Blizzard’s Answer To The Nerf Yo-Yo?

What are we always crying about after every patch?!

My class got hit with the Nerfbat!!! Waaaaaaaaahh!!!

or

X is sooooo OP!!! I can’t do anything to kill them! Waaaaaaaaahh!!!

You ever feel like you’re on a yo-yo just going up and down with all the buffs and nerfs?

I’m not an avid PvPer by any means. I dabble in it some, but only for something else to do when bored and usually because of achievements. But I do think that most of the class changes in patches results from the imbalance between classes from a PvP standpoint. Yes, I know Blizzard makes changes based on PvE imbalance, but to me it always seems like the majority of changes are driven because PvP was out of whack somehow. For example, they might make a PvE type change, but it always imbalances PvP so Blizzard adjusts accordingly. Although perhaps that’s just my ignorance of PvP showing through. I’ll be they say that it’s PvE driving it.

Here’s an example of how I see most of the buff/nerf decisions at Blizzard:

Class F is a full dps class. Although one spec has more utility than the others, overall it’s still a dps class and not quite up to par with the dps of the hybrid classes. They need a buff. Patch Q.Q we’re going to make these changes to accomodate appropriately.

One Patch Q.Q later…

Unfortunately the change to Class F had an unseen side effect with regards to PvP and has made them overpowered in comparison to the other classes, especially with regards to Class U. The change to Class F still seems to be working well for PvE so let’s adjust Class U accordingly in Patch Q.Qsomemore.

One Patch Q.Qsomemore later…

Now Class U is way ahead of the dps curve in PvE compared to Class C and Class U because of the adjustment to PvP that we made, but we can accomodate that by adjusting class C. Doing so will require adjustments to the tank spec for Class K to accomodate the new threat imbalance caused by classes F and C with regards to PvE. But if we do that, then tank Class K will be better at AoE tanking than tank Class I, but because tank Class I can also dps in that form and with most of the same gear we need to nerf tank Class N and G to get things balanced there. But because we nerfed them, the healers need a boost to keep them alive so we’ll buff up healer Class M, E, and S in Patch Q.QQQQQ.

One Patch Q.QQQQQ later…

We accidentally made Class S a little too good at healing, especially in PvP as they can’t seem to be killed, so we need to nerf them the next patch.

So after buffing Class F, which in turn affected Class U, which in turn changed Class C, which in turn screwed up Class K, requiring changes to Class I, which gave the current Class N and G an unfair advantage so out comes the nerfbat, we change the healer Class M, E, and S to accomodate appropriately, but we made S a little too powerful so we nerf that one again, what we end up with is a ………..

 Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

A few days ago I made some comments about the Priest changes of Patch 3.1. At that time I made a comment about something I found to be extremely odd that could fill a whole post by itself.

Vampiric Embrace duration increased to 5 minutes, up from 1 minute. PvP duration is now 60 seconds. Cooldown removed.

Overall I like this change. It’s a buff to the spell, but it struck me as really odd. VE is something I only use on boss fights. I don’t know that it has much PvP utility, but it has nearly no trash pull utility. Mobs die too fast. With a 5 minute duration I no longer have to worry about reapplying it much which should increase my overall dps by roughly…*sounds of calculator keys*…0.5 dps. Woohoo! No seriously, it is a nice plus to the spell.

Anyway, when I first read the patch notes I was pretty pissed! Why should a spell be different in PvP and less powerful to boot?! Doesn’t seem fair. But after a few days thinking about it, I began to wonder if Blizzard has finally figured things out?

Think About It

They have made a spell react completely different based on the situation. In a PvE environment the spell now has a 5 minute duration. In a PvP situation, the spell has a 60 second duration. I assume that they are accomplishing this through target mechanics. If the target is a player (and possibly the NPCs in battlegrounds or Wintergrasp), the spell lasts for 60 secs. If the target is a mob of any kind, then the spell lasts for 5 minutes.

Am I completely oblivious or is this one of the first spells to have this kind of mechanic? Do any of you playing other classes have spells like this?

Yesterday I was reading about the change to Exorcism and actually I’m pissed about this one! I’ve started hitting Wintergrasp whenever I can for achievements sake. The fact that I’m on a PvP server now I’m trying to learn  how to kill Horde out of basic protection. Exorcism is something I’m using a lot of considering it can affect more than demons and undead now. But Patch 3.1.1 changed Exorcism to no longer affect players. Once again Blizzard has introduced a spell that reacts differently with regards to PvE and PvP.

Regardless of how I personally feel about my Exorcism nerf, HOW AWESOME IS THIS?!

Why Is That Awesome?

This is awesome because perhaps if Blizzard can change spells, abilities, and talents to adjust according to their use in PvE or PvP we’ll no longer have to worry about my whacked out example above.

So has Blizzard found the answer to the nerf yo-yo?

I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a lot more to it than my simple solution of just change all the spells and talents to react differently based on PvP or PvE. But if Blizzard can do it with these two spells, then I would think that the nerfbat affecting everyone would be a lot smaller and hit less often.

As a raider it’s one thing to be nerfed when something’s out of whack with PvE. It’s entirely another thing to get whacked because something in PvP wasn’t right, but I still suffer the consequences.