But popularity measured when ? Then 0.1% of players? Or the general population. If you base it on popularity you would bump into problems really quick.
Fact of the matter is that we know already what makes things OP. There is no need for data or anything along those lines. PPally for example is not especially tanky compared to other tanks. All it has is great utility, and that will remain unaffected by “small performance tweeks”.
The only way to make PPally not meta is to nerf it by 20% or 30% and make it get 1-shot by literally anything. As it was pre-rework this season. Same thing for DH tanks in S3 and S4 of DH. They received almost a 40% reduction in performance. Did not change anything, because he had double sygil.
Or the nerfs to Priest MD and Shaman Totem. WHY in gods name do you make an affix dispelable (bursting), and WHY in gods name do you make a boss with POISON AoE of all things ? And why in gods name did blizzard think it was a good idea to nerf the skill and not the mechanic (make things undispellable) ? And WHY were they so quick to do this, but were still stuck with Aug ?
And we can go on and on about the meta comp. But in the end, the only one that really cares about performance is the 1 OP meta DPS. He is the recipient of all the buffs of the party and its his job to melt packs. Its Enh this season. It was Mage in previous seasons…
Everyone else, it literally boils down to utility.
Like Aug. He has been nerfed like 10000 times. And he is STILL meta pick for 5 seasons in a row already. And going for the 6th one. Everyone know why. Except Blizzard apparently, that waits an eternity to address the problem:
Some specs have too much utility. We need to normalize this situation asap.
Dungeons hit too hard. And there are 10000 solutions to this, but all Blizzard has done is NOTHING, and in WW with the spell quew changes made it even worse.
So the problem is Blizzard not doing anything. And I know exactly why they dont: They are afraid of the progress of the 0.1% of pros, AND, the effects class tuning has on Raids. Both of which can be addressed. But aren’t.
They actually did address it finally with 11.1: Aug no longer buffs tanks or healers and hence no longer affects survivability.
They always had the great utility but they aren’t always meta. They are meta if they have the can survive and have the highest output. Utility always helps but output is the primary consideration.
In DF S3/S4 the VDH utility, stops in this case, was absolutely a major factor because it enabled certain pulls. Maybe that was indeed the rare case where the other tanks would have required 50 - 60+% more output to be really considered as the utility from double sigils was really that stupidly strong.
Last time I tried it on either, it took 5 minutes tops. I don’t 100% pug often, but when I do, it’s fine. But that perhaps has to do with their experience, or my main’s.
But again, those specs aren’t non-meta due to their DPS. That’s perfectly fine (mostly). Feral can pump really good numbers, AoE. Single target they’re above average too. It’s just…they lack some tools and benefits that other specs grant. WW has very stable decent damage since the buffs…just slightly lacking behind…but they won’t underperform compared to the average enhancer…
I did. And you dont seem to understand me. You will run into problems. You will nerf Rets for no reason (like I mentioned before).
That is false. It still gives vers, still gives scales to tank, rescues … ect…
I said it on the 10.1.7 beta and I say it now. Aug is a spec that by design cannot be in a “good spot”. Its either OP or nerfed to useless. It mathematically cannot find a balance.
Yes. They always had that utility. And what you are saying is that as long as PPallys have some basic “performance” (dosent get 1-shot) they will ALWAYS be meta. For them to NOT be meta, they must be so far behind in performance you get 1-shot.
Its not healthy in my opinion. Because our options are: (A) make PPaly unplayable or (B) make him OP, regardless of how much performant other specs are.
So to change this situation you need to address utility. Not performance. Specifically, utility needs to be normalized.
Then why did blizzard take 8 months to change this ? Because THAT was the problem, not performance.
And second, you dont have to be bonkers OP to have things like this addressed as soon as possible. So my question is WHY are they taking 3 months to address PPalys ? Its not as OP as DKs, but still… It requires tuning for sure…
There is no nerfing happening with this system, only buffs for the least popular
Taking that long is exactly the reason for proposing this zero effort automatic system so that it just doesn’t take that long for something positive to happen.
But WHY ? The cause of popularity outside the top 0.1% keys is not 100% due to performance. If it was the case, I would agree.
But its not the case.
When that “something” is so absurdly obvious, there is no need for an automated system of any kind.
Like why does dungeon and class tuning pause during the MDI and TGP ? What a coincidence dont you think ?
My opinion is that asking Blizzard to do their JOB and work on something useful (tuning) is not a lot to ask. But it seems that they AFK for months at a time and only realize things when its too late.
But performance has an impact. And the 0.1% keys are what content creators show and hence what trickles down, even if it’s useless it is what happens.
For some weird reason, this time there was actually a change that affected the MDI while the MDI was going on.
I’m fully with you here but we have seen it in the last 20 years that it just doesn’t happen fast or consistently enough. Hence the suggestion for something that takes literally zero effort and can even be automated. It’s not perfect but it helps.