Quote Originally Posted by dspguy View Post
There's an entire community out there for theorycrafting. The moment they change something, they'll do their testing and figure out the new meta. If stacking determination is suddenly better than crit and increases your DPS by 0.1%, people will dump crit and go with determination instead.

Same thing when they change anything. People figure out what the new best gear/rotation/melds/strategy and everyone mimics that.

I almost miss the early days of MMOs when all of this information wasn't readily at your fingertips. There was more mystery to the game. But, who am I kidding? I don't have that kind of time anymore.
This is what I feel deep in my heart is the next evolution of gameplay. Strategic diversity. It doesn't matter to me when someone says "best in slot". They very concept of 'best in slot" should be avoided at all costs. It instead should be, what is best to suit the needs of the situation. Fights that repeat one standard pattern you have to memorize are cool, but like... other things can be difficult too. When is something a unique advantage? When is that advantage a liability?

Lately raids seem to be investing heavily in rote memorization. The kit of each class at present is configured to support balance in ability to complete the singular objective of mostly stationary combat. If we had enemies that were constantly on the move. It would make situations where you had to fight and race at the same time. How would each class be able to adapt? Like what if sub roles were formally acknowledged? Wouldn't that revolutionize everything too?

You already see it a glimpse with dungeons. Having the tank rush through while the healer blows everything to keep the horde from annihilating them. That's the part of dungeons that I enjoy actually. Basic enemies aren't just the flavor text for a boss fight. It's a test of ability knowledge and speed of execution. If you had to chase or kite the boss for the entire fight, that would be SO COOL. This shift is just one of many that would enable more possibility, not less. Balance should be merely the scaffold of strategic combat. Everyone wants equality, but like... there's room for innovation. Some people will be pissed off if the sun comes up in the morning. Ideas should be refined by disagreement.

What about if a boss tries to escape and regens out of combat? Or if you had to fight it in two very distant places? How would each class accomplish that? Which classes would excel, which would lag behind?

What if some mages had more extreme range? Like 40 yalms or so and you had to hunt them down? You already see players having to deal with this in PvP. Pop the healer, try to not get pinned down by the tank, don't let the enemy DPS reach the back line. There's more than one way to deal with a situation, we shouldn't corral everyone into the same strategy or build.