Niche advantages vs Real advantages.

#0 - Nov. 5, 2009, 2:48 p.m.

In most of the posts lately and in an alarming amount of developer rhetoric, context seems to take a back seat to philosophical design decisions. What, exactly, does that mean?

In regards of WoW, context means the world and in regards to balance it means the world which an ability or advantage exists in. I'll give everyone an example, if paladins took 10% more damage than every other tank but took 20% less from demons (And only demons), that would be terrible if only 10% or so of the bosses were demons.

However, what if all bosses were demons? What if the developers decided that every boss was a demon, all the time. Then the "niche" advantage would become a normal advantage, one available in a majority of "encounters" in the game. So, in WoW, what makes something niche and what makes something fundamental?

The developers do.

One thing we have noticed throughout WoW is that specialized mechanics are often limited in boss fights unless the boss is specifically designed for them. Disarms, Stuns, Silences and other things in the game often don't work on bosses. This has to do with how dynamic encounters are already--Players can literally think of hundreds of strats that the developers probably never dreamed about to defeat any given boss. So as a developer, limiting the tools makes development and "tuning" far easier.

Often times if specialized abilities, like say charge or BoP (Hand of protection) confer an advantage, its an afterthought, an accident. For those of you working on hard mode Anub, you might know that the availability of 2-3 BoPs can make the encounter significantly easier. However, the need for BoP is hardly something designed into every encounter, it simply works on anub because the fight happened to cater to it. Just like how BoP was a useful tool for bloodboil ect.

Interruptions are another good example of a niche. In Ulduar only 3 bosses really needed interruptions, of those 3, only 1 would be beneficial if the tank alone could do them. This is because tanks often don't get to the hit cap and more often than not, if you need an interrupt, you want a DPS doing it to make sure it goes through....Why?

Because if the boss is interuptable, than most likely the developer INTENDED you to hit EVERY interrupt. This makes missing one due to RNG an extremely bad move. However, the core of this statement is the INTENT to design a fight with an interruption effect. These fights are rare and in the minority, much like fights where BoP is extremely useful or where a druid can use innervate/Brez.

Is having sunder an advantage? Yes but it isn't an advantage in all situations, many other things need to fail (Like the absence of any rogues or other warriors) for it to be a true advantage.

Is having cleanse an advantage? Sure---but its the same as sunder, its an advantage but one that is easily and NORMALLY made up for by many raid groups.

This is in stark contrast to FUNDAMENTAL systems, which are designed into every encounter in the game. The tools that almost all tanks share as follows.

Damage reduction
Damage avoidance
Damage soaking
Threat

You can advance these tools through various mechanics but the above "facets" of tanking are designed into 99% of wow encounters, because its HOW THE GAME WORKS. You can rarely get around them because they are such core parts of the game philosophy (And frankly code).

Advantages in the above field(s) is almost ALWAYS an advantage. Its *rare* for a fight to be designed in the absence of the above mechanics. Its NOT an afterthought when more armor makes a difference, its ALWAYS on the forefront of design when a tank is rewarded for more mitigation, because again, that is how the game system works. The entire idea of progress, is, in fact, based around increasing the effects of these systems (Better gear=More mitigation, for example.).

Where as things like BoP or Intervene or Death grip might provide an advantage as an afterthought or maybe a cool little trick that the developer worked in, more health will ALWAYS be an advantage, on nearly every, single fight. If it didn't work like this, then gear progression and many other systems in WoW simply would not work.

This is the difference between fundamental and niche.

This is why, GC, that differences in EH, Mitigation and Avoidance are so much more profound than if a class has the ability to sunder or to cleanse or to Death grip. When some tanks have 10% advantages in these fields, those advantages persist in EVERY encounter.

#16 - Nov. 5, 2009, 9:08 p.m.

Q u o t e:
This is why, GC, that differences in EH, Mitigation and Avoidance are so much more profound than if a class has the ability to sunder or to cleanse or to Death grip. When some tanks have 10% advantages in these fields, those advantages persist in EVERY encounter.

Assuming I'm understanding you correctly, we don't balance tank survivability around utility abilities like say Cleanse or Death Grip. We try to make sure all the classes have a certain number of those. We do balance survivability around cooldowns that affect survivability. My recent caution to not over-interpret effective health was that A) cooldowns matter, and B) it's difficult to quantify those cooldowns as part of EH. (Avoidance matters too. You may not gear for it, but it matters and you'd notice it if it was gone.)

I totally agree about the context part as well. I try and say often that the encounter is everything. Most of the time when players are posting from the point of view of who is the best tank or whether a certain tank is a liability to the raid, what they really mean is "on Sartharion +3, Mimiron hard, Vezax hard, Gormok hard or Anub'arak hard" because those are the most challenging encounters in which to keep a tank alive.

If Sindragosa is the hardest boss in Icecrown, and if she does a ton of magical damage, and if Unholy death knights have a much easier time tanking her because of this, then you'd see a lot of arguments over magical mitigation and cooldowns.