Monday, December 8, 2014

Confusing Blue Messaging

General Information
  • Some class balance changes will go live sometime tomorrow, with number changes around 5% where needed.
  • There are only a few specs like Marksmanship Hunters and Windwalker Monks that are pulling a little too far ahead than the others.
  • When a spec is top on both movement and stationary fights, they usually need to take a look at the spec.
  • Everyone should be fairly equal in single target, although may still have niches (stationary vs movement). Once you get beyond single target, some might be good at cleave (2-3), some mass AoE, some burst AoE, etc.

These points seem to imply that the author thinks that the Marksmanship Hunter is a movement spec. Or that Blizzard developers consider all hunters a high-movement spec. Or perhaps that MM just is doing well on "high movement" fights.  I'm still trying to get my head around this. I have seen the first six fights in Highmaul.  I only switched to BM for the twins because the fire required a bit too much movement.  (I could probably do it with MM after seeing it now.)  That said, it doesn't seem like MM should be nerfed across the board.  I would think we should get a general nerf and then a buff to sniper training.  Or else I'm not sure what they're trying to do with MM.  Maybe they have simply forgotten as an organization. Is this confusion with me, the messaging, or the future design? I can't tell.

Class balance is good if all DPS classes and specs could be within 5% on average, that sounds great. The last bullet point they give could be fine or could be bad.  IMHO different specs should excel at different types of fights.  Nobody should be left behind.  But that comment could be a call for extreme homogenization which would be bad. Again, it is unclear messaging.


Talents
  • Level 100 talents in general are have some serious balance issues compared against each other.
  • They do think the level 100 talents that are underperforming but fun should get a buff in 6.1 or 6.2.
  • For talents that people do not think are fun, they may just leave them alone for now and completely replace them next expansion.

Hooray! Could exotic munitions and focusing shot get a buff please?  They're both quite interesting and intriguing options but lack the impact of Lone Wolf or Adaptation. Perhaps they'll just nerf Lone Wolf and buff SV a lot and BM a bit in other ways.  Blizzard's messaging here is intentionally not clear and that's fine for now.


Hunters
  • If Hunter stacking becomes an issue in Mythic raids, they can nerf Aspect of the Fox or even remove it. It was added mainly because it was felt that Marksmanship Hunters didn't bring enough raid utility.

This sounds like a threat of some sort.  e.g.- "Don't do it or we'll nerf you."  If this is seriously the official messaging not just to the Mythic raiding community, but to the Hunter community, then things seem to have gone downhill.

Was this use not predictable? Every reasonable raiding hunter I know thought about how we could chain them together. Is this really news of some sort that it could be extremely useful if used in that niche way?

Did Hunters ask for this specific design?  I don't recall a single blog post asking for this kind of raid cooldown. But we had asked for dozens of other types of raid cooldowns ... none of which would be chain-able like this.

The other improper thing here is the messaging that Marksmanship Hunters needed the raid utility.  Is this some implicit hat tip to MM being the raider spec?  Even in the context of the first section declaring spec parity within 5% as a goal?  Maybe this is blue post didn't get any editing. Maybe it was written by while half awake.

Is my confusion warranted? Can anyone help me out?