World Buffs & Cross-faction Stacking Rules

[Torta]

Greetings!

This has been asked a lot, so we have decided it's time to run a server-wide community poll on the following matter:

Should we remove world buffs from raids at the present state of server progression and should we make Shaman's totems + Paladin's blessings stack at the same time?

We have listed our personal take on the positive and negative effects this change would have on the gameplay. Please read it and consider if you support this idea or not.

Positive effects of this change on the community and gameplay:

1. Removal of world buffs reduces the overall power creep that is attained by the players where it matters most: The raids. While this is mainly a gear issue world buffs provide the following to every member of the raid that attains them: +18% Spell Crit, +10% Melee Crit, 340 Attack Power, +10 Mana every 5 seconds, +15 Flat, and 15% increase to All Stats, +300 Health equal to 30 Stamina, +15% Melee Attack Speed and +10% Movement Speed. This is without adding Eastern Plaguelands tower control, mind control Fire Resistance and Silithyst buffs, so buffs the average raider attains before heading off to a raid. This change will hit melee physical DPS classes more due to their stat scaling being much more powerful compared to other classes, reducing the power discrepancy between the best and the worst DPS specializations, and allowing more variety in the roster.

2. Removal of the bottleneck that turned Orgrimmar and Stormwind into the primary cities, especially for raiders that desire to acquire head buffs, making other cities more popular and utilized. Furthermore removing them is a necessity for clearing content as dictated by some guilds.

3. Blessing and totem stacking further alleviate the mana problems that hybrids have by allowing the stacking of Blessing of Wisdom and Mana Spring Totem, while removing the lacklusterness of totems removing blessings being a clunky and mostly unknown mechanic.

4. Allows Restoration Shaman's last cornerstone talent Mana Tide Totem to be viable again due to the totem not removing Blessing of Wisdom and overall netting less mana overall because you lose the blessing's constant mana regeneration.

5. The concept of world buffs being used for raids was pretty unliked by old Blizzard as well due to being something that was originally added as something they thought as flavorful being used in such a manner, which put a stop to the concept in TBC when they saw a few guilds utilizing them for endgame raids near the end of Vanilla where the only world buff in the expansion is removed upon entering an instance along with the older Vanilla ones.

Negative effects of this change on the community and gameplay:

1. Totem and Blessing stacking will allow some pretty powerful shenanigans such as Windfury and Blessing of Kings stacking, doubt threat reduction stacking with Tranquil Air Totem and Blessing of Salvation but these things will still be overshadowed by the sheer power of world buffs which will reduce the player power until their first wipe where it's assumed the world buffs are lost.

2. Some raids that provide these buffs such as Onyxia's Lair might lose some importance due to the necessity of getting the items that grant these world buffs gets reduced.

3. New and casual players in the raiding scene might feel that its unfair towards them that the older raider base got to utilize world buffs' power and they didn't get to, which also makes it harder to get into the raiding scene without having world buffs to make up for overall weaker equipment for fresh level 60s, also making raids feel like much more of a hassle and timesink due to the loss of power which will likely be unwelcome by the general raider base.

4. The subscene of raiding that is dedicated to speed-running raids will get slower due to the overall power decrease.

5. There will be less reasons for max-level characters to venture out into the world to places such as Felwood, at least until there is more content to incentivize it, which will increase the amount of rapid logging and main city AFKing until then.

6. The Chronoboon Displacer will become less useful, only being good for holding world buffs to use for outdoor content and other world activities.

The reason for these changes are being considered together is due to the fact the application of these things separately will cause a massive power influx in both ways depending on the change, which made it necessary for us to do them at the same time or not at all.

Note: world buffs would still affect characters in the open world, but they wouldn't work inside the raids.

[Suggney]

My vote is on the maintenance of world buffs while letting totems and blessings stack. Let us have some fun with it!

[Balake]

The vote for world buffs and the vote for shaman+pally stacking must be split, combining the two into one vote forces people to choose the "lesser of two evils" and not what they really want.

[Triana]

why not keep wbuffs and add paladin and shaman interaction so both parties can be satisfied; holding shaman and paladin interactions hostage behind wbuff removal is kinda... sus

also most of the non 60s will vote yes because 1. they cant raid and 2. sham/pal interactions weigh more when they are out and about, so you will get a disproportionate amount of 'yes'

then they all quit once they finally hit 60 because of twow 'raid tuning' and the regulars get stuck being shafted with 12h raids instead of 2h, and those quit because lol aint nobody got time for that


hyperbole etc

[Balake]

"This change will hit melee physical DPS classes more due to their stat scaling being much more powerful compared to other classes, reducing the power discrepancy between the best and the worst DPS specializations, allowing more variety in the roster."

this is wrong. If you want to raid as a moonkin, ele shaman, ret paladin, PLEASE READ THIS>

Removing world buffs makes raids harder, harder raids force the raid to stack good specs to kill the bosses. With world buffs, the dps is already high so the raid can bring their friends with "meme" (weak) specs and still be able to clear the raid without problems.

[Chlo]

Please phrase this as the two different questions it should be

chlo/isabel

[Bloodphobos]

Voted for removing WB in raids.
And what about poison+WF stack? Strong WF forces rogues not to use poisons in raids, when there is WF

[Kaporalhart]

My vote is that i don't play shaman nor paladin, and since i enjoy leveling the most, who cares about what happens in raids.

[Torta]

The reason for these changes being considered together is due to the fact the application of these things separately will cause a massive power influx in both ways depending on the change, which made it necessary for us to do them at the same time or not at all.

[Suggney]

The reason for these changes being considered together is due to the fact the application of these things separately will cause a massive power influx in both ways depending on the change, which made it necessary for us to do them at the same time or not at all.

you already gave us band of calamity, melee game bis given the fact the raid bosses on turtle use tbc armor values

even if you don't agree with keeping and stacking, give us the option for clarity.

[Dualityz]

My vote is on the maintenance of world buffs while letting totems and blessings stack. Let us have some fun with it!

Agreed. If needed you could buff up some bosses, but more gameplay options are always better than less IMHO.

[Fourcageman]

Removing world buffs removes alot of fun for people trying to clear raids quicker and also removes people progressing that wanne use some buffs to help them on a new boss so removing them just takes a part of the game away if you wanne remove world buffs maybe just start with song flower dmt/warchief and see how everyone feels about that since those are the most time consuming

Totems/blessings
again start maybe small that wf doesnt remove kings/might
but str totem still does
and salv gets removed with tranq totem
and mana totem either still gets removed and tide works or both work
Eiterway a big thing would be if we dont get blessing stacking is that if you have a sharp stone/oil on weap kings dont get knocked off
so anyone in a sham group doesnt get griefed by sham doing WF totem makes it way easier to sort groups for raid leaders

[Snakeman]

Even if this were just a "should we remove world buffs upon zoning into a raid" poll my vote would 100% be a yes. It does feel good to go zug zug with everything up at one time, but the amount of effort you must sink into preparing for raids and preserving them until it's time to actually raid never felt worth it to me. It's a chore, and making totems and blessings stack on top of it would be an absolute treat as a shaman player. Full support on both ends.

[Luminiera]

agreed on balake pls torta

[Oonadruidqueen]

Emergent gameplay that world buffs resulted in isnt fun. And is keeping classes from their fully potential.
To the ‘just dont use them crowd’
You cant buff some of the meme specs because they buff other specs too much. World Buffs are a variable that can be removed to allow content and classes to be better balanced. Its the first step towards more freedom.

[Triana]

The reason for these changes being considered together is due to the fact the application of these things separately will cause a massive power influx in both ways depending on the change, which made it necessary for us to do them at the same time or not at all.

and power influx is bad because... all the billion hour-experienced players shave a little more time every week and what was once herding 40 cats is now herding a slightly different set of 40 cats a little quicker?

or its bad because... all the new players get a boost to learn ancient game mechanics with a little 'safety net' and thats a no-no? we should let them grind their faces for 16h straight - truly i love hazing these newcomers yes indeed

hyperbole etc

[Zamnilisback89]

To remove world buffs is plainly foolish, all this would result in is a harder stacking of classes for raiding, allowing shaman and paladin buffs to stack narrows the field since you advantage warriors and rogues a hell of a lot more than casters like this. You now open up double threat reduction and WF/BoK/M stacked warrior and rogue groups, you now have less reason to take more than a token group of casters and druids.

[Celaris]

this change will hurt raid teams in endgame content significantly. Our raid team has trouble finding any shamans and we use world buffs + pally buffs so this will just make things way harder for us. If this change happens our raid team will probably disband on turtle wow. This change won't even compensate for the loss of world buffs even if we did have shaman because filling the shaman spots with actual dps will always be better than shammy totems + blessing stacking. This also significantly increases the power gap between warriors and other classes.

[Killwind]

Side thought - Could you make it so Chronoboon saves potion buffs, then? Often, after clearing a raid, there are a lot of timers still running.

[Phoenixphire]

People don't understand this at all. The increases world buffs gives hand cuff the devs when creating new content. If they design it around world buffs then without them its impossible as they are such massive increases which isn't good design. If they design it without world buffs in mind, people who use world buffs will destroy the content easy. This is a super easy choice, world buffs are fun and killing bosses in 40 seconds is hilarious, but it isn't good for the game. I played classic and seed ran at a very high level, so I have experience in the world buff meta and culture, it isn't good for the health of wow's endgame.

Down with world buffs

[Sbwbabel]

Removal of World buffs and stacking blessings / totems will only push the raiders further into META compositions and not make a more inviting META for hybrids nor casters! You'd end up bringing no hybrids, no mages, 1 lock, full melee. Hybrids NEED BOTH to be viable!

[Balake]

People don't understand this at all. The increases world buffs gives hand cuff the devs when creating new content. If they design it around world buffs then without them its impossible as they are such massive increases which isn't good design. If they design it without world buffs in mind, people who use world buffs will destroy the content easy. This is a super easy choice, world buffs are fun and killing bosses in 40 seconds is hilarious, but it isn't good for the game. I played classic and seed ran at a very high level, so I have experience in the world buff meta and culture, it isn't good for the health of wow's endgame.

Down with world buffs

It's easy to disable world buffs for only the new custom raid, this is a non-issue. Other raids were made with world buffs in mind. There is a reason Patchwerk is THE gear check raid boss and it's in the beginning of naxx

[Fourcageman]

People don't understand this at all. The increases world buffs gives hand cuff the devs when creating new content. If they design it around world buffs then without them its impossible as they are such massive increases which isn't good design. If they design it without world buffs in mind, people who use world buffs will destroy the content easy. This is a super easy choice, world buffs are fun and killing bosses in 40 seconds is hilarious, but it isn't good for the game. I played classic and seed ran at a very high level, so I have experience in the world buff meta and culture, it isn't good for the health of wow's endgame.

Down with world buffs

or they can just not let world buffs work in new dungeons so they dont have to do that or like alot other privates do make world buffs not work in a new raid for the first 1-2 months

[Triana]

People don't understand this at all. The increases world buffs gives hand cuff the devs when creating new content. If they design it around world buffs then without them its impossible as they are such massive increases which isn't good design. If they design it without world buffs in mind, people who use world buffs will destroy the content easy. This is a super easy choice, world buffs are fun and killing bosses in 40 seconds is hilarious, but it isn't good for the game. I played classic and seed ran at a very high level, so I have experience in the world buff meta and culture, it isn't good for the health of wow's endgame.

Down with world buffs

just balance new raids around aq40 tbh, most people will not see naxx - remember the gaussian distribution

and balance new dungeons around ubrs instead of aq40 like they were kek

hyperbole etc

[Devitara]

Any chance this vote could be opened for guilds that raid on this server? I'm suspicious the majority of these votes are coming from non-raiders or raiders that haven't had a guild run Naxx on Turtle WoW.

[Fourcageman]

Any chance this vote could be opened for guilds that raid on this server? I'm suspicious the majority of these votes are coming from non-raiders or raiders that haven't had a guild run Naxx on Turtle WoW.

Agree there are 3-4 naxx raids on this server and everyone knows the private 1.12 naxx is alot harder and more anoying then classic where it was legit free loot

[Yirman]

I support the change to removing World Buffs in raids and having Blessings+Totems stack.

I have yet to reach endgame on Turtle WoW, but I played through all of Classic, and while having world buffs felt rather fun in the moment, the time and preparation of gathering all of then with minimal timer loss getting summoned everywhere etc was less than ideal in my opinion, and the negativity caused from occasional, accidental wipes could ruin the atmosphere for the rest of the evening. It was common, when world buffs were lost, that people got frustrated and stopped trying for the rest of the evening. My hope is that people will keep trying for the entire evening even despite the event of a wipe.

[Temperance]

Any chance this vote could be opened for guilds that raid on this server? I'm suspicious the majority of these votes are coming from non-raiders or raiders that haven't had a guild run Naxx on Turtle WoW.

Yes, please poll up-and-coming raiding guilds. My guild clears Naxx already, so removing world buffs wouldn't negatively impact us as much as it would impact new raids. A new guild that doesn't already have Naxx gear will have a much harder time.

Totem/Blessing stacking and world buffs should be separate polls.

[Duckie]

Going to chime in to make a case for both changes being part of the same poll.
World Buffs currently set the ceiling for how powerful a raid can be, and effectively act as a multiplier. Any changes to the base power, ie. shammies and pallies getting along, will just be exacerbated at the top by world buffs. So this change gives all raids a buff in base power, while dropping the top end dramatically.

With regard to newer guilds / raids struggling on some bosses and using World Buffs as a crutch to get over them, this could be argued as a concern. As many other groups got where they are now using them. But it could also be argued that this wasn't intended, and what they did was cheesing the encounter somewhat. It also meant that most progress attempts stopped after the 1 big world buff try, whereas now they would have incentive to stay going and (hopefully) stay improving.

Honestly, I'm not here to pass judgement. Dead boss is dead boss, however you got it. But I would like to see what raiding is like with this new best of both worlds set of buffs. Who knows, it could be fun. :)

[Thol]

I agree with this change, World Buffs meta is too sweaty imo, forcing raiders to do extra work and putting pressure on anyone making a mistake because of fear of wiping early and wasting them.

This will negatively impact Naxx speedrunners, but it's 1% of the population, it would be a mistake to design content around the 1% like Blizzard did imo.

Even if new raiders will have a harder time without world buffs, there would be less toxicity caused by World Buffs meta, which is better in my mind.

This change impacting meme specs is another matter, I believe this change will allow the developers to design content more easily and buff under-performing specs accordingly.
Over-performing specs should be nerfed as well imo looks at fury warrior tank but that's another topic.

[Geojak]

As a paladin I am enlightet at the possibility of not having to work around shamans anymore.

As an entry level raider I am happy for World buff removal, since I personally don't enjoy world buff gathering and not being able to play my raid rdy main when not using chronoboost.

But I can see the issue in naxx, that is ultra long raids, and meme specc not allowed due to this.

But I am sure this can be solved. The ceiling was just lifted to the sky. Meme speccs can be buffed, warriors are nerfed and its OK if meme specc offer more support for groups with warriors now.

This change will allow for alot for freedom of changes in the future, and possible negative side effects could be addressed.

Thank you torta for the post and poll.

[Lunkdunk]

Removal of World buffs and stacking blessings / totems will only push the raiders further into META compositions and not make a more inviting META for hybrids nor casters! You'd end up bringing no hybrids, no mages, 1 lock, full melee. Hybrids NEED BOTH to be viable!

Exactly this. And the best shaman spec is resto, pushing out other healers.

[Novola]

Removing world buffs, and shammy and paladin buffs stack BEST IDEA EVER!

100% support.

[Zyrael]

I think allowing world buffs in some raids would be fine.
For example if you are raiding AQ40 and Naxx - you should be able to get world buffed to quickily get through MC and BWL for those few items people still need, Tear, DFT, Thunderfury etc.

[Tentaclos101]

No world buffs in raids will keep away some of the toxicity Classic brought (hard to find anyone on the server demanding world buffs, but anyways), and the pala-shammy buffs stacking would mean more of these classes getting added to the raid roster together