Blizzard Class Design Q&A

source: wowhead.com

Highlights include:

Druid

• PvP weaknesses of Resto Druids addressed in 5.0
  
• Overall philosophy is to bring hybridization back to Druids. Will use abilities that require multiple forms, even for Resto Druids.
  

Hunter

• In future, Aspect of the Cheetah won't daze when hit in the future.
  
• Will lose the ability to parry, can still equip melee weapons for vanity looks.

Mage

• Talents like Blast Wave are 'dull' for level 90 talents--many other classes have gotten new skills. Mages probably getting a few new talents as a result.
  
• RNG is a part of Fire. (duh?)
  
• Looking for ways to make Arcane less immobile.

Priest

• Spirit Shell is a new ability for Discipline priests in 5.0--it does not cause Weakened Soul.
  
• Possible changes for Holy Nova--perhaps Discipline-only and interact with Evangelism.

Paladin

• Word of Glory won't be on a cooldown in 5.0.
  
• Ret paladin playstyle should be a bit less RNG as Divine Purpose will be a talent players may skip.

Rogue

• Goal is to have rogues use one damage and one utility poison at the same time. New Deadly will essentially be like merging the old Instant + Deadly Poisons.
  
• New changes to Killing Spree allow you to control how frequently and how many times you teleport.

Shaman

• Totems removed in MoP, but core buffs will remain passive auras on the shaman, the way Unleashed Rage currently works.
  
• Totems at first had restrictions like the GCD cost and limited range back when they were unique buffs to the raid--but after homogenization, these restrictions seem outdated.

Warlock

• New resource is Infernal Embers. As you generate more and more embers, your character slowly ignites, until you're basically a walking torch.
  
• All Warlocks get Shadow Bolt at level 1. At level 40, it will transform based on spec. Affliction--Malefic Grasp, Demonology--Demonic Slash, Destruction--Incinerate.
  
• Like Druids using other forms, they want warlocks to use other pets that aren't tied to their spec.
  
• All pets should be comparable on single-target DPS, with the Felguard as the best AoE pet.
  
• Malefic Grasp is a channelled nuke which increases the damage of your DoTs on the target by increasing their tick rate by 100%.

Warrior

• Intercept replaced by Charge--with talents, Charge should end up feeling the same.
  
• Changes to Rage mechanics in MoP. Some core rotational abilities will generate rage instead of consuming it. Idea is to make Rage more valuable and interesting as a resource.

Check here for the whole transcript!

Spoiler:

Blizzard removing totem from Shaman made me

Other additions:

Q: Sometimes it seems you try to fix 'underpowered' class specs by increasing numbers, rather than trying to solve the underlying issue (like RNG in fire spec: you just increased numbers rather than making the dps more stable)

A: RNG is what you are signing up for when you play Fire. We don't view that as a crippling problem that needs to be fixed. Now there is such a thing as too much RNG, but we don't think Fire is in that spot. Sometimes you'll get a lot of Hot Streak procs etc. and sometimes you'll get less. Our design intent is that if that bothers you, play Frost or Arcane instead. (Obviously the DPS needs to be similar overall for that to feel like a real option.)

Q: Why won't Blizzard hotfix overpowered classes between major content patches more often?
A: Sometimes a spec is genuinely broken and trivializes the other classes. In those cases, we try to address the issue. However, sometimes players just haven't discovered the optimal way to play a particular class. For example, Unholy, Survival and Subtlety have the capability to perform far better than most people realize.
A: To add to that, we do it when we think it is necessary. The community has a tendency to always think balance is the worst it has ever been, but if you look back objectively, it's probably the best it has even been. We also see a tendency for players who lose a PvP engagement or get beaten in DPS by a friend view that things are HORRIBLY OVERPOWERED and then assume everyone agrees with them. Try to keep in mind that forums have a huge echo chamber effect.

TLDR: They may not be as broken as you think.

Q: Why did you pick Blast Wave, Dragon's Breath, and Slow as the level 90 mage talents? Most every other class has gotten new skills at 90. Why put spells we mages get a lower levels at 90?
A: You know, that's an excellent point - we've heard from several people that Mages could use a few more new talents. We'll take a look.

Q: how are you planning to rework glyphs with the new talent system?
A: We're not happy with how Prime glyphs have worked out, and are considering removing them. Don't worry, scribes, if we do this sort of change, we'll keep you heavily in mind; we don't intend to 'nerf' Inscription in any way with this potential change.

Q: What is your plan for dealing with all the interrupts currently in PvP. There is a greater risk/reward for a healer trying to juke an interrupt than their is for a DPS trying to interrupt it. What I mean is, if a healer gets interrupted, they can't heal for 4 secs which is a long time in PvP. But, if a DPS gets juked, the onl punishment the face is the have to wait 10 secs to try again.
A: We want mana to be a finite resource in PvP that you want to spend intelligently. So if you have two healers on either side, the one who spends his/her mana more effectively has an advantage. Because of lot of factors (self healing, too much mana regen, class mechanics) that is diminished a bit. So you shouldn't be killing healers just because you burst them down and keep them interrupted, but because you cause them to have to use mana inefficiently. We aren't there yet, but that's the goal.

Spoiler:

Is it just me or did they completely miss the point of the question?

Q: @Community Managers, Is there any chance of a PVP-focused Q&A in the future? =D
A: It's possible. It all depends on what we feel fits and is relevant to what's going on within the development halls. We'd also like to start doing some live Q&As for Diablo III and StarCraft II as well.

Blizzard overall

Why not post this?

Their effectively killing the classes.

Blizzard makes me sad.

No totems for Shaman? I swear to God only a few months back some Shaman asked when they're going to get rid of totems and GC replied: never.

They don't have a clue what they're doing do they.

I heavily agree with you corp, it felt like they didn't even answer the question.

(Regarding the spoiler)

WE. DONT. FUCKING. WANT. RNG. IN. FIRE.
They are obviously braindead. Who can even think that RNG in multuplayer game is "fun"? Thats why I play LoL - dodge and crit the only 2 RNG numbers in this game and dodge can be countered by items.

I actually like the RNG part of Fire. It's been like that for ages, and for me there's no need to take that away. Will just make it even more boring than it already is.

The only thing I'm worried about is that they still didn't come to their senses and just reset the MMR. How hard can it be to listen for once to 99% of the PvP community. The 1% or those people that make threads about a class being OP when they lost a duel against one.

Comparing 2 very different type of games is never any "good". But if you do then so will I. I'm happy that there's something called Diminishing Returns in WoW.

Daniel wrote:WE. DONT. FUCKING. WANT. RNG. IN. FIRE.
They are obviously braindead. Who can even think that RNG in multuplayer game is "fun"? Thats why I play LoL - dodge and crit the only 2 RNG numbers in this game and dodge can be countered by items.

What was more bothering to me is that the answer they gave was "fire is RNG if you don't like it QQ roll frost because we have no idea how to make fire more appealing"

Fire was very appealing in WotLK. That was also very RNG based. Biggest example was the disarm. And I personally really liked that. You never know what would happen instead of always knowing when you were going to do damage (Frost).

Daniel wrote:WE. DONT. FUCKING. WANT. RNG. IN. FIRE.

The huge RNG on fire is what makes it the amazing spec it is.
Ive always liked RNG on fire and would not want it any other way.

LOL shaman with no totems made my day
thx god i dont play wow anymore

Sorry for Off-topic, but the thing wrong whit fire atm, is that we're shatter dependent. I know there was a spec in wotlk which was also shatter based, but that was more for fighting melee's and playing whit a Frost mage. Though I'm saying this, I haven't actually tried fire Haste spec

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#ec01!bP!YSbhWTedVYd!b

Actually, I'd like to know if its worth speccing and gearing for the haste spec? when you're playing Fx. RMP or MLD as Fire?

WoW dead.GUF dead

This is going to be the best expansion evar