Class balance

Gef

Fledgling Freddie
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Just mucking about with the census site, the imbalance in the number of players playing each class is astounding.. Here is a list of the overall class numbers, level 40-60 on Alliance. I did 40-60 as thats what you could consider people's 'main character', anything lower is potentially an alt..

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/censu...onid=3&minlevel=40&maxlevel=60&servertypeid=2

21% Paladins, 20% Rogues .. jeez talk about FOTM..

The two classes that are really needed at the endgame are the lowest played of the lot, 9% for Warrior and 9% for Priest. Something is clearly amiss, no wonder people are constantly 'LFM Priest, Tank'.
 

Turamber

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Have noticed that there are lots of new warriors running about on Argent Dawn, possibly in expectancy of Friday's patch and their revamped abilities. I have also rolled a shield warrior, tried playing a priest as well but became very disgruntled at their soloing ability in the low teens so shelved it for the time being.

You are quite right though, there is a huge lack of both warriors and priests at higher levels. I guess they didn't look shiny or spangly enough, you would be quite amazed at the number of warlocks running about on Argent Dawn ... I rolled one hoping to do something different (hey! I like to be unique!) but instead I'm just generic undead warlock 1,232,491.
 

Syri

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Turamber said:
Have noticed that there are lots of new warriors running about on Argent Dawn, possibly in expectancy of Friday's patch and their revamped abilities. I have also rolled a shield warrior, tried playing a priest as well but became very disgruntled at their soloing ability in the low teens so shelved it for the time being.

You are quite right though, there is a huge lack of both warriors and priests at higher levels. I guess they didn't look shiny or spangly enough, you would be quite amazed at the number of warlocks running about on Argent Dawn ... I rolled one hoping to do something different (hey! I like to be unique!) but instead I'm just generic undead warlock 1,232,491.
warlocks are only rare on alliance. mostly due, some say, to will of the forsaken...
 

Wildfire

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End-game is PvP is it not?
Since when have warriors been one of the most wanted classes for PvP?
 

Dillinja

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It's not surprising really. You make a class good, people will play it. You make a class not so good (crap), people won't.

Although I am quite surprised at the priest numbers, thought there'd be a lot more of them.
 

civy

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The thing I dont understand is why there arnt more dwarf priests. The castable fear BT looks just as good as the undead when you take into account fear is on a 30 sec cooldown. You only need to resist it once if the priest is #1 target.
 

Aldias

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At least after one month official gaming you shouldnt ask such a question, specially for priests.

Priests are the best pvp class BUT...
1.Cant solo easy, which means when they cant find a grp, this will slow their lvl progress.
2.This is a healer class in grps, which means not much killing. Specially in pvp situations they will have the grid : dispel - heal - shield - fear - and all over again.

As this is the 1st wave (main chr who rise 60) not many people wona have a FOTM who is a primary healer in grp. Most people wona kill staff instead of take caring others.

In 2nd wave (alt chrs) 75% of the pop of wow will make priests. I am quite sure about it. So dont worry... before summer will be loads of them.

As for warriors.... not much to say. They need some tweaking to be desirable in grps. Atm there are many at least in my server, but even for pve i prefer rogue/pally instead of warrior in my grp.
 

Meatballs

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When I rerolled on EU from US, I made a warrior because I was fed up of how badly people played them and the lack of them (I was on alliance). Was really tempted to roll a priest again, but thought I shouldn't as I've already done it once, and there should be more priests about on Hoarde PVP server. Now I'm fed up with how badly people play priests and theres still not enough about :(

I cant win...
 

linkblack

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Wildfire said:
End-game is PvP is it not?
Since when have warriors been one of the most wanted classes for PvP?

Not for every one my freind. After the experiance of PVP in a certain other MMORPG i and several of my fellow guild mates purposely moved to a Norm server to have adventures across the realm without the leet/uber players ruining our game. We in no way see PVP as our end game, like many more im sure that chose Norm servers.
 

Abel

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It's not surprising really. You make a class good, people will play it. You make a class not so good (crap), people won't.

You're right, that's why priests totally suck at PvP and paladins are shit hot.

NOT.

Other factors play when people pick their class at release, the stealther assassin is always going to be wildly popular on a PvP server. It just sounds cool.

The majority of classes are about equally popular, it's just rogues and paladins/shamans that stick out. Oh and there are more warriors on horde, on alliance there are less of them 'cause most tank types pick paladin over warrior.
And druids are the least popular indeed.
 

Evoknox

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Would anyone care to explain since when pallys are overpowered, and why? Cause I think they're not overpowered at all..

Forgive me if I'm wrong, I play alliance so I don't have any experience fighting pallys at all.
 

Downanael

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Evoknox said:
Would anyone care to explain since when pallys are overpowered, and why? Cause I think they're not overpowered at all..

Forgive me if I'm wrong, I play alliance so I don't have any experience fighting pallys at all.


Shield what makes you immune to all damage and 2 instant heals what heals for over 50% hp might be the reason :p

Althought they hit for silly damage if you purge their seals.
 

Urme the Legend

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I played Druid in the CB and FB.. was almost gonna make on in retail too, but since druids roll in a group is mostly healing I changed my mind and took Priest instead because he is a better healer in a group, at least if you specc disc/holy.

But atm I'm 52 and full shadow + some points in disc, and I'm soloing +3 level monsters easy. +4 levels resist too much so they are a bit hard :(

Ofc if you are disc/holy you can't solo mobs as fast as a shadow priest.
But I'm going disc/holy at 55+ I think and gonna stay disc/holy for PvP also, it's better for groups.

But I love my Priest and he is fun playing, but can be boring looking at my groupmates HP 4 hours in an instance :)

And I'm going to make myself a Warrior alt soon :>
 

Sendraks

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Wildfire said:
End-game is PvP is it not?
It depends what you want to play and what servers you play on.

Blizzard looks to be pretty dedicated to providing both a good PvP end game and a very broad and developed PvE end game, that isn't a pre-requisite to succeeding in PvE (as opposed to the DAoC approach which was long rather than broad).
 

Tzan

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Just because s1 plays a "fotm" class doesnt mean that they know how to play it... when they go out to PvP and eat dirt all the time they will reroll! :p

I have seen many playing a rogue and think of them selves as a serial killer and they use stealth only when they want to avoid some Horde that are on road to their destination... :flame:
 

Dillinja

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Abel said:
You're right, that's why priests totally suck at PvP and paladins are shit hot.

NOT.

Other factors play when people pick their class at release, the stealther assassin is always going to be wildly popular on a PvP server. It just sounds cool.

The majority of classes are about equally popular, it's just rogues and paladins/shamans that stick out. Oh and there are more warriors on horde, on alliance there are less of them 'cause most tank types pick paladin over warrior.
And druids are the least popular indeed.

My post was in direct reference to the Rogue and Warrior numbers.
 

SilverHood

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Priests are the best pvp class BUT...
1.Cant solo easy, which means when they cant find a grp, this will slow their lvl progress.
2.This is a healer class in grps, which means not much killing. Specially in pvp situations they will have the grid : dispel - heal - shield - fear - and all over again.

Apart from the first ~20 levels, soloing has been pretty easy. Right now, I can chain kill 3-5 mobs of my level, or slightly higher, have 30 secs downtime, and then rinse and repeat.

Warriors though... now there's a class who aren't good at soloing
 

Ormorof

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SilverHood said:
Apart from the first ~20 levels, soloing has been pretty easy. Right now, I can chain kill 3-5 mobs of my level, or slightly higher, have 30 secs downtime, and then rinse and repeat.

Warriors though... now there's a class who aren't good at soloing


at early levels warrior is pretty easy to solo with, as long as you have first aid warrior is pretty easy (at least, it was with me being sword+board), once you get 20+ though it seems to get much harder though, you start having to fight elites, and in a group your damage output is going to be relatively lower than a rogue, and a paladin can probably hold aggro better, BUT theres one thing that paladins dont have thats a win for warriors: flexibility!

for example, im grouped with 2 pallys higher level than me, a druid and a mage, im not going to be tanking the mobs so i switch to dual weild or 2H giving me a greater damage output than the pallys (as i can use styles rawr :p )

or im not grouped with any pallys (although unlikely in a 5 man group in alliance it does happen), meaning im main tank, which is fine as long as theres a healer in group thats awake, defencive mode and shield can be a nasty thing to bash on if heals are forthcoming

dunno at higher levels, but surely the point of the game is that it gets harder at higher levels? why did people play thanes in daoc if they were considered gimps? because they enjoyed playing them and screw anyone who said different :cheers:
 

Gef

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Ormorof said:
and a paladin can probably hold aggro better, BUT theres one thing that paladins dont have thats a win for warriors: flexibility!

for example, im grouped with 2 pallys higher level than me, a druid and a mage, im not going to be tanking the mobs so i switch to dual weild or 2H giving me a greater damage output than the pallys (as i can use styles rawr :p)

Paladins suck at holding agro, and they have no way to peel a mob off a healer instantly, try it, ask a Priest to hit Mind Blast on something and see how long it takes the Paladin to pull the agro off.

I'm quite lucky, we have a regular group of 5 friends, Warrior, Paladin, Rogue, Priest and Mage .. perfect group really, we fly through instances. But from what I have seen, if a big 3-4 mob pull is inc and the Priest does something daft like group heals and gets agro, with no Warrior there would be an instant wipe.

I see Paladin as a secondary tank, once he has the attention of a mob then leave him to it, he can sit hapily bashing away and healing to take up the slack, but he isnt going to hold the attention of 2-3 mobs. I have seen Priests and Mages pull agro off Paladins very easily, with no real way to get it back.
 

Vae

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After the first 30 levels (and Verigan's Fist) the Paladin will find it difficult holding aggro in a group and once he hits 50+ there's no way he'll manage to hold aggro in a group let alone an instance run. The Paladin just can't cause enough damage to keep aggro even with seal of fury unless he uses Consecrate/Holy Shock etc and even then it's dodgy. At that point a Paladin becomes more of an off-tank and healer especially in instances and it is the Warrior who is needed, even vital for holding aggro.
 

Dillinja

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SilverHood said:
Apart from the first ~20 levels, soloing has been pretty easy. Right now, I can chain kill 3-5 mobs of my level, or slightly higher, have 30 secs downtime, and then rinse and repeat.

Warriors though... now there's a class who aren't good at soloing

I'm not sure where you got that idea, I can solo fine and I'm level 54. All depends on your equipment really. A warrior with decent equipment is fine soloing, I can chain mobs 1-2 levels below me and can grind out upwards of 60k xp in a few hours if I find a decent area, add quest xp to that and it can go above 80k... and that's without food.

Warrior is a fantastic PvE class, just needs improving for PvP. The problem blizzard face is that if they make it better for PvP it might end up overpowered in PvE.
 

Gef

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Dillinja said:
Warrior is a fantastic PvE class, just needs improving for PvP. The problem blizzard face is that if they make it better for PvP it might end up overpowered in PvE.

Totally agree, well the next patch should help things a lot, just the ability to get Overpowers in when your Sunder Armor, Rend, Hamstring spam gets dodged is awsome! Plus with the improved rage generation, we should see a pretty substantial DPS increase..
 

Kokelimonkelmedisin

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Urme the Legend said:
I played Druid in the CB and FB.. was almost gonna make on in retail too, but since druids roll in a group is mostly healing I changed my mind and took Priest instead because he is a better healer in a group, at least if you specc disc/holy.

The way druids are now Id say that they are good if not better healers after level 40 in pvp.

Im still torn between my druid and my priest tho, playing both (wich I dont like to do
want to get 1 class to 60 asap instead I have 2 level 30ties :p)

Druid seemes more support oriented where as the priest
seemes tilted a bit more towards fending for itselves. Anyhow thats just my take
lowlvl-earlygame take on it ^^

I wish blizzard would announce one class as beeing the primary healer tho instead of 2
so I dont pick 1 to be primary healer then get screwed later on in the game
when one is boosted in healing capabilities or the other one is tilted slightly
more towards dammage dealing or whatever.
 

Aada

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The only classes i think are underpowered are Warriors and Druids the rest are fine.

The Warlock whines on the US forums are typical yank stuff ive had no trouble with my Warlock its a great class, the only thing i have beef with is the fact Infernals/Doomguards are meant to be really crap which is a shame.
 

SilverHood

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Aada said:
The only classes i think are underpowered are Warriors and Druids the rest are fine.

The Warlock whines on the US forums are typical yank stuff ive had no trouble with my Warlock its a great class, the only thing i have beef with is the fact Infernals/Doomguards are meant to be really crap which is a shame.

That and the debuff limit being 8, meaning if you have more than two warlocks in raid, you're unable to all of them unlseash curses on the same target.

I'm not sure where you got that idea, I can solo fine and I'm level 54. All depends on your equipment really. A warrior with decent equipment is fine soloing, I can chain mobs 1-2 levels below me and can grind out upwards of 60k xp in a few hours if I find a decent area, add quest xp to that and it can go above 80k... and that's without food.

Put it this way - I can almost do the same, and I'm only level 45. (for the argument that priests are bad for solo, and I don't even have shadowform yet)

I wasn't really reffering to rate of xp, but more what what happens when warriors get equal or higher level adds when soloing? The ones I've seen and been unable to help tend to die. Every other class has some trick of their sleeve they can use: fear, root, vanish, pet, etc. Warriors? No method of getting away unless you got potions. Maybe I've just seen bad warriors soloing, maybe not, but it's still a major weakness, especially at lower levels.
 

Fana

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Hmm well, my tankpet can usually tank 2 equal level mobs at a time without healing from me, as i dot-kill them. Can take 3 equal level no problem but then i have to balance life/aggro between me and the pet and likely use healthstone etc. A warrior, which should have even better armour than my pet (it has roughly 45-47% abs against equal level mobs), should have no problem taking 2 mobs at a time imo, unless he has really crappy gear.

Anyway, there doesnt seem to be many imbalance issues, certainly none that are gamebreaking. As a warlock ive defeated all other classes and been defeated by most, although ive yet to lose a 1vs1 against any yellow when i wasnt fighting a mob etc - warlock is very powerfull in straight 1vs1 :) Our main weapon - fear - is beeing nerfed alil in the next patch, and thats probably a good thing since it is probably too cheap to cast atm. Only thing i dont like about the warlock is that shards take up alot of room, and with full inventories there is no easy way to see how many shards you have left etc.
 

Sycho

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Priests and rogues are a bit strong(shadow priest of course), paladins seem strong to people due to their shield mainly and being able to heal inside it.On my server there is way too much undead rogues, not many warlocks which are very underated.We have a mage(me) and warlock in our fg, works extremely well when mass pulling a load of mobs or doing instances with an insane amount of adds.

I did a search one day, got like 45 warrior results, 50-55 rogues, 20 mages, 15-20 warlocks, 20-25 priests, 15 druids,30 shamans and about 20 hunters.

Though the classes aren't very far apart in strengths like daoc.
 

Ormorof

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SilverHood said:
That and the debuff limit being 8, meaning if you have more than two warlocks in raid, you're unable to all of them unlseash curses on the same target.



Put it this way - I can almost do the same, and I'm only level 45. (for the argument that priests are bad for solo, and I don't even have shadowform yet)

I wasn't really reffering to rate of xp, but more what what happens when warriors get equal or higher level adds when soloing? The ones I've seen and been unable to help tend to die. Every other class has some trick of their sleeve they can use: fear, root, vanish, pet, etc. Warriors? No method of getting away unless you got potions. Maybe I've just seen bad warriors soloing, maybe not, but it's still a major weakness, especially at lower levels.


if you are really desperate to get away a simple hamstring can get you out of trouble, or if not then switching to defencive mode and praying you can take a beating before the mobs finish you is another solution :D
 

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