There are a few things needing balance anyways. Blizzard made it into e-sport while completely ignoring balance.
Some classes/specs are still just not viable
Prot warrior making insane dps
Shroud - well, invi potions shouldn’t share CD with dps pots
Class de/buffs - 3% difference buff vs scroll
Combat ress classes - somewhat mitigated by engineering
Underrot 1st boss/Shrine 2nd boss - good luck doing that with 2 ranged lacking interrupts. There shouldn’t be bosses requiring you to use so frequent interrupts
But that is not always true.
Not only is BDK still viable, most low-mid level PUGs would benefit way more from having a monk or BDK tank than a prot warrior, they don’t need more DPS they just need more sustain/utility to survive bigger pulls.
Everyone is asking for prot warrior in +10-+15s while those players are so uncoordinated that they can’t benefit from the extra damage but would rather benefit from having a tank that has permanent mitigation.
tank takes less dmg -> healer can focus on dps standing in bad -> less dead people -> faster keys.
If you want to balance the game for the average +10-+15, prot isn’t overpowered.
It’s when you get into the top 0.1% (I’d say 18+) where even 1k more overall dps is more important than mitigation, cause you can reach nearly 100% mitigation uptime if you can call for externals from your healer and dps can properly kick/stun priority targets.
It actually doesn’t indicate that something is wrong. It indicates that in the absolute cutting edge of m+ some classes have better utility than others.
Don’t try to make a case for class balance by looking at the absolute peak of m+.
It does indicate that something is wrong.
Because top players wants wprot/rdruid/outlaw all other players will go with the flow. Because its just easier to go with meta comp
And it does mean you can’t go 2x ranged (unless you have shaman) for pushing 18+ because of underrot and shrine.
And it does mean you just have to have rogue. Then you have to get 2nd melee, still need that one combat ress.
Warrior mitigation is actually still pretty strong since we’re actively incentivised to use our CDs as part of our rotation (Anger Management, Bolster).
Double shield block, Last Stand, double shield block is almost a full minute of block uptime every other pack. Not that we even need 100% block uptime because our raw mitigation (dodge/parry/block) is so high anyway. I’m at like 70% avoidance… 45% of the time, I’m taking 0 damage from a melee swing and 24% of the time I’m only taking half… We also have ignore pain to smoothen out that 30% of the time I’m taking full damage.
Also, demoralising shout is a flat 20% damage reduction that even mediocre prot warriors can get 50% uptime on, with well practised warriors getting 75%.
Yes, i’ve waited over an hour for our feral druid, not because the class is 2-10% better than another class but because the person playing it is better that 90% of the playerbase.
And if people would bother to open RIO and check class representation they’d notice it aint that bad. If you look at the 10-14 bracket Most classes are around 8ish% prepresentation. The winner being druid with around 12% and mage the looser with around 6% DK around 6,5% as well. So what makes people think blizzard needs to rebalance everything? Because the top .5% of the playerbase favour certain classes? because they’re that tiny bit better at the high end? Most of us will never ever get close to doing the content where that is needed. So why should we let their class choice have ANY influence over us? It is not until 20+ where you see a severe class inbalance. So if you’re a person doing 2-15 keys, play what ever you want, it does not matter at that level. Ones you get to 15 and above, you start seeing more and more of certain classes, but as i said, it’s not till +20 that we’re down to 4 classes, being warrior, druid, DH and Rogue.
The % of people that do only 10-14 are either alts doing their weeklies, or casuals doing it only for weekly chest, that’s what makes those big representation, those people don’t give a single poop about balancing, or what their class is able to do or not.
If we’re here caring, it means we tried to push beyond 16-17 but we hit a wall, a wall created by those fotm classes in which they’re so broken compared to the others, that they became mandatory.
Yes, i’m pretty sure i can push with my non fotm class, but people want easy answers to their questions “rogue op? then rogue it is”, so good luck finding spots if you don’t have dedicated close friends, to literally carry you at this point, every community recruit like this now “need rogue, rdruid and war tank” for 18s and more, and the more it goes the more it affects lower and lower keys, because copying is easier.
And come on, anyone who thinks rogues are just a “tiny bit” better than others is being delusional at this point.
I think you’re overstimating the skills of the playerbase.
There are tons of people who are far from causal for which a 10 is already a huge challenge.
What did you expect exactly? Competitive games ppl always will go with the best possible comps no matter what its about.
Pretty sure its the same in pvp too. There is a comp thats better than the rest and on big competition not the class will decide since everyone is playing the same but the skills of the players in it.
Or i looked at my boyfriend watching some competitive overwatch one day i think. Both teams had same comps.
This even applies to raids.
Needs lots of soaking bad stuff? Ppl took rogues. Or just the Zul strategy to tunnel the boss with multiple sub rogues on world first progress because they could have all the adds stacked up and sub would just shuriken storm+ eviscerate.
Or ghuun where you wanted 4 warlocks for the portals and a lot of groups used 2 mw monks just to help rogues and boomkins shadowstep and wild charge up halfway instead of running all the way.
Legion MDI was not much different. For beating BRH for example, most groups took an arcane mage for the spellsteal add and then deleted bosses with it carrying the add with them.
This wont change no matter what you do, something will always be ever so slightly better at doing something and top players will use that. You just cant make it all perfectly balanced. Especially not on speedruns which are these 18s about.
These groups usually time 24s ffs.
Slightly better is not a million miles ahead better, opens up other possible comps.
If rogue dps wasn’t this insane but average or slightly below average, i’m sure some teams will have brought 2 rogue + ww for double shroud but i’m also sure some others would have choose different comps going all in on dmg sacrificing utilities.
Quite simple solution… just delete the rogue class, since it basicly have sucked since ~MoP anyway. Stealth are a brainless mechanic these days and rogues have by far the easiest rotations in the game at the lower skill bracket(apart from sub).
I remember back when rogue was associated with a high skill ceiling and if you became really good at the class it was a real beast, now it’s even easier to play then a pre nerf BfA disc.
If the devs can’t balance the class i truly used to love, they might aswell remove it.
Well, you can’t deny the fact that outlaw is the only tier s dps in the current meta.
There are several specs that can perform on a simmilar level, DH, WW, Assa, etc. while outlaw just does 10% more DPS with the same gear.
You don’t have to nerf it to the ground, but at least bring it in line with the other melee DPS specs dmg wise.
I know a lot of outlaw rogues would instantly switch to assassin, cause the outlaw playstyle is the most frustrating yet boring rotation of all classes/speccs i have played in BFA.