
12 heroic raid items.
11 more world/rare/treasure drops.

The world/rare/treasure drops could probably be skipped over, leaving 41 items to be affected in such way, and probably another 24 or so with each new raid tier. Seems certainly doable, and would omit any of the issues of "Holy Paladins should wear mail".

The only serious problem that remains is for people to learn that holy paladins need to roll on caster mail drops, so they can convert them to plate. This could be overcome by giving these items a label "Can be imbued by holy paladins.", so everyone can see they're also intended for holy paladins, and holy paladins can see exactly which mail items they can convert to plate. The only downside of that is that shamans might be a little annoyed by having half their gear set labeled like that.

I think with patterns, this would be brilliant, and Lore pretty much summed up exactly how it should be. However, I think the issue with it would be that now, the servers have to store more information on the characters, would this take up too much memory?

Spider - 1, Lore - 0

ITT:

"I push buttons and the boss...EEEEEK! SPIDER!"

Classic =)

Edit:

Also, I think the best argument I've heard against support classes goes like this:

If it works too well, you HAVE to have it. Then you get into the "bring the class" problem they have been trying to get away from.

If it doesn't work well enough that you need it, then nobody will bring it in general over an actual dps/tank/heal.