Changes I would do to balance Arena in World of Warcraft

Lots of mechanics in World of Warcraft feel very clunky. The addition of all these new spells caused arena to be nothing more than one big cluster of sparkling magic.


There is so many changes I can think of that would make World of Warcraft Arena to be much more enjoyable and competitive.


First and foremost;


I would make every match fall under the decision of mana. The winner of each Arena game will come down to which healer runs out of mana first. You may say that the mana game could drag on for a long time and make the game very boring. But this is actually where opportunity and team work come into play.


There will need to be strategy and cooperation between all the team members to quickly force the other healer to use up as much mana as possible as well as allowing your own healer to drink as much as possible. Any team that fails to do enough pressure, or allows the other team to drink more often than their own, will find themselves constantly losing every game.


In order to make this work, there will need to be many changes:


For Healers:

• Increase the mana cost of all healing spells by a large amount. Each healer should run out of mana at around the same amount of time. Preferably all healers should run out of mana in about one minute.
• Remove mana returning cooldowns as well as talents that return mana, such as Rapture, Improved Water Shield, Judgement, Revitalize.
• Remove food/water from Arena. Every healer should have a channeled ability that replenishes their mana by about 10% per 3 seconds. Can only be used outside of combat. 
• Nerf Spirit regen so that it gives only 1% of the healer's mana once every 10 seconds. 

For Melee Damage Dealers

• Remove all interrupts in the game. Kicks/Pummels/Wind Shear should be gone.
• Increase sustained damage by a lot for every melee class.
• Burst damage from Melee should be non-existent. Colossus Smash/Wings should be gone. 
• Increased mobility for every melee class. Every melee should be on their target close to 90% of the time.
• Strangulate, Blind, Intimidating Shout, Feral Cyclone, Instant Hex, Repentence removed from the game.

For Range Damage Dealers

• Counterspells/Spell Lock/Silences all 30 second cooldown. 
• Remove several of Frost Mages roots. Keep only Frost Nova and Pet Freeze.
• Crowd Control back to 10/5/3.75 seconds in duration. 
• Reduce damage from all DoTs from casters. 
• Increase the burst damage of all casters. 
• DoTs can not be dispelled. 

If we put all these ideas together. What we get is:

• Healers go out of mana extremely quickly
• Melee Damage doing the majority of the damage
• Range Damage Dealers controlling most of the other team.

How will all of this effect Arena?

We get less zerg fests and mindless RNG deaths. You can analyze what went wrong and quickly find better ways of improvements. Strategy and teamwork can more easily executed. Larger emphasis on Healer/Caster/Melee comps. And a more equal balance in every bracket. 

Here is how Arena will be like if it was designed this way:

Each team will engage each other. Melees will engage the fight every time. They have the ability to stick on any target for nearly the entire match. Their damage will not be substantial, but it is sustainable. You can imagine about a 5% of one's health bar depleted per swing of attacks. The range damage dealer main focus is control. They will do close to no damage in a given match. However, their burst can be extremely fatal. The burst should take up to 5 seconds of preparation in order to execute and it could only occur once every 20 seconds. Similar to how a mages Shatter combo worked in TBC. They can take off as much as 20% of someone's HP bar. This one burst is equal to the amount of damage a melee can put out over 20 seconds if he is on a target the full duration. 

There will be no interrupts, and only a spell lock once every 30 seconds. This allows the healer and casters to free cast as much as possible. For healers, each heal should be able to heal equal to the amount of a melee damage dealer. Therefore, as long as a healer has mana. The team should be kept alive. However, the mana cast of every spell should be high enough that after about 1 minute of free casting. A healer should run out of mana. 

At this point, the critical role of every team member plays a role and determines the fate of the match. It will be up to the range damage dealer to be able to control as much as possible to allow their healer to replenish their mana from the channeled ability. It is also up to the melee damage dealer to put out as much damage onto the other team to force the other healer to stop the channel first. By having only the range damage dealer with the controls and eliminating crowd control from melee. This should limit the amount of ticks a healer can replenish their mana. They should get at most 50% of their mana back, given the amount of crowd control available and the awareness of the other team. 

If both healers equally replenished 50% of their mana. This should be enough to sustain them for about 30 seconds of healing. Eventually, a healer will go out of mana and a team will lose. 

If we look at this in 3v3, this will encourage all teams to play Healer/Caster/Melee. Double melee teams will not work because of lack of control. They may do a lot of sustained damage, but due to the lack of control. The opposing team healer that is playing Healer/Caster/Melee will get longer duration of replenishment of mana. Therefore, he can heal longer. 

Double casters/healer will not work as well because of the lack of damage going out. If the other team is playing Healer/Caster/Melee. The other team would force the Double Caster team's healer to replenish his mana more often and eventually use up more mana at the end. 

In 2v2, it would balance out as well and there would no longer be 30 minute games. 

A team player Healer/Melee vs Healer/Caster would be close to being even. The melee team can do lots of damage, but their healer won't be able to replenish his mana as long because melee brings no control at all, making it easily interruptible. The Healer/Caster may not do as much damage, but his healer will be able to get longer replenishes. However, since melee can stick onto casters almost permanently. The damage will force the caster's healer to come out and interrupt his own replenishment to heal his caster. These matches should finish no longer than 5 minutes. 

The skill portion of every role is much more clearer. You will be able to recognize the weak point of your team and find better ways of improvement. The focus for each role will be as follows:

Melee - The more skilled you are, the higher DPS you can do, and the more damage you dish out in a single game.

Range - The more skilled, the better the control, the more you can allow your healer to replenish mana and stop the other team's healer from replenishing mana.

Healer - The more skilled healer will be determined by proper use of cooldowns, resource management, as well as positioning yourself to get the most out of replenishing mana.