Loot balance
Alright, this might just be me, but leveling my Rogue in Outland, I noticed one thing: there's a lot more Druid leather than there is Rogue leather, as far as quest rewards go. It seemed like for every Rogue piece, there were three Druid pieces, one for each talent tree. Never one to go with speculation where math would do the trick, I looked through 200 quests available to Alliance in any Outland zone to count the number of rewards for Rogues, Feral druids, Balance druids, and Resto druids. (I chose the first 200 quests in alphabetical order, which should be reasonably random.)
If a reward seemed fairly viable for both, I counted it for both -- many pieces would work for Rogues and Feral druids, for instance. I'm only looking at leather armor here, not weapons, cloaks, or jewelry; arguably, this is a bit of a flaw, as weapons are a pretty big deal for Rogues (and a less big deal for Druids). But, well, let's see what the numbers say:
Rogue: 11 pieces
Druid: 21 pieces
So it seems my pre-math impression was a little off -- the ratio of Druid to Rogue is 2:1, not 3:1. But the point that really gets to me about this data is that Balance druids have almost as many rewards available as Rogues as a whole. That's one spec, as opposed to an entire class. Does that seem right to you?
Another area where I've percieved loot imbalance is in pre-raid healing gear -- Priest vs. Pally vs. Druid vs. Shaman. This time I did a slightly more comprehensive analysis: I looked at drops from all the level 70 instances and Heroics, including armor, weapons, and jewelry. If an item wasn't armor (and therefore not intrinsically suited for one particular class), I looked at its stats to decide which class it was meant for. Basically, if it had a lot of mana per 5, I tended to count it for Shaman and Pallies; a lot of Spirit meant Priest and Druid; otherwise, I counted it for all four classes.
The instances I used were Steamvaults, Shadow Labyrinth, Shattered Halls, Black Morass, Arcatraz, Botanica, and Mechanar, as well as every Heroic. I skipped any items with +damage/healing on them, focusing only on those with +healing, int, spirit, and/or mana per 5. My prediction was that Pally items would outnumber Priest items; I had no predictions regarding Shaman or Druids. What I found, in fact, was quite the opposite:
Priest: 41
Pally: 25
Druid: 39
Shaman: 28
This may have something to do with my criteria. As I mentioned above, I did assign some items to classes based on whether they had a lot of mp5 or a lot of Spirit, but I do think that there was a pretty even balance between mp5 and Spirit gear. Additionally, there was quite a bit of +spellpower (i.e. +damage/healing) plate and mail that I ignored since it didn't meet my qualifications.
On the other hand, there was also quite a bit of +spellpower cloth and leather that I ignored as well, and looking at the armory profiles of Paladin healers I know, they don't tend to have on much damage gear, relying more on +healing (as one might expect). I think it's more likely that it has something to do with Blizzard's view on the different classes' roles. If you look at the numbers, the four healing classes break into two groups: Priest and Druid on the one hand, and Paladin and Shaman on the other. The first group has about 50% more healing drops available than the second group. I would argue that this is because Blizzard views Priest and Druid as more "pure" healing classes than Pally and Shaman, the latter classes being meant as "true" hybrids. This shows up in the itemization with a lot more plate and mail that has spell or physical damage stats.
So I guess I have to conclude that the number of drops available for the healing classes is roughly as I would have designed it. It does raise a few questions, though. If Druids are a core healing class, why don't they have a regular rez? If Paladin's aren't a core healing class, why are they the most efficient healers in the game (raid-wise, at least)? And why am I not seeing any of these lovely Priest drops? (Just kidding on that last one; I've been getting some pretty sweet gear actually.) And what have you, gentle readers, observed, in terms of itemization balance for your class/spec? Overall, I have to maintain my initial impression that BC has done a great job in a lot of ways, but I do think in some ways the itemization is a bit off.
P.S.: For those that are interested, here's some example items, to give a picture of how I choose what to count for what class. (Obviously, many times, armor type decided for me. These are examples where it didn't.)
Bangle of Endless Blessings: Priest/Druid
Cloak of Whispering Shells: Paladin/Shaman
Scarab of the Infinite Cycle: All healing classes
And for Rogue vs. Druid gear:
Burning Blade Devotee's Cinch: Rogue/Feral
Circlet of the Starcaller: Balance
Cleansed Fel Pauldrons: Feral
Felboar Hide Shoes: Rogue
