I've seen a lot of discussion lately about the changes that have been made in Wrath of the Lich King, where many players seem worried about their game being dumbed down. While some concerns are valid, I still believe some players are overreacting and thinking that changes can't be anything but bad. The article will cover the subject from a purely PvE oriented perspective, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of our guild.

Rating Consolidation

Spell damage and healing have now been worked into one single stat called "spell power". This allows players to have their character viable for more than one role in a raid, without taking loot from other players. Overall this might seem like a good idea but there are obviously a few problems. In how many cases have you actually thought to yourself: "man, if only we had a bit more healing on our healers, this encounter could be beaten with ease"? I don't think it would be farfetched to say that raid leaders in general will be valuing damage classes over healers when it comes to items that are equally good for both classes. Guilds that use a dkp-system will have other problems.

Some players have also foreseen an issue where some stats on the available healing gear will be of little or no use to healers, while other stats - namely spirit - will be useless for casters. Blizzard developers have however stated that spirit and mana regeneration will play a greater role in WotLK than it ever has before, and that players will have to gear for spirit in order to sustain their mana and dps on a comfortable level. They are also looking at introducing more talents that gain from having spirit, to further enhance the importance of this stat.

Items of the same item-level will now share close to the same spell power, while differing in sub-stats such as spirit, crit-, and haste- rating. Some would argue that these changes simply add to the homogenization of the casters in WoW, but allow me to disagree. How different are players gearing at the moment? The endgame gear looks close to identical between all the caster classes there is, and there's really no room for fine-tuning at all. This change will only allow players to customize their gear more than before, there being more viable options for each slot than ever before – just look at the amounts of different viable caster cloaks dropping in Naxxramas (25 man) for example. Another great plus is that loot won't get disenchanted as often anymore.

These changes will allow players to more easily take on different roles inside, and maybe even outside raids. Players will be allowed to see the full diversity of their class and no longer be bound to one single role. It will be much harder to fully optimize and min/max your gear than ever before, mainly due to the new importance of spirit. Players will most likely carry different sets of gear depending on the length and nature of the fight. Is this dumbing the game down? I don't think so.

Raid/Debuff Stacking

By far the biggest and scariest announcement so far has been the change to how buffs and debuffs stack in raids. For example, you no longer need to bring a warlock for Curse of the Elements, or a shadowpriest for mana return. Equally beneficial spells as Curse of the Elements can now be cast by death knights and balance druids, and survival hunters and retribution paladins can provide the very same replenish effect that priests can. As I play a shadowpriest myself I would like to expand further on this subject.

With the introduction of Vampiric Touch in TBC, guilds slowly came to realize that you no longer had to gear so much for mana and sustainability – you could just bring shadowpriests instead to make up for it. Currently the mana a shadowpriest gives his group is directly related to what kind of damage he outputs, but in WotLK it won't. This allows shadowpriests to actually start scaling like other damage dealing classes, and no longer be locked to the bottom of the damage meters. Due to hunters and paladins also being able to provide the raid with the very same effect, you will no longer see three shadowpriests in raids, but on the other hand you won't be seeing three retribution paladins either. If Blizzard balances the damage alright, it will all even out, and raid spots will be determined by survivability, damage and skill rather than by what debuff or buff you provide. The importance and difference between a good and a bad shadowpriest will be greater than ever before. Same can obviously be said about most other classes.

There is however something that many don't think about. Certain classes have a much easier time providing these debuffs, as they don't conflict with other important talents. Take balance druids and my beloved shadowpriests for example. Both classes can provide the raid with 3% hit, but a shadowpriest has an easier time specializing for it as it doesn't conflict with any other talents of interest, while it does for a druid. Misery will also give a 15% bonus spell power to Mind Flay, Mind Sear and Mind Blast, in addition to giving 3% hit so it will be way better for a shadowpriest to go for it than a moonkin. Even though many classes now have the option to specialize and provide the same debuff doesn't mean they all should. Certain classes will still be best for certain things.

An issue that was introduced with that you won't be running with more than 1-2 players of each spec, is that it will be harder than before to evaluate if a player is doing his job or not, as you don't have much to compare with other than wws reports. You will also have a more diverse raid than ever before when it comes to classes and specs, but the role of each player will be more similar.

Another big change is that many buffs that used to be limited to the group are now raid-wide. This means it will be a lot easier for raid leaders to set up groups, while the importance of well thought out setups decreases. This is in many ways taking away one great aspect of the game to make it friendlier for more casual players who aren't as indulged in the art of theorycrafting as the more hardcore are. I remember my guild master programming a tool in C++ that would calculate the best possible use of consumables on Loatheb, and all those Excel tables we had while we were trying to figure out The Four Horsemen. This is what a hardcore raider really like and enjoys – when the game brings you outside the game environment. Sadly there hasn't been much of that anymore, except for the group setups, which are now being taken away from us. I'm also looking back at screenshots of the group setups one of my previous guilds used to kill bosses in SSC with, and shrug in disbelief. Maybe this change is for the best after all, even if it's dumbing down the game by a fair share.

I think the main issue at hand is determining if the success of a guild be determined by how good they are at calculations and networking with other players, or by how good they are at not standing in the fire? Another vaguely related issue in the PvE scene is that information is so easily accessible that most guilds can read detailed strategy guides and watch movies of every single encounter in the game before they reach it, and are in many ways ripped off the joy of developing your own original plan. The only thing left for said guilds is to not stand in the fire.

Removal of Downranking

Lower ranks of the spell will now cost the same as the highest rank, to prevent the downranking that has been used since Molten Core. It always was a stupid mechanic and I find it simply silly that players have been running around healing with lvl50 spells for so long. Something had to be done, the question is if this is a good solution or not. Many classes were hit badly by this change, mainly shamans and mages, but I still believe that with enough tuning it can work out. Another problem is that it will make healing a lot easier as you don't have so many different spells to choose between, but it will on the other hand make mana efficiency harder and more important, and each and every heal will be worth a lot more than before. The greatest impact of this change will of course be in PvP, but as I don't partake in any of that myself I will not offer any further comments on that.

Overall Thoughts

I think a lot of people are overreacting and jumping on the "omg they're dumbing it down"-train without really thinking about the big picture. With every thing that gets simplified there's something else that becomes more advance. There is still a lot of room for min/maxing but it won't be in the same areas that you're familiar with from TBC. Previously it was consumables and world buffs, and then it was group setups, leatherworkers and insane raid times. The game changes and you need to adapt and change with it. I would say the changes to debuff stacking are a greater challenge for our guild than any other theorycrafting ever was, and we're really putting a lot of effort into figuring out what we'll be running with in WotLK, with close to half of us rolling a new class or specialization. Raid composition still matters just as much as it ever did before, and the value and importance of each and every single player has never been higher.