Este site faz uso extensivo de JavaScript.
Favor habilite JavaScript em seu navegador.
Tema Clássico
Tema Thottbot
Class Balance Philosophy in Season of Discovery - Damage Output vs. Utility
Clássico
Criado
26/6/2024 em 13:08
por
Wowhead
With Season of Discovery Phase 4 on the way, class balance has been a hot topic in the community. This discussion is particularly centered around classes that bring additional utility and where they rank on the Damage Meters. Historically in World of Warcraft, hybrid classes such as Druids who can play as Damage, Healer, or Tank, and Priests who can choose between Damage or Healer, have shown lower damage output when compared to 'Pure DPS' Classes, like Hunters.
Overall damage in Sunken Temple Phase 3 Week 12.
This can be controversial, as many players choose Priest, for example, because they enjoy Shadow specialization and wouldn't consider healing as a role at all. So, they can feel at a disadvantage when compared to a "Pure DPS" spec. In Season of Discovery, every class except Hunter has an additional role they can fill, however, some classes are now bringing very high levels of Utility, such as
Toque Vampírico
or
Maldição dos Elementos
.
After reviewing the
most recent class update
, content creator,
NoHitJerome
, asked WoW Classic Senior Game Producer,
Josh Greenfield
(also known as Aggrend), what his philosophy was when it came to damage output vs. utility:
NoHitJerome
How do you approach the utility vs DPS problem? Mages/Warlocks bring a lot of utility, but those players also want to do Top 3 DPS. Not easy to keep everyone happy
He has a good point here, it isn't easy to keep everyone happy, as noted in Aggrend's response below:
AggrendWoW
Gonna preface this by saying that the term "utility" is a bit ambiguous and means different things to different people, but let's assume we are talking about things like Curses, Windfury, VT/VE, etc. Majorly impactful tools for the group.
----
This answer is going to get me a lot of hate from some circles, but just being honest, utility *is* something the team considers when making changes to output. If you have super heavy utility, the team isn't likely to expend as much effort to ensure you *top* the damage meters. That being said though we aren't looking to directly put our boot on the throat of classes that have historically had higher utility either. If the chips fall and shadow, or feral, or shamans end up high on the meters we probably won't look to nerf it unless its really out of line. If they find themselves lower on the bar graph, same deal, we aren't likely to rush to buff them unless they are really really off (though we are much more likely to buff than nerf, in general).
Some folks *hate* that utility enters the equation when discussing output at all. Some people also really like being a swiss army knife for their group as well and it gives them a sense of purpose past just doing damage. No bad or invalid opinions there. It's just that, opinion and depending on your echo chamber the opinions vary wildly. The team tries to be sensitive to as many different positions as we can, but its difficult.
We are pretty far from vanilla in SoD, no doubt, but we aren't fully in a "bring the player not the class" area of homogenization either, so we just have to be careful about enabling classes with enormous utility to also dominate the damage meters or else the "why would anyone ever take to a raid ever!" concern might become actual reality.
This is why we talk about not looking for perfect balance, because to us balance is about more than pure output and its at times very situational. We will not make everyone happy and there are some people that want something we can't or won't deliver for whatever reason. We just try and do what we can that makes sense at the time. Sometimes we make mistakes while we are at it too. We are just trying really hard with phase 4 to start in a good place with how classes play mechanically. That's the most important thing to us right now, and we'll worry about the numbers after that. It won't be perfect with how fast we are moving, but we already feel better going in this phase than we felt going into the last phase.
Looking at Shaman for a moment, they arguably, bring the biggest utility while still topping the damage meters. However, it appears that they are unlikely to be nerfed.
AggrendWoW
Yeah in our retiscence to nerf too heavily we probably let them play in the sprinklers for too long, to be fair. Not sure we'd do that again but we are, in general, very hesitant to nerf. It sucks to get nerfed.
Aggrend then goes on to give further insight around
Shadow Priests
specifically, sharing that while they are happy with the Priest Utility, the current focus for Priest development is around shoring up the Shadow Priest rotation and making it a more interesting playstyle rather than increasing the Priest damage output. This could be disappointing news for Shadow Priests, who according to our latest Phase 3 DPS Rankings are currently quite low down on the meters.
Phase 3 DPS Rankings Sunken Temple Week 12
What do you think of the Class Balance right now in Season of Discovery and going into Phase 4? Do you think it's fair that some classes and specializations stay in the lower centiles of the Damage meters on the merit of their utility? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Obtenha Wowhead Premium
Premium
$2
Por mês
Desfrute de uma experiência sem anúncios, tenha acesso a recursos premium e apoie o site!
Exibir 0 comentários
Esconder 0 comentários
Faça Login Para Comentar
Comentários em Inglês (58)
Escreva um Comentário
Você não está conectado. Favor
entrar
ou
registrar uma conta
para adicionar seu comentário.
Notícia Anterior
Próxima Notícia