The Most Nerfed Class?

NatoB · March 2007

Personally i think the most Nerfed Class in WoW is the Warrior. Out of every single RPG game i have ever played WoW i have never seen the warrior been so downsized in damage output. The warrior in WoW is a just all about armour, screw damage. Even with a Fury/Arms build the dps is still quite low compared to other classes imo. They should get their act together and make the warrior a true WARRIOR. :P

Note: I havent played many other classes, only hunter and mage, so thats why i ask if there is another class that might be more nerfed?

Antipathy · March 2007

How many MMO's have you played? Alot of MMO's have a pure tanking class with low dps - e.g. the guardian in EQ2 (a class that is roughly equivalent to a prot specced warrior).

I haven't played at 70, but when I raided at 60, some of our warriors were more than capable of holding a place in the raid based solely on their damage output. However warriors are very gear dependent, and if you are not geared at least as well as the people around you then you will have problems.

I voted paladin. They have lower dps than warriors, and although they were originally conceived as melee healers, they have ended up as plain healers and buff bots - competing for places with priests and druids.

Volkmar · March 2007

You see? for good or bad, the idea Blizzard has of the Warrior is THE TANK. Go there and absorb damage. also called a Meat Shield.

Going fury or arms just make you be a little less tank and do a little more damage, but the general archetype of your class, tank, remain inaltered.

Some like this, some don't, fact is the Warrior is not made to do damage, but to take it.

Same for a Rogue. the Rogue is made for dealing out massive damage, you can spec your rogue as much defensive as you can (not much actually), out there the best armour you find and so on... he will still be a damage dealer and not a tank.

In my idea, the worst nerfed class is the Priest. Specificially "any priest that is not shadow". Shadow priests are fine, holy or disciple priest? eh!

Actually it is not much a case of being nerfed as overlooked. In the last 3-4 patches, including the big Burning Crusade one, the priest got almost nothing good for healing or buffing. they got nerfed 3-4 times in minor things and nothing else. On the other hand, other classes got boost here, boost there, new stuff here, new stuff there... and so now we have a situation where priests heal worse than druids. Mostly because of the love the druids (and other classes get) and the almost total disregard for the poor priests.

NatoB · March 2007

Originally posted by Antipathy

How many MMO's have you played? Alot of MMO's have a pure tanking class with low dps - e.g. the guardian in EQ2 (a class that is roughly equivalent to a prot specced warrior).

I haven't played at 70, but when I raided at 60, some of our warriors were more than capable of holding a place in the raid based solely on their damage output. However warriors are very gear dependent, and if you are not geared at least as well as the people around you then you will have problems.

I voted paladin. They have lower dps than warriors, and although they were originally conceived as melee healers, they have ended up as plain healers and buff bots - competing for places with priests and druids.

You either misunderstood or i did not explain enough (most likely the case) i know that warrios type classes in most MMO's are used purely for the "tank" class, but what im trying to point out is that in most "RPG's" the warrior isnt some class just for taking damage due to the RP aspect of the game, where warriors arent people who cant damage but people who top on the lists of damage due to the view of warriors in most "Fantasy/Sci-Fi/etc." stories. If they basing this "tanking" class on strategy i then personally think they should rename the genre to MMOFPSG (massive multiplayer online first person strategy game) because they take the role play out the warrior class.

Ampris · March 2007

Truth is, Priests are the most nerfed class in the game. Back when Beta was going we had cool spells like Sleep and the likes. First they yank those out taking away any crowd control. Flip forward a bit, we start getting powerful as people utilize the + damage Shadow priest. Blizzard goes, okay they are strong enough, lets start twinking fair PVP.

Lets take all the new stuff from the expansion pack, every class got an amazing ability in different aspects, and great new talents, priests get shafted. Basically we have two ways of survivability, Psychic Scream and Power Word: Shield. Now scream is a very nice AOE fear, except that fears have been nerfed a ton because of warlocks, and the huge cool down doesn't help either! Basically the rogue or warrior, breaks it and goes "Psh, your dead" won't survive long enough to use it again. Then you have to resort to killing him before he touches you, with the damage of a frost mage with out the holds or cc of a frost mage. Oh, but we have one more ability, Power Word: Shield, ya the saving grace? Please, the boosted shielding it gets from +Healing and damage spells is laughable, even with the +30% from Discipline talant it is still laughable. Its a great spell early on, no doubt to that. But higher and higher you go it gets so much worse. By the time you reach 50-60 people are poping it out with one attack, even PvE it isn't all that great. By the time you hit level 70, a hunters pet is whacking it out in one attack. Its like you cast it while your being hit and you never even see it before its gone.

Oh, but i'm a priest, lets get out of shadow form our best way of doing damage and using healing as a means of survivability? Hah, good luck, with all the new and old anti-spell caster skills? Mana drains, silences, stuns, or just hitting a priest can make a 1.5 second spell last 4 seconds or not go off at all. Even if we are getting heals off, we are spending the entire fight healing our selves just to keep up with the damage in the first place, eventually you'll start getting low on mana and your dead. Dead, never even doing more to the enemy then a shadow word:pain and a fear that breaks instantly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So in short, Preist not made to be PvP or Blizzard gone wrong?

Priest being only class that requires others to survive?

Blizzard looking at 70 shadow priests kiteing and using the terrain to kill stuff they shouldn't instead of the full class?

- - - -- - - - - - - - - - - -

If you want to get into it more, we could get into the new talents and abilities for Preist that just came out with the expansion pack. How they pale in comparison to th other classes. Or we could get into the Discipline talent tree and how it is supposed to be used for survivability but doesn't actually do any of that beyond one or two talents. Or go into the Holy tree, as the main healing class in the game one would think we have the most powerful healing talent tree, which is sadly totally False. It contains no focus, with only a few key talents for healing, compared to the Restoration trees of Shaman, Paladin or Druid it is a joke. Even in the new expansion we didn't even get any new heals that aren't a total waste of mana.

Most people go, Priests are fine... those people really havn't played priests to their fullest as well as other classes. After reading all this and still don't believe me? Play a priest to 70 and find out its all true. Enjoy battle grounds/arena with some nice gear and 11k hp and cry and it lowers until your dead.

Right now i've had to drop my Preist and playing a fun mage and a paladin.

Amatal · March 2007

Do notr mix fantasy literature with fantasy MMOs.
There is a very good reason why the games based on holly trinity (tank/healer/dps) fail utterly in balance when they try to appeal to everyone by blurring the three archeotypes too much.
I can all too clearly remember the period when the highest dps-er in our raid group was a fury speced warrior. That was just SO wrong on every level.
You basically had a class that could out-dps, all the REAL dps classes like the rogue and mage and take one hell of a beating before he came down.
Yes blizzard nerfed the warrior class hard- but it had to be done, in order to preserve any semblance of balance you have to equate survivability/damage output.
I wont even touch the hunter class here as that is a whole new can of worms that has been opened way to many times without it making a difference (ummm a hybrid with the high dps potential,both ranged and melee attacks, second best survivability, an agro wipe AND a pet... someone in blizzard had their brains on a holiday when they came up with that concept)
As far as the most nerfed class... well It really depends on the flavor of the month.
As in all other similar games healers will have the most diffuclt time soloing due to the fact they had to exchange both dps and survivability for heals. While the tanks will be a bit better off in terms what they can solo- but it will take forever for them to do it.
But what it all comes down to is this: This is a MMO, grouping is the key to playing such kind of a game- and both healers and tanks are HEAVILY sought out in groups.
If you want to solo, choose a dps or a hybrid (yuck) class.

Knightblast · March 2007

Originally posted by Amatal

Do notr mix fantasy literature with fantasy MMOs.

There is a very good reason why the games based on holly trinity (tank/healer/dps) fail utterly in balance when they try to appeal to everyone by blurring the three archeotypes too much.
But what it all comes down to is this: This is a MMO, grouping is the key to playing such kind of a game- and both healers and tanks are HEAVILY sought out in groups.

If you want to solo, choose a dps or a hybrid (yuck) class.

For uncreative MMO designers, yes, that's true. Blizzard took the easy way: Holy Trinity of tank/spank/heal, and scale encounter difficulty by adjsuting two sliders: (1) mob DPS and (2) mob HP. And add in a few doo-dads like movement on timers, bells and whistles like curses and the like. But basically Blizzard's group encounter design is exceptionally simplistic. The problem is that they included more than three classes in the game, because, well, they thought that having three classes only would suck. But in reality, you really only *need* three classes (perhaps four if you break "dps" into "ranged DPS" and "melee DPS"). You don't *need* hybrids at all, ever, for a tank/spank/heal system if you have pure classes that can do that.

So Blizzard had hybrid classes, but at the end of the day wants to make them healers (that's why they can all heal). The "hybrid" elements are, in a sense, to help those characters level up, which would be hard to do as a pure healing class (this is the idea behind the shadow priest as well). But at the end of the game, it's fully expected that anyone who can heal will heal because the group encounters require a lot of healing and only 4 classes are capable of healing.

The game didn't have to be designed that way. Encounters could be designed to use special abilities that hybrids have, for example, or require some abilities other than tank/spank/heal. But Blizzard went the easy way with group content design -- clearly the weakest part of WoW's overall design -- and this is the result. When you combine that design with the endless balancing that takes place to make sure all the classes are more or less balanced for group PvP, you have a mess, and that's what the real issue is here.

Antipathy · March 2007

It's a bad idea to hold up pencil and paper RPG's as excellent examples of game balance. Most such systems offer much more flexibility than MMOs and consequentially have the potential to be heavily broken by a mini-maxer with a good knowledge of the rules. They are only held together by players who are more interested in having fun than exploiting the system to the maximum and a GM who can arbitrarily change game rules when things get out of hand.

In particular the crowd control options available to a high level wizard in D&D would be completely unbalancing if implemented within an MMO (e.g. Wall of Force).

Having said that, a game such as D&D does offer a reasonable example of an alternative to the tank/spank everquest model. Most classes are very viable in both offense and defence, and often the best group setup depends on the exact enemies you are facing e.g. against humanoids, bards are very effective, but against undead, having a high charisma cleric available is a huge advantage. Warriors and barbarians still have strengths and weaknesses - they are good at producing a solid steady damage rate, whilst wizards can pull out big bangs for the important fights but have to restrain themselves against trash for fear of running out of spells.

NatoB · March 2007

Originally posted by Amatal

Do notr mix fantasy literature with fantasy MMOs.

There is a very good reason why the games based on holly trinity (tank/healer/dps) fail utterly in balance when they try to appeal to everyone by blurring the three archeotypes too much.

I can all too clearly remember the period when the highest dps-er in our raid group was a fury speced warrior. That was just SO wrong on every level.

You basically had a class that could out-dps, all the REAL dps classes like the rogue and mage and take one hell of a beating before he came down.

Yes blizzard nerfed the warrior class hard- but it had to be done, in order to preserve any semblance of balance you have to equate survivability/damage output.

I wont even touch the hunter class here as that is a whole new can of worms that has been opened way to many times without it making a difference (ummm a hybrid with the high dps potential,both ranged and melee attacks, second best survivability, an agro wipe AND a pet... someone in blizzard had their brains on a holiday when they came up with that concept)

As far as the most nerfed class... well It really depends on the flavor of the month.

As in all other similar games healers will have the most diffuclt time soloing due to the fact they had to exchange both dps and survivability for heals. While the tanks will be a bit better off in terms what they can solo- but it will take forever for them to do it.

But what it all comes down to is this: This is a MMO, grouping is the key to playing such kind of a game- and both healers and tanks are HEAVILY sought out in groups.

If you want to solo, choose a dps or a hybrid (yuck) class.

yes i did restate my original statement, but then its not a true to "RPG's". You must remember that RPG's are all based on fiction and fantasy. This is what im saying, and with saying that i believe the Warrior is the most nerfed class when it comes to damage, but i also stated that i hadnt played many classes and was looking at other poeple's opinion on what their thoughts were on the most nerfed class and so far i can see that the priest has been wuite nerfed itself aswell. Although with consideration to RPG the priest (also knows as clerics) is actually doing is job which is heal :P and buffs.

Now if you go play a proper RPG (eg. Baldur's Gate Series - I know its not a MMO but it is a RPG) you will see that being a warrior main class is awesome due to heavy armour plus heavy damage output.

I am kinda newbie to MMO's considering the amount of experience others on this site have had, but i aint a newbie to the rpg scene been playing RPG's before they came out on any Gaming console (D&D for eg.) and the warrior in all these RPG's were not nerfed to the point where the damage is minimal. Warriors are supposed to be the melee experts, thats why we choose them, because we want to play with big swords and axes, but with rogues out DPSing us, which in turn them makes them the Melee expert, we have been reduced to "Armour Expert".

If you want to validate this go take a look at the Wizards of the Coast character sheets (They bought out TNR inc. who made the first commercial RPG game: Dungeons & Dragons) and go have a look at their descriptions of each class. And in the first D&D game there were three classes: "The Fighting Man (the melee expert), The Magic User (the magic expert) and the Cleric (The buffs and healing/poison-disease removing expert)"

Now all im trying to say is that the version of the warrior in WoW and other MMO's which claim to be RPG's is not true to its name.

Precusor · March 2007

Paladins.

Amatal · March 2007

Trouble with trying to fit MMORPGS into a a classic RPG setting let alone a pen and peper style of RP-ing, is it just cant work.
Lets take WotC dnd d20 system for example; warriors in dnd are the ultimate fighting machines, they can do amazing damage and take a lot of beating due to their high armor. BUT they are also lacking greatly in other areas of game, they have incredibly limmited skill pool with only a few skills to chose from and only a few skill points to do so making them much less usefull in out of combat situation. And that is the balance.
MMORPGS are generally combat based, wich means they do not have the sphere of out of combat skills that would make for that balance.
Hence what works great in pen and paper would be a disaster when implemented in such a game.
Why would anyone play a rogue class if you stripped all of it out of combat utility from it, when they can have a fighter that does more damge and dies a LOT harder?
Yes I agree it would be much nicer to have a game similar to BG which is closer to original dnd group setting with every class having it's usefull role.
But WoW is NOT that kind of a game by far, it is is basicly a very simple 100% combat oriented game. There are no skills like search, diplomacy, spot, sleight of hand and there never will be.
If you would import dnd classes into WoW all you would have is a LOT of uber warriors in plate, a LOT of uber clerics in plate and NOBODY ELSE. There would be no point in playing a class that is subparr to those two combat-wise as there is nothing but combat going on.

Amatal · March 2007

As for Hybrid classes, they will always be the most powerfull and least wanted classes in any MMO.
Why?
A Hybrid is always a better soloer then a pure trinity class- it was made to emulate all 3 classes in 1 to some extent after all, thus eliminating the need for a perfect 3 man setup.

But it will also always be a less desired class for grouping as it will never really fill the spot of the original trinity classes. A pladin for example can tank, can dps and can heal- but it is not as good in any of those fields as the core trinity class and with full right.

What the OP seems to want is a Warrior Hybrid.
The one that would keep survivability of the tank, and gain the damage potential of a true dps-er.
I am sorry to dissapoint you but that combination in a trinity based game is just impossible as it would make the pure dps class undesirable and obsolete.
So If you want maximum survivability play a warrior.
If you want maximum dps play a rogue or a mage.
If you want to dable in everything, without being the best in one field, play a hybrid.

Godliest · March 2007

Hmm, I've played all classes in game and played in PvP against all classes, but I can't decide. Blizzard nerfes and boosts characters every now and then to keep them rather balanced. Some classes may be too nerfed for a while, but Blizzard will nearly always boost them again.

I feel that Mage is the most balanced class, they got there clear weaknesses and there clear strengths. Rogues is atm a very nice class, overboosted? Not sure, but with the cloak of shadows and deadly throw they are truly deadly against all classes. Hunters is atm pretty nice too, nice outburst of dmg but weak in close combat. Druids? Overboosted for some while, but not nerfed, too much? yes I would say so, but it's because I play druid. Shamans, nothing to say. Warlocks, the most whining class ever, but they are pretty boosted. Paladins, nice outburst of dmg and has abilities to heal. Very boring in PvE, but can deal nice dmg since the boost in patch 2.0. Warriors, was vert nerfed before the latest patch, but they are not all too nerfed. A good warrior with good gear could pwn some other classes in PvP, if the other classes also was goodgeared. But then it must be priest? No.... Priests just need to specc shadow and they can kill the most classes with just a few spells. With the use of maybe 5-6 spells (can't remember exactly how many) they can easily pwn the most other classes in PvP, and they don't need much skill either.

So in the end I would say; no class is really nerfed enough be said as the most nerfed class. So I will go with a druid, as it's the class I play, and I like to believe that druids are nerfed.

Ampris · March 2007

Godliest, i'm not too surey ou know what your talking about there when you say shadow preists can kill just about any class. Its true if we get dreative we have a chance but as a shadow priest, removing all your holy spells and focusing on pure damage. By doing so we only reach the DPS of an ice mage, or beast hunters if you will. Seoncdary DPS classes. Even though priests have this ability to increase the DPS, out survivability is still absolutly horrid. Keep in mind there is a obvious difference between low level priests and high level priests in battle grounds. Through the 29-39 battle grounds a shadow priest does quite well. Even 49 we start to lose power big time. Then the 50+ we don't really stand a chance. Finally once you hit 70 is pretty much laughable beyond Arena fights. Arenas where you WILL always have someone to support you from protection.

Once again look at the new things priest get from the expansion pack, beyond a few shadow abilities they are useless.

NatoB · March 2007

so far its Warrior, Paladin and Priest all with 20.7 % and coming second a druid and a mage with 10.3 %

lomiller · March 2007

I remember in the days leading up to launch how all the fanbois were gushing about how Blizzard would never resort to nerfs to fix balance issues. Of course we told them this made no sense but there is no arguing with a true believer.

Anyway, classes get nerfed. It’s an necessity to keep the game healthy, so sooner or later you see it in every game. If you play an MMO you deal with it, that’s just the way it is.

Oh, and for a tank class that had it’s DPS nerfed, take a look at fire tanks in CoH. The started out with a “medium damage” AE (fast DoT) that could be used every 3 seconds and could kill most mobs in 2-3 applications and they could take powers that effectively made them unhitable so they could aggro a half dozen encounters and kill them all within 10 seconds before moving on to the next.

After 6 or 7 nerfs the present state is that this power can be used once a min and fears mobs so they try to run out as fast as possible. It’s taken them from way over the top DPS (max level in 40 hours solo) to about where all the other tank classes are.

Ya it needed to be nerfed. Ya people complained when it happened. That’s the way it goes.

w175jab · March 2007

I've played most of the classes except shaman and have had various friends who played their characters to 60 before TBC... I would say priests are the most nerfed class from my experiences.

iddmitri · March 2007

Level up all classes to 70 so you will never be nerfed.

ferofax · March 2007

...i think warriors should be among the best damage dealers of the classes, and not just be some meat shield. as much of a stereotype it is, warriors are supposed to be feared in the front ranks, mages feared in the back, rogues should be mostly sneaky disablers (who better to hamstring than backstabbers?), and so on and so forth.

Precusor · March 2007

Originally posted by ferofax

...i think warriors should be among the best damage dealers of the classes, and not just be some meat shield. as much of a stereotype it is, warriors are supposed to be feared in the front ranks, mages feared in the back, rogues should be mostly sneaky disablers (who better to hamstring than backstabbers?), and so on and so forth.

They where the best damage dealers.. thankfully blizzard got some sense and nerfed them.

Murais · March 2007

I don't know, shamans are pretty damned gimp at the moment. They don't heal as effectively as priest or druids, don't match the spell damage output of mages, or match the melee DPS of rogues (depending on spec of course). The thing is, people hated them so much because of they're awesome ability to kite (when experienced of course), however, the fact of the matter is, they're a hybrid class who's only strength is Windfury. And yet the same totems only effect the immediate 5 group members, unlike auras, etc.

When the expansion pack came around, and Horde jumped for joy over the sheer strength they would gain from having paladins. The Alliance got a gimped class with little to no purpose. You can say what you will, but I believe at the moment, shamans are extremely gimped. Thar be no shammy luvin' from Blizzard (Although even I admit this was not the case in the past).

ferofax · March 2007

...shamans are hybrids, and although it would be very cool if it can surpass any of the trinity classes, it would kill the entire purpose of those pure trinity classes if a hybrid can beat them. if a shaman can outheal priests, then what's the point of having priests as a class? same goes for the other classes.

Precusor · March 2007

Originally posted by ferofax

...shamans are hybrids, and although it would be very cool if it can surpass any of the trinity classes, it would kill the entire purpose of those pure trinity classes if a hybrid can beat them. if a shaman can outheal priests, then what's the point of having priests as a class? same goes for the other classes.

Priests are DPS/HEAL hybrids..

Antipathy · March 2007

Originally posted by Precusor

Originally posted by ferofax

...shamans are hybrids, and although it would be very cool if it can surpass any of the trinity classes, it would kill the entire purpose of those pure trinity classes if a hybrid can beat them. if a shaman can outheal priests, then what's the point of having priests as a class? same goes for the other classes.

Priests are DPS/HEAL hybrids..

Agreed, and to extent the same could be said for shamen.

In practice, priests are pretty much forced to commit to either DPS or healing in terms of their talents.

I have no problem with a resto shaman being able to outheal a shadow priest.

However, which out of a resto shamen and holy priest has the highest dps? The one with the lower dps should be the better healer.

Kaiaphas · March 2007

I agree with some of the negative feelings about WoW hybrids. Some one in blizzard management needs to step up, take control and force redevelopment of their hybrids according to what they were originally instead of diminished dps healers.

Volkmar · March 2007

Originally posted by Amatal

Trouble with trying to fit MMORPGS into a a classic RPG setting let alone a pen and peper style of RP-ing, is it just cant work.

Lets take WotC dnd d20 system for example; warriors in dnd are the ultimate fighting machines, they can do amazing damage and take a lot of beating due to their high armor. BUT they are also lacking greatly in other areas of game, they have incredibly limmited skill pool with only a few skills to chose from and only a few skill points to do so making them much less usefull in out of combat situation. And that is the balance.

MMORPGS are generally combat based, wich means they do not have the sphere of out of combat skills that would make for that balance.

Hence what works great in pen and paper would be a disaster when implemented in such a game.

Why would anyone play a rogue class if you stripped all of it out of combat utility from it, when they can have a fighter that does more damge and dies a LOT harder?

Yes I agree it would be much nicer to have a game similar to BG which is closer to original dnd group setting with every class having it's usefull role.

But WoW is NOT that kind of a game by far, it is is basicly a very simple 100% combat oriented game. There are no skills like search, diplomacy, spot, sleight of hand and there never will be.

If you would import dnd classes into WoW all you would have is a LOT of uber warriors in plate, a LOT of uber clerics in plate and NOBODY ELSE. There would be no point in playing a class that is subparr to those two combat-wise as there is nothing but combat going on.

I could not have said it better.

You cannot apply pen and paper conventions to MMoRpgs because P&P rpgs tends to have a lot lot lot more in them than just combat (and crafting NOT dependant on class).

Even the ones that have different spheres in it (like vanguard) makes them complete separate from each other, so your "class" is actually your "combat class" and it affects only combat.

So in P&P the fighter can deal the most damage AND have the best survivability because the rogue has another role (scouting around, infiltrating, disguising, counterfeiting and, of course, backstabbing).

And while it is true that first line warriors were feared and all, making the Rogue a sub par dps/crowd control class in a game with very limited crowd control do not strike me as a brilliant idea.

Have a nice day

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