Does Vaneras know what is he talking about?

Q u o t e:
Look at what he wrote

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=299064950&postId=2986200698&sid=1#21

I mean....why the hell are you saying this crap?

Dont give up on your druid yet looool...what are u looking into?

I do not want to stop you if you do wish to give up on you Druid, but please know that I do not appreciate your need for making things personal simply because you do not like how things are with your class or your spec currently. You may disagree with the things I have to say, or with the things the developers have to say, but you have no valid reason to make any personal attacks, be it on me, my colleagues, or anyone else for that matter. I will kindly ask you to reconsider your methods of communication and your posting strategy on these forums, because you are not helping anyone nor improving the atmosphere on these forums by stirring up the old “us versus them” routine.

The things I have communicated in the past, especially the thing you have so kindly linked to in your post, is direct feedback from the developers simply stating that they are aware of a situation and that they are looking into it… Nothing more, nothing less. I then added my personal opinion that I like to PvP with my Feral Druid, which I still do by the way. You guys often request, or even demand, feedback from the developers, and the thing I posted back then was simply an attempt to accommodate those requests.

I know more about some classes than others, which I think is true for pretty much everybody playing this game, and this can of course be a potential issue when dealing with the diversity of the entire PvP’ing and PvE’ing WoW population of all 9 (Soon to be 10) classes. I often do post my personal opinions on things that I feel I am fairly knowledgeable about, so of course it happens that I am sometimes wrong regarding the things I say, since I can’t possibly have encyclopaedic knowledge on everything about everything. When it turns out that I am wrong, then I will of course try my best to correct my errors and then seek to improve my understanding of things.

If you think that I am wrong about something, by all means point it out, but keep the slander and the abuse to yourself.

Q u o t e:


And what will soon mean?
And 10th class will be deathknight or did i miss something?

"Soon" is relative and in this case it means when the expansion is launched. And yes, the 10th class is the Death Knight :-)

Q u o t e:
Im sorry Vaneras if I offended you but your statement that you enjoy playing bgs just iritated me.

We all know that arena is only important and plz dont give me that BS that it isnt.

This might be true for you, but it most certainly is not true for everybody.

Sure the Arenas are the most important if you are focussed mostly on Gear and the competitive play styles of the Arenas, but I know for a fact that many people prefer the Battlegrounds over the Arenas.

I personally like the Arenas a lot and I also like the Gear you can get from fighting in the Arenas, but if I was forced to make the choice between the battlegrounds or the Arenas, then I would personally go for the battlegrounds because I simply have more fun when playing there. I like the size of the maps, I like the fact that there are objectives within the maps that must be achieved in order to win, and I simply like fighting in large groups better than what can be described as the advanced duelling style game play that is the Arenas. As you might have noticed here, I am disagreeing with you, but I am not throwing abuse!

Now I have already said that I play a Feral Druid, so that is no secret. It is also no secret that as a Feral Druid, I do way better in the battlegrounds than I do in the Arenas. I believe this coincides quite well with the things you guys have been saying.

Morale: (God I feel like those old He-Man cartoons that always had a message or morale in the end) You must remember the fact the everybody prefers different things in this game, so you can discuss and disagree with people all you want, but do not turn to insults and abuse of others simply because they do not see things the same way as you do.

Q u o t e:




Well i guess u guys in blue deserve some dissing , cause when u tell ppl ur class is being looked at , we think that u will do something about it in the next patch , but u guys obviously think that being looked at is the easiest way to get rid of ppl.

But when u build ppls hopes up and then u give us a patch that is crap like 2.3 will be, u should expect some dirt in ur face , cause after all we communicate with u guys not the devs.

So i say : FLAME UP ON U !!!! ( and plz try to play against locks with 450 resilience , i wonder will u still feel that playing drud in pvp is fun)

Throwing flames or dirt is never all right, and we simply will not tolerate such behaviour. If you feel that the only way you can communicate is to harass or throw abuse at other people, then you will quickly find that you will no longer be able to post on these forums.

I am not saying that you are not allowed to complain or to post your concerns, but I am saying that you must keep a civil and constructive tone when doing so. ASCII fingers, insults and similar types of abuse will only get you banned.

Q u o t e:
Hey vaneras, i regret trying to get through to you in this thread, but did you read my post?



I can tell you'd gain some druid goodwill if this info reached the developers. If anything atleast from me :)

Yeah I saw it, but I chose not to comment anything since that would set a precedence by suggesting to people that cross-posting works. We do not want to encourage people to cross-post their immediate concerns, requests or ideas in every single post that has a blue-tag.

It would be appreciated if you could please posts such ideas in the suggestions forum, which we continuously read for the purpose of gathering good suggestions for the developers.

Q u o t e:



I don't see any constructive response to the things i stated in my post .

As for the being offensive part , i truly don't see any offense in it except for the : Flame up on u !!! but on these forums much worse things had been said so i see no reason to threaten me with ban.

I see this thread as a discussion so lets discuss.

I am sorry if I came out a little harsh. I did not mean to make it sound like I was threatening you personally, so please accept my apologies if you thought I was taking a swing at you.

I was aiming at those people who in general have trouble keeping it civil and think it is perfectly justifiable to throw insults and abuse.

Q u o t e:
I like that thinking that feral druid is very good in bgs.

Come on, tell me which class is not very good in bgs?

All classes can do well in the Arenas as well (Especially after patch 2.3), but we are not really talking about classes in this case, we are talking about certain specs. For an example you will find that Druids in general do well in Arenas, but Feral Druids in particular are having a tough time. You will find that some classes will perform quite poorly in the battlegrounds if they use one spec, but if those very classes used another spec, then they would do extremely well in the battlegrounds. All classes have specs that best suits a certain play style or certain situations, be it soloing, PvP, PvE, etc.

We have before said that the game is not balanced around one versus one PvP encounters, which may actually be yet another reason why I enjoy the battlegrounds so much, where the efficiency of group PvP really shines through.

Q u o t e:


As i see it the point of this game are EPICS , if u play bg's often u will get all the items from them in a couple of weeks ( most of us played these bg's like a milion times so there is no fun watching ppl zerg and leech). Arenas are the true pvp and the only one that matters for the 99% of the player community.

I get that this is true for you since the game is about Epics for you, but what you said here reminds me of the classical saying: "99% of numbers posted on the Internet is made up on the spot." Do you have anything to support your claim that Arenas are the true pvp and the only one that matters for the 99% of the player community?

Q u o t e:
As u stated feral drud is very nice for bg's but sucks in arenas , so when a feral gets bored of bg's the only solution for him is to either respec / reroll or to transfer to a rpg server , change his char name to some monty python character name and dance around naked in feralas drinking thistle tea .

That is a rather bleak way of looking at things, but sure I can see things from your point of view.

Q u o t e:
No offense :))

None taken :-)

Q u o t e:
Dear Vaneras,

first of all I am sorry that people feel free to flame you, for me having a moderator playing my own class and willing to chit-chat (nothing "serious" needed) here would be a very nice boon, and I hope you'll keep posting here and let a nice "link" develop between the formality of "The Abstract and Distant Blue" and us end users.

I have been a target of much abuse during the time I have been working for Blizzard, but I still enjoy my job despite that. There are more perks than downsides being a blue-poster :-)

These forums are very large and extremely active, so we are spending a lot of time reading, gathering feedback, moderating, etc. in many forums at the same time, but we do try to come in now and then to chit-chat when we have the time and that is not something that we plan to change because chit-chatting is a part of the job :-)

Q u o t e:
Second, I'd like to know if there are any steps, *Vaneras Seal Of Approval* steps to perform to create a constructive "channel" and actually *achieve* a change in game.

There are no *Vaneras Seal Of Approval* and there are no specific recipes you most follow in order to get your feedback across. Basically you should just make sure to be constructive and to post in the right forum. I personally prefer when people post their concerns and describe their issues in a short but precise manner, because it is way easier gathering relevant feedback when things are well presented and straight to the point. Essays can be very informative and enjoyable to read, but such things are really not necessary if the same things can be said in short paragraphs. Evidence and examples to support your arguments is always preferred, but I really hate when people resort to exaggeration, made-up numbers or dramatization in their attempts to get their voices heard.

Q u o t e:
I am not talking about cyclopic buffs but simple, day by day trivial but game breaking things like our too short range. It's impossible that only us have this, it's impossible that almost every single PvP movie (since you play feral druid I hope you see them) has tampered client (and ToS breaking) in order to fix in 5 minutes what we are asking to be fixed since 3 years.

Ahh the cat-form range bug… Yes, this is frequently brought up, and yes this has been forwarded to the developers. Some improvements and corrections have been made in regards to this issue already; the latest was the corrections made to the NE cat form. I don’t have much more I can say on this particular issue at this moment in time, but please keep posting examples and proof of this issue in play. The more info and precise examples we can forward to the developers, the better.

I must say that although I have been experiencing this myself on occasion, it has never been so game breakingly bad as many of you like to portray it when complaining about it here on the forums… But again that is just my opinion. I do read and forward feedback of all kinds, and I would like to clarify that my own personal opinions on things do not get in the way. I personally might disagree on some concerns or some feedback, but I gather and forward it nonetheless.

Q u o t e:
Likewise, it's not a buff to see that our feral spec is claimed by some to be PvE - but without PvE drops (sure, the PvE weapon is available doing arena!!!). And some others claim it to be PvP spec, yet it's the rock bottom in every arena bracket.
I like AV above every arena, like you do, Vaneras.

But I *cannot* gear up but doing arena. Come season 3, my committment will have me geared with tier 6 PvE gear but totally unable to even hope to get the rating locked items.

Why? Because if I spec resto I get 1900 rating (I even team with a warlock already... have a mage too) but as feral I can never go above 1690.

Difference? Tier 5+ and veteran feral gear to achieve 1690 (now less :S) rating tops, and Karazhan / Cenarion vendor (!), Stormrage (!) and Onyxia lair healing gear to achieve 1900.

Do you see anything particular?

I get what you are saying here, and you do raise a good point about what can be interpreted as inconsistencies in gear versus play style.

Q u o t e:
Actually, the "classical" form of that saying is more along the lines of

Q u o t e:
97.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

I couldn't remember the exact phrasing, but yeah that is the one I meant :-)

Q u o t e:
Well can u show me a thread where ppl say : our class suck in av or wsg etc.
Since the start of arenas they have become the most important aspect of the game for ppl who enjoy pvp over pve, the number doesn't have to be 99% but it is a huge majority and i think u know that very well.

I do know what you meant, I was merely trying to make a point to be careful making unfounded statements and undocumented claims. We can actually see the exact numbers of who does what in the game, and what is being played more than other things, and it is does numbers the developers use as a base for making changes, be it buffs or nerfs. I can say now that the vocal minority on the forums does not necessarily represent the community as a whole. It is actually very much like this: People who are content with the game spend their time playing it, people who are discontent with the game spend half their time playing and the other half of their time complaining on the forums :-)

Q u o t e:
All i want to say in this thread is : when u say on a class forum ur class is being looked at ppl will expect a buff, so i suggest that u guys think of some other thing to say instead of " being looked at" or just dont say it until u know for a fact the class will be buffed. The things stated in patch 2.3 for druds are not buffs simple as that .

When I post that things are being looked at, then I say nothing more or less than that. If you see something else than that, then you are most likely over interpreting things or you have a different understanding of certain words or sentences than me.

The phrase: "this is being looked into" is often what feedback from the developers consist off, it means that they will look into something, but that is not the same as if they said we will fix or change something. If the developers look at something and they find that they are happy with how things are working, then nothing will be changed at that point in time. Also, when they say they will be looking into things, that means that it can take a lot of time. That is especially true if they find that something is not working exactly as they would like, but they are still looking into the best way of fixing it in accordance to their design philosophies or within the technical restrictions. There are often more than one solution available to fix a problem, and sometimes the problem itself is choosing the right solution.

Q u o t e:

I have highlighted the section I would like you to expand on.

From all the evidence I have seen, be it Caster's numbers or otherwise, the following trends have been set:

2v2: Restoration performs well if grouped with a Warrior or a Warlock
3v3: Restoration performs acceptably, grouped with various combinations
5v5: Druids of all specs are the lowest or second lowest represented class

Some nice graphical evidence of 5v5 numbers can be found here, albeit a little old:
http://www.crestfallen.us/images/Roeman/5v5%20Arena%20Populations.JPG

Although the graph stopped drawing data two months ago, the trends continued from the start of season 1 right until the end of the graph.

My questions to you Vaneras:

• Have the trends outlined for Druids as depicted by the above graph continued, and if any significant changes in representation have happened, what are they?
• Are the developers happy with our representation in 5v5 compared to other classes?
• Are the developers still of the mind that Druid representation will improve on its own? And if so, has it improved on it's own since Blizzcon (where the original statement was made)?
• Assuming trends have continued, is the Druid's 5v5 low performance considered acceptable due to it's stronger 2v2 and 3v3 representation?

I am not able to answer those questions point by point at this moment in time, but what I can tell you for now is that the developers are continuously monitoring the situation in the Arenas. If one class is under represented in the Arenas, then steps will be made to change that, just like steps will be taken against classes that are over represented in the Arenas. Some of these changes and adjustments will take time and can't all be done in one big swoop, but the aim is to make sure that all classes are fairly equally represented in the Arenas in one way or another... That does not necessarily mean that all specs of all classes will be equally viable for Arena play... At least not at this point in time.