class-stacking
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Replenishment is mandatory and other buff discussion from Ghostcrawler
One of the major overhauls heading from Burning Crusade into Wrath of the Lich King was the consolidation of buffs and debuffs. In an attempt to keep raid groups from thinking they had to bring one specific class to get one specific buff or debuff, Blizzard switched some spells up, gave buffs to more classes, and made them unstackable, the result being that one can take one of a certain handful of class and specs to get the buff or debuff they desire, in theory giving a raid more choice about who they bring. Still, the buffs and debuffs remain, and Ghostcrawler has been having some pretty interesting discussions about them in the past few days. To start with, he came out and said it pretty plainly: Replenishment is Mandatory. Blizzard will balance fights under the assumption you have Replenishment much as they do under the assumption you have a tank. In the short term, this means your raid is probably going to want to find a Shadow Priest, Retribution Paladin, or Survival Hunter if they haven't already.
Ready Check: Thou hath no raid spot
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Kara or BT, everyone can get in on the action and down them some bosses. Sometimes I forget that WoW is set in a Medieval time period, so here's a little of that flavor... So it's about 5 minutes until raid invites shoot out to the masses. You're sitting there, stacks of flasks and food in-bag, durability at 100%, waiting by the meeting stone until you have raid buddies to summon. You worked all day yesterday to gather the enchanting mats for your new weapon and are itching to try it out on something more than dailies. You're amped. You're stoked. You're ready to roll. The clock ticks to raid invite time. You wait for the invite window to pop up. The guildie next to you starts firing up a summoning portal. People start populating the area around you. Still nothing. Over your class channel, the call goes out to see if anyone needs anything from the first 3 bosses. Well, crap. You don't. Things aren't looking good, and your status is confirmed when the radi leader puts out the notice to whisper so-and-so to get on the standby list. What did you do wrong? How can you ensure a raid spot in the future? You may not like the answers.
