After playing around with the changes made last week (6/27-6/28), I wanted to share my thoughts on the following classes: Druid, Hunter, Paladin, Priest, and Warrior. These are the classes I’m most familiar with, but I’m curious if others are thinking along the same lines or if you disagree entirely:
Druid
Restoration and Balance
I play mostly as a Restoration Druid, flexing into Balance as needed.
Nourish benefiting from the Improved Regrowth talent (+50% crit chance) feels great.
With both Nourish and Regrowth having high crit chances (via the Improved Regrowth talent), I find myself sorely wishing that I could keep the Sunken Temple set effect that triggers Dreamstate on healing critical spellcasts into phase 4. I’m not really interested in the raw healing bonus of Survival Instincts generally.
- Could this effect either become baked into the Dreamstate rune or be the effect of an Idol we can equip?
Insect Swarm seems totally forgotten. Could this interact with the “Elune’s Fires” rune, having Wrath extend the duration? It doesn’t do much DoT damage, but I’d appreciate an interaction here. It’s also strange that you’re locked out of a talent in the Restoration tree when you use Tree of Life, but honestly this doesn’t bug me so much since Insect Swarm is so minor in effect.
It would be nice for Insect Swarm to be somewhat relevant for Boomkin players as an additional DoT effect, since in Phase 4 they’ll have enough talent points to reach this ability. I do hesitate to make Boomkin feel obligated to apply Insect Swarm though, since they’d run into the same issue that Shadow Priests had prior to the Pain and Suffering update.
Hunter
2H/Dual Wield Melee
A few things from the last set of changes that I wanted to highlight and applaud:
- Traps as a usable baseline ability independent of Trap Launcher is very welcome. Thank you!
- Aspect of the Lion granting the melee Attack Power component of Trueshot Aura is another welcome change. Thank you for this.
- Wyvern Strike applying a bleed rather than a sting opens up a little group synergy with Feral Druids that I appreciate.
- Weaving feels a little better overall than it did before. It feels better to be primarily melee-oriented and weave in ranged attacks right now than it does to be the opposite, but I don’t mind that.
Some things that still don’t really make sense to me or suggestions:
- What is the point of the cooldown reduction effect on Catlike Reflexes for Flanking Strike? Flanking Strike goes from a 30 second cooldown to a 15 second cooldown with Catlike Reflexes, but the buff still only lasts 10 seconds. As far as I can tell, the only point of the rune is to get back to stacking Flanking Strike sooner if you didn’t get lucky with resets.
Could we reduce the cooldown of Flanking Strike to 18 or 16 seconds? This would let Catlike Reflexes reduce the cooldown to 9 or 8 seconds, allowing the player to opt into a way to keep Flanking Strike’s buff chained without needing to rely on a pet to reset the ability.
This lets players that opt for the Lone Wolf rune to still run Flanking Strike and chain the buff. It also allows Hunters that want to play with a pet that can’t spam Claw (Wind Serpents, Wolves, etc.) a way to reliably chain Flanking Strike.
- Improved Volley could really benefit from the change similar to what Warlocks got with their Lake of Fire rune. That rune was changed to cause Rain of Fire to no longer be channeled, but have a cooldown equal to its duration. Volley has a 6 sec duration.
- I’d also LOVE to see Improved Volley gain one extra effect for purely selfish reasons:
Selfish Reasons
- Improved Volley now also reduces the cooldown of Arcane Shot by 2 seconds.
I’m (not so) secretly rooting for Spell Power Hunters to be a thing, and a 2 second reduction in Arcane Shot cooldown would be huge for that style of play. With the “Improved Arcane Shot” talent, you’d bring the cooldown of Arcane Shot down to 3 seconds, making it a decent filler ability that scales off of Spell Power.
I don’t see a reduction in Arcane Shot’s cooldown throwing the class wildly out of balance in either PvE or PvP, so in my opinion it’s a harmless addition. Chimera Shot, Arcane Shot, Volley, and Serpent Sting all scale off of spell power to varying degrees, and if Volley becomes an instant-cast spell you’ll have a good handful of spells available to build a decent Spell Power rotation around.
I hate the version of Sniper Training we currently have. The ability to move and shoot is a style of gameplay you practice throughout the early levels to effectively kite enemies and kill them before they ever touch you. This rune soundly kills that style of play. Yes, instant cast Aimed Shot is a huge QoL improvement when it comes to using Lock and Load triggers, but the style of gameplay this version of Sniper Training encourages is antithetical to what I love about playing ranged hunter.
I beleive that Sniper Training is probably here to stay. Operating under that assumption, could we get the Cataclysm version of this rune mechanically?
The Cata version requires you to stand still for 6 seconds, just like the current one, but then gives you the benefits of Sniper Training for 15 seconds. I’m thinking the SoD version would look something like this:
Sniper Training: “Your Shot abilities gain 5% increased critical strike chance and the cast time of Aimed Shot is reduced by 50%. After remaining stationary for 6 sec, these bonuses are doubled for 15 sec.”
Something along those lines would be a lot less frustrating to use than the version we currently have.
A few words on the following runes: Raptor Fury, Cobra Strikes, Steady Shot, and Serpent Spread
- Raptor Fury: I’m sure Raptor Fury is already on your radar since it was a core reason that melee hunters did so much damage in Phase 3. Folks here on the forums and elsewhere have made it no secret that this rune isn’t in a great state after the cooldown changes to Raptor Strike (which I entirely agree needed to happen, I think that was a good call). I never really found the gameplay this rune encouraged to be interesting and I am not sad that it’s dead right now. Personally, I’d like to see this effect folded into Flanking Strike and some other rune put here.
- Cobra Strikes: This rune is struggling to exist. It competes with Lone Wolf, Master Marksman, and Cobra Slaying, and it’s just not to the same caliber as those runes. I don’t know if I’d personally ever pick this rune simply because I don’t think that pet criticals are that interesting of an effect, no matter what it’s paired with.
- Steady Shot: If you didn’t know, Steady Shot actually takes 2 seconds to cast, not 1.5 like the tooltip indicates. This makes the ability prohibitive to use. Some have suggested to make this usable while moving, I’m rather indifferent to the ability overall since the other two runes are more generally useful.
- Serpent Spread: Again, this rune is overshadowed by other runes in the slot. Comparatively speaking this rune just doesn’t offer nearly as much power as Flanking Strike or Sniper Training. I don’t have many ideas for this ability. Perhaps it could apply Serpent Sting to enemies hit by Explosive Shot? (3-6 seconds or so?)
Paladin
Shockadin and Protection
Shockadin:
Shockadin feels really good in its current state from a rotational and mechanical standpoint on the PTR. I run the following setup with a 1-handed weapon and shield:
Rune Setup
- Wrath
- Shock & Awe
- Divine Storm
- Purifying Power
- Crusader Strike
- Infusion of Light
- Avenger’s Shield
- The Art of War
It feels really strange to not be focusing on melee Attack Power due to Shock and Awe converting Intellect into Spell Power and Infusion of Light competing with Sheath of Light on the Waist slot. Your basic attacks hit like a wet noodle, but you’re only really after critical strikes to trigger The Art of War anyway.
Divine Storm hits for a pitiful amount, but can trigger The Art of War up to 4 times, making it intensely useful for a Shockadin, who can run Purifying Power to cut the cooldown of Exorcism down to 7.5 seconds. I found Hammer of the Righteous (which shares a slot with Purifying Power) to not be very valuable since you don’t have as much of a focus on melee Attack Power. You also have so many buttons at this point that adding an extra one feels like too much.
Shock and Awe is cool and I like the direction it takes us (much more of a “spellsword” playstyle), but it leads to a really strange gearing situation where a Shockadin pally will want Intellect/Spell Power gear. There’s not much gear like this in Plate, so I see Shock and Awe pushing players to compete for cloth/leather items with this profile, directly competing with other casters.
Because you’ll lack weapon damage with your low attack power, Seal of Martyrdom likely won’t be very good on Shockadin long-term. I anticipate Seal of Righteousness being a decent option with the flat damage it offers each swing and the ability to scale off of Spell Power. Shockadin still wants a really fast main-hand weapon to fish for The Art of War triggers as much as possible. This means, though, that your party/raid may not be getting the mana return of Seal of Martyrdom from Shockadins.
One primary suggestion I wanted to highlight:
Could Avenger’s Shield also benefit from Art of War’s cooldown reduction effect? The 30 second cooldown feels far too long, and I’d appreciate a way to interact with it somehow. The slow duration could also stand to be reduced. 10 seconds is so long that it actually can be a detriment sometimes to the player using it. I know this can be a point of pain in PvP as well, so a reduced duration would be nice.
Protection Paladin:
I want to like Improved Sanctuary and Shield of the Righteous, but stacking Block Value to make these effects more valuable really feels horrible. Gear with block value often has less of other -VERY important- stats like stamina or defense when compared to gear without Block Value. Block Value is strange because it makes your worst form of damage mitigation (blocking) slightly less crappy. I am truly just not interested in stacking block value over defense, stamina, strength, or armor, even if Paladins do get 69% more block value via the Aegis rune and Shield Mastery talent.
Let’s talk about Holy Shield:
In Classic WoW, Protection Paladin threat didn’t scale very well from raw attack damage since they only applied it via basic attacks; this made Spell Power the preferred stat of choice since they could leverage it with their abilities. SoD Paladins are a different beast with Seal of Martyrdom and Hammer of the Righteous allowing the Paladin to apply their Melee Attack Power for threat. Spell Power is still valuable, but doesn’t blow melee Attack Power out of the water anymore like it did in Vanilla/Classic.
Losing the 4 attack power we got previously from Holy Shield hurts. It’s especially irritating to feel forced to choose Malleable Protection just to get the basic value out of Holy Shield’s Defense-to-stat effect that Warriors just sort of get for unlocking their 31 point talent in Prot. I understand that Malleable Protection is rather lackluster relative to Sheath without that effect, so here’s what I’d propose:
- Holy Shield grants 2 melee Attack Power and 2 Spell Power baseline.
- Malleable Protection still allows you to double the Spell Power you gain from Holy Shield and have a defensive cooldown.
- Sheath of Light remains the same, allowing you to opt into a more offensive-scaling setup if desired. (This scales with party effects like Battle Shout, Trueshot Aura, and generic Attack Power gained from your Strength stat.
Having Holy Shield grant 4 combined attack power/spell power at base would make Malleable Protection feel like an actual bonus comparable to Sheath of Light rather than something we’re forced to take to get the same value that other tanks do from the Defense stat. This conversion also fits thematically since Paladins are equal parts warrior and priest thematically.
Priest
Healing, Holy, and Shadow
I made a thread about this with ideas here, so I won’t extend the length of this post further by re-treading what I say there.
To quickly summarize:
- Healing priest gameplay is abysmally boring relative to any other healing class. It didn’t get any runes that really shook up the way that healing was approached, and it seriously needs attention.
- Potential Smite Priest runes are addressed. These runes can also be used to play as a more offensively-oriented healing priest.
- Shadow Priests are generally in a much better spot than before. I offer minimal suggestions on this spec, as others have expressed ideas at length on this subject.
Warrior
Gladiator DPS and Tank
Overall, the deep Protection spec Gladiator/Defensive stance tank setup feels really good to use. A few points of annoyance:
Furious Thunder still really, really sucks. This rune seems to promise a Thunder Clap that helps you gain and maintain AoE aggro while tanking, but is a marginal tool at best. I’m not really interested in Thunder Clap being a strong damage tool, but I would prefer it if it was a useful threat tool. Some thoughts:
- One of the simplest (and most boring) solutions is to simply increase the threat that Thunder Clap generates when Furious Thunder is equipped. The rune already gives a 50% bonus to threat, but I think there are more interesting changes that could accomplish this.
- Thunder Clap crits do not currently trigger the Deep Wounds talent. If it did, this would help the spell be more useful by synergizing with some other talents and offering a way to trigger this bleed on multiple targets, helping with AoE threat.
- Building on the previous point; If Thunder Clap is allowed to trigger Deep Wounds, could the Furious Thunder rune grant Thunder Clap increased Critical Strike Chance? This could potentially work like the Paladin Rune “Wrath”, where certain spells gain additional critical strike chance equal to your melee crit chance.
- A change that I think is likely one of the most useful: Furious Thunder no longer triggers a global cooldown (and thus can be used at any time, in any stance).
That last change would, in my opinion, be the most welcome. Thunder Clap being usable at any time without being triggered or locked by GCD wouldn’t move the needle on warrior damage due to the low base and absent scaling of the ability, It still has a cooldown of 5 seconds and costs 20 rage (down to 13 with the right runes and talents). I only see this last change as a win for usability and AoE threat without risking a massive spike in Warrior AoE damage.
The Enrage Runes
I know there’s been some fiddling with how these work (specifically enhancing dual wield gameplay, which is a big win).
Could I suggest that these runes (Fresh Meat, Wrecking Crew, and Consumed by Rage) also trigger the “Enrage” talent in some way if you’ve invested points into it? This talent feels HORRIBLE to take as a DPS since you’re hardly ever critically struck in group content, but it’s necessary to reach the Flurry Talent. While you’re at it, it would be cool to see “Blood Craze” also get triggered by these runes when you enrage. I was thinking something along the following lines:
- Fresh Meat triggers grant 12 stacks of Enrage in addition to current effects when you have talent points invested in the “Enrage” talent.
- Wrecking Crew triggers grant 3-6 stacks of Enrage in addition to current effects when you have talent points invested in the “Enrage” talent.
- Consumed by Rage grants 12 stacks of Enrage in addition to current effects when you have talent points invested in the “Enrage” talent.
A change like this also makes Enrage an option for Deep Arms players to sink talent points into at level 60.