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Dev Watercooler: On patch 5.4 class changes
It's been a little while since we've last seen any Dev Watercoolers, but boy, was this one ever worth the wait. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street lays out, in reasonable detail, the general thoughts and ideas behind many of the class changes coming in the next WoW patch, starting with Death Knights and going the whole way down the list. Paladins and Hunters especially have a lot of meat to their discussion sections, as Ghostcrawler explains, because many of the changes coming to those classes are relatively complex and require greater explanation to fully understand. Overall, classes and specs facing significant changes are blood DKs, resto druids, all hunter specs, frost mages, mistweaver monks, all paladin specs, combat rogues, affliction warlocks, and protection warriors. In addition, there are many changes to talents and glyphs for all classes and specs. As a raiding restoration druid, I personally am very happy about a lot of the changes coming our way. Making Nature's Swiftness a base resto ability in particular is a nice return to some Good Ol' Days, and now I'll have to decide whether I want the new Ysera's Gift talent, or Cenarion Ward (for now I'm leaning Cenarion Ward). I also--from the perspective of a resto druid--find the discussion on the state of holy paladins, and the changes coming their way, to be interesting as well. Ghostcrawler talks a bit about the way the developers at Blizzard believe paladin healing should feel, and specifically contrast it against druid healing. Many players have long pointed out how druid healing and paladin healing were basically opposites on a spectrum--the former being primarily pre-emptive, healing over time focused, and the other being primarily reactive, direct healing focused--and it's fascinating to read about the official thoughts on just those differences. The full blue post is after the break.
Looking at the PvP stat changes outlined by Ghostcrawler
I'm sure you all have seen the latest Dev Watercooler by the big man (Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street) himself. And I'm sure you will all have noticed the biggest news in there (in my opinion, anyway) is the section about the PvP-related changes to resilience. Disclaimer: This is not absolute. Just like the changes, it's almost impossible to see how they will play out without trying them for ourselves once the beta comes along. But I want to hear your opinions, both on these changes and on my thoughts. Let's talk it out, people! First and foremost, I don't know about you, but I am really not digging the names. I reckon a tidy solution might be to sling in a PvP section in the character pane. If Blizzard did it within the character pane, it would just avoid the clumsiness of adding the "PvP" into the actual stat, and (I think) it would make it easy for players to understand what they were looking at. Of course, Blizzard could call the new stats "Bob" and "Vera" for all it would really matter to their performance!
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler on class roles
With the Mists of Pandaria press event still a month down the road, Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street has posted a new Dev Watercooler to keep us busy. This time, he philosophizes on the role of class roles. He cautions up front that this is not meant to be any sort of announcement or even hint at what's to come in Mists of Pandaria. But at the same time, the struggle of what to do with class roles is one that's always relevant and ongoing within the game, and that includes Mists of Pandaria. Ghostcrawler gets right into the meat of it with this blog, asking questions and discussing various methods of balance. Do we strive for perfect balance among all DPS specs? Is it fine to leave certain specs with specialties? Should we return to the days of the solid divide between PvP and PvE specs, as it was in the vanilla era? Should each class just have one DPS talent tree? Read on for all of Ghostcrawler's comments.
Ghostcrawler explains patch 4.3 balance changes
With patch 4.3 on the horizon, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street (lead systems designer) has taken to the WoW community blog to discuss class and balance changes that are coming with the next big update to the game. Ghostcrawler had previously discussed some balance changes in part one of his balance change blogs, but it was missing some classes that Blizzard wasn't ready to talk about just yet. Now, we've got notes and discussions on each class currently in game. I'm a huge fan of Ghostcrawler's to-the-point blog posts about the focus and design of classes, and this is just another in the now long line of awesome insights into the design process. Death knight and druid tanks are getting some buffs to bring them more in line with the block-heavy warriors and paladins, and block capping for both warriors and paladins is not being discouraged. Feral druids are getting a Glyph of Shred change that will hopefully help their rotations, and beast mastery hunters are getting a slight buff. As we found out from before, paladins' Holy Radiance is getting a change to be more of a focused AOE heal, and priests are getting a buff to Guardian Spirit. Shaman initially were hit with a huge Wind Shear nerf, which has been rolled back slightly. Demonology and destruction warlocks are getting a slight buff to be more competitive with afflocks, and hopefully warrior "charge jumping" has been fixed for good. You've promised me this before, Ghostcrawler! Where's my charge-jumping pony-moose? Check out the full blog post after the jump.
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler discusses the number of player abilities
In his continuing conversational blog series Dev Watercooler, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street (lead systems designer) muses about the number of abilities players have, what the sweet spot is in terms of quantity, the need for all classes to have a viable AoE rotation, and the difference between rotational abilities and situational abilities. From a game design perspective, this might be the coolest Dev Watercooler yet. Read this full Dev Watercooler after the break, or check out the other Dev Watercoolers with Ghostcrawler: Dev Watercooler: Expertise and hit for tanking Dev Watercooler: Interrupts Dev Watercooler: Critical hits
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler talks critical hits (and misses)
The Dev Watercooler, Ghostcrawler's conversational community blog series, continues with a look at the theories behind critical hits. After a bit on the history of critical strikes in WoW, Ghostcrawler gets down to business with an awesome discussion about the homogenization of classes, the issue with healer critical hits, and the pros and cons of homogenizing critical hits across the board.
Ghostcrawler chats about interrupts at the Dev Watercooler
Ghostcrawler (WoW lead systems designer) is blogging up a storm over at the WoW community site, with a new series called Dev Watercooler. The aim of this new column is to have candid chats with the community discussing game mechanics and pose questions that relate to the ongoing development of World of Warcraft. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that this is pretty cool. In his first Dev Watercooler, Ghostcrawler talks about interrupts, where interrupt mechanics are going, and what he hopes they can look like over time.
