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Saturday, March 14, 2009

Recap on blizzard brain malfunction.

Synopsis
My thoughts on PTR proposed nerfs. Or rather... why Blizzard doesn't know what it is doing.


This is a little bit old, but still valid I think. It happened before I had my blog and posted it in other places. So here it is.

Most of you know Ghostcrawler. I am talking about the Blizzard Blue poster. I always liked him and his insights on druid mechanics and his affords to do whatever they did in the past. It has only come to me recently that the poor chap obviously has no brain or is either telling flat out lies: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15443285411&pageNo=12#228

The post he did was on the stamina nerf druids are getting in PTR.
Quote:
"In order to keep our goal of having all 4 tank classes capable of handling Ulduar, we need to get tank health pools a little closer together.

While I won't hide that this is a nerf for bears, we also don't want to get to the point of having a "mana sponge" tank, now that we are making mana more of an issue for healers.

If druids slip behind as a result of lack of mitigation, avoidance or cooldowns, we will buff them."

I can understand their goal to make us all have about equal health so not one class is preferred over any other for tanking. Having a lot of health to compensate for the fewer mitigation of druids will indeed lead to mana sponging. The thing that makes me angry is the part where a flat out stamina nerf without anything in return is considered to make druid tanks easier on the healers. If anything we will now require a lot more healing (and mana).
  1. Take 2 tanks. Both druid, both have 40% dodge and 30k armor. One has 45k health, the other has 35k health. Since the one with 35k health is closer to death you will have to heal him harder to make sure spike damage will not kill him. That means more overhealing. So less health is more mana needed, thus lowering stamina will make us require more healer mana.
  2. Druids that have the Essence of Gossamer, like me, will see that once they are fully raidbuffed, the stamina boost has lost a lot of its value. Rawr shows unbuffed it is the nr2 trinket, while fully buffed it has dropped to the 4th place. The Valor Medal of the First War is way more valuable. Now we will see a stamina nerf making all items that have stamina on them have more value. Also coinciding with an armor nerf we will see items that have armor on them becoming a lot more worth in value too. This means more stamina and armor items then agility/dodge items. So we get hit a lot more because this is indirectly a dodge nerf. More hits is more healing required. More healing required means a more healer mana consumed.
As said I don't really disagree with the stamina nerf but Ghostcrawler let me down big time. Treating us druids like little kids by giving a bullshit reason. He seriously offended me.
Instead he should have said they think we are currently OP. That could be debated and would have been a valid reason. Don't tell me to a nerf is good for the healers.

Sorry about the nagging ;)

3 comments:

  1. I don't think druids are OP in Wrath. In the era of AoE-first-aggro-later, bears are the worst affected because of our inability to do AoE threat well, compared will the other three tank classes.

    If anything, they were the most OP in BC. I agree with your points.. and I'm really not pleased with these changes.

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  2. I really think that you have to be able to take some posts for what they are and then look for his better posts. Sometimes his post is a simple PR statement to try and stem a bit of the QQ while his longer posts are generally the "here is the skinny" posts.

    I never like the "Blizzard does not know what they are doing" comments though...First, it is counterproductive and then there is the simple fact that they have been running the largest MMO of all time and have done the finest JOB at doing what they do. There is no one who can say that Blizzard does not know what they are talking about without looking childish. Your posts are great, just do not fall into the habit of every 13 post forum user who is about to get ripped. I am already a fan of the blog and would hate to see it go that route.

    I agree that the HP nerf was needed as well...even if not now, in the future as the gap in HP for druids would get out of control as stats kept rising. However, we all have to look back and see that initial mechanics built on a 1-60 format do not translate into 70 80 and eventually 90 level ranges and have to be modified.

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  3. @Plainsrunner

    I am pleased to hear you like the blog, and indeed you are right. It is not one of the best post and I agree that blizzard is smart.

    This however was a brainfart as I'd like to call it. The one thing that never goes wrong raiding and then suddenly it wipes you because there was a short circuit in the tank's brain. I like the rest he did as stated this is just not right.

    I don't whine about nerfs. Well at first I don't like em sure, but looking back at it you can see it was needed. I agree with the nerf, just not the explanation of why. This is the first thing I complain about. Hmmz.. I must be becoming a woman. Damn. "It's not the thing it is about, it is the way you say it."
    Haha :D

    At least I didn't write a mail to GC stating: "I am angry with you. If you don't know what it is about there is no reason for me telling it you either!"

    Sorry to all girls I might have offended... but come on. You know it is true! ;)

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