What This IS
This article was written to give an accurate view of the state of the Warcraft community in regards to IMBA (short for imbalance). It hopes to point out the state of mind of the average player of Warcraft and the unique gaming issues that arise only in the RTS genre.
What This ISN'T
This is not a rant written by a community member about his owns views of balance.
This article tries to be as unbiased and objective as possible.
Setting The Perspective
First of all, what is RTS? Real Time Strategy. Typically, this refers to the genre of video games in which you raise armies using various types of buildings and resources. The name however, does not represent how some of the members of the Warcraft community see the game as. Indeed, Warcraft is officially a RTS game. But to some members, it would be more appropriate if we called Warcraft a RTMW. That's Real Time Micro-management Warcraft.
The real (or in some cases sad, depending on who you are), fact is that Warcraft was designed in such way that strategy matters.
Not all strategy.
Not all micro.
Not all macro.
But a mix. However, according to the community, the problem is that the mix is far from perfect.
Complainers: The Player vs The Spectator
I should point out that there are two kinds of people that complain about the balance of Warcraft.
First we have the Player. The Player is someone who plays Warcraft and at least takes the game mildly serious. He complains about balance because it mainly affects him as a player, not because his favorite professional player is affected by them.
Second, we have the Spectator. The Spectator is someone who may not be good, or even decent at the game itself, but has sufficient understanding to point out an IMBA when he sees one. He likes watching replays of his favorite players. They complain because their particular favorite player is affected by these balance issues (regardless of the validity of the said issues).
The Spectator does not like to watch his favorite player get beaten by the same strategy every game, given that he probably wouldn't have the skill to pull of the same abusive strategy himself.
This does not make his complaints void. He has a right, as a spectator and member of the community to voice his frustration that no apparent counter exists. A suitable example for this would be the WEG Season I Finals between Moon[One] and SK.Zacard. Many of Zacard's fans were frustrated that no matter what Zacard tried to do, he could not effectively take care of mass DoTT's due to the severe vulnerability of the Spirit Walker as a counter unit.
The Spectator does not like to be disappointed. When a particular match up is hyped up, he naturally expects a true battle of the gods. So it is understandable that when the game is plagued by balance abuse, the Spectator would be frustrated.
The Player on the other hand does not like to lose to those balance issues. He's in it for himself.
Both sides have valid claims. So why does Blizzard not listen?
This I cannot answer in this article. Why? Because it would first of all loosen the focus of this piece, and secondly, it would have to be my own opinion of the situation. I would not be able to resist making a few sarcastic jokes about the community and Blizzard.
So until next time, I hope you have enjoyed this article. I hope that you see why telling someone "If you always whine about IMBA, why don't you switch to X race?" doesn't always make sense.