As it seems to go unseen in the original thread, here a dedicated one with same space for speculation. Maybe it would be nice to make it a guessing game and see who gets closest when the patch hits.
The reddit post of the Open Letter thread got a reply with some interesting changes stated, lets see how it turns out in the end:
The old Fanatical Power is back and we are currently testing it on her base kit
The Basic Attack build has been tweaked and now interacts with Searing Lash
Casting either Inquisition or Clemency removes a stack of Desperation
Some other small tuning changes to under and over-performing Talents
I am not a huge fan of the Old Fanatical Power being base kit. It is something worthy of a talent but if they include talents which synergy with it making it better I’m for that.
Basic attack interacting with Searing Lash sounds good. I always liked Chromie’s old Bronze Talon talent. I hope this will be something similar. Hey maybe even make it do spell damage so it interfaces with Fanatical Power.
Inquisition and Clemency already do this. If this is Blizzard’s solution to mana issues it is not enough. All I really want here is for Blizzard to acknowledge that Inquisition the way it is is a terrible ability. Doing a full channel means you’re not putting up zeal, you’re not AAing, you’re not moving, you’re not searing lashing, nothing. There is a reason why old Rain Destruction sucked and it is the same reason why Inquisition also sucks.
Clemency is OK (mana cost is high though) for what it is but Inquisition is terrible. Somethings that might make it better would be that while channeling it halts the loss of Zeal. Maybe better slow. Baseline Harsh Discipline Root. Baseline Subjugation. AoE burst heal if you get a full channel. Inquisition could apply zeal to yourself.
Gosh just give us something to make Inquisition worth while to case baseline.
This rework has really been something. To think that all I really wanted for Whitemane was a baseline Harsh Discipline.
Aside form the “technical” discussion about WM, I think it’s pretty nice to see a fast answer from the Devs about something the community has spoken around.
They’re making changes based on the feedback they recieved and just an year ago that would have been just a dream.
If I sprinkle my usual optimistic anticipation into this I’d say the rework would be perhaps what I really wanted. I am a man yet don’t care as much about the “bouncy bits” like her old mana bar and enjoyed more her risk taking aggression.
I am sure her rework will not be perfect. It never is. I am still looking forward to a fresh style. The list of changes are interesting, personally I am not a big fan of Bronze Talons for WM but I admit it’d be kinda fitting. I am also the minority who prefers WM at slow attack speed. Why? You have more space to move around, cast your spells and generally do things other than auto-attack. It would also be a good punishment for cocky divers who think they can just facetank the enemy healer. I also of course welcome the return of old Fanatical Power, it exemplifies what Whitemane (for me) was about. If they make the ability more interactive, all the better (which usually happens with baseline actives). As for desperation management, I wonder if this could be the choice of alternative to mana juggling they chose. It could make sense albeit if it is only for the W it might turn this into a rythm game again.
We’ll see. Generally I am positive for ANY rework for Whitemane that actually does more than take away a few things and shuffle her talents. I trust the competence of the team and we’ll see how this turns out in the next patch cycle.
You’re certainly misleading, they are not making changes based on the feedback, they are pushing their own ground while slightly changing the most minor aspects due to messages like “at least make this omfg” and changing the numbers output. That’s all the “changes” you get. Both old and new fanatical power is so irrelevant and changes nothing at all I even have no words. I’ve never seen Whitemane taking fanatical power before, now I just don’t see any Whitemane taken at all even in quick matches, how long it’s been there? A week? I’ve only seen someone playing whitemane 2 matches out of my 10 played at day 1 of update. Changing Fanatical Power will do absolutely nothing, they’ve done a complex of bad poorly thought design decisions that they need a complete rework of rework (lmao, I have a feeling that original developers and designers of Whitemane were the ones among the shifted staff, and these ones simply do not understand what to do) to possibly make things work.
But something is not clear to me,
Wm is healer right?
So why do they try to convert a healer into dps?
Will one day improve the A.I of the game?
In what environment do devs try the things that will come out in the game?
I am happy devs try to do something, but on the other hand I think it will be only small tweaks.
The old Fanatical Power is back and we are currently testing it on her base kit.
This is great!
The Basic Attack build has been tweaked and now interacts with Searing Lash.
I am worried about this, because I think it will be something boring, like hitting enemy hero with AA increases dmg of next Searing Lash by X. It can make WM better, but it doesn’t fix that she really shouldn’t be AA hero at all!
Casting either Inquisition or Clemency removes a stack of Desperation.
It they don’t remove Clemency’s mana cost, it won’t help much.
Some other small tuning changes to under and over-performing Talents.
This won’t help. Her talent tree is just bad, she has healing and utility talents on the same tiers. Some talents won’t be viable even with huge buffs… For example Indulgence (Gain 5% Movement Speed. Increase this by an additional 5% for each active Zeal.) turns WM into pseudo-Lucio, but other two talents at lvl 4 increase her healing quite a bit. I see no way how this talents can be viable outside changing it to grant small amount of movement speed to anyone with Zeal…
First of all, it’s nice that they responded at all but maybe just maybe use the OFFICIAL HotS forums next.
This is reminiscent of High Inquisitor and that isn’t a good sign.
Why not make it more interactive that just cast and then stop chanelling immediately to do something actually useful?
Plus I have mixed feelings about this “double” rework precedent.
Hopefully I get my Searing Lash build back. I know it may not have been quite as good as her other builds, but it’s the build that I feel best defines the hero. (And also the build I primarily used, so maybe I’m just a bit biased)
Whitemane, from inception, was supposed be a “healing mage” who heals by “marking” allies with her trait and dealing ability damage to enemies. Shifting so much of her power out of her abilities and into her auto-attacks is literally antithetical to what made Whitemane fun and unique.
Hopefully this gets addressed when they do their adjustments.
Re-add the mana return on Inquisition/Clemency and set it as a simple refund on Desperate Plea. Have another Talent to have Clemency restore mana over time, refunding itself near the end of the Channel, while offering a different benefit to Inquisition on that same Talent to firm up the mana-bounching playstyle.
Two Talents, old playstyle restored to existing, with a difference of the free Clemency being tied to Channeling it for 2 seconds, and refunding an extra half its mana cost if the full 3 seconds is Channeled.
The thing that pisses me off about this is that these two versions of Whitemane are quite nearly monobuild characters. There’s no functional reason they can’t exist on the same character as two viable builds for one Hero, and be balanced against eachother as different focuses of healing taken in different compositions.
The entire point of the Talent system is supposed to be that these different playstyles building on the same core kit can exist simultaneously. Having the mana-bouncing build and auto-attack build coexist isn’t that hard, they’ve got virtually zero non-core-kit function in common.
Yet I can’t remember disc. priest healing someone with autoattacks in WoW and I can’t remember Whitemane shielding all the team as part of of her basic healing mechanic in HotS, so no, not even close to the same mechanic.