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 Niralda
> LOOT FTW LIKES ME (614)
> 15/10/06 10:27
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Seeing a dedicated forum about BC with little to no life, I was tempted to start a debate thread about how viable off-specs would be in the BC end-game, with their new talents/abilities and misc changes that affect them (ie. the raid size decrease, the dramatic debuff slot increase etc.)
Everything is pure theorycrafting, based on the information that has been released by Blizzard or the beta testers so far (the level cap in the beta is still 67, so noone has any serious experience with the BC raid encounters), and assuming that encounters would use similar mechanics to current fights. It might turn out to be inaccuarate, but its still a fun discussion to do (at least I find it fun  ).
The questions I would ask myself about wether or not an off-spec is viable would be:
- The off-spec's purpose would be to enhance other classes's abilities (giving extra mana regen, extra crit chance, extra damage etc.), not compete with them in raw output. The most obvious question is: Would the off-spec in synergy with the other classes be more efficient than just placing another "pure" class in that slot?
- If the off-spec actually made the raid more efficient, how big of an efficiency loss would it be if the off-spec happened to miss a raid (of course the off-spec could have a long-term undeniable 100% attendance, but even then its not guaranteed that this would continue forever)?
- Considering the above, would it be worth to rely on the off-spec (which would probably be just 1 person in the guild, unlike "pure" classes) for increased raid efficiency or would it be better to just plan around it?
- It could create some drama deciding who the off-spec would be. Would it be worth making some people feel they got treated unfairly, rather than just not allowing the off-spec at all?
- Who's slot would this off-spec be taking (and consequently, which gear would be his/her primary priority)? A healer slot? A DPS slot? A tank slot?
Let the theorycrafting begin! |
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Pero
> LOOT FTW LIKES ME (687)
> 15/10/06 11:04
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Hehehe, Niralda wants to spec shadow in BC... 
tbh i havent put in even 5mins of thought about the expansion, so i cant tell you anything now.. |
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Shaeltal is gay! |
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Alinoe
> LOOT FTW LIKES ME (571)
> 15/10/06 13:03
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I don't know much about game mechanics so I can't really say anything about the first point you bring up ^^ I guess it depends on the class and such. There is a really nice topic on one of the druid forums about our role and what we are. As for druids, we were never meant to be as good as a tank, rogue, healer or caster. We gimmick those classes and support the 'real' class. Let's say we are 80% compared to the 'real' class. But we are all those 4 forms, we can be anything we want at any time and that is the nice thing. When one of our warriors doesn't show up on the 4hm, we can be used as a last resort to tank or we used to have a druid on snake duty at Fankriss, etc. I myself would like to test out the Moonkin aura in raids before the expansion just to see if it's worth taking me along or if it's a 'wasted' spot. (Yes, I can see the joke coming up here but leave it because this is a serious post :P)
About deciding who will be the off-spec.. Just ask everyone who wants to be the off-spec, I'm sure not everyone wants to so it will be between a few people and even in the best scenario only one. It's a matter that will require some discussion and well thought decisions. I myself don't see a real problem with this.. There will always be some drama on some level on whatever subject, so nothing new if this would stir up some good old soap opera ;) Just something we will have to deal with. |
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darchon
> GET A LIFE (2092)
> 15/10/06 15:01
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Personally i hope very much that Blizzard will encourage using "off" specs in raids by making the various specs viable raid upgrades.
A shadowpriest doing decent dps, increasing spell-dmg taken on the target, providing constant heals and mana-regen for his group looks very good on paper. The same can be said about the ret paladin, keeping up all judgements, providing extra crit for all melee while at the same time increasing healing done on the mt by 6%.
I believe that atleast these 2 off-specs will be viable, the druids off-spec variants looks weak, atleast synergy-wise. Shamans i dont know, but id love to have an enchancement shaman in my group.
I believe this will present guilds with a problem that, atleast for us, havent been very visible so far. Who gets to spec differently? Having all the priests spec shadow would be a very silly move. Which criteria will we use to determine this? It might not be such a big problem seeing as the guild-size will probably be smaller, and if we are lucky it might just sort it out itself, but i do believe its something we should atleast think of before expansion hits. |
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Silra
> LESS THAN 250 TO GO! (852)
> 15/10/06 15:20
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To be honest, judging from the following facts:
- The hardest raid instance in BC's lifetime will be at BWL difficulty level
- 25man caps mean less people per class, meaning that depending on the size of the pull, people will NEED to change roles from fight to fight.
- Gear finally seems to stop being pigeonholed (observe the 2 pvp sets for druids and shamans)
I doubt it will be a problem. |
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Fenris
> LOOT FTW LIKES ME (573)
> 15/10/06 19:14
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| I'd say that going from 40 to 25 people will lessen the needs of these so called off-specs, unless Blizzard changes stuff. Less people will benefit from your damage/crit/heals. |
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Shinzon
> LOOT FTW LIKES ME (609)
> 15/10/06 20:18
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Alinoe wrote: I don't know much about game mechanics so I can't really say anything about the first point you bring up ^^ I guess it depends on the class and such. There is a really nice topic on one of the druid forums about our role and what we are. As for druids, we were never meant to be as good as a tank, rogue, healer or caster. We gimmick those classes and support the 'real' class. Let's say we are 80% compared to the 'real' class. But we are all those 4 forms, we can be anything we want at any time and that is the nice thing. When one of our warriors doesn't show up on the 4hm, we can be used as a last resort to tank or we used to have a druid on snake duty at Fankriss, etc. I myself would like to test out the Moonkin aura in raids before the expansion just to see if it's worth taking me along or if it's a 'wasted' spot. (Yes, I can see the joke coming up here but leave it because this is a serious post )
About deciding who will be the off-spec.. Just ask everyone who wants to be the off-spec, I'm sure not everyone wants to so it will be between a few people and even in the best scenario only one. It's a matter that will require some discussion and well thought decisions. I myself don't see a real problem with this.. There will always be some drama on some level on whatever subject, so nothing new if this would stir up some good old soap opera Just something we will have to deal with.
/sign |
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Niralda
> LOOT FTW LIKES ME (614)
> 15/10/06 20:30
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darchon wrote: I believe this will present guilds with a problem that, atleast for us, havent been very visible so far. Who gets to spec differently? Having all the priests spec shadow would be a very silly move. Which criteria will we use to determine this? It might not be such a big problem seeing as the guild-size will probably be smaller, and if we are lucky it might just sort it out itself, but i do believe its something we should atleast think of before expansion hits.
Thats a whole different topic in itself, and discussing it at this point in time would yield no useful results (we don't know which off-specs would be worth bringing, if any, and we don't know who will play at the expansion's end-game). It would have to do with who levels to 70 first, who is expected to have the highest attendance (since the off-spec would be pretty irreplacable it would need to have high attendance), who has the most interest for this kind of role, who has aquired the best pre-raid gear for that, etc. Lets not derail the thread with such a discussion (for the time being).
Skwittle wrote: To be honest, judging from the following facts:
- The hardest raid instance in BC's lifetime will be at BWL difficulty level
- 25man caps mean less people per class, meaning that depending on the size of the pull, people will NEED to change roles from fight to fight.
- Gear finally seems to stop being pigeonholed (observe the 2 pvp sets for druids and shamans)
I doubt it will be a problem.
I'm a bit uncertain about your second and third points.
- About your second point, please remember that there is always the posibility of swapping players in and out, or planning raids with certain encounters in mind (we do that quite frequently ourselves). Guilds at our progression level always try to get the optimal setup, and if an off-spec does not provide enough benefit to justify its existance, it gets replaced by another class depending on the encounter.
- Gear pigeonholing has not been an issue since AQ, with its pretty amazing off-spec items (I know shadowpriests with +720 shadow damage, and druids ravaging or starfiring for insane ammounts). Hybrid sets (ie. sets having a very varying ammount of stats in them, like having intellect+agility+attack power+spell damage) always get frowned upon, because they are inevitably worse than focused sets which min-max whatever role you want to perform.
Fenris wrote: I'd say that going from 40 to 25 people will lessen the needs of these so called off-specs, unless Blizzard changes stuff. Less people will benefit from your damage/crit/heals.
While you have a point, Blizzard does change stuff in the expansion that affect the off-specs, namely the addition of a lot more synergic abilities to their "off-trees" and various misc changes (the debuff slot increase gives more viability to a shadow priest, for example).
You would indeed benefit less people, but the benefits you would give would be greater. All this, of course, boils down to the first question in the original post: would the benefits of the off-spec outweight bringing another "pure" class to the raid?
PS. Sorry for the long quoting I have done in this post. |
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