MoP misnamed .. needs to be called the NEWWoW

This is a really tricky space for class designers to navigate. We see a lot of "why won't you fix my issues?" pleas mixed in with "I don't want to relearn how to play." Neither opinion is right or wrong of course, and there is a lot of subjectivity about what each mean. "I only wanted you to change A and B, not C and D" is posted in the same thread as "Please don't change A!" Even the OP above had to add "don't change... except for...." :)

The talent changes do give us the opportunity to clean up (in our parlance) various rotations because we now have the concept of spec spells. Previously, we often had to jump through hoops to keep players from having to use awkward yet higher DPS rotations.

To use one example, we didn't want Fury warriors to have to "cast" Slams and most Fury warriors didn't want to either (meaning we weren't just smacking players' wrists for finding a way to play that we had not envisioned). But any time we needed to buff Slam for Arms, we risked Fury side effects unless we messed with the Bloodsurge proc for Fury to keep Slam the same for them. In Mists we can just make Slam an Arms spec spell to avoid that issue completely. There are many other comparisons, especially for rogues and warlocks who often incorporated many more buttons than they needed to do to execute a rotation just because those buttons were there.

Similarly, it gives us a chance to clean up action bars a little by doing things like streamlining the number of heals non-healers need. Shadow needs some heals to feel like a priest, but it doesn't need the repertoire that a Holy priest has.

But these changes, made with the best of intentions, still count as changes. Returning players, especially players returning from early Cataclysm or Lich King still have to learn them. I had a warrior player the other day ask me why he needed Heroic Throw and Heroic Leap because they were just extra buttons on his bars, yet I also imagined the outrage if we tried to prune them. :(

We really try not to make change for changes sake (and you are free to call us on it if you think you see it). Every change is to solve some problem, likely a problem that representatives of the various classes and specs have advocated at one point or another. (Here is where players will typically say "I have been an X for 8 years, and I never remember seeing someone ask for Y" - please don't turn the rest of this thread into that).

We have also been trying to limit large class changes to expansions and not patches, even though that policy frustrates players as well who don't want to wait many months for a more dynamic rotation or a quality of life improvement. It's a design philosophy challenge for sure.

The best advice I can give you (any of you) is to offer specifics. Generic "I don't like my guy anymore" doesn't give us much indication of what we would have to do to get you to want to play him again. If there is a change you don't like, let us know, but be prepared to defend that position against other players who may disagree with you. We're not actually looking for players to vote on changes, but it is helpful for us to see both sides of a debate.

Also remember that nearly every change at this stage is made for fun and not for balance. That means our hands aren't tied. But it also means we are making decisions based on something really subjective upon which players very possibly are not going to agree.

I find the discussion really interesting, especially when it sticks to the topic of "How much change is appropriate?" and doesn't try and discuss every single class in one thread.

I did want to clarify a few points just to make sure we are all on the same page.

But for the 2nd expansion in a row you have significant healing changes and added tanking changes on top of it. I think for the larger part of the player base, you have made that a huge frustration because 5 levels is not enough. You are going to be balancing a class around level 90 but leveling from 85 to 90 is going to bring frustration on to a lot of people.

We haven't changed healing. Healing should feel really similar to how it felt in Cataclysm, but a little more forgiving when you're still in greens and blues.

We do want to give tanks more control over their survivability, but that's because we've really toned down the effort it takes to maintain threat, so we want tanks to have something upon which to focus their attention.

We also spend a great deal of effort balancing at 85. As we have mentioned before, we want everyone who logs in when the expansion goes live to have about the same amount of damage and healing that they have today in Cataclysm. The sources of some of that damage and healing will change, but overall the numbers should be familiar.

His inference is people were doing it because they are stupid.

On the contrary, they were doing it because they were smart.

We have to balance around the rotations players actually use. Players wouldn't find it acceptable if Destro warlocks did 20% higher dps than the next closest class just because players figured out to use a spell we intended for Affliction. In that case one of two things happen -- either we somehow change spell rules and numbers such that you drop the Affliction spell, or we are unsuccessful in changing things, you use the Affliction spell, and we still have to balance your dps against everyone else. In that world, warlocks have a more complicated rotation to execute for the same dps as everyone else. That's not so cool.

It's not often a more engaging rotation either. Backdraft procs are kind of fun, but dependent on Conflag (in 4.3 anyway). If you could find a higher DPS rotation that neglected Conflag, you'd feel compelled to do it, even if that meant no Backdraft. You can find plenty of examples where players say essentially "Please nerf this rotation, because it's not fun." They're smart and know that we balance players based on actual performance (in other words we'll still make sure their DPS is competitive after nerfing the sucky rotation).

(You also have to consider how much development time we spend doing things like trying to discourage spec A from using spell Y. That is development time better spent on making your character more fun to play.)

With the concept of spec spells, we can say that e.g. Shadow Bolt is for Demonology. We don't have to worry about Destro warlocks trying to squeeze it in their rotation, because they don't have the button period.

Now having said that, I feel like I need to soften that a bit lest we get accused of overly constraining player experimentation. If smart players can find small dps improvements by doing tricky things, we're generally cool with that. Less skilled players won't be so far behind that we need to nerf the class as a whole or balance around the assumption that most players will be doing the clever trick.

Infact what I read into what you're saying above is that "we accidentally made rotations too complex because there were too many moving parts floating around & people managed to add in parts we never intended". Fair call, totally reasonable, but if all we're left with after all the accidental moving parts are removed is a flat predictable prio with one random proc ability, then you've overshot.

That's totally fair, and if there are aspects you really miss from your 4.3 rotation, please let us know (ideally not all in this one thread).