Ghostcrawler on raid Stacking

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/threa ... 8&sid=2000

Ghostcrwaler wrote:As we've suggested a few times, we are currently taking a serious look at all of the various buffs and debuffs classes can bring to parties and especially raids. A few of these changes have shown up in the recent build, and more are on the way. I'll first explain why we're doing this and then what generally we are doing.

Why we think this change is necessary:

1) We are adding a new class in Wrath of the Lich King as well as improving some specs that were previously viewed as inferior for PvE. Yet because the raid size is remaining at 25-players (and we expect many people with raid with 10), it may be hard to fit more people into your raid.
2) We are moving almost every buff to affect the entire raid. There are only a few exceptions, and these tend to be short-term, bursty abilities. Most buffs from Battle Shout to Leader of the Pack will affect the raid.
3) While we are likely to increase the debuff limit on bosses, this is a problem we keep running into. Furthermore, it asks a lot of players to be able to parse bosses with 30, 50, 100 debuffs on them. At some point, we need to stop the madness.
4) Stacking a raid in order to get the right buffs has started to feel a little like a crutch, much like stacking consumables felt not so long ago. Because some of the buffs scale so well and have so much synergy with other classes, you may sometimes feel that you should pass over a really skilled player in order to pick up a buff that will bring more to you group. We'd rather get back to bringing good players or, gasp, even your friends.
5) We want the challenge of the encounter to be the fight itself, not collecting all of the buffs and debuffs you need to succeed. Buffs are fun. We don't want to cut them or nerf them significantly. But we do want to make benefiting from them less of a burden.

Some changes you're going to see:

1) Ease and flexibility in getting all of the major buffs in the group, while still having a few spare slots to take the people you want to take.
2) More parity in which classes can raid. While it's probably not realistic to get 2.5 of every class in a 25-player raid, we can get a lot closer than we are today.
3) More overlap in buffs and debuffs and very few unique buffs. If you can't get player X to bring the melee haste buff, maybe you can get player Y.
4) No two classes should have the same set of buffs. This is to make sure that one class can't completely replace another. If you have two players both bringing melee haste, there is a good chance one of them also brings something else you need. Again, the goal is flexibility.

A few examples:


1) To get a spell damage vulnerability debuff on a boss, you can bring a a warlock for Curse of Elements or a death knight for Ebon Plague. They don't stack, but both classes also bring additional benefits in case you want to run with both. The lock brings Curse of Recklesness, Demonic Pact, Curse of Weakness, Blood Pact and Fel Intelligence (depending on spec). The death knight brings Abomination's Might, Improved Icy Talons, various Auras, and a new Str + Agi buff you haven't seen yet (again depending on spec).
2) To get a 5% melee crit bonus, you can bring a Feral druid for Leader of the Pack or a Fury warrior for Rampage.
3) While having a mana battery feels essential in many cases, you can now bring a Shadow priest, Retribution paladin or Survival hunter to fill the role.
4) You can improve health of the entire raid with Commanding Shout or Blood Pact. You don't need both, so perhaps the warrior can Battle Shout or the lock can bring out another pet instead.

I want to stress that none of this is set in stone. A change like this is going to take some iteration until it feels right. While we are pretty happy with the plan, it is certainly possible that some class or spec is going to be hurt by a change more than we anticipated. We don't want to hurt anyone's viability while soloing, in small groups, or in PvP with this change. We aren't trying to slap anyone in the face -- we're trying to make the game more fun.

The goal is to get more people into raids and to let you bring the people you want. Ultimately, that should benefit everyone. Please try and keep that in mind as you start to see the changes.

And of course, please share your feedback on them with us.

Discuss.

no matter what, ebon plague > curse of elements

Ebon plague increases also OUR magic damage.

Worldie wrote:no matter what, ebon plague > curse of elements

Ebon plague increases also OUR magic damage.

Perhaps but I think we can go deeper then that, if lets say Ebon Plague is more preferable to our class is it more preferable to casters in general then the warlock buff or not? I think their goal is for different yet comparable buffs where you don't so much have to pick and choose but just realize that some classes will bring "redundant" buffs for overlap and yet still have their flavors.

I hope they are planing some rework on the buff/debuff system, especially as icons. I won't to see myself (and the target) with shitloads of buff/debuff colored icons and just 1/3 of them is working.


ps: just wondering who will get stuff like King and BL as well (if anyone).

I think they are focusing more on stuff like windfury, auras, and general group buff things than actual target buffs like Fort, Blessings, Arcane Intellect at least that was the impression I got.

Plague specifically is just that superior to Elements in all but a PvP aspect.

I like what they're doing. Most buffs have "repetitions" inbetween classes, they just won't stack and will have small differences all around.

Snake-Aes wrote:Plague specifically is just that superior to Elements in all but a PvP aspect.

I like what they're doing. Most buffs have "repetitions" inbetween classes, they just won't stack and will have small differences all around.

I hope they make it clear how things stack in some form. For instance, GC mentioned you don't need Commanding Shout and Blood Pact, but did not say that they won't stack. Those will be obvious because you can see the effect on the character sheet, but things that debuff the mobs won't be so easy to determine.

Soltyr wrote:I hope they are planing some rework on the buff/debuff system, especially as icons. I won't to see myself (and the target) with shitloads of buff/debuff colored icons and just 1/3 of them is working.


ps: just wondering who will get stuff like King and BL as well (if anyone).

I think our blessings will probably remain unique, some other things appear as if they're going to too such as a priests divine spirit and fort.

Long duration buffs like Fortitude, Intellect, MoTw, Blesses aren't the kind of thing they referred to with "sharing buffs between classes". They were instead referring to CoE, Unleashed rage, LoTP, things like that. There's very few "unique" buff or debuff left atm in game i think. JoW is actually one of those.

Well there is a difference from flat amount buff and stuff like king.
Fort, AB, DS, etc... can be replaced by scroll (in a less powerfull version). Also they don't stack so much with the same class (except for the disc priest), wherever 3 paladin do stack pretty fine (thinking to a 10men the most).

Once again they have set a lofty goal for themselves. Unfortunately I don't see this one being very achievable.

When it comes to DPS, healing and tanking ability, I agree there shouldn't be any major differences. When comes to raid utility, anything that is similar should be close to the same in power given variables because of scaling with stats.

Trying to make it a moot point between bringing a ret pally over a S-priest is not a good idea. It's not going to happen. IMHO. Separate but equal can be done. But at the end of the day it's still separate.

No matter how hard you try, hardcore raiders are going to use the "optimal" raid set up for for any given boss. Alot of the times this means that there isn't really open slots.

Disclaimer: This is my very pessimistic view, I could be completely wrong.

Who are these hard core raiders every one speaks about are you raiding with them? Are your friends? Is every guild opn your server hardcore? Or is it a group of people who want to raid together if they so choose and try to put together a raid with what they have? Unless I am mistaken these so called hard core raiders that seem to ruin everything seem to be the exception not the rule.

For every <Nihilium> there is probably a Thousand <We got 10 Let's Raid> guilds.

* Numbers made up for emphasis.

Yeah, one time, we were like "We've got 25, let's raid"

Of course, it was a Vashj attempt and we had 3 tanks and 9 melee dps. Roots + Static Charge on the tank at 5% did not go down well.

Most people just get what they need vaguely and then get as good players as they can find. Most raids I've been in aren't built with raid stacking in mind, only group setups are.

Salamandra wrote:Yeah, one time, we were like "We've got 25, let's raid"

Of course, it was a Vashj attempt and we had 3 tanks and 9 melee dps. Roots + Static Charge on the tank at 5% did not go down well.

Sarcasm aside what I am saying is that of course people will min/max but the vast majority will emulate with what they have, but at the end of the day most people are successful with less then optimal setups for either lack of knowledge or because well they just learn how to do the encounter with what they got.

For the longest time my guild when we could only do Karazhan had no priests, most other people we met balked at the idea of doing Karazhan without a priest... is it optimal no but that is what we had and we still succeeded. I think this possible change will hopefully assist in guilds that are in that situation.

Even nihilum would find out that bringing less than 3 paladins is not optimal, and bringing more than 1 holy is stupid since other healers perform better if stacked, bringing more than 1 protection is stupid since they don't sinergy, bringing more than 1 retribution is useless since they don't sinergy.

Make your math and you'll see why nihilum will go with 1 1 and 1.