The definitive WotLK raid buffs/class balance post

[Elsie]

Are you kidding me...it was such a pain in the ass to make a good 10-man raid with all the buffs before, now it's easy. Confused
It paves the way for 10-man raiding.

In current 10 man raids you have to pick and choose which buffs you want. This is admittedly poor since several buffs are much stronger than others.

In wotlk 10 man raiding, you can rather quickly exclude entire classes.

For example, say you have a raid: warrior, hunter, balance druid, elemental shaman, shadow priest, holy paladin. All of the retribution paladin's raid buffs will not stack with the entirety of the raid.

This is even more prevalent for say, a fury warrior. A fury warrior would bring no viable buffs to a raid with a prot warrior (or rogue), paladin with imp Blessing of Might, and feral druid. A blood or frost death knight's raid buffs are completely negated by an enhancement shaman. From an optimization standpoint, you can rather quickly make a class inefficient to bring.

I would suggest to blizzard to allow stacking of less powerful or otherwise 'essential' buffs. Something that gives 2% extra damage is in no way comparable to 20% haste or 12-13% magic damage.

Of course, in 25 man raids this could cause even bigger problems. Suppose a rogue's raw raid buffed DPS is higher than a ret paladin's. Then suppose all of the paladin's unique RDPS buffs (3% crit, 2% damage, 3% haste, mana return) are covered by their respective classes. The paladin in the raid is then an instant liability without recourse. Furthmore, the paladin would lose the effectiveness of 7 talent points without any method of respeccing for more/other DPS options.

The only possible way such buffing can reasonably make sense is all classes doing the same potential damage raid buffed - in which case they would be unbalanced when considering singular play and possibly arena. I would not be surprised if someone figured out a method to get all the buffs with the least amount of classes in order to stack higher personal DPS classes (of which I expect to be warlock and rogue again).

[Chevalier]

Are you kidding me...it was such a pain in the ass to make a good 10-man raid with all the buffs before, now it's easy. Confused
It paves the way for 10-man raiding.

In current 10 man raids you have to pick and choose which buffs you want. This is admittedly poor since several buffs are much stronger than others.

In wotlk 10 man raiding, you can rather quickly exclude entire classes.

For example, say you have a raid: warrior, hunter, balance druid, elemental shaman, shadow priest, holy paladin. All of the retribution paladin's raid buffs will not stack with the entirety of the raid.

This is even more prevalent for say, a fury warrior. A fury warrior would bring no viable buffs to a raid with a prot warrior (or rogue), paladin with imp Blessing of Might, and feral druid. A blood or frost death knight's raid buffs are completely negated by an enhancement shaman. From an optimization standpoint, you can rather quickly make a class inefficient to bring.

I would suggest to blizzard to allow stacking of less powerful or otherwise 'essential' buffs. Something that gives 2% extra damage is in no way comparable to 20% haste or 12-13% magic damage.

Of course, in 25 man raids this could cause even bigger problems. Suppose a rogue's raw raid buffed DPS is higher than a ret paladin's. Then suppose all of the paladin's unique RDPS buffs (3% crit, 2% damage, 3% haste, mana return) are covered by their respective classes. The paladin in the raid is then an instant liability without recourse. Furthmore, the paladin would lose the effectiveness of 7 talent points without any method of respeccing for more/other DPS options.

The only possible way such buffing can reasonably make sense is all classes doing the same potential damage raid buffed - in which case they would be unbalanced when considering singular play and possibly arena. I would not be surprised if someone figured out a method to get all the buffs with the least amount of classes in order to stack higher personal DPS classes (of which I expect to be warlock and rogue again).

Alright, well your first example was silly...ret paladin not bringing any buffs when there are 4 particular specs and then another 2 classes in the raid...wont happen very often.

The second example is better with the Fury War, you missed commanding shout though if u had a rogue first, so that first spot would need to be a prot warrior, but then that would open their healing debuff to be unique, so you'd also need a rogue or a hunter or an arms warrior would cover both.

All these particular classes and specs being in the raid is less probable for a 10-man than a 25. If ANYTHING, I still think this is better for 10-mans, for my raid team, we're small and we cover everything, and everyone contributes at least one buff. 25-mans are the ones that should be concerned...the fill up with high dps is a valid concern and I hope blizzard gets it right.
(Bah I was typing this while you edited in this same point =)

[Elsie]

Alright, well your first example was silly...ret paladin not bringing any buffs when there are 4 particular specs and then another 2 classes in the raid...wont happen very often.

Yyeah, well, it does take a lot of classes to fully remove all the retadin's abilities. However, it doesn't take many of them before another class's buff is much stronger than the paladin's remaining ones.

I didn't miss commanding, I just intentionally left it out for the sake that it isn't raid DPS or really necessary since they wouldn't, ideally, scale 10-mans to need a warrior/warlock for HP.

Anyway, you're right I did end up proving it was much worse for 25 man raiding than 10. My specific case in 10-man was raid optimization which tends toward good efficiency and effectiveness. As of now in wotlk, in a 25 man, your raid would essentially waste a spot by taking one of every hybrid.

I particularly want blizzard to recognize this, though. Several players have friends playing characters that overlap with them. I, myself, currently raid with a boomkin, elemental shaman, dps warrior, shadow priest, and hunter. In WOTLK either one of them or I would essentially be forced out of the raid unless our personal DPS is on par (read: extremely close to) a 'dps only class' or the buffs start stacking.

[iliya]

Too bad most of the posters on the beta forums have no faith in the devs =/

That's because we've learned through experience not to. I say this as a prot pally since release who was forced into holy with patch 1.9.

I second this. It seems foolish to revamp the entire system, and adding a much needed boost to Ret's pvp endurance, only to gut it for the sake of raids.

Also, I specced holy once before TBC came out... i hated it. I specced back to a hard to gear for ret/prot deal and never looked back.

[InspiredOgre]

How long does the replenishment buff last?

I mean.... 0.5% a second for 2 seconds.... meh, but for 600 seconds? Sure.

Yes, I know, these are all renewable buffs (and easily so, they are tied to the damage Ret, Hunters, and Spriests do, but still...)

[Smite]

If ret is just going to have 0.5% mana regen for himself and the raid, whats the point, BoW does way more.

-_-

[crabcrouton]

If ret is just going to have 0.5% mana regen for himself and the raid, whats the point, BoW does way more.

-_-

Healers don't get the benefit of BoW and now mana-using dps/tanks can benefit from both.

[Macha]

That's because we've learned through experience not to. I say this as a prot pally since release who was forced into holy with patch 1.9.

Quite recently, you should have learned the opposite. Especially as a Prot Pally.

But oh well. People prefer to complain over nothing anyway.

[ulushnar]

If ret is just going to have 0.5% mana regen for himself and the raid, whats the point, BoW does way more.

-_-

0.5% mana per second = 2.5% mana per 5 seconds. Assuming a raid buffed manapool of 6k atm, that's 150mp5.

BoW does not do that much.

[InspiredOgre]

Okay, so, for Clarity....

Attack Power Buff (We Lose)
Battle Shout +550
Talent (5/5 Commanding Presence) +688
Blessing of Might +350
Talent (5/5 Improved Blessing of Might) +525

Percentage Haste Increase (Stacking possible)
Improved Moonkin Aura +20% (Spell Crit Proc (8 sec, 30sec ICD))
Swift Retribution +3% (Constant)

Percentage Damage Increase (Stacking possible/close call)
Ferocious Inspiration +3% (Pet Crit Proc (10 sec))
Sanctified Retribution+2% (Constant)

Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (We Lose)
Heart of the Crusader +3% (Judgment Proc)
Totem of Wrath +3% and +6% Spell Damage (Totem, 30/40yd range 2min)

Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff (Implimentation radically different, tank ability, unlikely to be a factor in raid stacking)
Icy Touch/Frost Fever -15% (12 sec)
Talent (3/3 Improved Icy Touch) -18% (12 sec)
3/3 Infected Wounds/Debuff -4% + 10% move speed debuff (Proc, Stacks to 5 (-20%) 12 sec)
2/2 Judgements of the Just -20% (Judgement Mod)
Thunder Clap -10% (30 sec)
Talent (3/3 Improved Thunder Clap) -20% (30 sec)

Stat Multiplier Buff (we win)
1/1 Blessing of Kings +10% (we win)

Damage Reduction Percentage Buff (unknown)
*2/2 Grace +3% (Unknown Final Implimentation, currently has other effects)
@Blessing of Sanctuary +3%

Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff (Depends on Imp Tree)
^Tree of Life +3%
Talent (3/3 Improved Tree of Life) (Unknown Final implimentation)
3/3 Improved Devotion Aura +3%

Mana Regen (Should be equal, however, Hunting Party currently restores Energy/Rage/RP as well, if one of these, but not the others, does this, well =( )
@1/1 Vampiric Touch Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
@5/5 Hunting Party Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
@3/3 Judgements of the Wise Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.

*Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
^Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
@NYI[/url]

[Ferrix]

The big problem I see with this is the effective DPS of each class that provides a buff especially in 25 mans. If a ret pally does less dps then a moonkin, then there is no reason to bring the ret pally if you have an spriest which is very likely. Just going by the way dps is on live, Ret does less dps then almost every class that gives a similar buff, so it doesn't make sense to bring the paladin because they bring the least dps in addition to their buffs.

Overall the changes really nerf ret back into the same position they're in on live, maybe even a little worse. Unless blizzard fixes things so DPS classes can't be stacked. Like others have said, you can min/max the raid to have the minimum number of people to bring all the buffs, and then stack pure dps classes for the rest of the raid and ditch anyone who brings a buff that is already covered.

[Bobness]

Hmm It does seem to suggest that DPS capabilities will outstrip Utility on a larger scale.

Seems like a Ret Paladin will be great in 5 man's but not so good as you increase the scale of the raid.

I would have thought it would have been better to make classes which have a greater degree of utility than DPS to bring 1 Buff that would outdo the others..

It does make sense in a way ...on the other hand min/maxing is back on the cards when the suggestion was to try & retire it at least conceptually from the collective consciousness.

[InspiredOgre]

Regarding Mana regen.

Hunters will win.

Judgment once every 8 seconds

Steady shot once every 2 seconds (lag) and Arcane/Explosive once every 6 seconds.

Vampiric Touch will proc once every 3 seconds

Hunters win, proccing a hell of a lot more, then Spriests, lastly us.

OR, if Vampiric Touch allows a proc of Replenishment every time the priest ticks shadow damage, then priests win, Hunters, then us.

Either way, we loose, only able to proc every 8 seconds.... Shouldent our replenishment do more... replenishing? otherwise, we will be min/maxed out of the job.

[InspiredOgre]

The big problem I see with this is the effective DPS of each class that provides a buff especially in 25 mans. If a ret pally does less dps then a moonkin, then there is no reason to bring the ret pally if you have an spriest which is very likely. Just going by the way dps is on live, Ret does less dps then almost every class that gives a similar buff, so it doesn't make sense to bring the paladin because they bring the least dps in addition to their buffs.

Overall the changes really nerf ret back into the same position they're in on live, maybe even a little worse. Unless blizzard fixes things so DPS classes can't be stacked. Like others have said, you can min/max the raid to have the minimum number of people to bring all the buffs, and then stack pure dps classes for the rest of the raid and ditch anyone who brings a buff that is already covered.

Its not that bad... our job as a mana battery sucks, although the mana batteries will still stack very well in a 25 man. Ret pallies as it regards haste stack well too... Imagine having a ret pally and a boomkin

All people get 3% haste at all times, with a 20% haste buff every 30 seconds. That is better than 20% haste buff every 30 seconds and nothing during the CDs.

In critical strike taken debuffing, Totem of wrath seems better, but it says 3% bonus to spells and abilities, our judgement says "all attacks" does this mean ours will effect white damage, and theirs will not? If so, at the very least, they can stack.

We loose, (2 to 3) in streight bonus to damage, but the 3% buff depends on hunter pet crits to proc, meaning it could stack.

Our blessing of might looses to battle shout, unless its changed.

All in all, its actually not really clear how this is doing the job of stopping stacking. I mean, sure, You cant have two of the same kind of bonus, but when one option is a proc for X+1, and yours is a constant X, that means it behooves us to have both, so that you can have X all the time, with the occasional X+1 bonus.

-confused-

The other option is ALL of these abilities are made to be exactly the same somehow, which means a LOT of abilities will radically change, and loose all sorts of flavor.

[Proudfoot]

I really hope this doesn't go live. Ret will go back to broken again.