A Realization - Raid Balance, hybrids, and WotLK

[moduspwnens]

Yeah, I just tried to make a list about what I'd take to a raid, but realistically I can't even do that. We just don't know what the encounters will require.

[honorshammer]

Kaplan stated in the interview I saw that they are planning around 3 tanks in 25 mans. He didn't mention a number of hearlers but for 10 mans, he said 1 tank, 2 healers. He said some groups might choose to bring an offtank or a 3rd healer.

[DeadMilliken]

Out of all the healer class offspecs, Shadow priests are the most vulnerable in the 25man setting.

Disc Priests are able to provide shadow priest mana utility, heal respecably at the same time, and provide additional raid utility.

Honestly I think typical raid setups will look like this:

4 total Warlocks / Mages
(*specifically 4 because otherwise they will not be in the Moonkin's party and therefore not preforming as well)

7-8 total Rogues / Hunters / DPS Warrior / Deathknight

1 Balance Druid
Absolutely because how much they will buff the 4 main dps casters

1 Enhance Shaman
Absolutely because of how much they will buff the physical dps, and tanks.

1 EITHER a Elemental Shaman OR a Ret paladin.

Tanks: 3
1 Prot Paladin
1 Prot Warrior
1 Feral Druid
(*The Feral Druid and DKs will be dps most of the time...3rd tank or MT as needed. Typically the Prot warrior or Paladin will be MT'ing)

Healers:7-8
2 Disc Healers (*or 1 and 1 shadow priest)
2-3 Holy Priest or Holy Paladins
2-3 Resto Druids or Resto Shaman

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternative: (Caster heavy)

Casters: 11
1 Elemental Shammy
2 Boomkin
1 Shadow Priest
7 Warlocks / Mages

Physical 3-4
1 Ret Pally
2-3 Rogues, Hunters, DPS Warriors, DeathKnight

Healers:7-8
1 Disc Healers
3-4 Holy Priest or Holy Paladins
3-4 Resto Druids or Resto Shaman

Tanks: 3
1 Prot Paladin
1 Prot Warrior
1 Feral Druid or Deathknight
(*The Feral Druid and DKs will be dps most of the time...3rd tank or MT as needed. Typically the Prot warrior or Paladin will be MT'ing)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10 MAN RAID:
Tank / OT
1: Either Warrior or paladin tank.
1: Either Feral, DK, or opposite of which was picked above.
(*I expect 2 Feral, 2 DK, or 1 feral / 1 dk to be EXTREMELY rare)

5 dps
2 healers spec'd healing (Not the same class)
1 off caster dps / offhealer
(*I exspect this to be either a Priest, Druid or Shammy)

[PsiVen]

I think we should expect to run with 5-7 healers depending on the fight, and for that ratio to go up in the next expansion with a Hero class healer.

Any thinner than 5 healers would be really pushing on limits of what they can do with encounter design. But I absolutely expect that people unhappy with the way Sunwell comps were designed will still be pissed. The thing that makes Sunwell work is the ability for people to have fully geared alts or offspecs to bring without skipping a beat, and the model of farming every tier of content for a couple months before going on to the next will support that at EVERY tier instead of just the last. Screwing with comps lets them force guilds to take longer to gear up despite there being three times as many token drops (I expect to see this number drop to 2 at most at the start of WotLK).

As for 10-mans, "1 tank 2 healers and some will choose to add an OT or 3rd healer" sounds exactly like TBC. There's no reason to expect that Ferals won't be suitable to MT it either, and Deathknights will be a great choice as well to solo tank with all their AoE stuff.

[Baelor]

Well, the main problem is that your premise is that raids first and foremost balance around having an equal number of each class. I see no reason for that assumption, and it certainly hasn't been my experience in TBC. We tend to bring a lot of Shaman and Warlocks to our raids, while we often have only 1-2 Hunters and Mages. We almost always have 3 Paladins in our raids, and 4 isn't uncommon. Priests will be anywhere from 2-4.

In short, raids balance themselves around what makes sense as a solid make up, not what gives equal representation to every single class. If one class is particularly strong for raiding, it'll get more spots. If another is relatively weak, guilds won't replace members of the class when they leave and their raiding representation will go down. The strength of Ret and Holy Pallies has very little to do with whether a Prot Pally gets a raid spot.

Sure, bringing 4 priests and 5 shaman to the raid is great nowadays, but Blizzard is making changes to counteract that trend (granting more mana-restore abilities to various raid roles, making totems raid-wide so shaman-stacking isn't so prevalent).

You're right, the raids will balance themselves out around what's best. But what concerns me is that what's best will most likely mean cutting down on "off-specs" or "support" characters to make room for death knight(s) and keeping the healer number the same.

All I'm saying is that if the healer count stays the same, the healer spots are still pretty safe, but introducing 1-2 death knights into the raid coupled with the elimination of the "need" for 3 paladins, as well as shaman totems going raid-wide (and eliminating the "need" to stack 4-5 shaman for full benefits) means that DPS/tank paladin or shaman raid spots, and to an extent feral jobs, are prime candidates to be usurped by a death knight.

This is only if the healer count for raids stays constant. If Splug is right and the addition of a DPS/tank class comes with the reduction to 7 or less healers commonly in raids, the problem is alleviated to a degree.

[protonly]

Interesting discussion. It might not be that much of a problem though for most guilds simply because they won't have a population where the problem presents itself. Or, like in my guild, we work out a rotation in raids so that even though we have 9 raiding locks only 2-3 ever signup for any given raid.


Also, as any paladin knows, some class/spec combos will get invites over other specs...so spec which ever way gets you an invite or not.

[Jtree]

Disc Priests are able to provide shadow priest mana utility, heal respecably at the same time, and provide additional raid utility.

Blizz has already nerfed that. The Rapture talent now only gives mana back to the priest, not to his party.

[Lore]

If your raid leader caps classes with no consideration to spec, he's doin it wrong.

[Snake-Aes]

Disc Priests are able to provide shadow priest mana utility, heal respecably at the same time, and provide additional raid utility.

Blizz has already nerfed that. The Rapture talent now only gives mana back to the priest, not to his party.

I already see full disc, inspiration Discpriests as the new raid "IDS" priest.
The mana returns from rapture reduce the need for mana regen, and with the spellpower change, you can use a "warlock item" to heal with high crit and high healing power. Add in all those +%armor, free PW:Shield, free 6% damage reduction from crits/heals, and you have a godsend for tank healing.

I MEAN C'MON! High inspiration uptime, just as high power word shield uptime, AND free 6% reduction, free 6% more heals on you?

[moduspwnens]

Disc Priests are able to provide shadow priest mana utility, heal respecably at the same time, and provide additional raid utility.

Blizz has already nerfed that. The Rapture talent now only gives mana back to the priest, not to his party.

I already see full disc, inspiration Discpriests as the new raid "IDS" priest.
The mana returns from rapture reduce the need for mana regen, and with the spellpower change, you can use a "warlock item" to heal with high crit and high healing power. Add in all those +%armor, free PW:Shield, free 6% damage reduction from crits/heals, and you have a godsend for tank healing.

I MEAN C'MON! High inspiration uptime, just as high power word shield uptime, AND free 6% reduction, free 6% more heals on you?

and Pain Suppression!

[DeadlyRabbit]

Raids run with odd class/spec setups all the time, it usually gets down to how well people play their character, the best class/spec setup doesn't do as well as having the best players in the raid, there is always room to adjust.

[Soltyr]

I see blizzard making a great job to assure more class synergy (avoiding unique class-spec role alike spriest).

So what you want at the end is a fair attendance of every class, once you know the necessary tank/healer spot for the WotlK encounters.

Party buff are very limited and a few of them working in a more general way (i.e. "Hunting Party" talent of the Surv tree. No matter which class you got in your party, it is going to work fine).

[Karock]

I find it hilarious that you think being a certain class should guarantee a raid spot over another class.

The fact is that there are Tank slots, Healer slots and DPS slots. There are no "class" slots.

The goal for blizzard SHOULD be that you don't need X number of X class to do X encounter but that you need ~X dps ~X healers ~X tanks. If they reach this point I'll be more than pleased.

[knaughty]

I find it hilarious that you think being a certain class should guarantee a raid spot over another class.

The fact is that there are Tank slots, Healer slots and DPS slots. There are no "class" slots.

The goal for blizzard SHOULD be that you don't need X number of X class to do X encounter but that you need ~X dps ~X healers ~X tanks. If they reach this point I'll be more than pleased.

There are class slots.

Two shaman (any spec) gives entire raid all totems.

Two paladins (any spec) gives entire raid Kings + might/wis (pick one). Personally, I think you aim for three: ret/prot/holy, so you get all three Auras (& all three blessings on ret/enhance).

One mage/druid/priest/warlock (imp) for buffs.

But there's 25 raid slots now, and 30 specs. Thank god some look to be PvP only (Arms/Unholy/Disc for starters)

Pure DPS get fewer slots, due to continued boosting of "hybrids".

=EDIT=

Only easy way I cas see to avoid some rather nasty guild-makeup issues is to drop required healer numbers to about 6 instead of 8.

[Worldie]

I will laugh my ass off at guilds that in wotlk will keep bringing 3 prot wars rather than 1 prot pala, 1 prot war and 1 druid