Hermit Crab & Twilight Meteorite nerf on the cards?

[Rosqo-silvermoon (Rosqo)]

After facing hundreds of these pets or abilities that are over the regular stat budget I’m hoping 8.2 is going to be the time these are brought back into line.

The Hermit Crab can retain its speed and have similar stats to the Rebuilt Mechanical Spider.

Twilight Meteorite can be brought into line with Carpnado, Thunderbolt etc.

Struggle to see why these were implemented at their current levels unless by mistake.

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

I’m sure they weren’t typing errors when someone was filling the database, if that’s what you mean.

Twilight Meteorite was a pretty typical dev manoeuvre:

Patch 7.0: “Meteor-type attacks are too powerful. They should not be so powerful. Nerf 'em all!” (wild cheers from PvP battlers)

Patch 7.3: “We’ve got a great new idea! A Meteor-type nuke! On a Dragonkin, so you can use it on the buff round!! You’re gonna love it!” (stunned silence)

Honestly, I can do nothing but grin at that one.

They’ll nerf it, sure, but not until 9.0. (And, IMO, they should not nerf it before then. Yes, I agree it needs a nerf, and should not have been introduced that way, but I don’t believe it is appropriate to make balancing changes mid-expansion. I already know your mileage differs on that.)

Two other things in BfA bother me, though.

The aberration in Base Stats for the Hermit Crab and Boghopper undercut my sense that the pet game, PvE or PvP, has integrity. Granted, Boghopper doesn’t have the impact of Hermit, but ever since the introduction of both of them, I have felt I was playing a rigged game. I want both of them to conform to the structures of the game.

Not gameplay, but the destruction of the Emperor Crab’s model, and its replacement with something out of a '50s B-movie further makes me feel that the game is not being taken seriously.

I know that the devs are devoting decent resources to pets, and I hope and believe that pets are paying back in the form of Hours Of Bums On Seats that has been the standard metric of the entertainment industry since Aristophanes. Still, both of these leave me feeling that their sense of what pets should be is shaky.

[Remte-burning-legion (Remte)]

It’s been talked about since they’ve been revealed. Me, you, the OP… One’d think enough of this. But IMO, it is not.
I fully agree that broken foundations and declarations feel disturbing and I can’t fathom how there is not a constant outrage.
Maybe because they’re not promotional pets like Tottle, 2016 murlocs, or Graves?

On a contrary, I wish content creators avoided making too much use of them. Highlighting the problem is all welcome and showing the consequences is necessary for the historical sincerity, but getting too accustomed with the advantage renders the original message null and produces unnecessary tension should the fix finally arrive. The moveset issues such like of Water Spirit or Teroclaw Hatchling might be somewhat subjective and I’ve never minded what was going on back then, but the obviously pumped up numbers seem to be more difficult to defend.

[Rosqo-silvermoon (Rosqo)]

I think that there are two types of nerfs.

One is tweaking abilities as an ongoing process as and when required. They did this with things like Early Advantage and Consume Corpse. No one noticed these changes and if Twilight Meteorite is changed like that brought into line with other abilities its a massive positive. It stands as an outlier compared to other abilities of its kind with the same CD. Technically I think every AOE introduced in the same patch as Twilight Meteorite could have its damage level looked at. The same could apply to Hermit Crab just bring it in line with the standard. This would also never be an issue with overbudget abilities or stats if they were set correctly initially.

The second way to nerf would be a review of family racials and overpowered/underpowered abilities. Potentially impacting multiple pets and families. This I agree should only be once an expansion.

There were already Dragonkin with split aoe prior to TCS. It was more likely lazy design to attempt and balance a weak family. If they want to buff Dragonkin give them minefield or something like that right? Actually think about what could work with their racial and not be broken on any pet. The same with Hermit Crab any pet with those stats would be overpowered it’s a lazy way to buff a family by adding extra stats.

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

Well I confess that while I believe balancing changes should not happen during an expansion, I would not be walking up and down outside Blizzard Central holding a protest sign if Twilight Meteorite got a chop from 50 power to 33, like Carpnado or Thunderbolt.

And of course I would cheer on any Blizzard Van Helsing who drove a stake through the blackened heart of those evil stat mutations.

But I have no belief that it’s gunna happen.

[Remte-burning-legion (Remte)]

Not all decisions are as easy though.
I for one think that relative power of the existing abilities, while helpful, is not enough to ensure stability.
It’s okay to say that “a standard repeatable ability hits for 20” or “a very impactful move has at least 8rCD”, but for now, I don’t agree that it can be done for every aspect.

I am afraid that any big change at this point, such as Rosqo’s latter examples, should be a nigh-ultimate which helps to understand the core and avoid discrepancies in the future. Although judging by the class development, this may be a task longer than an account’s lifetime.

There was that one “whoa” in Warlords when accuracy gaps were removed from non-niche abilities. A welcome change? I think so. But as a consequence it removed the importance of hit buffs while giving nothing in return as far as player’s agency is concerned.

So personally, while I would speak of many, many things, it seems to be futile to me for now and not just because it will be gone in the archives. I think I need to process it like a some forgotten Keeper whose software has been not updated for ages!