Dear Devs, Please don't nerf Slayer - 12.0.5 notes

Classes Warrior
21

It doesn’t make any logical sense because we don’t actually know the full picture yet as to what those 12.0.5 changes are actually being made with in mind. I can guarantee your reaction wouldn’t be as harsh right now if blizzard didn’t release patch notes for content 2.5-3months away so inelegantly before any tuning actually hit to placate the overemotional players in the community who are waiting for that very next week’s tuning.

I suppose I’ve been through quite a few xpac launches and starting tiers to have an expectation that there’s always a few specs that just aren’t tuned right off the rip and you have to play other options till they buff it. So really the best way to not get overworked is to have zero expectations.

For instance going into WoD, during the pre patch both Arms and Fury copped MASSIVE nerfs because they were overtuned for MoP’s pre patch, but then they didn’t have access to the same stats so they were severely undertuned for the very first tier of WoD. It was a different game design back then not a lot of normalisation that’s prevalent now.
So yeah we spent the whole of the preseason doing a lot less than others with our only ‘viable’ option being Glad stance for raids, however after that very first week of raid release both Arms and Fury received sizable buffs.

The unfortunate reality of Arms’ design this beta cycle was their overzealous tuning around bugs that made it look better earlier on than it would’ve been, while also having some very impactful bugs still not fixed like FoB’d Slams not being able to trigger it’s Apex like it should.
That’s even before we get into them running out of time to fix the 4th Apex talent point which they nerfed initially off bugged versions of it in previous builds.

Patch notes for what we’ll be seeing for the 17th will most likely be out either within the next what 12-14hrs by C.O.B. Friday for NA or we’ll get after the weekend on their Monday.

22

Oh I absolutely agree. That’s part of what boggles my mind. It’s not like they’ve never had expansions before, nor know how volatile the communities are… so… why even post nerfs to buffs to tunings that haven’t even happened yet? Someone got a bit over-zealous with their release notes, forgetting we’re not privy to whatever internal dialogue is going on in the dev. department.

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23

Their A.i have all the data it needs

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24

Small Indie company. Gotta outsource the important stuff somewhere.

25

It feels like Blizzard has been testing arms (maybe even fury too) with the set bonus always on or something. I think this because always having a 35% buff to our damage (30% from colossus smash + 5% from the 2 set bonus) puts us in line with other DPS in terms of single target. Our 4 set with our 4th apex talent should pretty much keep colossus smash up at all times. This change in 12.0.5 is reading that way too. Issue is that we won’t even be able to get to our 4 piece bonus at this rate because we won’t be invited to anything.

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26

I think you’re trying to make excuses for something that isn’t quite happening.

The most logical reasoning for the midnight pre patch nerfs to Arms was entirely to make Heroic Strike your highest damage per cast ability before any buffs to MS start adding up so there would be no confusion in when you should be pressing it.
But in doing so they did not check the end result and didn’t apply an appropriate aura buff to bring it back in line with where they want everyone to be around. The S1 Midnight tier set bonus isn’t anything special for Arms and we won’t be anywhere near a 100% uptime with it either.

Mind you spec balance for the most part from a raid setting has been pretty good the whole of TWW. I guess all we do is wait and see what unfolds over the next couple of weeks tuning wise if they can repeat properly balancing specs for raid again.

27

Exactly. I’d be okay with losing the proc chance from Mortal Strike if we could at least keep the guaranteed proc from Sudden Death. But this change was absolutely thoughtless.

You would think that someone who designs the class would understand that this change makes it impossible to trigger Reap the Storm in single target of 2 mob fights?

I usually hate being negative and insulting other people’s intelligence. But this is just plain stupid. We litterally spell everything out for you people and you just can’t help it…

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28

I do agree that they were trying to push heroic strike/apex talents in general. It’s why I’m so confused why our 4th point is so bad. I think maybe it was suppose to give way more cdr at some point(5-10s?), but they dropped it to 2s for some reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if all they did this Tuesday was buff our apex talents across the board (+% increase to heroic strike damage, more procs, more stack bonuses (doubled to 10% at 2 points), much higher cdr) or reworked our 4th point in a way that would pump up our damage up a significant amount.

29

Basically they changed it to 2s when they doubled Heroic Strike’s proc rate. Which definitely wasn’t the right move clearly. HS also had a pretty overperforming bug around the same time where it wouldn’t consume from FoB but would still chain send it with Cleave casts leading to a pretty ridiculous version of Arms from what I heard when that was busted on the beta.

Should find out soon if they’ve decided to fix the 4th apex talent point for wednesday’s raid release or if we’re just getting a sizable aura buff.

2 Likes
30

I get where Lint is coming from though. They seem to be tuning us based on theoretical data vs. actual, whether its skewed from a bug, or some future tier bonuses, or something else entirely. Either that or they’re jus throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.

As far as the “need more flashy animations” threads go, to me, Arms is clean, economical, and precise. Fury is all flash, chest thumping, and berserker rage. The difference in my mind would be a (D&D reference) Battlemaster (or Blade Dancer) vs. Barbarian.

Honestly, if I want flash and boom, I’ll play my Enh Shaman.

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31

Dang. Guess it’s back to colossus so I don’t miss this execute change once it’s gone.

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32

Answer, I’m miserable with the state of warrior and how it continues to be a forgotten spec. I know your rage baiting, so I won’t bother wasting too much effort. What makes me the most miserable is that when I pre-ordered Midnight, things kinda looked up for the Warrior class. Arms included. Now it feels like a rug is being pulled out from under us.

As I stated, the buff on the 17th will need to be some sort of miracle sized buff to bring about the .5 changes.

4 Likes
33

yeah I rarely post on these forums but what is going on with this expac like TWW it took 3 seasons for them to get slayer fury fun and now… I like the rend change but please don’t take away SD’s chance to proc Reap!

34

It’s one thing to mess up tuning at the start of an expansion. That happens.

But to nerf Arms three times in a row after coming out of an expansion where it was already one of the worst specs and when it’s widely known that it’s still one of the weakest specs in Midnight is just incompetence.

The people rushing to defend Blizzard’s “plans” are missing the point. It’s been two years. At some point the excuse of “they have a plan” stops making sense. Arms is bad. Period.

Stop nerfing it and fix the actual problems with the spec.

It would take 15 minutes on a training dummy to realize the spec feels clunky and underperforms.

if you want to defend blizzard then preoccupy yourself and go buy that pink squirrel off the store, because let’s be honest you probably have no idea what your talking about.

35

Your reading comprehension isn’t that good if you think anyone is defending the projected 12.0.5 changes. What you call “defending” is people being critical of the changes and advising that it’s more of a hold your pitchforks and tantrums until you have the full info so you don’t look like muppets crying hyperbole every two seconds.

I swear most of you consume too much reactionary media and have absolutely zero self regulation at all.

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36

So what now that we have the full picture?

Was it just tantrum or people just predicting the pattern? lmao

Its not defending is straight up coping

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37

Full picture it’s now clear their changes were centered around the ST Deep Wounds increase from it being able to activate from Slam crits. My point on the 12.0.5 changes is that it’s still weird, mostly unwarranted and reduces gameplay interaction a little too much for my liking which was already my stance before this but I also worded myself like an adult unlike others who think that’s being “Defensive” of blizzard which boggles the mind that people can’t understand rational thought processes anymore and everything must be over the top reactions with no substance at all.

In terms of our aura buff, Arms probably needed another 10% to put it back into a competitive standpoint for PvE due to specs above it being buffed by a range of 10-20%, it’ll not be racing the tanks but it still needs a little bit more help. Unless that Apex change makes it a whole lot more powerful than expected and the aura buff is onpoint with the tier set bonus over the next couple of weeks.

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38

You can just stop with the on the wall attitude and call BAD and not “weird”.

Cause again, everyone gonna look at you as a blizz chill if you try to pad every dumb decision they make

Yeah sure

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39

So Greil I can see you are wanting someone to engage with you to offer you a chance to argue like you have done to literally half the posts here. so I’ll bite for now.

Your reading comprehension comment is ironic because you completely missed the actual point being made.

No one is confused about the difference between “projected” and “final” changes. The issue is the pattern. Arms has been underperforming for the better part of two years. It exited the last expansion near the bottom, it entered Midnight weak, and the response so far has been multiple nerfs instead of addressing the spec’s core problems.

At some point “wait for the full picture” stops being a meaningful argument. We’ve been waiting through multiple patches already. When a spec consistently feels clunky, underperforms in real content, and the only visible tuning passes are nerfs, people are obviously going to question the direction.

Calling that “pitchforks and tantrums” is just a way to dismiss criticism without engaging with it.

And the “reactionary media” line doesn’t really apply here either. You don’t need YouTube or Reddit outrage to notice that a spec feels bad. Anyone who has spent 10–15 minutes on a training dummy or in actual content can feel the issues with Arms’ flow, rage economy, and damage profile.

So the criticism isn’t hyperbole. It’s frustration with a spec that has had obvious problems for multiple patches while the adjustments being shown don’t address those problems.

If Blizzard actually fixes the spec, great. That’s what people want. But pretending the current criticism is just “muppets crying” ignores the very real track record that led to it.

defend all you want. Class tuning has been a mess for a very long time. It is no secret accept it and move on. In hindsight I should not of made a post because there is always someone who will try to make your opinion invalid no matter how obvious it is.

If you’ve made it this far before rage replying you are obviously an experienced player that’s been around for awhile. I’d challenge you to look at the bigger picture before defending or giving them the benefit of the doubt. It’s been a problem for far too long. As you see i have 4 posts. At this point enough is enough.

look at the bear buffs 15% to arms 10% to fury. Fury was already outperforming arms by 15-20% so tell me how does that make sense.

8 Likes
40

I mean it is, at least for PvE.

If you’re talking the last two years (Back half of DF, and all of TWW) Arms was a strong DPS Choice in DF S3 once it received a buff to its tier set. It was argubly the best DPS of DF S4. It wasn’t good TWW S1 in raid due to catching strays from Fury nerfs. TWW S2 had one of the better single target profiles for raid as long as Juggernaut RNG didn’t screw you over. It was a solid melee spec for M+ with Colossus and was the preferred spec DPS Warrior spec. And in S3, despite it being overshadowed by Fury in M+, it still had solid raid performance.

Arms has its problems, and people are allowed to be frustrated by our current situation. No one is defending our current position or upcoming plans for the spec.

That doesn’t mean we sit around and exaggerate issues. Give your feedback about whats happening right now and don’t try and rewrite stuff we can actively look up on Raider_io or Warcraft Logs.

3 Likes