How do you balance a class?
Do you look at the highest performing players, then nerf if they perform better than comparable classes played by players of comparable skill?
If so you run the risk of the nerfed class becoming underpowered in the hands of an average player.
Conversely, if you tune the class to fit the average players, it might become overpowered in the hands of the most skilled.
Seems like a dam near impossible job to tune a class so it is balanced at all skill levels.
These were the lines I was thinking along when an idea popped into my head:
Would it be possible to tune classes according to some ranking? Arena ranking, for instance. Tune the class at default to the highest performing people.
Then add buffs to the class, kind of like handicap in golf, where a low rated player (only in rated pvp mind you) will have these buffs, which will gradually decrease as the rating increases. Up until some pre-decided rating where tuning will return to default.
This idea came to me, but I am sure that within three replies of this post, someone will have thought of something that makes the idea completely unviable. But so far I’ve not been able to think of such a thing. Maybe because Im locked in my own line of thinking.
So lay it on me. Tell my why this is a terrible idea. 
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Blizzard should balance the game based on what is “Overtuned” and “Toxic” which they do not.
they balance based on entry and popularity…
If they balance based on tuning, Mage, Rogue and Feral would all be getting hefty nerfs but they aren’t…
If they balanced based on tuning, Rets, Arms and a few others would receive substantial buffs…
if they balance based on what is toxic, then abilities like double death grip, 90% undispelable snares and shadowy duel wouldn’t exist.
blizzard are just a bad company when it comes to pvp, unfortunately for us all. there no other game on the market close to wow movement / gameplay.
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I think your idea of what abilities are toxic is very subjective. A melee player might think all the slows and roots of a frost mage are toxic. While a caster might think the double charge and heroic leaps of a warrior are toxic.
What Im thinking about in this thread is the idea of tuning classes more dynamically. What would it be like if a 3k rated player could go up against a 2k rated player and have an evenly balanced match because the 2k rated player had a handicap that helped make him competitive? In terms of rating gains it would probably not be fair, but in terms of engaging and balanced pvp it might make for good gameplay.
Like I said, I don’t know. Which is why I’d like to hear some thoughts on it. Not that it matters, though. I don’t think anyone from blizz is actually going to read this.
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I doubt its should be looked only at most representative, cos some classes are more popular as others. As example BM,warr, dh will be more played if stronger, cos easy to play, SV, arcane ect. would be less popular cos of more complex gameplay.
Its very hard to balance wow.
Hybrids, support specs mixed in to spice it up.
Good points. Another issue that occurred to me is what it would do to people psychologically if there was a buff that diminished as you climbed. You would feel weaker as you progressed, which kind of goes contrary to what we generally want.
But ye, balancing wow must be a nightmare of a task.
Its not rly that hard to know what people want, the most played and fun expansions are the one where every spec can 1 shot each other and every spec is broken like in MOP most people whould rather enjoy that kind of thing than this bullshet of dampening and only 2 classes being broken and played and not to mention healers are RAID BOSSES…
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Good, now the game has whats called a skillgap. Now the game is interesting to play. Now you can focus on improving when bad, which is what makes competetive people drawn to a pvp mode.
This is how it should be done. Its not how it is being done, but it should be.
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Blizzard tuning is kind of scatchy the claim they tune based on numbers and statistic but wich one, nobady have access too the one Blizzard tune from
Feral and Disc untouched is one of the big misterys beside the worst healer Holy Priest got nothing while alrdy better healer get at last some buffs
Oh and shadow getting humomgus PVE buffs wich all goes true PvP while alrdy being at last good mid tier
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Use pve data to balance the class for pve and guesstimate a random number between 0 - 100 for a blanket buff/nerf of choice for pvp.
I think class tuning should be done bracket specific by an AI based on performance stats. The only thing a dev team should work on is class interactions and composition synergies.
It does seem like they are nerfing and buffing as a method of controlling spec representation. At least to some extent. Saw a video earlier where supatease broke it down, looking at the representation of each spec in the arena, and it seemed to correlate fairly well with the nerfs and buffs. DK, for instance, is the most popular melee right now, and it got heavy nerfs.
I am not a game dev, but it seems to me that it would be a million times easier to balance the game for pvp, then create the pve content to fit that balance…
I am not a game dev, but it seems to me that it would be a million times easier to balance the game for pvp, then create the pve content to fit that balance…
And why would they do that if only like 5 % of the playerbase play PvP anywhere higher than 1.3?
And now you’re thinking: that’s probably an overexaggeration.
According to Data for Azeroth:
22.13 % of all accounts have reached TWW level 80.
1.20 % of all accounts have reached 1200 cr in TWW thus far.
100 / 22.13 = 4.5188
1.20 x 4.5188 = 5.42 % of the max level playerbase.
That’s how screwed PvP is.
the boys making 5 warrior alts each and tanking rating on them so that Alexa goes “damn warriors suck LOOOOOOL” and gives us a 50% damage buff
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Because if you balanced the game for pvp first, then tuned the pve content to match that balance, there would be no difference on the pve side. In fact, it would be easier to create pve content too, since all classes and specs would be balanced from the start. You would not get situations where one class massively outperforms all others.
The more I think about it, it actually seems ludicrous that they don’t tune and balance classes and specs relative to each other before creating the content.
Sure, you would still have situations where some specs performed better than others, since not all content is the same. But it HAS to be easier to tune pve content than pvp, since with programmed mobs there is no skill variable to account for.
What is toxic is completely different depending on who u ask. etc Mage is toxic to melee players because it counters melee meanwhile it gets strongly countered by hunter ele sham and weak countered by any caster. I used mage as an example just because melee players are overrepresented at low ratings so the NERF MAGES post where coming even in dragonflight when they where average.
Supatease will make a gd video like this then he will make a clickbait video calling smthing a god class where he farms noobs in low rated shuffle or bg. I guarentee u theirs an incoming fire mage GOD CLASS video tmoro even though frost is still the best mage spec.
Specs which are difficult to play are usually also worse in WoW somehow because why encourage people to play something like survival over bm for example…
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PvE as a completely different damage profile, different talents, different situations and consecutively utility.
This is specifically why people also gravitate towards meta specs.
Minimal effort for maximum reward.
It’s kind of disheartening when you’ve learn to combo things perfectly with a class, using a variety of abilities to deal great damage.
Only to have another class press 1 button and immidiately do the same without any effort at all.
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