Malchome’s Mind on Gaming

The Deathbringer Saurfang fight changes are complete and total Bullshit.

As Daelo says on the forums the strategy that most raids are implementing is not how Blizzard wants us to play.  Ok the strategy with letting the first and or second person to get the Mark of the Fallen champion dying is not an exploit.  Blizzard can say it is but all in all it is just understanding how numbers work and resetting the counter at the expense of letting a member die, bet it a healer or dps, which can really hurt.

Now I started to write this post prior to the hot-fix.  But this is not something to let drop.  Especially since the hot fix was pushed out in prime time and caused a bit of server lag.  Yay Blizz screws up an encounter and then makes the server unplayable but still live to push out the hot fix, yes it only lasted for about 15 minutes the lag that is but still it would have been better to just give a 15 minute warning and do rolling restarts.  so that you don’t get penalized yet again in another fight.

All of this could have been avoided if 1 of the following things had happened.

1. There was a PTR build with the fight change and the difficulty and blood power gains could have been evaluated.
2. Blizzard quit acting like a kindergartner out on the playgrounds changing the rules every time they see something they don’t like.
3. If you are going to changes the rules you had better damn well make sure it is conveyed to the public i.e. PATCH NOTES PEOPLE PATCH NOTES!

If you don’t like how people are adapting to the mechanics/rules you put in place then be more careful next time but completely changing the dynamics of a fight after it has gone live, other than a simple bug fix, is complete BS.  If you want encounters to adjust to how players are adapting to the mechanics then the mechanics need to be more dynamic in the first place.  But then every fight would become like the Faction Champions and that would just be annoying as hell.

Also since initially starting this post when I was pissed off in raid last night due to the Saurfang fight.  I recently saw that Ensidia’s 25 man kill has been retconned because they were using items that bugged the fight.

Now for the most part I hate Ensidia and the like.  I don’t really give a damn about World/Country/Server firsts.  However if combat log parses show that as they claim some of their dps use the bombs in question regularly as part of their rotation then the action Blizzard has taken against them is BS.  I have used BS a lot in this post but I am refraining from using stronger expletives to express my dissatisfaction and disbelief at the pathetic actions Blizzard is taking in these instances.

The bomb bug is inexcusable in reaching live.  To put it simply Blizzard has all the information and the ability to test everything in their game.  They have logs of information raid leaders could only dream about.   Well I hope they do anyway.  In a test instance they could set a players life to 10M and let the mob hit the player forever and a day if need be they could then go through a list of every expected item that could be used in the encounter and check to makes sure it performs as expected.  Any Engineering item created in this expansion should be well within the expected bounds of items to be used by min/max twinks like the top end raiding guilds.

But then again we really should not be surprised.  Blizzard has a track record of punishing players for creativity and using the tools given to them.

So in the end my only suggestion on how to avoid this in the future is if Blizzard is going to punish us for creativity and adapting to the mechanics of the fight then they need to release an Official strategy to be used with each fight so we know what we are allowed to do in each instance.

I apologize for some of the negativity that is contained in this post, I usually try to look for ways to improve things and not just bitch and moan in general.  However changing the rules of how something works once it goes live regardless of whether some or all of the changes are then rolled back is inexcusable in a production environment.

So I have not posted in awhile.  There have been several reasons for this.  The two main reasons being a bit busy with work and not really getting around to post when at home, always more stuff to do in and out of game.  The other reason is that I really have just been waiting for patch 3.3 to hit.

Because I have been waiting for 3.3 and the joy of the new LFG tool to finally be able to get random groups when ever I have time I have mostly stopped playing my level 80s except when raiding.  I have farmed some more badges and stone keeper shards for my new time filler.  Leveling several new alts.  I am currently working on a Mage, Rogue and Druid.  The cool thing that is keeping most of the mind-numbing bordom at bay when leveling the umpteenth toon through the lower levels is now I am skipping large blocks of zones especially in the 14-20 segment.

The reason I am able to do this and doing this is that I can now get XP in the Battlegrounds.  I use to hate battlegrounds while leveling before because they always seemed to be a waste of time and then there were the twinks.  Now my Mage and Druid with 2 Heirloom pieces of gear are a quasi Twink but no where as bad as they use to be.  With the turn XP off feature all of the serious Twinks have been moved to their own little bracket.  This means that the battlegrounds are now full of people just wanting to play a game or few to either level through BGs or just to get a break from the normal quest grinds.  Before getting to one of the more serious points and improvements that needs to be made to Battlegrounds I have to say playing a Rogue with 2 Heirloom daggers enchanted with Life-stealing is fun as hell.

Bracket Restructure

As the section title directly above states Bracket Restructure is one of the main things that needs to be done now that we have XP in Battlegrounds.  All BGs need to run from X0-X9.  Let the level cap players always be in their own separate bracket.

The reason for this is the end result of several previous PvP changes.  Lissanna, a mutual friend and I got into an argument about this on Sunday over vent.  Because it is player behavior Lissanna is of the opinion that no blame can be placed on Blizzard.  Ok so what is the combination of issues that is causing a problem?   It is a mix of XP in BGs bringing players of All Levels into a BG instance and the level capped 80s only wanting 80s in their game using the AFK reporting tool to “kick” anyone of a significantly lower level out of the instance.  Because there are no repercussions for reporting someone AFK you can just do it to anyone for no particular reason.  This then causes the person to get the debuff and if they don’t do a certain action within a time frame they will be kicked and given the Deserter Debuff.  This occurred to our mutual friend in AV when they were killed and were running back to meet up with the group.  While they were dead they were reported and kicked while running back.  This type of crap can not be tolerated.  If a person is active and attempting to participate they deserve to be there unfortunately even if their performance sucks.

The report AFK tool has now become kick those that don’t agree with us and is now a device for griefing.  There needs to be a mechanism put in place that allows one to defend themselves from being wrongfully labeled.  Because there are legitimate reasons in battlegrounds to remain stationary to either defend or gather surveillance.    Especially if you are a Rogue or Druid since you can stealth and remain mostly hidden.

Yes as Lissanna pointed out this is a player behavior issue especially since the player base asked for such a system to be implemented.  However since we own nothing in the game it all belongs to Blizzard then they are also to blame.  The created the system and implemented it, and like many things they implement they don’t seem to stop and figure out all of the ways the system could and will be abused so that there are counter mechanisms in place to enforce better behavior or more fair play.  As in if you falsely report someone AFK then you are the one booted.  There should at least be a Query system to the player so that they can respond to their accusers directly.

Anyway I look forward to the PVP XP through level 70.  Afterward, looks like it will be impossible with the level cap Twinks behaving badly either because they don’t know better or are bored.  I suspect the later but ya never know.

I admit I don’t like seeing a non 80 in the BG when I run BGs on my 80s but I realize that the system allows them there and as long as they try I don’t have a problem with them being there.  I would prefer to see the level cap become it’s own bracket for just this reason.

I was looking at MMO-Champion and in one of their posts where they collect Blue Posts I saw the following text.  It ties into some of what I want to say in this post so I thought I would include it for reference.

Blue Posts from the Forums Here.

Whenever we see comments like this, we immediately assume that you have a different vision for class / spec / whatever than we do. If that is the case, you are likely to find yourself frustrated and scratching your head a lot when our changes never make the design converge on what you think it should be.

Now, we do want Subtlety to be more attractive. All of the pure dps classes have a spec that isn’t as popular as the others. Mages may be the closest because at least Frost has a viable PvP use, but there are also plenty of mages who want to be able to use Frost in end-game PvE too.

Subtlety (and Frost for that matter) are specs focused around utility. The problem is that players understandably nearly always choose damage over utility for raiding and often choose utility over damage for PvP, unless the damage is really high or the utility just doesn’t cut it for some reason.

What we are talking about doing is sharing more of the utility among other specs, or the core class, so that there aren’t “utility trees.” To do that though, we have to make the way the different specs do damage different enough so that players might choose a play-style preference over highest damage. This is particularly challenging for rogues, who have a history of giving up a preferred spec or play style for one with a sub 1% dps increase.

I think we are closest with the Arcane vs. Fire mage specs at the moment. They play a little differently, which goes beyond just the type of magic damage they do. While Fire might still do the highest damage overall, Arcane is close enough and plays different enough that even competitive players don’t feel stupid for playing that spec. There are a lot more Arcane mages out there than I think a lot of players assume.

That is harder with rogues. “I’m the sneaky one” doesn’t translate into sustained raid dps. Assassination feels like it emphasizes poisons more and Combat feels like it emphasizes weapons more, so we’re a little closer there. Subtelty needs a stronger yet damage-oriented niche.

HaT, sadly, is not a niche. HaT has scaling problems. It’s appropriate for a 5-player group, but gets too in larger groups with all of their raid buffs. We don’t want HaT to be the one talent that pushes players into Subtlety.

Now my Opinions of Rogue Gameplay

I find the rogue class in general to be somewhat schizophrenic in tree and abilities.  Before the rogue lovers lynch me on this one let me explain more fully.

The three trees are Assassination/Combat/Subtlety and at least when I want to think of archetypes for these I would select Assassin/Swashbuckler/Street Thug.  The problem with these archtypes which the lore and theme of the trees seem to suggest is that the skill and weapon implementation don’t match up.

Assassin - Poisons, Bleeds with a nasty finisher are what this spec is suppose to bring to mind.  However when I am soloing or even in groups when playing assassination I end up putting my bleeds on to get Hunger for Blood and then just go into a Eviscerate and Rupture rotation of finishers to keep up Slice and Dice.  Now I admit to not being the best rogue out there.  Hell I am lucky to be an average Rogue but , I seem to do acceptable damage for my gear, which is all I really strive for on any of my DPS classes.  The image to the right is of the miniature of Artemis Entreri from the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons and Dragons.

Combat - Swashbuckler so Swords and now Axes.  So essentially the dual wielding, one handed, melee monster.  The picture I selected for this is from the movie The Princess Bride, which I am sure most reading this post will be familiar with.  Now both the Dread Pirate and Inigo both really fit into the archetype for swashbuckler.  I will get into my issues with Rogue mechanics after highlighting the theme of each tree.

Subtlety - This tree is really about getting the drop on your target.  Which is why it is one of the harder trees to get a focus on for PvE.  It is really hard to get a drop on the boss, especially when they are pretty much immune to all of your lock down abilities.  Also given all the new amounts of AoE that bosses and their minions throw around being reliant on openers is a bit of a weak spot.  Now the image icon that I immediately think of when someone say stealthy and rogue one image comes to mind.  I don’t think I need to explain the image either.

Issues with Gameplay

My first and foremost complaint about Rogue mechanics from the perspective of actually playing one, not QQing about them on the forums after getting ganked by one, deals with the their specs and abilities interact with the weapons they use or lack thereof.  To put it simply too many of their abilities are weapon specific or have multiple caveats based on weapon.

Lets look at the other melee classes.  This gives us Druids, Shaman, Paladins, Warriors and Deathknights, now I am going to ignore Druids in this exercise, sorry those coming from Restokin because Druid feral weapon mechanics make it a moot point.  The other 4 classes that use melee weapons with a very few exceptions do not have their specs and abilities drastically changing based on the weapon they have equipped.  For all intents and purposes an Axe = Sword = Mace = Dagger for one handed weapons and 2H-Sword = 2H-Mace = 2H-Axe = Pole-arm for calculating damage.  Now I know there are some weapon specializations in the Warrior Arms tree but in all of the other trees the specific type of weapon in irrelevant and only the broad category matters, 1H versus 2H.

After looking at some of the source code for Rawr, which is a very useful dps/tanking modeling program, from the equations these differences especially for the Rogue are because they use Average Weapon damage to calculate the damage value of special abilities.  This is why certain classes want a slow main hand weapon, because as damage output for such abilities increases as the time between swings increases.  This is because to maintain a consistent DPS for a tier of weapons if the swing timer goes up so must the average damage per swing.

Now when I first started looking into this I went to WoWhead and copied the names of about 30 1 handed and 2 handed weapons.  I then looked at the min damage and max damage that each weapon would do before taking anything else into consideration.  The really cool thing was that on average over all any weapon’s min and max damage when compared to the average of the 2 values is +/- 30%.  The gambit of values were between at 28.9 – 31.1 so a quick eye balling of the numbers tells you it hovers around 30%.  So what this means is that if we want all special abilities to scale equally based on the DPS of the weapon.  Then we just need to take the DPS * (.7 – 1.3) + all other modifiers.  This then removes the weapon speed component from the formula directly as it is an intrinsic part of the DPS.

If we were to base special ability damage off of DPS and not weapon damage.  Then this means that Back-stab, Mutilate and any other abilities that may have a limit placed on them because of previous weapon speed dependency can have it removed.

This was very annoying when leveling Assassination because there were so few Dagger upgrades while leveling.  Ya there are a good amount at 80 but you can get a good pair late 60s/early 70s and then one more set at 76 then nothing until you get the crafted epic or run dungeons at 80.  If you go combat then you loose several of your abilities because they are dagger restricted.  Also as a side note it is really stupid conceptually to have Dagger Main hand and  something else much larger off hand.  When ever I have been fencing with 2 weapons you almost always put the heavier weapon in your main/stronger hand.  Now you may lead with the dagger based on stance and positioning but saying you can’t backstab because your dagger is in your “off” hand is kinda dumb.   It should be as long as a dagger is equipped you can backstab.  The code just checks for first available Dagger.  If you are dual wielding daggers it goes from the main hand otherwise it uses the off hand.

Now the one thing this modification would not affect would be the benefit of a fast off hand for rogues when it comes to energy regen.  I really don’t have a problem with this, however I would say for modeling and balancing purposes that ability should go to a Procs per Minute system.  Similar to the HaT and or the Feral Druid leader of the pack restriction.

All I can say is that I hope that in the 4.0 changes Rogues get an overhaul so that each tree is focused on a couple of weapons each.  The close quarters combat daggers should be merged into the assassination tree because you almost always would go deep in Assassination then go into combat for those first 15-18 talents.  This is where with the new talent allocation screen where you see all 3 trees at once you could start putting interesting talents in the first few tiers of each tree that require talents in 2 trees.  Keep them on the edge with the associated tree.  Assume that to the left of Assassination was Subtlety and the opposite for Subtlety.