One Shotting Is Here!

[Skandranon]

All this does is illustrate what I prefer to call "the pathology of mage burst damage".

I use the word "pathology" because it's the only one that fits. Mage burst damage is "unwell". It's not too high, or too low, because it's both simultaneously. It's absolutely ridiculous that a mage with all his cooldowns up can flatten someone in one hit. It's equally ridiculous that a mage with no cooldowns up kills the slowest of any class in the game save Discipline Priests.

Any fix to this needs to fix both sides. Mages should stop being able to one-shot targets: it's not fun and not balanced. Equally speaking, rogues and warriors should stop being able to two-shot mages unless something's done about the fact that cooldown-less mages need to thirteen or fourteen-shot EVERYBODY. If you're up in a mage's face, all he has is fireblast (600 damage every 8 seconds) cone of cold (300ish every 10 seconds, 500 if he has Imp CoC) and Improved Arcane Explosion (280ish damage every 1.5 seconds). In practice, this means frontloading 900 damage with FB/CoC and pinging for 280 damage every 1.5 seconds after. If you have only 3k health (and who PvPs with that little health except for other mages?) it's twelve seconds to kill you. Twelve seconds is forever in PvP. Against a fully geared MS warrior with Ashkandi, I need up to thirty-five seconds to kill him assuming he heals not at all, and if he presses the MS key twice in those thirty-five seconds I die.

By all means, mage one-shotting needs to be fixed. But if it is fixed, then all the rest of the things that are wrong with the mage need to be fixed too.

[Boutros]

All this does is illustrate what I prefer to call "the pathology of mage burst damage".

I use the word "pathology" because it's the only one that fits.  Mage burst damage is "unwell".  It's not too high, or too low, because it's both simultaneously.  It's absolutely ridiculous that a mage with all his cooldowns up can flatten someone in one hit.  It's equally ridiculous that a mage with no cooldowns up kills the slowest of any class in the game save Discipline Priests.

Any fix to this needs to fix both sides.  Mages should stop being able to one-shot targets: it's not fun and not balanced.  Equally speaking, rogues and warriors should stop being able to two-shot mages unless something's done about the fact that cooldown-less mages need to thirteen or fourteen-shot EVERYBODY.  If you're up in a mage's face, all he has is fireblast (600 damage every 8 seconds) cone of cold (300ish every 10 seconds, 500 if he has Imp CoC) and Improved Arcane Explosion (280ish damage every 1.5 seconds).  In practice, this means frontloading 900 damage with FB/CoC and pinging for 280 damage every 1.5 seconds after.  If you have only 3k health (and who PvPs with that little health except for other mages?) it's twelve seconds to kill you.  Twelve seconds is forever in PvP.  Against a fully geared MS warrior with Ashkandi, I need up to thirty-five seconds to kill him assuming he heals not at all, and if he presses the MS key twice in those thirty-five seconds I die.

By all means, mage one-shotting needs to be fixed.  But if it is fixed, then all the rest of the things that are wrong with the mage need to be fixed too.
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Warriors can't two-shot people nowadays. I got bigger crits with my old Unstoppable Force before the instant attack normalization and Enrage nerf than I do now with Sulfuras and vastly better Attack Power. I can at best 3-shot someone if everything crits, which is about a 2% chance given my crit rate. Oh, I'll flatten just about anyone if I hit Recklesness, but the days of Warriors two-shotting people have passed us by. Also, I think you vastly exaggerate the weakness of non-trinket mages. Firstly, everyone has at least some +damage gear, so most spells do a fair bit more damage than you listed in my experience. Plus, every mage I know has Presence of Mind, which adds quite a lot of instant burst damage. Coupled with Blink, Frost Nova, frostbolt snare, and polymorph, I couldn't beat a non-trinket mage with my warrior even close to 100% of the time, even if I got two MSes off. Against double trinkets, I need to get the charge in, use my pvp trinket perfectly and either be VERY lucky or pop recklessness.

[Occhidiangela]

everyone, once targetted, dies too quickly.[right][snapback]100710[/snapback][/right]

This mirrors modern war pretty well. The battle of the first salvo is a long standing model for tactical success, as is the ever elusive search for The Initiative.

Why to I bring that up? Modern war, since the advent of the invisible battlefield with the introduction of rifling, long range artillery, and missiles, has been an increasingly sophisticated exercise of the sensor and weapon to target linkage.

You are playing a war game. That said, I understand that game should be emphasized, so that balance, like in chess, allows for an element of "fun and amusement" that war itself lacks.

Arms and magic (equipment bonuses are a form of tech magic so to speak) have once again been woven into Blizzard's in-game arms race. Not sure if Blizz is alone in this habit, but the ever increasing search for "the edge" that drives the RL arms race was also found in Diablo II: the Uniques and Runewords get ever more deadly.

It doesn't surprise me that sharp, equipment savvy players use every possible tool they can to achieve that decisive edge and approach the ultimate "sensor to shooter linkage" with a one shot kill. It is well grounded in what war games are reflections of.

I don't think folks playing WoW wish to replicate the kind of realism that some of the FPS (Halo anyone?) games bring in re "I see it I can kill it.

Or do they?

For my money, Mongo Jerry is taking the right tack in suggesting a re look at diminishing returns curves. That's a lot better than the nerf game, and better than the kind of simplistic fixes in Diablo II (just add more HP to monsters) implmented to counter to more powerful weapons/damage output.

Occhi

[Drasca]

I don't think folks playing WoW wish to replicate the kind of realism that some of the FPS (Halo anyone?) games bring in re "I see it I can kill it. 

Or do they?

For my money, Mongo Jerry is taking the right tack in suggesting a re look at diminishing returns curves.
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I see no solutions, partly with the 'competency' blizzard has for class balance, mostly because this core game design is item based. The nature of wow and most hack games before this is grow in power through various means, then face enemies that always diminish relative to your growing power. The world of competive games attempt to arrange enemies of equivalent power. Guess which side Blizzard gets their money from? It isn't the balanced bits. If Blizzard is any good at making money, and it is, they'll dangle just enough 'balance' to keep new money coming.

Any diminishing returns, if implemented, will be negated through the process of future itemization. Your old characters will be obsolete, and the gap between man with stick, man with sword, and man with rifle at 100 yards away will only be widened. What good's being a knight in armor while being shot down by machine gun fire? Bullets out of a gun is still superior to throwing rocks.

Occhi, to tailor your "If I can see it, I can kill it" for WoW, there's a large gap in the lines of: If I'm the one with the missles, I can see it then kill it. If I'm the unwashed villager shaking my sticks, I'm target practice.

[SwissMercenary]

I'm target practice.
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Unless the stars align, and you've got your 10-minute cooldown talents ready, right?

[MongoJerry]

I see no solutions, partly with the 'competency' blizzard has for class balance.

Actually, I was quite happy with class balance overall when people were mostly wearing blues and greens. There wasn't a class that was completely overpowered that could mow down two or more people solo, and while some classes could consistently beat another class, they would at least receive a wounding. In addition, I liked the PvP group dynamics in WoW where groups made up of mixed classes were more powerful than any group made up of a single class.

mostly because this core game design is item based. The nature of wow and most  hack games before this is grow in power through various means, then face enemies that always diminish relative to your growing power. The world of competive games attempt to arrange enemies of equivalent power.

There are different forms of "power." There is also power that comes from defense. Back when people were wearing blues and greens, my mostly holy/disc priestess's power came not from her ability to dish out damage but from her ability to take a whopping load of damage by healing and shielding herself while her enemy's life slowly ticked away.

Guess which side Blizzard gets their money from? It isn't the balanced bits. If Blizzard is any good at making money, and it is, they'll dangle just enough 'balance' to keep new money coming.

You lost me here. If a game is fun, people will want to play. If fights devolve to being one-shotted so that you spend most of your time sitting at the graveyard waiting to respawn, that's not so fun.

Any diminishing returns, if implemented, will be negated through the process of future itemization. Your old characters will be obsolete, and the gap between man with stick, man with sword, and man with rifle at 100 yards away will only be widened. What good's being a knight in armor while being shot down by machine gun fire? Bullets out of a gun is still superior to throwing rocks.

Again, you're assuming that power merely means increasing the damage one can deal. It doesn't recognize also the innovations in defensive warfare. In WoW, items could come with more stamina, armor, defense, and resistances to compensate for the increased damage being dealt. You seem to be mistaking my argument to be something like "a purple geared player shouldn't be able to kill people with blues and greens so easily." It isn't. My argument is that a purple geared player shouldn't be able to kill another purple geared person so easily. New items ought to have more defensive statistics on them to compensate for the increase in offense. Or, if for PvE reasons Blizzard doesn't want to boost defensive statistics so much, then have damage use a diminishing returns formula in PvP.

In human history terms, for every offensive technology developed, defensive technologies soon arrived to attempt to mitigate the ability of the offensive force to inflict its damage. At times, offense is superior (like now with cruise missles, nuclear weapons, and eventual suitcase WMD's). At other times, defense is superior (like WWI). Right now, in WoW, offense is completely dominating. Defense needs to be boosted to bring the game more in balance.

[Raelynn]

Actually, I was quite happy with class balance overall when people were mostly wearing blues and greens.  There wasn't a class that was completely overpowered that could mow down two or more people solo, and while some classes could consistently beat another class, they would at least receive a wounding.  [right][snapback]100826[/snapback][/right]

I remember seeing a chart, though specifically for melee damage, that showed the comparison of dps across the levels for weapons of a certain type (blue, green, and purple I believe). The chart basically showed somewhat linear progression of damage across all the levels with each color separated by a gap. Above weapon-level 60 (i.e. blues and purples from raids), the damage started to move more like an exponential function, with the gaps getting much bigger at that point.

All in all, a possible fix would be to essentially set up comparable blues and greens that keep the gaps the same, like they were prior to level 60.

Sorry if this seems vague. It's a bit hard to explain without the picture in front of me.

[Xame]

All this does is illustrate what I prefer to call "the pathology of mage burst damage".

[right][snapback]100786[/snapback][/right]

I will agree with MongoJerry that the "defense" option is very much lacking in end game gear. Players will normally go for +dmg builds because of focus fire from the enemy means one-shot or 10-shot all equals 5 seconds of life. But with that said, I find the complete discussion about mage one shotting to be a joke.

Too many people get wrapped up on a very very rare event and use it to justify class balancing. As Skandranon points out, mages are a very weak utility class with a very high burst damage. For Vendetta's 6k shot to take place he required a lot of talent focus to get there, trinkets, epic gear, pots, a flask, a very lucky crit, wsg only feature (+30% to damage) and an interesting target to put all that damage into. Simply put, this makes a warlock 4k crit seem routine.

I will grant that mages have some of the most amazing burst damage in the game, but it comes at a cost. It requires choices. A Full-Arcane/Fire mage as shown in the image has gimped his solo'ing and steady damage for higher single target burst. Also mages must make the choice of health, mana, spirit (to stop the free HK's when drinking, since you cann't stand up to blink away from a rogue), +dmg, and +crit. Simply put, all of these form a balancing decision for the mage. I could setup my mage (currently in blues) to have +300dmg with 2.5k health and 3k mana OR +30 dmg +5 crit, 3.5k health and 5k mana. Take your pick. In one setup I have great bonus damage and scare the crap out of people but die quickly and in the other I try to balance damage with life and mana. I've found from my own play as a Arcane-Fire mage that I can harvest more HK's by a balanced approach working with a warrior/rogue then by max'ing my damage (although I will gear swap to +dmg in AV depending on what I'm doing).

Mages lose to almost every equally equip'ed and talented class UNLESS they get some lucky crits along the way. That is, if I equip and talent my mage for PVP and you do the same. Thus a PvP mage that fails to get a crit on a holy priest will watch the holy priest heal through the burst damage and have friends of the holy priest come to his aid (note that I view duels as a pointless practice for real PvP since standing alive for 20secs is equal to winning in PvP). Make this a shadow priest-PvP setup and I might as well just sheep him and run away (shadow priest is tapping silence while in sheep form and I'm pushing all my trinkets, when I hit him it breaks sheep and I'm silenced, then I'm mind controlled and all my friends die as the priest uses all of my skills/trinkets/cooldowns. Then he DoTs, vamps and fears me and the 20secs of life rule kicks in).

A mage's life in bg is sheeping, silencing and burst damaging a warrior/rogue's target to score some HK's. Most of the time it is
spent hiding from all other classes including fellow mages. The fact that a mage can set themselves up to one-shot a target with a 7-9% chance, blowing absolutely every cool down every 5 minutes (with a 5% chance of getting a complete resist and another chance to get a "fire damage" reduction resist) seems perfectly reasonable. This is a one shot kill about once an hour if the mage sets up the shot every 5 minutes (all trinkets and cool downs ready) with moderate damage or misses for the remaining 11 times.

Quoting the mage class trinket: "Unpredictability leads to both victory and death". And from my experience it is usually death for the mage and fewer HKs.

BTW. I've changed to frost spec for MC and to try out a more even killing model in BGs. I do miss Presences of Mind and Blast Wave (6sec daze instant cast +fire dmg) for PvP (not picking up AP and going for +6 crit in fire instead for a nearly 21% crit to fire blast/scorch and using PoM to use I-Flamestrike to farm HKs; 27/24/0 spec). Single target killing.... who cares you cann't win anyways or you win with 0 mana left, cooldowns blown and drinking for a minute for a single HK.

[Artega]

Remember that any changes that Blizzard makes for PvP combat will inevitably affect PvE content. Add too much defense, raid battles will be trivialized. Reduce offense too much, and raid battles will become impossibly hard.

Blizzard's solution seems to force everyone to roll a Warrior and spec Arms.

[Bob the Beholder]

I will agree with MongoJerry that the "defense" option is very much lacking in end game gear. Players will normally go for +dmg builds because of focus fire from the enemy means one-shot or 10-shot all equals 5 seconds of life. But with that said, I find the complete discussion about mage one shotting to be a joke.

Too many people get wrapped up on a very very rare event and use it to justify class balancing. As Skandranon points out, mages are a very weak utility class with a very high burst damage. For Vendetta's 6k shot to take place he required a lot of talent focus to get there, trinkets, epic gear, pots, a flask, a very lucky crit, wsg only feature (+30% to damage) and an interesting target to put all that damage into. Simply put, this makes a warlock 4k crit seem routine.

I will grant that mages have some of the most amazing burst damage in the game, but it comes at a cost. It requires choices. A Full-Arcane/Fire mage as shown in the image has gimped his solo'ing and steady damage for higher single target burst. Also mages must make the choice of health, mana, spirit (to stop the free HK's when drinking, since you cann't stand up to blink away from a rogue), +dmg, and +crit. Simply put, all of these form a balancing decision for the mage. I could setup my mage (currently in blues) to have +300dmg with 2.5k health and 3k mana OR +30 dmg +5 crit, 3.5k health and 5k mana. Take your pick. In one setup I have great bonus damage and scare the crap out of people but die quickly and in the other I try to balance damage with life and mana. I've found from my own play as a Arcane-Fire mage that I can harvest more HK's by a balanced approach working with a warrior/rogue then by max'ing my damage (although I will gear swap to +dmg in AV depending on what I'm doing).

Mages lose to almost every equally equip'ed and talented class UNLESS they get some lucky crits along the way. That is, if I equip and talent my mage for PVP and you do the same. Thus a PvP mage that fails to get a crit on a holy priest will watch the holy priest heal through the burst damage and have friends of the holy priest come to his aid (note that I view duels as a pointless practice for real PvP since standing alive for 20secs is equal to winning in PvP). Make this a shadow priest-PvP setup and I might as well just sheep him and run away (shadow priest is tapping silence while in sheep form and I'm pushing all my trinkets, when I hit him it breaks sheep and I'm silenced, then I'm mind controlled and all my friends die as the priest uses all of my skills/trinkets/cooldowns. Then he DoTs, vamps and fears me and the 20secs of life rule kicks in).

A mage's life in bg is sheeping, silencing and burst damaging a warrior/rogue's target to score some HK's. Most of the time it is
spent hiding from all other classes including fellow mages. The fact that a mage can set themselves up to one-shot a target with a 7-9% chance, blowing absolutely every cool down every 5 minutes (with a 5% chance of getting a complete resist and another chance to get a "fire damage" reduction resist) seems perfectly reasonable. This is a one shot kill about once an hour if the mage sets up the shot every 5 minutes (all trinkets and cool downs ready) with moderate damage or misses for the remaining 11 times.

Quoting the mage class trinket: "Unpredictability leads to both victory and death". And from my experience it is usually death for the mage and fewer HKs.

BTW. I've changed to frost spec for MC and to try out a more even killing model in BGs. I do miss Presences of Mind and Blast Wave (6sec daze instant cast +fire dmg) for PvP (not picking up AP and going for +6 crit in fire instead for a nearly 21% crit to fire blast/scorch and using PoM to use I-Flamestrike to farm HKs; 27/24/0 spec). Single target killing.... who cares you cann't win anyways or you win with 0 mana left, cooldowns blown and drinking for a minute for a single HK.
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This depends on your definition of rare. Maybe it's rare for a fire mage, who can't control his crit chance at all.

The guy I mentioned--I've talked about mage builds and gear with him, I've done raids with him, I've done BGs with him, I've modelled some of my gear after him, and tested out a less crazy-go-nuts version of what he's doing. The only thing deciding whether he gets a one-shot or a two-shot is, one, if his cooldowns are up (and it's only three minutes--you can't just burn it whenever you want, but if you're careful and you really need some burst damage, it's there), two, whether the frostbolt is resisted, and three, if the frostbolt crits. About a five percent chance to resist means it's really not very common, and isn't too hard to follow up with another frostbolt, or a series of high-damage instant attacks. Shatter + Frost Nova = about 60 percent chance to crit; it's certainly not every time, but constant enough that if you can manage a spell or two then you're gonna get a crit.

The one-shots aren't every fight. But they're definitely not rare.

And even trinketless, without AP, all the spell damage gear means a normal frosbolt can still crit near 2,000 damage.

[Rinnhart]

This depends on your definition of rare.  Maybe it's rare for a fire mage, who can't control his crit chance at all.

The guy I mentioned--I've talked about mage builds and gear with him, I've done raids with him, I've done BGs with him, I've modelled some of my gear after him, and tested out a less crazy-go-nuts version of what he's doing.  The only thing deciding whether he gets a one-shot or a two-shot is, one, if his cooldowns are up (and it's only three minutes--you can't just burn it whenever you want, but if you're careful and you really need some burst damage, it's there), two, whether the frostbolt is resisted, and three, if the frostbolt crits.  About a five percent chance to resist means it's really not very common, and isn't too hard to follow up with another frostbolt, or a series of high-damage instant attacks.  Shatter + Frost Nova = about 60 percent chance to crit; it's certainly not every time, but constant enough that if you can manage a spell or two then you're gonna get a crit. 

The one-shots aren't every fight.  But they're definitely not rare.

And even trinketless, without AP, all the spell damage gear means a normal frosbolt can still crit near 2,000 damage.
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Who needs to one shot when you can slip a CoC in with that frostbolt so they both benefit from the shatter?

[Bob the Beholder]

Who needs to one shot when you can slip a CoC in with that frostbolt so they both benefit from the shatter?
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That's what I do, personally.

But my guildie, Fishfood, just likes to have that one huge, flashy shot--the kind of thing where people go, "What the hell just happened!?" and go back to check their combat logs. More memorable that way. And having AP gets rid of Improved Cone of Cold, which is sort of a damage nerf on that end. His AP CoC does about as much as my non-AP CoC.

[lfd]

then I'm mind controlled and all my friends die as the priest uses all of my skills/trinkets/cooldowns[right][snapback]100899[/snapback][/right]

Priests can't do that; the only option we get when we mind control players is "attack", and even that's got a nerfed speed. Monster mind control (lucifron's guards, jin'do's totems etc) can use all your skills/trinkets/cooldowns, but not us priests.

[vor_lord]

Priests can't do that; the only option we get when we mind control players is "attack", and even that's got a nerfed speed.  Monster mind control (lucifron's guards, jin'do's totems etc) can use all your skills/trinkets/cooldowns, but not us priests.
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What? Not only can my priest burn all your cooldowns and trinkets, I can destroy your gear! Just pick it up and take it off!

What I hate though is when the mage teleports me into Ironforge :lol:

Seriously though, even monster mind control only gives you a small set of skills and abilities (trinket?).

edit: Hehe understood that you meant when a MONSTER mind controls YOU, not when you mind control a monster... <slaps self>

[Xame]

This depends on your definition of rare.&nbsp; Maybe it's rare for a fire mage, who can't control his crit chance at all.

The guy I mentioned--I've talked about mage builds and gear with him, I've done raids with him, I've done BGs with him, I've modelled some of my gear after him, and tested out a less crazy-go-nuts version of what he's doing.&nbsp; The only thing deciding whether he gets a one-shot or a two-shot is, one, if his cooldowns are up (and it's only three minutes--you can't just burn it whenever you want, but if you're careful and you really need some burst damage, it's there), two, whether the frostbolt is resisted, and three, if the frostbolt crits.&nbsp; About a five percent chance to resist means it's really not very common, and isn't too hard to follow up with another frostbolt, or a series of high-damage instant attacks.&nbsp; Shatter + Frost Nova = about 60 percent chance to crit; it's certainly not every time, but constant enough that if you can manage a spell or two then you're gonna get a crit.&nbsp;

The one-shots aren't every fight.&nbsp; But they're definitely not rare.

And even trinketless, without AP, all the spell damage gear means a normal frosbolt can still crit near 2,000 damage.
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Crits are not rare for a Fire mage, but are rarer for an Arcane mage (not picking up the +6 to crit in Critical Mass).

Frost mages cann't one shot but have a better sequence which leads to more steady results (dead target).

Thus spell <time> <non-crit>/<crit>:

Frostbolt 2.5s 450/900 -> close distance 2s -> Frost Nova 1.5s 75/150 -> Frostbolt 2.5s 450/900 + I-Cone of Cold 0s 475/950 -> Fireblast 1.5s 460/700. Then IAE until the cool downs are ready again or if its a rogue, blink and i-blizzard the area.

This is about 2385 dmg (expecting one crit from shatter) in 10secs. If I put on +300dmg gear (that means 2.5k health in blues!!) I can get this to 3620dmg/10 secs (assumes I only get 40% from the instant casts on the +dmg gear). The one-shot feeling comes if I get lucky and catch 3 big crits in a row in +dmg gear (4550dmg with 3k of it coming after the frost nova in the frostbolt+ICoC combo which looks like one spell because it hits all at the same time). This magic happens 3-4% of the time on a single target with this sequence and about 7secs long (you know its coming). Note that the trade off to get this amazing output to nearly one-shot a target is ~2.5-2.8k health (in blues) which means that you also get one-shotted yourself.

To push a 2k frostbolt requires almost +550 dmg gear (is this even possible?) or 523 with piercing ice, or tinket +dmg or AP w/ +320 dmg gear (and I don't get ICoC, ice block, ice barrier, I-blizzard). The Arcane/Frost is not a bad single target killing spec but is again a specialist build (every 3 mins it is just amazingly deadly to a single target but will it max your HKs?).

[Bob the Beholder]

Crits are not rare for a Fire mage, but&nbsp; are rarer for an Arcane mage (not picking up the +6 to crit in Critical Mass).

Frost mages cann't one shot but have a better sequence which leads to more steady results (dead target).&nbsp;

Thus&nbsp; spell <time> <non-crit>/<crit>:

Frostbolt 2.5s 450/900 -> close distance 2s -> Frost Nova 1.5s 75/150 -> Frostbolt 2.5s 450/900 + I-Cone of Cold 0s 475/950 -> Fireblast 1.5s 460/700.&nbsp; Then IAE until the cool downs are ready again or if its a rogue, blink and i-blizzard the area.

This is about&nbsp; 2385 dmg (expecting one crit from shatter) in 10secs.&nbsp; If I put on +300dmg gear (that means 2.5k health in blues!!)&nbsp; I can get this to 3620dmg/10 secs (assumes I only get 40% from the instant casts on the +dmg gear).&nbsp; The one-shot feeling comes if I get lucky and catch 3 big crits in a row in +dmg gear (4550dmg with 3k of it coming after the frost nova in the frostbolt+ICoC combo which looks like one spell because it hits all at the same time).&nbsp; This magic happens 3-4% of the time on a single target with this sequence and about 7secs long (you know its coming).&nbsp; Note that the trade off to get this amazing output to nearly one-shot a target is ~2.5-2.8k health (in blues) which means that you also get one-shotted yourself.

To push a 2k frostbolt requires almost +550 dmg gear (is this even possible?)&nbsp; or 523 with piercing ice, or tinket +dmg or AP&nbsp; w/ +320 dmg gear (and I don't get ICoC, ice block, ice barrier, I-blizzard).&nbsp; &nbsp; The Arcane/Frost is not a bad single target killing spec but is again a specialist build (every 3 mins it is just amazingly deadly to a single target but will it max your HKs?).
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And to push a 5k frostbolt requires 500 spell damage gear (it's possible, not even necessarily in full epics), Arcane Power, a Talisman of Ephemeral Power, and a Zandalarian Hero Charm. Feel free to talk about all blues if you want, but you can't only fight the people who are geared like you are. Somebody in epics is going to come along and tear you apart. Unless that player is just a moron, of course.

[MongoJerry]

This is about&nbsp; 2385 dmg (expecting one crit from shatter) in 10secs.&nbsp; If I put on +300dmg gear (that means 2.5k health in blues!!)

That's why you're not seeing it, yet. You're mostly working with blues. As I said above, the game's balance was pretty good when people were wearing in greens and blues (plus or minus -- some adjustments could have been made). The problem comes when people are wearing purples and the problem gets worse when the items are higher tier purples. With those items, offense completely dominates defense. Again, you might not see it, yet, but you will over time as such items become easier for the semi-casual player to get as dungeons get nerfed and as more casual guilds get more organized.

[Luminon]

I don't know, personally i don't enjoy fights where someone is outhealing my damage and it goes on forever. Just give the healing classes overpowered offense as well I say :P .

[lfd]

I don't know, personally i don't enjoy fights where someone is outhealing my damage and it goes on forever.

*cough* Paladins *cough*

Just give the healing classes overpowered offense as well I say :P .[right][snapback]101100[/snapback][/right]

That seems to be what most of them wanted from their review, yes ;-)

[Rinnhart]

*cough* Paladins *cough*
That seems to be what most of them wanted from their review, yes ;-)
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Some.