Cost respe or not ? again

[Weazool]

I kinda liked it the way it was in the old days, hard compared to what they put in MMO's these days. With shortcuts and solutions for everything to be "easy". Dual spec so its easy to grind, lower the cost on that so it's more affordable for everyone, blah-blah and so on. I don't have a problem with the rules back then. In fact i want it that way, and I think a whole LOT of other payers here want it blizzlike minus the comfy tweaks as well.

[jorim]

Stop spreading missinformations about other projects.
(...)
i doubt that there will be any good characters or even any 60 lvl on that auction soon after release.

Well, seems you are not even sure what you are talking about.

I'd like to add that the buyout price for buying someones character is equivalent to 15€. So someone selling their character can at most get 15€ worth of donater currency. With that that they can either buy a different character at the auction or a vanity pet/mount in the donater shop that is normally unobtainable in the game. So selling doesn't give them real money, they would get donater currency on a realm they have stopped playing. If anyone would want to get rid of a valuable character he will sell it on the black market, as happens on any private or retail server, or just leave it dormant until he wants to play again.

There is also a trade function, you can for example choose to put up your 60 warrior and say you only want a 60 priest in exchange. You might do this because you really want to play a priest instead of a warrior but you don't want to level a new one all the way.

So they provide an automated safe environment for people to trade their characters without any GM interference.

So these characters are all properly leveled x1 and the supply of auctions will be small.

But now back on topic:
What for me the problem is about high respec costs is that dps/pvp specced warriors won't bother respeccing to prot when they do the occassional 5 or 10 man instance. Which leads to frustration if people see their main tank suddenly receiving the flurry buff... I have even seen it happen on 20 man and 40 man dungeons and then they claim they can tank just as good.
Same for hunters often being in survival pvp spec instead of proper pve spec in an instance.

[Shaggoth]

Well if the MT is spec something else than prot, there's a problem.
But for off-tanks and dungeons, I don't thing you need the spec that much if your gear isn't crap

[cardk]

Same for hunters often being in survival pvp spec instead of proper pve spec in an instance.

Survival has 3% hit son! O.O

[Drain]

"What for me the problem is about high respec costs is that dps/pvp specced warriors won't bother respeccing to prot when they do the occassional 5 or 10 man instance. Which leads to frustration if people see their main tank suddenly receiving the flurry buff... I have even seen it happen on 20 man and 40 man dungeons and then they claim they can tank just as good. Same for hunters often being in survival pvp spec instead of proper pve spec in an instance."

They don't have to tank. Protection is not all a Warrior can do. One of my 60s in Classic WAS a Warrior, and I did all his max level content without ever tanking, including MC bosses. I didn't want to tank, so I just did the content in damage builds. This was as Horde too, which didn't have Paladin tanks that could do it. Both Arms/Fury performed quite well, putting Rogues to absolute shame. The damage is fantastic, the problem is that Warrior has no way to reduce, avoid, or deal with getting threat. You have to be careful with your wild damage. It can easily blow away other classes on the damage meter with very little effort, but when you pull aggro of the boss and die, no one is going to be impressed. You also lack any CCs, which is a problem. Most dungeons need at least a few, and Warrior brings none to the table. So you may get dropped from some groups as a result; that's just a consequence I lived with back then.

Hunter was another one of my 60s in Classic(I had Warrior, Hunter, Druid, and 2 Warlocks). Survival Hunter in PvE wasn't a problem either. This is even less so than a damage Warrior, since you get better CCs to use and die less(Imp FD). Wyvern Sting is a great talent btw. You can CC 2 mobs out of a pull by yourself; there's nothing bad about that. So while you're bringing less damage to a group by dropping that aura, it's not like you're hurting the group in the trade off. Survival was just fine. No one ever complained that a Hunter was Survival instead of Marks. I personally went Beast most of my Hunter's career, including max level content, and no one complained about that either. My damage was top notch, and much like my Warrior, he had threat issues due to dealing too much. Luckily, pets can be given Cower, which fixes the problem. They can spam this on their target for little energy and it'll reduce threat every cast. This is how you Beast PvE at max level.

[venven]

This was as Horde too, which didn't have Paladin tanks that could do it.

Palawhat? Tank? I beg your pardon?

This was as Horde too, which didn't have Paladin tanks that could do it. Both Arms/Fury performed quite well, putting Rogues to absolute shame.

Unless the rogues suck, it will never happen before tier2.

[Hatson]

Unless the rogues suck, it will never happen before tier2.

True, but the further the game progressed, into tiers 2.5 and tier 3 - The more crazy Warriors got.
Of course Rogues did as well. But Warrior dps was real as fuck in late vanilla.

[Drain]

They could and did indeed tank at 60 in Classic. I saw it with my Alliance characters. Tanking on them was pretty easy too, at least in the Undead dungeons. In these, they had extra damage abilities, one of which was an AoE nuke that murdered Strat runs, which was loaded with AoE pulls of Undead. Strat+Scholo was basically all Undead, making Paladin downright OP in those dungeons(Non tank Paladins did ridiculous damage). In non Undead dungeons, it was harder, but still possible and done by some players. They mainly used Consecration from 11 in Holy to do AoE threat, something that's not really viable before 60 unless you aren't focusing Protection(which means stalling Holy Shield, it's a lose/lose situation). But at 60, they can finally get Holy Shield+Consecration(11/31). Combined with Improved Righteous Fury, Sanctuary, and whatever other armor ignoring Holy damage they were doing, mobs stuck to them.(See Improved Seal of Righteousness, Ret Aura, 1h Spec, Reckoning) Players did need to play and damage more carefully, but when I ran with them, they usually did fine. They did not have the anti newb button(aka taunt) that many groups depended upon for reckless play to be successful.

A bigger problem than threat was the mana upkeep. This was before Blizzard gave Paladin's free mana for being healed. Paladins used mana, not rage, and they had to spend all of it to keep threat, like any tank spending all his rage. Mana isn't infinite like rage, however, that's the problem. They'd have to stop and drink a lot, or hope a second Paladin can Wisdom them as they needed Sanctuary for the block damage. I can only imagine how many mana potions they chugged everyday. Tank gear doesn't typically have intellect, either. This made Benediction an important talent. Divine Intellect used your own intellect to percentage buff, so it wasn't very helpful with a default low intellect(may as well skip it). In BC, Blizzard fixed these issues as said before(free mana from healers), but also by yanking Consecration from the Holy tree and making it default. This not only gave extra AoE damage to Rets long before they could ever get it normally, but made it viable for Paladins to tank in lower levels. They also gave them a taunt in BC, which didn't hurt. BC opened up Paladins to tank pre 60, where as in Classic, it was basically a 60 only option. I always planned to do that myself back then, but my Paladin at 55 or so never got to 60 before BC released. After my 60s, Paladin was the next highest level, with the remaining classes somewhere lower. I loved the class, but it got pushed back to BC, where I ended up rolling a new Blood Elf Paladin to take to max, where tanking in lower levels was then viable. It was one of my max level 70s in BC.

I saw Warriors out damaging Rogues all the time. This was downright common, and even complained about by many a Rogue for years on the forums. With Arms, it's pretty damn easy to do in any situation where there's more than 1 target. With a 2h, Sweeping Strikes, Cleave, and Whirlwind killed damage meters. Rogues were hopelessly far behind. Rogues could usually outperform Arms on a single target, because that's what they were made for, but they still paled compared to Fury. Fury lacked the AoE damage, because all AoE Warrior damage revolved around a 2h back then, but dominated single target boss fights. In fact, Fury Warrior was the single highest damage in the game for several periods of WoW's life, not just Classic. In most dungeons/raids, on boss fights, hitting a single target, the people you'd see at the top of damage were the Fury Warriors(assuming they didn't die). The problem with Warrior wasn't dealing out ridiculous amounts of pain, they did that easily enough with little to no effort. The problem was trying to do so without pulling aggro and dying in the process. In order for a Fury Warrior to unleash everything he had, you needed a damn good tank, or else he'd pull aggro and die. When they weren't top damage, it's usually because they were sitting around with unspent rage not wanting to die after using it. They had to use a threat meter, something other classes could safely play without, because of their high damage combined with no way to do anything about it beyond holding back more damage.

Many Rogues complained about Warrior damage for years, thinking that because they're in leather, higher Warrior damage was OP and they were underpowered. But like most crybabies that plagued the retail forum and steered the game in wrong directions; they didn't understand what they were complaining about. There wasn't really a problem. What they ignored is that they can basically do whatever they want as cheap Feint use will prevent any possibility of pulling aggro, or drop it if they have it. "But you have plate!!!!" Damage plate doesn't protect you for shit in any max level dungeon, heroic, or raid. It may as well be leather. You're much better off with Rogue CDs. One of them was Evasion, allowing Rogues to tank even the biggest raid elites up to 15 seconds if they were lucky, unlike a Fury Warrior who would promptly drop dead immediately. Another was Vanish, which would save you in bad situations or from a full wipe. Then there's Sprint, which was sometimes helpful. Rogues even had stealth. A Warrior literally had NOTHING. I should point out that a lot of the damage in raids is related to magic, which totally ignores armor. Warriors did have a higher health value, but this too became moot when Rogues got Cloak of Shadows in BC. They then got the ability to remove any nasty debuff that was applied to them in boss fights or throw up a high resist chance when they knew something bad was coming on a trigger. One of my 70s in BC was a Rogue. This time I did both classes, have a max Warrior and Rogue. Despite Rogue still being lower than Fury, I was much happier with my Rogue. Unlike all the crybabies that couldn't stand being killed by Warriors in PvP or outdamaged by them in PvE; I knew better. I knew all the drawbacks they had to endure for the few advantages they had.

[Ptoad]

Edit: totally off topic... have reached a Zen/Alcohol zone...
Not doubting your DPS arguments Warrior vs Rouge... but c'mon... silly melee people... damage is all about Loks and Mages... ranged DPS ( and don't jump on this hunters... you know it's true!)
Seriously tho, when "Elitist Jerks" first started tracking DPS I believe Mages (fire), Loks (destruction), Loks SM /Ruin... were the top 3. Of course this is rather a little bit retarded because we have all seen Arms/Fury Warriors and combat sword rogues... and even the odd Shammy ( and sure you fucking HUNTERS) have huge damage output in vanilla.
As a Shadow priest in BG's... really only other priests...and loks bothered me (ya stun-lok/blind rogue was a bitch if they had the jump... bastards usually did, huh)... oh and of course pom/trinket Gnome bastard mages... hated them too.

But, to me anyway, Group/Raid composition was far more important then individual DPS (I still kinda hate dmg meters.) In a large raid it was very beneficial to have droods and shammys... and don't laugh... VP embrace, shadow weaving, renews... made a Shadow Priest a LUXURY in MC... if you had 4 SM/Ruin loks...lol.
For 5-mans my preferred group make-up has always been: warrior,priest,Lok,shammy, rogue (the dual pop/Revive/SS was nice and cc was handled)... with obvious exceptions: DM west 2 loks, ZF need a Mage, etc

[Drain]

I don't think it matters very much that it's going off topic because the topic has been nailed to the wall already. I don't think there's anything else to be said about respeccing since the Nostalrius crew has already told you that they're planning to what Classic WoW did with it, and probably aren't ever going to consider changing that plan. If anyone wants to continue arguing against it, they can.