I don’t think we’ll see fundamental mechanics redesign until 9.0. I think we’re just in for a baseline mitigation increase, a healing increase (possibly but not necessarily through a buff to Soul Cleave), changes to Demon Spikes cooldown or duration, or some combination of any of them.
I think we’ll see an almost complete rework in 9.0. I expect that Soul Bomb gameplay will be on the chopping block, and we’ll maybe even see Pain disappear as a resource, or see it get completely reworked.
well if they are focused solely on numerical changes like DS uptime, cooldown potency, etc. then the spec will continue to feel wrong for the rest of the expansion primarily stemming from this soul cleave vs. spirit bomb issue and pain capping
Not to disappoint, but during the T&E video, they had asked if some underpowered specs would be receiving even mini reworks, and they claimed that these would only be tweaks to #s and there would be no severe gameplay changes to specs.
This doesn’t matter, because Demon Spike is the bread and butter of VDH. Go look at your Armor rating when you press the ability for Demon Spikes there is about a 1 in 5 chance that it will NOT give its armor buff, but still gives its parry buff. VDH fail because blizzard cant design a class any more, its just like the gear, it fails to proc often as well. So unless they are even aware of this, or plan to give some major changes to support the failed Demon Spike proc it doesn’t matter. We have random health because our core ability blows and doesn’t work.
They need to make Demon Spike like Shield Block while exchanging the Armor buff into a straight % passive by default.
Demonic Wards: damage reduction increased to 15% (was 10%).
Demonic Wards: armor bonus increased to 100% (was 80%).
Demon Spikes: armor reduced to 60% of Agility (was 85%).
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/rise-of-azshara-ptr-initial-class-changes/149899
I actually dont mind these changes. That is a hefty buff without making us broken.
Far and away the most passive magic mitigation baseline of any tank with a potential 21% with void reaver not counting a high verse set.
This is pretty much in line with what o would have hoped for. A bit of a dps increase would be cool too.
It’s just missing an update to VDH Meta. It actually gets worse with a baseline armor buff ![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
That is truth. Now its just a chunk of hp and leech essentially.
What makes me sad is waiting until 8.2 to go live to get these changes. At the end of the day they could put those in a hot fix right now and the game would be better for it. Nothing in that proposed solution is tier tilting. It just makes us not squishier than your average clothie outside of DS.
Doesn’t it make meta better? I always thought meta increased your armour by 100% of post Demonic Wards armour increase, is that wrong? How does meta work then?
It does double your armor, yes, and the change to Demonic Wards makes Meta slightly better, but it’s essentially irrelevant. Part of the problem is that the diminishing returns curve on armor is insanely harsh in BfA, and all of the AM being armor bonuses really doesn’t help that at all.
For numbers, on my VDH, Meta is currently a 20.81% damage reduction on live, or 14.62% if DS is up (the why on this is because the armor granted by DS is not multiplied by Meta or by Demonic Wards. It’s a flat addition, which massively reduces the benefits of doubling your armor before that addition).
In Rise of Azshara, Meta becomes a 22.12% reduction, or a 16.71% reduction if DS is up. So the change does increase the potency of Meta, but only trivially. Excluding the other damage reduction impacts the change has, the change to meta represents roughly a 1.5-2.5% decrease in damage taken during Meta.
Ahhh okay thank you. Always knew meta was a poop cooldown with little mitigation for a 3min cd, was just confused by the people saying its worse now hahaha
Probably because of the assumption that pushing you farther along the DR curve would make the bonus armor worse. And frankly, given how the DR curve works, that’s a valid assumption, but doesn’t hold up in this particular case. The increase in raw armor gained makes up for being farther along the DR curve, though it only barely makes up for it, as evidenced above.
I want to see Gluttony baseline, taking it away from VDH’s is another reason the class was beat with a bat to the ground. Have it back to the Legion values and that will help make up for the lack of CD’s.
Well fry my chicken and call me colonel, can’t wait to try this out.
Eh. I’ve never agreed with RNG abilities, talents, traits etc etc. It should either add add armor or health by X amount stacking X times for 10 seconds or reduce the CD of Meta by 0.5 or 1 second per soul consumed. Or have a dedicated soul cap when it would activate Meta. Say every 20 souls Meta is activated for 5-7 seconds.
At some point we need to stop trying to get meta to be up more (gluttony and the new essence) and just ask for it to be a stronger cd.
A garbage cd with 60%+ uptime is not exciting.
Meta should work same way flow wise as last stand for prot wars. Bascially as a prot war you got two block charges and if the pull lasts longer then that you can last stand to allow block charges to regen. Thats how meta should work, it should be at least a good a defensive as spikes but short enough of a cd to use it if pulls last longer then both spike charges. Prot wars still better as even after poping double block last stand double block they can still shield wall.
If gluttony was a part of the toolkit, even though it’s RNG, you can play smart and recharge your DS while gluttony procs, overall smoothing your damage intake.
What I keep going back to is “why the DS” nerf?
Given the small scope of the changes, would it really make us overpowered to buff our baseline armor and demonic wards, without nerfing DS also?
I suppose if there are more buffs coming it may be justified, but with the current changes I think they could remove the DS counter-balance nerf and we would still at best be a middle tier tank.
Does anyone honestly think we will be overpowered with the upcoming changes?
They explained the DS nerf - it’s to keep it at roughly equivalent power when it’s up after the baseline buff to the way it is on live, which is pretty good. I don’t think anyone has really had a problem with survivability when DS is up, it’s all other times that are at issue.