Drysc, Are you Serious?

#0 - March 13, 2008, 8:16 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Regarding spec viability we would definitely like to see every spec at least partially viable, that doesn't mean however that each spec will be equal in a very cutthroat PvP environment like the arenas. A prot warrior or shadow priest or what have you should though be able to jump into a battleground or arena and be able to do something with some small amount of success. How much success that should be is really the question, but our general philosophy is that we're ok with some specs not being as viable as others, we sort of have to be.

Are you serious?

So that this mean that since I like DoTs and Shadow Damage, I have to reroll a warlock because I can't PvP as well as everyone with my Shadow priest?

Even if I wanted to PvP I'm forced to respec to something I don't like, something that doesn't fit my style at all. Being a Healer.

So what, does this mean I'm now forced to just PvP with my rogue and just PvE with my shadow priest? That's bull##@!. Sure I knew shadow priests weren't as viable in PvP as everyone because I've killed enough shadow priests to know but that still didn't keep me from rolling one myself.

If you will never fix shadow priest's survivability then just give every single shadow priest out there that PvPs the option to switch their priest into a warlock or give them an option to switch their shadow PvP Gear into healing PvP gear and respec Disc because what's the point of keep being a shadow priest in PvP if you're not going to fix us or even look at us.

Just that brought my hopes down completely. You just compared us to a prot warrior in PvP... I can't believe it.

Drysc

#10 - March 13, 2008, 8:27 p.m.

Q u o t e:
There is nothing stopping you from PVPing as a shadow priest. Just don't expect to be very good at it.

I do pretty well in battlegrounds with mine, but if I'm going to want to be viable in higher end competition then I would be well advised to respec. That isn't to say that shadow priests won't one day be more viable than they are now in PvP, or that changes may not come for other specs to help them become more viable. The point is that not every spec for every class should be expected to be as viable as the next for each aspect of the game.

[edit]I'll qualify this statement and say that this is our general take on spec viability for now, and isn't necessarily intended to be taken as the end all look at spec comparisons in various aspects of the game for all future balance and development. That possibly was not made as clear as it should have been in my original post in the other thread, and certainly not very clear in this one.

Drysc

#116 - March 13, 2008, 9:13 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Then. Why. Do. We. Have. Respec. Costs?

Any game attempting to keep any type of economy stable and steady needs gold sinks. To make a comparison to one of our own games, look at the Diablo II economy and how much gold was actually worth. It's thrown out all over the place at great velocity with nothing to spend it on, it becomes worthless, and actually a liability in some cases. It still feels cool to get money, but what's the point when there's nothing to spend it on? Any consistent or semi-regular sink is generally going to help keep and maintain economical health. As the economy naturally inflates though, 50g continues to lose its value as a sink and there will inevitably need to be other things to take its place.

That said, I'll quote Tom from the last BlizzCast (http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/archive/episode2.xml)

Q u o t e:
We definitely want to make the respec process more graceful, especially considering how much respeccing people are doing. Right now, when you respec, it unlearns all the spells that you have that are talent-specific. It takes them off your action bars, et cetera, and, then when you spec into a new spec, it doesn't fill those in for you. Something we'd like to do is have the game remember or be able to save settings with different talent specs so that you can more easily switch between them. That goes along with potentially, in the future, doing some things to ease the burden of respeccing back and forth. If you're doing kind of high-end Arenas, high-end raiding, that kind of thing. Because we do want to encourage players to be able to enjoy a variety of different elements of the game. So, we definitely want to make that whole process more graceful in general.

He comments on some other large topics too if you haven't listened to it already, I recommend checking it out.