Monday, March 16, 2009

Replenisher Role(?)

Ghostcrawler got his own words turned against him the other day, in an attempt to get replenishment nerfed and get mana regen in general un-nerfed. "As long as players are expecting raid slots because of their amazing utility then utility is probably too amazing" was what he had written previously, and this is what he replied to the nitpicking (part of the post):

Nerf healing, because healers get spots in raids because they can heal.

As you well know, assuming you read the thread, this was a case of a class or spec wanting a unique buff to guarantee them a raid spot. It wasn't enough to bring *a* buff. They wanted a unique buff such that their guild would say, for example, "We have to take a Retribution paladin or we'll be really behind."

I admit, I'm no fan of replenishment as the ability works right now. However I can see the potential that Blizzard do in all of this (I think). I don't get why GC compared replenishment to healing. One is a role while the other is a passive (more or less) ability. Apples and Oranges. Or do they really view replenishment as a role? I beg to differ. For it to qualify as a role it would have to take skill. Right now it's a watered down version of the dps skillset. You just dps, good or bad doesn't matter, and you get replenishment as a freebe. You can't really be a bad replenisher, only a bad dps'er while doing it. If it did take skill, and a different kind of skill, then replenisher could be considered a role.

It could turn out ok if they made a new role out of replenishment, a real role, and it could end up as a general support role (dps/support) eventually. Problem would be that it's a big change, and one that the affected specs never signed up for. On the other hand there are certainly people that would like this gaming style. Maximizing their (active) support while bringing as much dps as possible, a fine line.

There might be something to replenishment. I just think Blizzard are doing it all wrong. Either it's a unique buff (and susceptible to nerfs) or it's a role, not some form of bastard child between the two. Personally I'd treat it as a buff amogst others, and stop removing other aspects of mana regen to make it fit. Blizzard, you want groups to grow in power as the group grows right? You are moving away from that at the moment with the merger of BoW and MST. When I'm ready to implement a sweeping change as a support role, then I'd go for it. Not before that.

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