Season of Discovery Class Tuning Incoming - April 23

Tomorrow, during each region’s normal maintenance period, we will apply the following adjustments to classes in Season of Discovery.

Druid

  • The Natural Weapons talents now increases all damage done by druids in Season of Discovery, instead of just physical damage.
  • The Gale Winds rune now reduces the mana cost of Hurricane by 60%.
  • Swiftmend no longer consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on the target when used.
    • Developers’ notes: Please note that it does still require Rejuvenation or Regrowth to be on the target to be used.

Paladin

  • Seal of Righteousness damage can now be critical hits.
  • Sacred Shield’s duration is extended to 60 seconds (was 30 seconds).
  • Crusader Strike has now gained an additional effect: Crusader strike now refreshes all judgement effects active on the target to a 30 second remaining duration.
  • Seal of Martyrdom can now “twist” with other seals, including Seal of Command.
    • Developers’ notes: Seal “twisting” was an interesting emergent effect that became popular during the original Burning Crusade, that utilized the slower server messaging system used in early versions of WoW to slightly extend the duration of the Paladin’s active seal for a short time whenever a second seal was cast. This effectively allowed paladins to momentarily gain the benefit of two seals at once if they timed the application of a new seal to line up perfectly just before their weapon swing. This is something we would have considered a bug at the time, but for many players, it became a popular feature of the class, allowing skilled players to increase their output with precision gameplay.
      We recreated this playstyle in Burning Crusade Classic and since then it’s been a popular request in other versions of original WoW, including Season of Discovery. We had concerns about allowing Martyrdom and Command specifically to be twisted together in Season of Discovery for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the playstyle is highly mana inefficient, it largely requires addons such as a weapon swing timer to function properly, and twisting can be unintuitive for less experienced players. As the game matures and we continue to listen to player feedback however, we recognize that for some, this is part of the charm and uniqueness of playing a paladin during those early eras of WoW’s history. We consider this change to be experimental and we will watch the performance and behavior of Retribution closely after this change. Should it prove problematic, we may revert this change or apply additional adjustments later. We greatly appreciate the feedback we’ve received about this thus far.
      With this change to allow twisting, we do not expect to see a major change in the “optimal” way to play Retribution right away. Due to the interaction between Art of War, Martyrdom, and Exorcism, we’ll likely need a larger redesign and changes to that interaction to truly add more diversity to the Retribution playstyle. We’re evaluating options here for potential changes we can make either via hotfix during Phase 3 or as part of a larger effort for Phase 4.

Priest

  • Shadowform now increases all shadow damage done by 25% (was 15%).

Rogue

  • Saber Slash bleed now stacks up to 5 times.
  • Saber Slash bleed now also increases the impact damage done by Sinister Strike and Saber Slash by 15% per stack for the rogue who applied the bleed.
  • Saber Slash bleed now deals 3% of the rogue’s Attack Power in damage per tick (was 5%).

Shaman

  • Mental Dexterity now only triggers from dealing damage with Stormstrike and Lava Lash, and it now lasts 30 seconds (was 10 seconds).
  • Burn now increases Flame Shock Damage by 100% and flame shock DoT duration by 6 seconds, and causes Flame Shock to strike up to 5 targets (was 3 targets).
    • Developers’ notes: We’ve received a lot of feedback about the overall usability of mental dexterity, particularly for Elemental Shamans. This ability was not intended to be used by elemental, so the adjustments we’ve made are to help ensure its usage is a bit more enhancement-centric. To compensate, we’ve increased the output and usability of the Burn rune, with a slight quality-of-life improvement in the form of a Flame Shock duration increase which allows two Lava Burst casts to be used within a single Flame Shock duration. This is likely not going to be enough to overall bring elemental up to the level we want, so we intend to continue to make other tactical adjustments in future class adjustment updates as needed.

In the Weeks to Come

We’re carefully planning for more adjustments to Hunters, Mages, Shamans, and Warlocks in future updates. We really appreciate the feedback we’ve received since the start of Phase 3 and look forward to sharing more about our next round of adjustments with you soon.

19 Likes

D:

24 Likes

Whoa, neat. I like all of these. Gale Winds felt really weak when your Hurricane can OOM you in just four casts.

But the ST tier set 3-piece bonus for Resto druid is still bugged and doesn’t proc on crits from rune abilities. Fix when?

5 Likes

Yeah, agreed. SP is already bonkers being able to effectively kill people with just two DoTs…why exactly are they getting another +10% damage on top of that?

26 Likes

Spriest gonna go brrrrrrrrrrrrt.

:smiling_imp:

13 Likes

I’m okay with it if the Devs explicitly state that the buff to Shadowform is to make Warriors cry moar.

8 Likes

This is my own Numero Uno buff for Resto-Druids. It just makes (PVP) gameplay so much more smooth. But also YAY BUFFS!

3 Likes

Tell us some Blizzard dev is playing shadow priest without telling us.

PVP is just getting worse and worse and worse…especially for melee. LOL!

30 Likes

SP buff seems crazy at this point with so much outcry. What’s the justification?

5 Likes

Because their dps is way bottom, the dots just do too much for pvp

2 Likes

What is impact damage? Is it the ability damage itself? I don’t think I’ve seen this term used in a blue post before.

Maybe I’m stupid.

Obviously bullet points 1 and 3 cancel each other out after max applications (3 * 5 = 5 * 3)… so what is impact damage?

1 Like

SPs are melting people in PvP with 2 dots

lets make them melt 10% faster

:dracthyr_uwahh_animated:

Also, missing the mark with Saber vs Mutilate. Mutilate is better because its 2 CP for 40 energy vs 1 CP for 40 for Saber. Saber wont be properly competitive until Mutilate is 60 energy for 2 CP.

10 Likes

So buff their non-DoT spells. A flat +10% all damage is absurd.

10 Likes

Uhh what?..

23 Likes

Yup, the stupid balancing I expect from blizzard. Can’t wait for Spriest to be more oppressive in pvp.

27 Likes

wow really good tuning guys glad im still logged off

11 Likes
  • Carnage rune increases all damage done by 20% for targets with bleed.

Carnage + the 75% impact damage buff could be competitive. But i agree that it’s at a disadvantage because of lack of combo points.

2 Likes

The Rogue one doesn’t really help rogue tanks? Maybe it’ll help sword rogues but not the tanks. Main Gauche takes that rune slot. We need either Main Gauche to increased damage or Sinister strike to deal more damage because we use Main Gauche.

1 Like

True, its just a band-aid it seems. PvP is going to be imbalanced regardless. If they nerf spriest, whats the next thing people will cry about? It’s never been a goal. I’d rather see spriest dots ramp up over longer fights and at the same time having a mechanic to do more damage when mobs are at lower health since short fights also screw them over

Great change for Resto Druids. Would love to see a similar update for Resto Shaman Riptide/Chain Heal interaction where it doesn’t consume the hot for the effect.

3 Likes