Two minute buffs need changed! - Wowraid Bluetracker

Tanking	Two minute buffs need changed!
09/03/09 10:05:46 AM Patch 3.2.0a Bearlizion	ToC fights seem to me to strengthen the point that Battle/Commanding/Horn of Winter/etc all need a longer duration, and even a different application method. It's a complete annoyance and an innefficient means to applying a buff. Let us use 30 minute castable buffs like most other raid buffs. It's not much fun having to waste a GCD to apply Commanding every 2 minutes in 10 ToC (or the like) when half of the dps/heals is out of range anyhow. What is the big deal if these buffs last 30 minutes? What is the big deal if they are castable buffs as opposed to shouts? What is the big deal if they don't cost rage? Is anyone really going to get their panties in a bunch over this? Comon devs, the intro in 5 man H ToC takes longer to complete than the 2 minute buffs last (Yeah, I know, we are mounted, but it's the principle). If anyone is opposed to this, I would like to hear some valid reasoning as to why. If you are in favor, please /sign. Thank You
09/03/09 11:55:46 AM Patch 3.2.0a Ghostcrawler <Lead Systems Designer>	With the paladin buffs, resources are never an issue. You generally don't have to worry about renewing the buff when it falls off because you'll have enough mana unless you're near the end of the fight or something has gone wrong. For that reason it felt like just a hassle to have to renew them and we ultimately increased the durations. With warrior shouts, the intent is that the resources do matter. You might not have enough rage at any given moment and part of the skill required in playing a warrior is making sure you have enough resources to both shout and do your other damage. I can appreciate that that design might not be particularly compelling, but I'm not sure the solution is to just let shouts last forever. I think Horn of Winter might actually be a stronger design in that sense. Imagine (I am arm waving for a moment) that Battle Shout and Commanding Shout didn't cost any rage and in fact gave you rage, but were on a cooldown. Then using the shouts might become a more interesting choice -- you'd want to use them at moments when you're rage-starved and generally not when you have a full bar. However, you'd also want to keep them going because of their buff so you couldn't neglect to use them too often either. A challenge of playing the class / a test of your skill would be to shout at the right moment to keep the buff up but also make sure you earn the rage when you most needed it.
09/03/09 02:34:34 PM Patch 3.2.0a Ghostcrawler <Lead Systems Designer>	Q u o t e: GC, that's patently false? Warrior tanking by design (I hope it's not accident) requires close to "infinite" rage to have decent threat output. If we're ever short rage to the point we can't refresh shouts, then we have much bigger problems. Pretty sure you had said something to this effect when you talked about how we "had" to heroic strike every swing in order to be viable. Infinite rage is not our intent for the warrior, when dps or tanking. Rage is one of the core mechanics for the warrior along with stances. You already don't get much out of stances as a tank. If you also don't have to pay attention to resources then you're not really going to get the experience playing the class that we intend. When I say stuff like that, the inevitable result is "OMG GC sez they're going to nerf our rage." That's not what I mean. Warrior tanks have been balanced around their current condition of having (near) infinite rage and we'd have to make additional changes if we get to the point where you need to pay more attention to it. As an example, back when threat was a lot bigger issue in fights (think Voidreaver or Vael), then smart warriors would advocate spending some of their itemization on threat stats. I think it might have been Satrina who advocated using a dps weapon to tank since you can put survivability in every other slot. If warrior tanks generated more of their rage by doing damage than taking damage, then a lot of stuff might get fixed: dps stats would be more valued (without going back to threat-limiting fights), you wouldn't be rage-starved when avoiding or OT'ing, and tanking could be a little bit more about using the right ability at the right time and not just when it's on cooldown. DKs don't have infinite resources at any given point in time, and while it has caused some design challenges, I think it makes for a more interesting experience overall. We can debate about whether Prot paladins have mana issues, but they still have to do something to get mana back. (As an aside, Ret paladins generally don't have mana issues, but that has also led to a system that is very cooldown-driven and one where we've had a hard time nailing both fun and balance at the same time.) In any case, if rage mattered a little more to Prot warriors then Commanding Shout for rage would be a more interesting mechanic. Again, this is not an announced change -- just a little brainstorming to in turn encourage additional discussion in this thread.

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