Just from looking through the notes, I don’t PTR.
Developers’ notes: We have noticed damage dealt by tanks has not been keeping pace with damage dealers, we are adjusting damage of all tank specs to bring them into a closer alignment with DPS specs.
This is really lame. Tanks are already OP as hell in solo content. Ever notice most of the easy Delve specs are tanks? Ever notice that the gathering bots are usually tank spec?
- Power of Goldrinn damage increased by 100%.
Why do we even have a single target damage proc on our single target spender? Making the talent more mandatory isn’t good either.
- Mastery: Harmony effectiveness increased by 45%. Now reduces its bonus with each additional heal over time effect.
- Developers’ notes: This update to Mastery: Harmony is intended to reward more heavily the first few heal over time effects applied to allies while tempering the scaling at large heal over time counts. This scaling will still always make it a bonus to have additional heal over time effects on targets.
Sounds good.
- Nature’s Swiftness now increases the healing of Regrowth by 200% (was 100%).
It was certainly underwhelming for a 1m cooldown, but currently I’m not using that talent because I don’t want the extra button, very sad that you’re trying to make it more mandatory. At least change it like Divine Favor where it’s a passive you get when you press another button.
- New Talent: Azure Celerity – Disintegrate ticks 1 additional time, but deals 10% less damage.
I’m assuming the math works out to be worth it with the Eternity Surge procs, but taking a talent that nerfs the damage is still counter-intuitive. Remove the damage nerf and just embrace it as a mandatory talent.
- Firestorm damage increased by 50% and duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 10 seconds).
Probably still not enough. It’s really hard to justify talent points that do nothing in single target.
- Developers’ notes: Emerald Blossom has historically triggered Echo for consistency reasons, but this has made it difficult to weave these spells together effectively. We’re updating Echo to no longer trigger from Emerald Blossom so players who want to make use of Emerald Blossom can do so without “wasting” any active Echoes.
This helps but I wish Emerald Blossom was more usable in dungeons. It’s hard to justify spending essence on it compared to Echo because group members are rarely clumped enough.
- Call of the Wild now reduces the cooldown of Barbed Shot and Kill Command by 25% per pet summoned (was 50%).
Nooooooooooo!
The following talents have been removed:
- Basilisk Collar
Thank you.
- Razor Fragments has been updated – Now only triggers when Deathblow is gained (was when Trick Shots was consumed or Deathblow was gained).
The “when Trick Shots was consumed” was annoying to try to play around in the same way it’s annoying to make sure Trick Shots is up for Bleak Powder. However, Razor Fragments always has a tough time getting good value. Where’s the buff?
- Developers’ notes: We’re mostly happy with Survival Hunter’s gameplay after the 20th Anniversary Celebration update, but the spec continues to have a lot of cognitive load around what buttons to press and when. To better condense Survival’s rotational decision space, we’re making access to Butchery and Flanking Strike mutually exclusive. Both spells have their own strengths and nuances, but having access to both at all times creates a crowded rotation that is absent of filler spells like Raptor Strike or Mongoose Bite.
People don’t want to press Raptor Strike / Mongoose Bite because they deal less damage in single target than a Wildfire Bomb. Filler spells need to feel strong, not just a chore.
Resonance has been updated – Now increases Arcane Barrage damage by 15% per target it hits beyond the first
Arcane Barrage is too large a fraction of our aoe damage. I’d much rather have more aoe damage in Arcane Explosion and Arcane Orb and Arcane Echo.
Leydrinker has been updated
The hard target cap is still unattractive.
- High Voltage bad luck protection chance increased to 15% (was 10%).
It’s a giant mistake in single target to use Arcane Barrage without a quick way to get back to 4 charges. Redesign.
- Developers’ notes: Fire’s resource economy post-The War Within has been too generous, which has made certain spells like Fireball and Scorch feel unnecessary while also impacting how we can tune Pyroblast and Flamestrike. Our goal here is to reduce access to Phoenix Flames and less-so Fire Blast while amping up your spenders to help increase skill expression, increase your reliance on casting, and make exciting spells hit a bit harder.
You made Fireball and Scorch suck, so it feels really bad when out of Fire Blast and Phoenix Flames charges. Flamestrike damage still a bad joke.
- Freezing Winds has been redesigned – Now causes Frozen Orb to deal 15% more damage to units affected by your Blizzard.
- Developers’ notes: Freezing Winds was impacting our ability to increase access to Frozen Orb or put more power into Fingers of Frost. With the addition of Hero Talents, Frost is more flooded with Fingers of Frost than ever before, and we’d like to reduce Fingers of Frost’s proc rate so it can feel more meaningful when you have it while also giving us the design space to do more with it in the future.
Just like with Survival Hunter and Fire Mage, it hurts when you force us to use weak spells (in this case Frostbolt). Buff Frostbolt. Don’t buff Ice Lance, it makes Frostbolt feel worse to press.
Also that talent is extremely boring.
- Winter’s Chill duration increased to 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).
- Ice Lances empowered by Fingers of Frost no longer consume Winter’s Chill.
BIG GOOD.
- Invoke Niuzao now absorbs 40% of Staggered damage while active (was 25%).
- Invoke Niuzao’s Stomp damage increased by 22%.
- Purified Chi maximum stacks reduced to 6 (was 10) and now increases Celestial Brew’s absorb amount by 35% per stack (was 20%).
These are cool but need a bit more passive survivability.
- Spinning Crane Kick damage increased by 40%.
You’re going to ruin Mistweaver if you make it OP.
Conduit of the Celestials
- Celestial Conduit damage increased by 322%.
No, please no big damage cooldowns on healing specs.
- Spinning Crane Kick damage increased by 80%.
- The following talents have been removed:
- Mark of the Crane
I get this is a big quality of life change for aoe damage, but I worry you’re dumbing down the spec too much.
- Seal of the Crusader healing reduced by 50%.
- Lightforged Blessing now heals 1% of health (was 2%).
These were good talents but a 50% nerf is brutal. Particularly, Lightforged Blessing needed a nerf for Ret because they can Divine Storm a lot more than Holy and Prot can use Shield of the Righteous.
- Flash of Light healing decreased by 25%.
This is too weak.
- Holy Light healing increased by 128% and now costs 7% base mana (was 6.4%).
- Infusion of Light now increases the healing of Holy Light by 30% (was 100%).
It’s great that you’re finally decreasing the dependence on Holy Shock crits.
Divine Favor now increases healing done by Holy Light or Flash of Light by up to 20% (was 40%)
Just remove Flash of Light from this, it’s insanely less value.
- Strength in Adversity reduced to 3% parry per enemy struck (was 5%).
Nerfing this is fine but I think the problem is more that it’s 100% uptime.
- Divine Hammer has been redesigned – Divine Hammers spin around you, striking enemies nearby for Holy damage every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. While active, each Holy Power spent increases the duration of Divine Hammer by 0.5 seconds. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets. Costs 3 Holy Power and has a 1 minute cooldown.
The extension gimmick is annoying. At the end of the day it’s like having ~30% extra Divine Storm damage for a period of time, but the Holy Power cost means the first few hammers are making up for the Divine Storm you’re losing. It would feel 10x better as a shorter burst of damage, like a Giga Divine Storm.
- Developers’ notes: We’re aiming to provide a better experience when using Divine Hymn while pulling back on the number of raid cooldowns available to the specialization. We’re also doing some consolidation in the tree by removing Circle of Healing and adding more interactions with Prayer of Healing. Finally, we’re looking to provide options for a gameplay style centered around Renew uptime in addition to existing playstyles.
Sounds like a W, but did you fix the awful damage rotation?
Shadow
- All damage increased by 13%.
5% would be okay. 13% is ridiculous.
Ancestral Guidance has been removed.
W. Make Shadow Priests Great Again!
- Primordial Wave has been redesigned – Now deals a high amount of damage to all targets affected by your Flame Shock.
- Developers’ notes: Primordial Wave is a complicated spell to manage and get optimal use out of. We’re adjusting it to be more of a big damage impact upon activating the ability rather than priming your next Lava Burst to hit many targets.
Okay but that’s basically the same as sending a Lava Burst at all your Flame Shocks when you press Ascendance. It needs more of its own flavor. I’d rather it didn’t interact with Flame Shock at all.
- Developers’ notes: Enhancement Shaman currently have Maelstrom Weapon spending abilities that potentially do very high damage, while their melee abilities are not hitting as hard as we would like them to be. We’re redistributing some of your overall damage to be less weighted towards Maelstrom Weapon spenders and more damage towards your melee abilities, and making some buffs like Feral Spirits always grant bonuses to your physical damage abilities regardless of what talent options you have chosen.
About Time!
Developers’ notes: The primary resource system, Maelstrom Weapon, was not very noticeable as a passive in the spell book. To address this, we’re making Stormstrike the introductory ability for those choosing the Enhancement specialization and replacing its spot on the talent tree with Maelstrom Weapon.
You really need all actives and passives learned at X level shown on the talent tree.
- Drain Life damage increased by 300%.
Yesssssss.
Developers’ notes: Soul Rot provides Affliction with a burst damage window that focuses on casting Malefic Rapture in quick succession.
Yeah, and some of us don’t want that gameplay.
- Developers’ notes: In Undermine(d), the duration of Doom is now reduced for each Soul Shard spent on Hand of Gul’dan. Our goal with this change is to provide more control over when Doom explodes since its application is dependent on randomly receiving a Demonic Core. In addition, Doom Eternal wasn’t attractive enough to warrant a talent point but still felt missed as it made Doom feel incomplete since its duration reduction wasn’t maximized. Considering this, we’ve redesigned Doom Eternal to increase the uptime of Doom and provide a slight nudge to the Demonic Core economy.
I was fine with Doom Eternal as it was, but this is good too.
- Mayhem now has a 35% chance to activate (was 25%).
Fun times ahead.
Developers’ notes: We feel that Warriors are in a good place overall, however, there are a few places we’d like to make improvements to each spec, and to the class as a whole. Warrior survivability in particular has been a weak point, and Endurance Training competing against powerful throughput nodes in the bottom of the Warrior tree makes it difficult to talent into.
Tough choices are good.
Arms
- All ability damage reduced by 5%.
- Mortal Strike damage increased by 66%.
- Cleave damage increased by 26%.
- Overpower damage increased by 44%.
- Dreadnaught damage increased by 44%.
- Execute damage increased by 32%.
- Slam damage increased by 45%.
- Whirlwind damage increased by 40%.
Well this’ll be interesting XD
- Reckless Abandon has been redesigned – Activating Recklessness generates 50 Rage and while Recklessness is active, Raging Blow and Bloodthirst are replaced by Crushing Blow and Bloodbath.
- Developers’ notes: Reckless Abandon has been having an outsized impact on rotations and we’d like to bring the focus of the talent back to Recklessness as well as make Crushing Blow and Bloodbath abilities with unique additional effects.
This is an L. You’re leaning too heavily on burst damage. Reckless Abandon was fun because it was primarily a consistent damage talent. Fury has plenty of burst damage from Recklessness, Avatar, Thunderous Roar, Ravager/Bladestorm, and Odyn’s Fury without this talent.
Hopefully the dungeons don’t suck or it’ll be a short season for me. I worry about the M0 changes and the dungeon pool. Meadery and Priory have horrible trash.
