How to Balance 19s - v2.0

[Waaag]

Warrior would be OP beyond belief with those changes.

you got to be kidding i think most wars now love howl and prefer it to hamstring, intercept would be great. think of the hunter problem like this its not that they are op its that blizz took away the warriors who would balance them out. all in all too much dammage all around... cept warriors.

 

[Dorigon]

you got to be kidding i think most wars now love howl and prefer it to hamstring, intercept would be great. think of the hunter problem like this its not that they are op its that blizz took away the warriors who would balance them out. all in all too much dammage all around... cept warriors.

Err there's more classes than just warriors and hunters. How about us poor non-hunters who would be the victim of many more 700+ dmg bloodthirst crits from warriors with great mobility?

 

[Niini]

double the cost of all heals

 

[cinderblok]

Think of it this way, every change that we request has a price tag based on the amount of work that is needed to complete the task. The more changes we request to create our desired balance the less likely it is to happen due to the higher price-tag. I see the talk about the damage/healing ratios as a good example for a balanced request because these changes have a greater effect on the overall leveling experience, not just xp-off. We then need to create low cost changes for greater chance of the change being made.



Suggestion: Increase the +stamina granted by all old world enchants by a factor of X. X is the additional stamina needed to compensate for the current damage levels.

Suggestion: Create PvP Heirloom gear equivalent to the PvE sets.



If PvP in the game is balanced off of level 85, then by comparing the damage/health ratios to ours we can ascertain the stamina adjustment required.



Not until changes like this that affect the overall mechanics of PvP take place will we truly know which adjustments really need to be made to classes individually.

 

[Skanktmonius]

I think Rancé would tell you that warriors can do damage just fine, provided they have a pocket healer.

 

[Nohealsforju]

My way of balancing 19s:



Reduce all damage across the board by 30%

Healing should be reduced by 10% to some what make Healers no so OP.



Warrior

Bring Intercept and Berserker Stance

Arms- Allow charge to be usable during combat.

Prot- Allow Charge to be usable during combat (Warbringer allows Intercept & Charge to be usable in any stance)

Fury- Charge won't be usable during combat but instead if intecept.

warlock

Soul Link and Howl of Terror imo is enough utility

Shaman-

Healing Surge Nuff said.

Rogue-

Crippling poison

Assissination- Instant poison should be able to apply Crippling poison.

Combat- They need revealing strike.

Subtly- Nothing

Priest

Dispel, Devouring Plague

Paladin

Hand of Freedom.

Hunter

Needs to lose Disengage.

Druid

Nature's Grasp.

 

[19 warrior adeus]

first off idk about you people but i want to play arms and prot every now and then but not having hamstring is murder

@kore i love the ideas u have for warriors best i've seen so far but warriors would need a dmg nerf, im hitting 800s+ with bloodthirst other than that i wish for blizz to read this and make every change u mentioned happen

for all the people says just add in-combat charge....plz stop that wouldnt help arms or prot enough it would only help fury

 

[Arkant]

Please keep in mind that at the moment these are mostly utility changes. These suggestions are all under the assumption that damage and survivability is appropriately balanced.

Is it so hard not to ignore this part?

 

[Diiesel]

Honeslty Kore, with those changes to all the other classes and a huge ambush nerf, you would destroy rogues. Crippling posion needs to be added.

 

[chíll]

Honeslty Kore, with those changes to all the other classes and a huge ambush nerf, you would destroy rogues. Crippling posion needs to be added.

delete because links wont work fuck it

 

[Kore nametooshort]

Please keep in mind that at the moment these are mostly utility changes. These suggestions are all under the assumption that damage and survivability is appropriately balanced.

Is it so hard not to ignore this part?

Honeslty Kore, with those changes to all the other classes and a huge ambush nerf, you would destroy rogues. Crippling posion needs to be added.

Indeed, this was one of my worries. However I feel that simply giving crippling poison would make rogues too powerful. With the build that rogues will be likely to have (at the moment with no crip) with these suggestions implemented rogues are demons at interrupting. Any healer can tell you that gouge and kick are hideous to try and heal through. The model they had during wrath with regards to healers was quite interesting and I feel it worked well. Generally rogues could be kept off of healers enough for the healers to get to work, but cooldowns like sprint allowed the rogue to apply much more pressure and interrupts to the healer for a short period. This made the fact that rogues had 2 short CD interrupts balanced (I'm not saying the rest of the rogue gameplay was perfect though). Since cataclysm rogues have far more time on target with 1min CD sprint, shadowstep and waylay. This makes their interrupts much more formidable and thus I am hesitant to recommend granting them more time on target without nerfing their interrupts.



This puts me in something of a quandry. Ideally I would nerf or remove gouge or kick and give rogues a reliable snare (either deadly throw or crip), however I feel sure that this would not be accepted very widely by the majority of the twink rogue community. They have always had kick and gouge and if someone suggested such a major change of playstyle to one of my favourite classes I would be unlikely to be pleased. That said, I am not a rogue player myself and I do not want to presume to know your minds. This needs much more discussion before an acceptable compromise can be found.

 

[yougotcriton]

If ambush were to be nerfed the sub rogues would loose all usefulness. I see subtlty as the burst spec for a rogue, and would rather see a nerf to evis in the sub tree than a nerf to the opener. I would like to see sub rogues stealthing around the field picking off targets with low health and offering a huge burst to open on an EFC. To me sub should be where they open big but the damage dwindles after that.I would also like to see specials hit for more than white damage so it feel more like I am doing something instead of building up to do something.



I would like to see combat be a toe to toe fighting spec where they can stand on their own, have ambush be a lot weaker there but still give the 2 combo points for a big finisher in evis. This would give combat more of a long damage cycle and would make it more of a DPS spec and less bursty than sub. Combat would need more survivability than the other specs which I would do through an increased dodge chance as well as a buffed recouperate vs the other rogue specs.



Assasination also need to be looked at. It does too little damage and has too little utility to be remotely viable at the moment. I would give mind numbing and crippling poision to this tree along with deadly throw. Keep the damage fairly low for assasination rogues but give them more utility than the other two specs







I would keep the interrupts as they are. A resto druid trying to heal through a rogues interrupts might be difficult, but a priest and a pally have no problem at all healing through them.

 

[Kore nametooshort]

If ambush were to be nerfed the sub rogues would loose all usefulness. I see subtlty as the burst spec for a rogue, and would rather see a nerf to evis in the sub tree than a nerf to the opener. I would like to see sub rogues stealthing around the field picking off targets with low health and offering a huge burst to open on an EFC. To me sub should be where they open big but the damage dwindles after that.I would also like to see specials hit for more than white damage so it feel more like I am doing something instead of building up to do something.



I would like to see combat be a toe to toe fighting spec where they can stand on their own, have ambush be a lot weaker there but still give the 2 combo points for a big finisher in evis. This would give combat more of a long damage cycle and would make it more of a DPS spec and less bursty than sub. Combat would need more survivability than the other specs which I would do through an increased dodge chance as well as a buffed recouperate vs the other rogue specs.

I'm not suggesting that Ambush gets nerfed to the ground, it still needs to remain an effective signature move of the rogue, but it does need to be scaled back like all burst in the bracket so that it doesn't even come close to one shotting or just being too powerful.



Ambush for sub will still hit 35% (Master of Subtlety, Imp Ambush and possibly Opportunity) harder than combat and will have a 60% higher crit chance on ambush and improved damage after opening. This is definitley enough for sub to keep the Burst spec niche over combat. I understand that you would prefer a big opener spec, but that might not be entirely possible to balance, a spec that relies too heavily on the opener will potentially be too powerful in some situations and gimped in others. I will certainly endeavour to make sub a powerful opener followed by mobile low dps spec, but I would prefer to reduce its reliance on openers than to have an OP spec if this is not as possible as some might hope.



How would you suggest that combat be buffed in survivability without affecting sub or endgame at all? Is Improved Recuperate - Spell - World of Warcraft and increased energy regeneration (and thus more recups) not enough? With the nerfs to damage that I will be suggesting soon this will be buffed relative to incoming damage.

Assasination also need to be looked at. It does too little damage and has too little utility to be remotely viable at the moment. I would give mind numbing and crippling poision to this tree along with deadly throw. Keep the damage fairly low for assasination rogues but give them more utility than the other two specs

I don't see a very inticing way of giving these poisons to Assassination without also giving them to sub and combat. Perhaps they could be made a part of the assassination specialisation and still be an ability to be learned later on by the other specs. There is no precident for this however, and I'm not sure it would be something that Blizz would find particularly attractive. I do agree that assassination needs work if it is to become viable though.



When respectively nerfing pretty much all damage I would probably recommend that mutiliate should not be nerfed nearly as much as other abilities. This should help with Assassinations damage problem to some extent, but I don't see a practical way of buffing their mobility, utility or survivability to such an extent that it gives muti both a niche and viability without overbuffing either sub or combat.

I would keep the interrupts as they are. A resto druid trying to heal through a rogues interrupts might be difficult, but a priest and a pally have no problem at all healing through them.

All healers at some point need to cast. The shaman needs to cast ghostwolf, druids need to cast roots and all healers need to cast Flash Heals at some point. While concerted and organised control and burst is a wonderful thing I would not want one class being such a hard counter to healers and casters in general. I feel that rogue interrupts are acceptable at the moment, but if their mobility were to be increased then it would be quite overkill.

 

[Kristopher]

How would you suggest that combat be buffed in survivability without affecting sub or endgame at all? Is Improved Recuperate - Spell - World of Warcraft and increased energy regeneration (and thus more recups) not enough?

My pvp spec (at 85) is sub but I went down into the combat tree for Improved Sprint. Maybe move improved sprint down to the first tier of the combat tree. This might be something to look at for your mobility problem. Now sub gets a 2nd chance to get on target with shadowstep and combat has a 2nd chance to get on target with imp sprint...but more risk due to sprints longer cooldown.



I like the idea of freedom for palis but what is your view on shaman's Purge? Really...at 19 purge serves little to no purpose other than making paladins freedom cooldown useless. Also consider purge on Mages mana shields or other much needed survivability cooldowns such as Void sacrifice for warlocks. Remember it's 19 and utility/survivability is limited...at 85 you have options when you get purged...at 19 you get purged and you get destroyed...I don't think there is a good case to be made for keeping purge at 19 twink or indeed the leveling brackets.



While some burst in the bracket is clearly OP I don't consider Ambush among those.



There are few parallels you can draw between 19 endgame and 85 endgame pvp but there is one important theme that both currently have...put simply: You can beat the heals. At 19 less burst means more "Do or die." Situations. You return the flag or you protect your flag carrier...or perhaps you allow more people to fight in a single WSG battle which would allow for more wiggle room in that regard.



I mostly play pugs and it's already hard enough to get a decent alliance flag return attempt going. You talk about nerfing burst too much and you will have caused more harm than good...i dunno it's a fine balance.

 

[Kristopher]

Warning: Anecdotal evidence incoming: One time I had the Enemy Flag at our roof. 3 rogues working together sapped my priest and then all 3 ambushed me at once easily overwhelming me and my healer..I had maybe .2 seconds with ~100 health to hit lay on hands...I just wasn't fast enough. They earned and deserve that flag return.



I promise if it were 2 rogues that would have ended with 2 rogues dead so I don't REALLY think ambush needs much balancing. I really do think you can balance the bracket with mostly utility/survivability changes, MINOR damage adjustments, and some love to healing druids/shamans...but I think we need the burst. Maybe I just enjoy the twitch responses currently required in the bracket...however, NEVER again do I want to see the day where you have zero chance to recover the flag because the heals are just unbeatable...that was not fun. I think anyone who played Vanilla 19 or portions of BC 19 will agree.



If anything rogue needs a buff in the sustained damage department...maybe make combat the sustained damage spec with possibility of getting 2/2 improved sprint and it starts to look a lot more viable.

 

[Yayo]

My pvp spec (at 85) is sub but I went down into the combat tree for Improved Sprint. Maybe move improved sprint down to the first tier of the combat tree. This might be something to look at for your mobility problem. Now sub gets a 2nd chance to get on target with shadowstep and combat has a 2nd chance to get on target with imp sprint...but more risk due to sprints longer cooldown.



I like the idea of freedom for palis but what is your view on shaman's Purge? Really...at 19 purge serves little to no purpose other than making paladins freedom cooldown useless. Also consider purge on Mages mana shields or other much needed survivability cooldowns such as Void sacrifice for warlocks. Remember it's 19 and utility/survivability is limited...at 85 you have options when you get purged...at 19 you get purged and you get destroyed...I don't think there is a good case to be made for keeping purge at 19 twink or indeed the leveling brackets.



While some burst in the bracket is clearly OP I don't consider Ambush among those.



There are few parallels you can draw between 19 endgame and 85 endgame pvp but there is one important theme that both currently have...put simply: You can beat the heals. At 19 less burst means more "Do or die." Situations. You return the flag or you protect your flag carrier...or perhaps you allow more people to fight in a single WSG battle which would allow for more wiggle room in that regard.



I mostly play pugs and it's already hard enough to get a decent alliance flag return attempt going. You talk about nerfing burst too much and you will have caused more harm than good...i dunno it's a fine balance.

Improved sprint can still be countered though. All you need to do is stun or slow the rogue right after he pops sprint. Its almost like another trinket. Shadowstep can't really be countered. Also at 19 you can only put one point into Improved Sprint. giving it a 50% chance to remove slows. That's not something that you can always rely on. As for buffing damage, combat gives rogues more damage but subtlety gives rogues more initial burst.

 

[Kristopher]

You can't talk about stuns because stuns counter everything except for trinket and mage's blink. You can't shadowstep out of a stun so lets throw that out for a minute. Popping your sprint at the right time is important with improved sprint. You have to get slowed...ranged...then wait for the hunter to start casting his steady shot....or the mage to begin casting a spell. As a rogue i don't think you should have a counter to everything at 19 but 2/2 imp sprint is a damn good start and if you time it right your enemy has no time to react to you sprinting back into his face.



When tree specs started giving abilities at level 10 I remember hating the fact that combat got Blade Flurry. Adrenaline Rush would be such a better fit and make combat a bit better. However the traditional PVP specs for rogues at end game have always been Mutilate and Sub...so maybe we need to focus on mutilate instead.



Hmm maybe just give rogues at 19 cheap shot. It's a stun but can only be used from stealth. Good utility and only the 2nd stun in the bracket. Cheap shot + adrenaline rush + improved sprint and you got a pretty nasty little killing machine...all based on cooldowns but still good.

 

[Kore nametooshort]

3 rogues working together sapped my priest and then all 3 ambushed me at once easily overwhelming me and my healer

This is something I certainly want to avoid. Burst is fine in the right places but one shotting in any situation is not acceptable. I consider 3dps downing an FC in one to be oneshotting.

Maybe move improved sprint down to the first tier of the combat tree. This might be something to look at for your mobility problem

This is not viable since it would have a marked effect on endgame pvp speccing. It might be better to try and reduce it to one point and to increase a 1st tier combat talent by one point to compensate. I am fine with Sstep being better than imp sprint by the way. It gives sub better utility (effectively ranged interrupts) and debatably better mobility which fits well with the model for rogues i have in mind, but again I come back to the problem of rogues having too much control over healers with high mobility and 2 10s CD interrupts.

NEVER again do I want to see the day where you have zero chance to recover the flag because the heals are just unbeatable

yeah, this is also unaccpetable. I will be avoiding this with great fervour

Adrenaline rush

This is a fun cooldown, but I feel that it would not be attractive to Blizzard since it would put Blade Flurry quite deep in the combat tree and would take away some of the coolness of filling up the combat tree. I feel that Revealing Strike will be just as good, if not possibly better, for balancing purposes and would potentially even make the combat tree slightly cooler to level up.

Purge? Really...at 19 purge serves little to no purpose other than making paladins freedom cooldown useless

It also has a marked effect on druid an preist healing, and not necessarily for the better from a balance point of view. The problem I have however is that I cannot realistically remove Dispel Magic from the bracket if I want to reintroduce Defensive dispels and so there would still be an offensive dispel in the bracket, along with Shield Slam. I cannot think of a viable way of removing them both from the bracket. It would also remove some of the shaman's niche and would potentially make druid cool downs (Ngrasp and thorns) too powerful. The alternative is to provide some dispel protection mechanics like Lifebloom to the bracket. I will be thinking about these some more later on.

 

[Kore nametooshort]

now - What levels of damage/healing are acceptable?



these numbers and values are after armour, resilience, shields that are likely to be active (eg: mana shield) and other damage reducing mechanics are calculated. Where these is more than one number, the three values for each situation are the top extreme of acceptablity, the bottom extreme and the most ideal value. Once I'm content that these values work well I will endeavour to throw them all into some exciting simultaneous equations and then I can start throwing specific numbers around for each class.



These numbers are specific for fulling BiS twinks. They are intended to scale for non twink BGs



By burst, unless stated otherwise, I generally mean 3second intervals unless stated otherwise. This gives time for 2 attacking abilities and plenty of time for reaction.



Pay very special attention to whether I have said All burst, maximum burst, average burst or whatever please. Let me know what you think of each boundary. Do you think those boundaries are in the correct place? Do you think I have not made enough? I'll do dps, healing and individual class damage later on.



Burst



General

- One shotting should never happen



FC's

- Flag Carriers have an assumed health pool of about 2.4k. They should never be burst down in 3 seconds.

- Flag carriers should be able to survive a few assaults due to cooldowns (agm, shield wall, LOH etc)

- Assumes an enemy offence of 6 members including at least 1 healer and one other low burst class (such as aff lock or spriest).



Warriors: Warriors have 15% extra block over paladins. They also have 10% mitigation with defensive stance, can block and parry and will have 10% increased armour. This averages out at about 55% armour, 20% dodge + parry, 20% block, 10% complete mitigaton. Against melee that is a 63% mitigation to melee dps. Against a caster it is just 10% to burst and dps. Against burst (which is assumed to not miss/dodge/parry/block) this is a 59.5% mitigation against melee.

- Warrior FCs should take a top end burst value between 1400 and 1000 hp. Ideally they should take about 1200 hp as TOP end burst. Average burst should be closer to 800. This is assuming that all the dps in the O are working in very close harmony and that they land their burst almost in unison. This level of burst will both challenge the healers, making them burn mana, and give the dps a good platform to work off. With roughly half the FC's health gone both parties need to work hard to get the advantage back on their side. This will give the defense enough time to work up adequate CC but even past the 3 second window the dps should be more than capable of challenging the D.



Paladins: Paladin FCs should have about 49% armour, 6% improved healing taken and Hammer of Justice to help survive burst. They also have Glyph of Dazing Shield and selfheals, but that would not help with surviving burst. (They also have Lay on Hands, but healers can also provide that and it is an emergency CD, so I won't factor it in). They also have 20% dodge+ parry and 5% block. Let us assume that HoJ reduces incoming burst by 15% since it should take out 1 offence member for the burst duration just after the opener, this member will usually be a high damage burst opponent too. This is a 56.65% burst mitigation vs melee burst and 0% vs casters burst all reduced by 15%.

- Paladin FCs should take a top end burst value between 1400 and 1000 hp. Ideally they should take about 1200 hp as TOP end burst. Average burst should be closer to 800. This is the same as a warrior since although warriors take less damage and can recover more easily and also have a potent CD, the paladin can self heal and be healed for more. Without proper testing and extensive maths this is not so important to work out the difference at the moment.



Druids: Druids have just under 42% armour in bear and 24.5% out of bear. Feral have 29% dodge in bear and cat and 20% out of form Resto have 6% more health in bear form than feral (but the same as either prot). Let us assume that Nature's Grasp catches half of the melee after the first global and before the second and so melee burst is lowered by a further 25%. This gives druids (assuming in bearform) 56.5% burst mitigation from meleeand negligible against casters.

- Druid FCs should take a top end burst value between 1575 and 1125 hp. Ideally they should take about 1350 hp as TOP end burst. Average burst should be closer to 900. they do not have the same straight mitigation that a Paladin or Warrior does and so cannot compensate in the same way, however they do have more potent self healing (if resto) than the Paladin and can kite substantially better.



Non FC

Non FCs should have around 1400-1500 hp



1v1

- 1v1's without a healer should always find a conclusion

- No 1 dps burst should leave any victim in danger of dying immediately

- Burst should generally be around the region of 25%.



Essentially here I have said that healers, potent self healers, CC heavy specs and strong hybrid specs should be prepared to take more damage. Low mobility or potentially weak specs should not have to take such high burst as other dps specs. Remember that these are the maximum, not necessarily ideal, bursts each spec should be taking.



2 opposing dps

- No 2 opposing dps should be able to burst down any spec within 3 seconds regardless of victims team mates. Victim should not be in dire danger and should be easily able to recover with support or skillful playing. Maximum burst should be <65%, ~58% and >40% of average target (ie not FC)



3 opposing dps

- No 3 opposing dps should be able to burst down any spec within 3 seconds regardless of victims team mates. Room for recovery with skillful playing and support should be possible. Maximum burst should be <90%, ~80% and >70% of average target (ie not FC)



4 opposing dps, or medium size midfield brawl

- Concerted dps should be able to burst down any target if it does not receive heals or react with in the 3 second burst window.



Sub Rogues

- Opening burst is the niche of the sub rogue. Without it they are pretty gimped. As such concessions can be made for sub rogues, but 4 Sub rogue opening burst should not be able to take more than 2k hp off an FC.

 

[Vincent]

This is something I certainly want to avoid. Burst is fine in the right places but one shotting in any situation is not acceptable. I consider 3dps downing an FC in one to be oneshotting.

Ye 3 dps shouldnt be able to kill an efc while his healer is sapped for 8 seconds, maybe we should make healers immune to sap or let the flag give a buff that reduced damage taken by 90% so these horrible things never happen.