Wolfgangdoom on balance

Wolfgangdoom has a very nice blog entry on balance, and he is against it. I'd say the issue isn't that easy.

The problem is that we don't even have a good definition of what balance is. Or rather, we know that balance means that different character classes should be equally strong, but we fail to define "strong in what?". If your definition of strong is a pure PvE soloing definition, you could measure the speed how fast a character class levels when playing solo. In that respect World of Warcraft is pretty well balanced, the difference in soloing power between the weakest and the strongest class isn't all that large. But the classes I'm playing (priest, tank) are definitely on the "less strong" side of the list. Why would I chose to play the "weakest" classes? I could play a hunter or warlock, which are much better for soloing.

The answer is that soloing speed isn't all that important to me. If I wanted just to solo, I could play a single-player game. I like playing in groups, and my personal definition of strong is "most likely to get invited into a group". Suddenly my priest and tank move to the top of the strength list. And World of Warcraft becomes less balanced. The difference in likelyhood to get invited into a group between a hunter and a priest is much larger than their difference in soloing speed.

Where World of Warcraft class balance breaks down totally is in PvP. The way PvP works in WoW, honor points are given out based on damage dealt, which obviously favors damage dealing classes. A tank or a priest simply earn a lot less honor on a battleground than a rogue or a mage. And in the arena combats I tried, my priest had no chance whatsoever against a rogue, because the rogue simply went invisible, and I couldn't do anything. Then I got stun-locked and couldn't do anything. Then I died. Abilities like stealth or stun become immensely powerful in PvP, while other abilities like my tanks taunt become totally useless. So making a game in which the classes are equally balanced for solo PvE, group PvE, and PvP seems pretty much impossible to me.

I think Blizzard made good choices in balancing. It is important that every class can solo PvE and level up at reasonable speed. Group PvE balance is harder to balance, because it also depends on numbers; part of the popularity of priests is based on them being relatively rare. And on older servers that balance starts to correct itself, as people see that more priests are needed for raids, and roll priests to get into raiding guilds.

With World of Warcraft being primarily a PvE game, being primarily PvE balanced is important. But the more Blizzard is trying to focus on PvP, the more problematic class balance becomes. With the arenas coming up in the Burning Crusade, there are some classes which simply aren't viable in a 2 vs 2 fight, and priests are certainly one of the non-viable classes. As the arenas again give out rewards on a relative scale, making a team including sub-optimal PvP classes is just a waste of time and money. I don't see defensive spec'd warriors or hunters doing well in arena PvP either. Rogues, mages, and warlocks will rule. Shamans, paladins, and non-resto druids might come in useful for the larger teams, as support classes. And it would be nearly impossible to change the abilities of the classes in a way that they remain balanced in PvE and become balanced in PvP as well.

In the end the only real balance on offer is the ability to play any class you want. If you are looking for the strongest soloer, roll a warlock. Want easy group invites? Roll a priest. Want to dominate arena PvP? Roll a rogue. Prefer Alterac Valley PvP? Maybe a paladin is your best option. Just don't expect one class to shine in all fields (although mage comes pretty close to that).