Quote:Original post by smr

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2. Ensure while balancing that every class has a strength powerful enough to offset its weaknesses. "Rock-paper-scissors" is a failure, it only frustrates players to no end. (Rogues are the best class in the game in terms of this kind of balance. High DPS, Stuns, and stealth to compensate for no healing and poor armor.)

Bleh. Try being a warrior. My level 51 warrior gets spanked on a regular basis, and never wins duels. I've considered the possibility that I just suck, but my rogue generally whips ass on any other class. Except maybe paladins and to a lesser extent druids. Sometimes they stun or root me then sneak in a heal.

And my statement is in support of your case. :)

I'll elaborate. There seems to be several important features that might be in a good PvP class.

High damage
Stuns/spell interruptions/immobilization/ability to control the other player
Healing
Misc support abilities

Warriors have: moderate damage (until arcanite reaper!), few stuns, no healing, and the support abilities are pvE only, for the most part. I've never won a duel with my warrior before either.

To rant a little bit, Shamans have: moderate (HIGH if they're using shocks and get any luck at all with windfury) damage, HUGE control over the other player (no casting (ES), no kiting(FS/EB), no stealthing (FlS), no running(FS/EB), oh yes, and no buffing yourself. at all. (Purge)), an AMAZING heal for PvP (1.5 sec heals or less are almost all that matters), and several slightly more minor support abilities (like the ability to run away really fast as a wolf). (and of course, they wonder why everyone wants them nerfed)

The only excuse for most of this is that using these abilities only has minimal effect when fighting PvE. It's not until you're in a PvP battle that the shaman shines. But I digress, I'm off topic in my own topic. Maybe I'll turn this into another point:

Make sure that your class designers don't develop wry smiles when people approve of their design. I'm convinced the Shaman is a result of a very, very smart designer that wanted to create something that looked fair and balanced for PvE that he could go home to and slaughter the helpless paladins by the thousands.

Quote:Original post by pinacolada

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Remember that no matter WHAT you do, there are three roles: Tank, dps, and support/healing.

This one has become more of a cliche I think. It would be nice to play a game that didn't have these cookie-cutter roles.

The problem is that it's impossible to avoid.

You need someone to keep monsters off of the cloth wearers.
You need someone to keep the above alive.
You need someone to kill the monsters.

I think that it's unavoidable.

Quote:Also I got a little lost reading this list. When you got to number 10, it looks like you stopped praising WoW and instead started listing its shortcomings.

It was meant to be a mostly shortcoming list.