Dev Blog: Balance in 1.17.2

[Hctwowfan]

Hmm. Rogues getting access to axes is... weird.
Vanilla wow had this - let's call it "rock paper scissors" of 1h weapon loot distribution where a Hunter could use axe and sword but no maces, Shaman used axe and mace but no swords and Rogues used maces and swords but no axes. I guess that's just me, but this feels iconic to vanilla wow.

[Calli]

Hmm. Rogues getting access to axes is... weird.
Vanilla wow had this - let's call it "rock paper scissors" of 1h weapon loot distribution where a Hunter could use axe and sword but no maces, Shaman used axe and mace but no swords and Rogues used maces and swords but no axes. I guess that's just me, but this feels iconic to vanilla wow.

You are right! I want 2H mace for hunters now!

[Bogyone]

I fear that humans will become the meme race since they don't have any actual racials aside from the weapon skills.
Is it the era of troll/orc dominance?

I guess solution of that issue led to homogenizing everything.;)

[Artashir]

Rogues outside swords specialization, with extra attack, dual swords and windfury in raids doesnt matter.The rest Maces, Fists, are dead for PVE dps. Axes will be where ? in Mace talents or in Swords one? And PvP is a joke with equal geared opponent. Im sad i see no old fix problems , but adding new solutions with inovation, not tested yet.

[Itorch100]

Not a big fan of repairing throwing weapons. While not huge, I still feel it takes away from the RPG aspect, if you can simply "repair" your stock of throwables.

[Jc473]

Not a big fan of repairing throwing weapons. While not huge, I still feel it takes away from the RPG aspect, if you can simply "repair" your stock of throwables.

Yes, completely agree with this!

[Mcpewpew]

I have never encountered a priest that actually uses melee for anything other than striking judged mobs/bosses for mana regain.

It's *very* much a niche use, but melee weaving works quite well while tanking - you can tank a lot of bosses as a Shadow Priest with the right gear.

As it's of no use at all to Priests 99.9% of the time they could just leave the attack power untouched and add something else as well.

[Faustorgo]

So no fixes or enhances to melee hunter, fist weapons talents or pets?, just making an OP Rogue? .. thats really sad, so weekly meeting for that?, sad, hope im wrong with :(

[Chudman123]

So no fixes or enhances to melee hunter, fist weapons talents or pets?, just making an OP Rogue? .. thats really sad, so weekly meeting for that?, sad, hope im wrong with :(

Melee hunter is still being discussed. Axes on rogues was more simple.

[Piacrt]

So no fixes or enhances to melee hunter, fist weapons talents or pets?, just making an OP Rogue? .. thats really sad, so weekly meeting for that?, sad, hope im wrong with :(

There is no scenario in which the current axes in the game make rogues "OP".

[Hoo]

This is not a good change, in my opinion. Part of what makes vanilla interesting is that while the other races are unique looking and have cool (albeit not powerful) racials, humans/orcs are always the go-to for maximum melee damage. This leads to the population of each faction being skewed in favour of these races, which is lore accurate. By removing this reason for players to pick said races, you're changing the composition of guilds/raids away from that.

I understand not wanting players to feel like they HAVE TO pick the main race of each faction in order to "parse", but I believe that's what made original Warcraft so great - the fact that you have a choice (either go for the mainstream race/class and have a gameplay advantage OR go for the off-race/off-class and enjoy being special, but with a drawback); this just removes some of that choice and leads into the same "everyone gets everything" mentality that came with Wrath and further expansions.

Remember, when everyone is special, noone is.

I agree with this statement. The change to WS feels a bit much of a step away from "vanilla", and the vagueness of available information does not put me at ease

[Hoo]

Not a big fan of repairing throwing weapons. While not huge, I still feel it takes away from the RPG aspect, if you can simply "repair" your stock of throwables.

If "repairing throwables" means "we want to make rare quality throwables with stats"- I feel like it's a good tradeoff. But again, it's all so vague that I can't make anything out of it.

[Springboards]

give human every man for himself so that their can be some semblance of pvp balance if youre going to give horde all of alliances best racials

are you nuts? Hell no , I dont want this cataclysm/WOTLK 2.0 with everyone and their mother rolling humans, me fearing and 5 humans just popping their trinkets around me. No buff to human racial, if you want a competitive pvp race you roll dwarf or gnome

[Grimscall]

This is not a good change, in my opinion. Part of what makes vanilla interesting is that while the other races are unique looking and have cool (albeit not powerful) racials, humans/orcs are always the go-to for maximum melee damage. This leads to the population of each faction being skewed in favour of these races, which is lore accurate. By removing this reason for players to pick said races, you're changing the composition of guilds/raids away from that.

I understand not wanting players to feel like they HAVE TO pick the main race of each faction in order to "parse", but I believe that's what made original Warcraft so great - the fact that you have a choice (either go for the mainstream race/class and have a gameplay advantage OR go for the off-race/off-class and enjoy being special, but with a drawback); this just removes some of that choice and leads into the same "everyone gets everything" mentality that came with Wrath and further expansions.

Remember, when everyone is special, noone is.

We're aware that this is exactly the reason players pick these specific races. We want to keep that "niche" of specific races alive while also removing the "I HAVE TO pick this race if I want to be any good at x or y" without resorting to racial-swapping as that plays more into homogenization and the "everyone is special" narrative.

if you do this, then you must give all players the opportunity to change their race for free!

[Vjornex]

The best server in the world

[Nerat]

It's *very* much a niche use, but melee weaving works quite well while tanking - you can tank a lot of bosses as a Shadow Priest with the right gear.

As it's of no use at all to Priests 99.9% of the time they could just leave the attack power untouched and add something else as well.

Do you guys not know that Attack Power increases wand damage too? It's not specifically MELEE Attack Power on Inner Fire, it's general AP, which applies to both. Honestly, I like the current iteration of Inner Fire.

[Xanwow]

I appreciate the risk involved for making big changes like this but it seems like every few months something gets nerfed that affects warriors (at least in this case human ones).

The human class passives are already junk for PVP and now they are taking a hit on the PVE side.

... However, another crucial part of an RPG game is being able to create the character you want to play, without outside reasons such as the meta determining their race and class—a racial weapon skill bonus shouldn't prevent someone from making a Gnome warrior—only good taste should.

I agree with the above sentiment but not the reasoning or the solution. If I want to PVP as a warrior, I would pick orc for the stun resistance or gnome for escape artist. If we really want to tear down barriers between races, there would some sort of system to swap your primary racial for another, not a targeted nerf of a specific meta.

e.g. If gnomes wanted to PVE as warrior, they spend time and effort into swapping escape artist for sword/mace spec.

[Bogyone]

Amazing discussion sparked by announcement "we're linearizing already linear mechanics to make things transparent".

The more I read responses in this thread the more I think that some racials should be deleted from races and relocated to talent trees boosting existing weapon skills boni. Some perhaps grouped and glyphed to have one per character, e.g. Fear Ward in abilities group, crafting or rep boni in utilities group.

But this is result of thinking how to change things that perhaps should be left alone?

[Nonnoanselmo]

the amount of human players coping in the comments shows how weapon skills can affect a choice as important as the model you're going to be looking at for the entirety of your playthrough. I'm so happy i picked orc for my shaman and warrior, i get to look at a really cool model instead of watching literal John Sword the human paladin/rogue/warrior. Enjoy your class change fee and/or your boring model, fellas.

[Geojak]

Weapon skill for everybody

The main reason players are going for weapon skill is to reduce glancing blows.
I found a formula on another forum post: 1 - ((Defense skill – Weapon skill - 5) * 3%)
If this is correct, instead of this "weapon skill for everybody" approach, why not introduce negative defense skill as stat?


Humans gonna be extinct

Every forum "wow expert" doomer forget that there are other players and perspectives as well. Just because you are the majority here, and reinforcing eachother, means nothing. You are the same type of guys who predicted that nordanaar going to die when the pvp server is out. What about the human reputation bonus, it is insanely good as well. Oh you are into this minmaxing dps 7/24 gameplay, ok, but please dont project it.

Rouges with axes

Something smells FISHY here. Not that im against it, but ironic how changing a shaman trinket to give 6 mp5 instead of 4 is a monthy debate probably within the CC and the devs, while giving rouges a notable change that wasn't even necessary. Again, cool change, but the primary reading of this on my behalf is that "we only care about classes and specs that we or friends play". This might not be true, but the previous paladin changes cast a shadow to any class changes.

While glancing are one reason, getting +3%hit from 5 skill feels even more massive to me. Changing the formula is a good thing

[Piacrt]

the amount of human players coping in the comments shows how weapon skills can affect a choice as important as the model you're going to be looking at for the entirety of your playthrough. I'm so happy i picked orc for my shaman and warrior, i get to look at a really cool model instead of watching literal John Sword the human paladin/rogue/warrior. Enjoy your class change fee and/or your boring model, fellas.

Yes cuz its totally cool to make only 2 weapons BiS for everyone at the end game, instead of variation based on race.

High elf rogue here and I am against this change.

[Eversongwoods]

Rogues aren't good in twow for a few reasons so they threw em a bone and gave them axes, i dont see a issue with this. I imagine a 49 twink rogue with a couple of flurry axes would be pretty sweet.

[Zorgdarkness]

However, another crucial part of an RPG game is being able to create the character you want to play, without outside reasons such as the meta determining their race and class—a racial weapon skill bonus shouldn't prevent someone from making a Gnome warrior—only good taste should.

Love that you support the idea that people want to create characters based on how they look rather than what they are forced to choose by the game based on minmaxing. Do you have plans for priests being able to choose their race spell?

[Xudo]

2. make glancing blows unavoidable

Making Glancing Blows unavoidable ("expertise" contribution of +weapskill already not working on emu) will make +weaponskill a pointless stat unless you are a dual wielder and even so the damage output impact would be lower than other stats. As you correctly said, better nerf 2 classes damage output (mainly warrios, but also rogues) than boost all the others.

Probably the best "balancing" solution.

Regarding "expertise" contribution. Assuming that attack table code is same as in vMangos, It works for dodge and block, but don't work for parry. I did research about it some time ago here. Short conclusions:
First of all, melee DPS should hit boss from behind. Mobs don't parry and don't block from behind. Only dodge. If melee DPS attack boss from the front, then they increase chance of boss to get parry and reduce delay until next attack. (read like "hit from front = kill your own tank faster"). Boss chance to parry is 14%.
Being orc with axe with edgemaster (+12 axe skill total) will reduce enemy chance to dodge from 6.5 to 5.3 (0.1% per point).
For block it is too 0.1% per point, but should not happen in DPS situation.
For parry it is effectively ignored in case of bosses (+3 levels above player).

Miss chance is basic 5% plus dual wield penalty 19% minus skill diff.
Skill diff against boss +3 level is 300-315=-15 and is reduced by weapon skill of attacker. UPD: reorder arguments here, because skill diff is calculated by substracting defense from weapon.
For orc with axe skill diff will be -10.
For orc with axe with edgemaster actual skill diff will be 312-315 = -3. UPD: add calculation here
Without any skill bonuses if will be 300-315 = -15.
If skill diff less than -10, then this value multipled by 0.2%. If skill diff is greater or equal to -10, then its value multiplied by 0.1%

orc with dual axes with edgemaster get
5%+19%-(-3*0.1%)=24%+0.6%=24.3% to miss. UPD: fixed values here
without any skill bonuses character get
5%+19%-(-15*0.2%)=24%+3%=27% to miss UPD: fixed values here

Weapon skill for everybody
The main reason players are going for weapon skill is to reduce glancing blows.
I found a formula on another forum post: 1 - ((Defense skill – Weapon skill - 5) * 3%)
If this is correct, instead of this "weapon skill for everybody" approach, why not introduce negative defense skill as stat?

While glancing are one reason, getting +3%hit from 5 skill feels even more massive to me. Changing the formula is a good thing

Actual formulas are super complex and is very nuanced than this.
There is minimum cap of skill, which is +5. If you have less than +5, then you get less.
If you attack enemy from behind, then your chances are:

total + skill	player chance to miss	enemy chance to dodge	enemy chance to block	enemy chance to parry	increase chance to score hit
+0	27%	6.5%	0%	0%	0%
+1	26.8%	6.4%	0%	0%	0.3%
+2	26.6%	6.3%	0%	0%	0.6%
+3	26.4%	6.2%	0%	0%	0.9%
+4	26.2%	6.1%	0%	0%	1.2% (0.3 per point)
+5	25%	6%	0%	0%	2.5% (0.5 per point)
+6	24.9%	5.9%	0%	0%	2.7%
+7	24.8%	5.8%	0%	0%	2.9%
+8	24.7%	5.7%	0%	0%	3.1%

If you attack enemy from front (tank situation), then your chances are:

total + skill	player chance to miss	enemy chance to dodge	enemy chance to block	enemy chance to parry	increase chance to score hit
+0	27%	6.5%	6.5%	14%	0%
+1	26.8%	6.4%	6.4%	14%	0.4%
+2	26.6%	6.3%	6.3%	14%	0.8%
+3	26.4%	6.2%	6.2%	14%	1.2%
+4	26.2%	6.1%	6.1%	14%	1.6% (0.4% per point)
+5	25%	6%	6%	14%	3% (0.6% per point)
+6	24.9%	5.9%	5.9%	14%	3.3%
+7	24.8%	5.8%	5.8%	14%	3.6%
+8	24.7%	5.7%	5.7%	14%	3.9%

While attacking from front you get more effect of +skill, note that you also get 5%+14% of additional enemy blocks and parries.

disclaimer: take this with grain of salt, stuff is so complex, so I might be wrong. But I did my best, so you can trust it more than random formula on the internet.

May be turtle devs want to eliminate this 10 skill difference condition. You'll either get like 0.1% of hit per point of skill added or removed.

UPD: double checked my calculations and found that I incorrectly calculated chances to dodge/block and miss.
I should substract mob defense from weapon skill. For player vs boss result is negative value. Then I should substract negative value from basic 5% chance. I fixed values in table. So in effect, it actually add 3% of "hit" from +5 skill if you attack mob from the front and 2.5% if you attack from behind.

[Zulnam]

Touching on weapon proficency racials 20 years after the fact, ufff. That's gonna be a hot potato; and one that's likely to upset your most devoted player base: end game raiders.

We'll see how it goes but i think it could've maybe bee tackled after class balance changes. Doing it now feels like you're giving yourself more plates to spin than necessary.

[Templar85]

Reading all the comments realizing the root conflict here. The server started and advertised as an RP server but later gathered mass crowd of serous pve focused and min maxer crowd. Also not forget the PVP/arena crowd whom write at every talent or skill improvement post that: !!Don't do it what about the pvp aspect!!

Turtle has to favour 3 types of crowds:

• RP ers, casuals, altoholics

• serious pve ers,

• pvp, arena, bg focused crowd.

I didn't do any research but my idea and experience 1.5 year on the server is this.

• 50% serious pve ers

• 25% RP ers, casuals, altoholics

• 25% pvp, arena, bg focused crowd

For Pve perspective Alliance had to choose human and Horde had to choose orc, troll. It is a good idea to not force them to a specific race anymore. This also means the racials have to rework, redesigns. Make brand new ones. I have an idea. Lets say every race can have 5 racials, 2 are hardwired to their race and 3 are chooseable, learnable out of a poll of 15 racials. Have to get rid of useless or greatly improve racials like Nightelf shadowmeld. These 15 racials should equally balanced.

[Babrakadabra]

Make ele shaman spells do less dmg for less mana.
Nerf Warlocks.
Make pvp trinkets work against traps, Death coil.

also nerf orc stunn resist to 20%
And make bigger range for warrior's charge.
(I play both faction)

[Templar85]

Numerous other private servers handling this situation by providing a choose able complete racial swap. Turtle can be unique by not just following this path, but improving it by the idea I wrote. The devs who says turtle needs to keep their root vanilla gameplay I saying this: Yes have to keep to vanilla style, but still can be improved much. SoD launch and player count showed people want moderate (but not retail level cancer) changes and they swap where they can get it.

[Rafale]

Make ele shaman spells do less dmg for less mana.
Nerf Warlocks.
Make pvp trinkets work against traps, Death coil.
idc else
also nerf orc stunn resist to 20%

Ally spotted

[Likaleo]

Hmm. Rogues getting access to axes is... weird.
Vanilla wow had this - let's call it "rock paper scissors" of 1h weapon loot distribution where a Hunter could use axe and sword but no maces, Shaman used axe and mace but no swords and Rogues used maces and swords but no axes. I guess that's just me, but this feels iconic to vanilla wow.

How does work for alliance side tho? Pala can use mace/axe/sword ? I think thats just you when rogue use weapon to actually hit and not statstick like hunter does

[Xudo]

table with chances to dodge, miss and block

I double checked my calculations and found that I incorrectly calculated chances to dodge/block and miss.
I should substract mob defense from weapon skill. For player vs boss result is negative value. Then I should substract negative value from basic 5% chance. I fixed values in table. So in effect, it actually add 3% of hit from +5 skill if you attack mob from the front and 2.5% of hit if you attack from behind.

[Bogyone]

Hi Xudo, isn't it all already calculated for us on Nostalrius: Weapon skill from 300 to 323 and the implications therein.

[Dragunovi]

Not a big fan of repairing throwing weapons. While not huge, I still feel it takes away from the RPG aspect, if you can simply "repair" your stock of throwables.

If "repairing throwables" means "we want to make rare quality throwables with stats"- I feel like it's a good tradeoff. But again, it's all so vague that I can't make anything out of it.

This change does make throwing weapons more sensible as drops when they don't just disappear when they are fully expended so they're much more plausible to add in future content, especially with stats (as we already added stats to the few non-common throwing weapons that exist.)

[Mac]

Not a big fan of repairing throwing weapons. While not huge, I still feel it takes away from the RPG aspect, if you can simply "repair" your stock of throwables.

In a tabletop RPG you can recover thrown weapons after a battle. They don’t just deplete after one throw like they do in the current game. Depending on your GM a portion of your thrown weapons could be lost or damaged after throwing them, which I feel being able to repair them actually emulates better than having them just disappear completely on single use.

[Thelleria]

Honestly: I do not like the nerf of weapon skills!

I had perfered another way to balance this for endgame!

We have the Bow Skillbook in Hayal!

Why not offer skillbooks as raid loot? Or as a reward for a class or weapon mastery questline?

I think there are other ways to balance this without buchering the weaponskills and racial bonusses.