October 05, 2008, 11:03 PM
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#72 (permalink)
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Re: how broken are locks? (extrapolating from ptr)
The only real way to test PVP is in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 (arenas). BG are way too random to have meaning, and balance in BG is more about equal numbers of players (with similar skill & gear).
AJ and others have summarised PVP Warlocks quite well.
Warlocks went from overpowered (unlimited fears) to balanced (S2/3) to completely devestated by melee (S3/4). Key weakness was survivability for pet and self. A 1 shotted pet is difficult to swallow.
Having said this, the whole PVP and PVE balance must be challenging for Blizz, the variables involved are mind boggling.
The only thing I can think of is eliminating some variables.
1) Latency getting blinded from 20yards+ is just stupid; Blizz need to distribute their servers more globally (similar to WAR - which is more PVP focused). This addresses some critical concerns of players. And make the customer experience improve across all aspects of the game (PVP AND PVE). I'm astounded that with access to hosting and such a global market, surely the economics of this would make sense.
2) Separation of PVP stats and PVP stats: This is implemented to a certain extent with resilience, but would make balance easier, or where a PVE item is clearly overpowering in a PVP context, then a consequence to PVP should be applied to the item - such as a negative application of resilience or other vulnerability (i.e. increases the cooldown of CloS). E.g. glaives on rogues.
3) Focus on Paper, rock, sissors (PRS): How does one balance classes? I think that in design they should have an understood (and public) balance system. i.e. for 1v1 80% of time x class will beat y class (all other things equal - i.e. skill/gear); y class beats z class; and z class beats x class. At the moment this has become murky where rogues beat all classes, even warriors more often then not.
4) Focus on synergy: This is where the complexity of the problems kicks in. Do you remove synergy? Or overlay another PRS methodology? After the 1v1 balance is achieved, then synergies need to be managed for 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5. E.g. synergy x > y > z > x.
Sadly we can't really see a clear design or even motivation for WoW PVP. It just appears to be a secondary mini game.
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