This “fix” to add a possible chance to increase beast cleave and sacrifice damage is not an improvement
Increased beast cleave duration does not increase our damage
Our beast cleave damage is very weak as is vs other specs and classes
Multi-shot hits like a wet noodle
Kill command really should cleave (which would make sense as the alternative to the proposed increased duration of beast cleave)
The 4pc does not mechanically work with Venthyr hunters as the proc that is the covenant ability steps on this proc - you must choose your covenant or choose your proc. Spoiler alert: Either choice nets a dps LOSS as a result; You cannot win in this scenario
The 2pc causes issues for Kyrian running over crit cap with resonating arrow’s crit buff in addition to the set bonus crit for kill command (though, it does not run afoul of the rest of the crit buff affecting literally anything else that is not kill command)
It hurts my head to see that they didn’t think this through, test it, or even understand the fundamental issues. Let alone even respond to it in PTR, the 9.2 Tier set thread, or in the follow-up 3/8 fix thread. It’s not that they’re dropping the ball once, or twice, but at least 3 times.
Take a look at the Affliction tier pass they just did. It’s not perfect, but it’s an improvement and obvious that they understood the problem before touching it.
This pass looks like the author had no idea what the problems were before trying to “fix” them.
I had to come back to look at this post because I figured I HAD to have read it incorrectly. But no, you’ve essentially lied by not giving us an “AOE” buff. Instead, you’ve given us more globals without having to press Multi-Shot but also we can’t benefit from the tier set’s Cobra Shot interaction if we choose to multi-shot? It’s really bad.
I love how you crop down my argument so you can feel all big and bad trying to insult me when I literally cover your first two points in my full statement. Also most other classes are burst aoe, beast cleave is sustained aoe. Asking for a sustained aoe ability to be fully brought up to par with burst aoe abilities is literally asking too much so your point 3 is pointless. Having 10 seconds of beast cleave all the time would reduce how many times you have to cast wet noodle multishot so again a pointless point. People have already brought up point 5 multiple times my statement was about if this is the route they insist on going. Covenant issues have also already been thoroughly covered before I added my reply. Not every reply needs to regurgitate the covenant issues, specially when they’re not unique to us. If you want to min max every spec has had pretty much a clear winner of what covenant they need to be all expansion long.
Also bad game design is a good argument as to why something shouldn’t be done. If blizzard thought about bad game design we wouldn’t have covenants in the state they’re in. Have multiple functionally useless covenants for various specs is bad game design. Your complaint about covenants interactions with this tier set are in fact complaints about bad game design.
We’re not asking to have burst level AoE with 100% uptime. We asked for our AoE to be buffed in the set bonus, like every other spec. It doesn’t have to be massive, but it should be something. They said they would, then made a change that boosts our AoE by literally nothing. Not a single little bit.
Again, that doesn’t address the lack of AoE damage on the set bonus. Being able to do more single target damage during AoE windows doesn’t fix the problem. This matters, because BM will have no problem finding groups during Tyrannical week, but Fortified is going to get them passed over more often than not.
This is just a bad take. Every spec has a clear winner, for the most part, but the difference is usually 1-2%. With the BM set bonuses, the difference is closer to 10%. That’s a massive gap between covenants, where ‘meaningful choice’ loses all weight.
I trimmed it because the rest of it isn’t relevant. You didn’t understand the core issues and had a poor argument in response. Weak auras are required or in use by most specs for the reason you indicate. You want BM to be an exception for some reason. It is, by default, a weak argument as a result.
You ascribe motivations and behaviors to my response which can only be construed not only as incorrect, but projection. I have no need to insult you nor have I done so.
The restatement of the issues was an indication that your weak argument was neither the concerns with the tier set fixes (the topic of this thread) nor particularly germaine to discussion. If facts are enough to have you ascribe emotional motivation to my statements and be construed by you as insulting, perhaps you should take time to step back and look at it objectively rather than subjectively.
Cognizant is doing that. Perhaps you could use his analysis and response as a template.
I think this is a part people are missing. They see a fairly concise statement and then add additional meaning that does not exist in order to counter it. You’re right, we’re not asking for any of that. We’re asking that aoe be competitive. It is nowhere close to that today and certainly will not be with the 4pc bonus.
Quite so and entirely spot on. In fortified weeks, I am the weakest link in my M+ groups. In tyrannical, I am not. Fortunately, the 2 groups I run with are aware of this and stack opposing strengths to compensate for this glaring weakness on the part of my spec. (Especially true with Venthyr BM)
A MUCH huger margin vs either Survival or Marksmanship. There’s no way I can burst to 25k (marksman) or 60k (survival) in aoe even with 100% optimal rotation. I’m lucky, if circumstances allow, for maybe 17k at best. I’ve seen the other two specs do substantially higher. Versus Night Fae, however, I see them able to consistently about 21-22k burst.
But your point is well received, obviously. It has the bearing of fact behind it. My concern here is that if BM is supposed to be roughly behind everyone in aoe because we’re intended to be stronger on single target, we’re also failing that metric. So, not only are we not doing well in aoe, we’re not doing well in single target by comparison to literally every spec except maybe Windwalker monks this tier.
A guildie had an interesting analysis and thought on this topic: They will likely not make any changes until the Mythic raid race to first (and even 100 mythic guilds per faction) has been reached. I dislike the analysis, but I cannot fault it for having the ring of truth to it. After all, the hotfix yesterday was literally useless in terms of damage or mechanics fixes (in keeping with the equally useless 4pc for Venthyr hunters - and the useless beast cleave (for all beast master hunters) change in the same tier set bonus)
I raise only one objection to your post: whether it is true or not that weak auras are required for most specs, it might be that the player in question wishes it weren’t the case. I can see the appeal of something simpler and reliable that didn’t require extra coding to let me play. I use Weak Auras, especially for my Hunter–maintaining Frenzy stacks is so much easier that way, but I’d have no objection to them making it so I didn’t need Weak Auras to do so. There is an appeal to the idea that they’d be helpful rather than, as they seem to be now, required for many specs.
That said, I feel like the post to which you object missed several other points which have been raised. The issues keep being raised because there is a vain hope that if we repeat it enough, Blizzard might take notice and try to undo the complete mess they’ve made.
I can’t speak for all classes, specs, and covenants, but I can say that from what I know, BM is in an unusual, if not unique, position of being essentially shoehorned into one Covenant by their tier and legendary options so that the difference is, according to the numbers I’ve seen, something in the nighborhood of 10%. That’s no longer a question of whether you’re at the Cutting Edge or running 20+ 10% is highly noticable in Heroic or even Normal if you’re not, you know, a Mythic-level raider or someone who does 20+ keys in lower difficulties of raiding and Mythics. If you can’t play at the peak of the class (and do bear in mind that someone has to grey parse, even if everyone played perfectly), you have all the more reason to search out any methods for improving your performance that you can achieve. Picking a different Covenant is an easy step that, in this instance, can give you a 10% dps boost.
Blizzard has repeatedly told us all that covenant choice shouldn’t make a substantial difference. You argue that it does and is. (I’m not disagreeing with your statement, but in fact, I am disagreeing in that it does not meet their stated design objectives.) Each covenant is intended to express some strengths and weaknesses vs the others. That’s acceptable. But, if one covenant is best in all situations, as it is here, they have failed their stated design objectives and forced a change to anyone who wants to do competitively in high end content.
None of this matters to casual players. But, casual players aren’t the ones complaining here.
The thing is, I run with both Normal and Heroic teams. And I gotta tell you, if you’re a Normal raider, you’re no less in need of a boost to get the most out of what you can manage.
And yeah, it’s incredibly dumb that we have a situation where there’s only one Covenant that’s really viable and, to top it off, will still be far behind in damage anyway.
Well, my raid team is mythic. And they are aware I will drop like a stone once everyone gets their 4pc. And it’s a 50/50 whether or not I will get sat as a result. Sure, I can do mechanics, but if I can’t keep up with the raid in terms of damage, I can’t stay.
This is really the heart of the matter in two parts. The additional and frustrating third part is that they’re absolutely radio silent on this issue. They have not communicated awareness of the issues, their thoughts on the analysis, or even if they understand the issue. That doesn’t include, of course, whether or not the issues will actually be addressed.
I would welcome a rude remark from them at this point so we could be sure that there’s nothing to await. A clear and open statement that BM is dead would save us a lot of trouble and we could start being mad about that instead of sitting around hoping for a crumb of programmer time and some mental space from a design team that thinks the best way to achieve class-balance is to add more variables!
Given their statement that they are intending to be more responsive to feedback from players, the deafening silence seemingly contradicts their statement on that topic.
To be fair, they did respond to the feedback. More fool us for having thought they meant that their response would be relevant and helpful. We should have known better.
I’m not entirely convinced. They responded to feedback that literally noone voiced about the 4pc in that thread (I have stated as much in that same thread - and in the PTR thread). They did not respond to player feedback in that thread by anyone who actually posted in that thread regarding beastmasters. They did respond to Survival hunters and Marksman hunters in that thread.
They specifically responded with wording “with regards to AoE damage” and then did nothing to increase AoE damage. No matter how they try to justify it, they were being dishonest.
One thing I keep seeing is the argument that covenant choice doesn’t matter unless you’re mythic raiding. That is just ridiculous. The game has different value to everyone. Some are hardcore and only care about getting to the end. Others want to enjoy the ride.
In a game like WoW, the aesthetics and roleplay of covenants can be just as important to a player as maximizing their potential in group content. This is why balance is so important. Unfortunately, Blizzard seems to think otherwise, and this is one of the reasons the game isn’t doing as well these days.
Part of one of my posts pointed out that the set bonus so heavily prioritized single target damage, it could potentially be a DPS loss to do any AoE/Cleave at all. It just makes no sense that they would address that one off-handed comment and ignore the dozens of others.
From a dps perspective, the other reasons you give don’t much matter. That’s what high end raiders value (and high end M+). The other reasons you give don’t factor in dps or mechanics so much as appearances. So, no, I’m not saying it has no value. I’m saying aesthetics and role play do not matter in dps balance.
I don’t roleplay at all. I’m there to raid with guildmates and friends. Sure, let people roleplay on RP servers. Works for me. I’m not on one of them. And from a balance perspective, roleplaying has no value, interest, or merit in a dps mechanics discussion.
The thing is, it’s not entirely true that it only matters at Mythic levels. As I said, if your skill cap is in Normal raiding, you can still look for an edge. “Git gud” is not a valid response when there are measurable ways to improve merely by clicking the “change Covenant” button.