Alacrity

Shadow walkers cord = worthless
band of devestation = worthless
swiftstrike bracers = worthless

Im glad blizzard decided to nerf haste rating in general rather then nerfing the items that were overpowered (DST/Warglaive bonus)..

glad we don't kill vashj anymore, could sure use her belt right about now..

 

shed

Because it didn't make any sense for classes that did nothing but nuke to stack spell haste when items at the same or lower ilevel provided better stats in return.

Cloth spell-haste bracers? Get the crit ones from the first Hyjal boss or if you aren't hit capped get the Akama ones.

Spell-haste rings from BT trash drops? Ok those are decent simply because of their high damage (because its a bugged 151 ilvl item), but the Najentus (way lower ilvl) and Hyjal exalted rings are better.

Oh, and to top it off the only caster haste weapon that drops off any last boss is a crappy 2H that ends up doing way less damage than a mh/of combo.

Yeah, nerfs suck, casters got hit with it a while ago, and it was pretty bad. It sucks even more with the WF nerf, but it made no sense for the mele haste to be stupidly good while the caster one was crap (with even worse items to go around).

 

• Aldriana

Thing is, melee haste *wasn't* stupidly good. It really wasn't. When you work out the optimal end-game rogue gear, it included a grand total of 2 passive haste items: Shadow-Walker's Cord and Band of Devastation. The other items with haste, while certainly good, were not disproportionately good for where they dropped.

Now, DST and the Twinblade set bonus *were* stupidly good - the problem is, they still are. This nerf affects a whole bunch of items that were actually fairly well balanced, but doesn't actually fix the two items that were legitimately overpowered.

Upon contemplation, I think the real problem is that the way blizzard values haste procs is incorrect. My suspicion is that they value (in terms of item budget) a 1 PPM haste proc as though it procs once per minute; for instance, DST is now believed to be a 1 PPM haste; if it *actually procced* once per minute, it'd be comperable to 54 passive haste; and a trinket with 54 passive haste and 40 AP would still be one of the best trinkets, but would be in the same league as the other good trinkets as opposed to as good as 2-3 other trinkets put together.

The problem is, in real raid situations, DST is equivalent to more like 150 passive haste rating, making it vastly better than it's "supposed" to be.

Hence, I think the real solution is that Blizzard needs to reevaluate the stat-point cost of haste procs. If they took up a portion of the item budget commensurate with how often they *actually* proc (rather than how often they proc with a single weapon on autoattack), it would correct all imbalanced haste effects without needing to nerf the passive-haste items that are, honestly, roughly in the right place in terms of relative power. Having the best rogue belt drop in BT instead of off Vashj strikes me as wholly sensible, on the whole.

 

Alacrity

I started a thread on the general forums, not that it will do much but, can u post what u just stated on the thread aldriana?

WoW Forums -> Melee haste.. the real problem.

 

Amorpheus

I concur. The nerf makes a lot of items like [Belt of Seething Fury] worse than they already were, while DST will now be about where it should.

"You are better than I am," Inigo admitted.
"So it seems. But if that is true, then why are you smiling?"
"Because," Inigo answered, "I know something you don't know."
"And what is that?" asked the man in black.
"I'm not left-handed."

 

Igniter

So true. They intended to fix the twinblades/DST, but only patched the problem. I will still keep attempting whatever is necessary for DST, since it's still such a good trinket. Just instead I need to replace some of my haste gear which is now worse than some other pieces itemization wise.

I hate band-aid fixes.

 

• Snowy

Twinblades is stupidly good, but hey, it's legendary. It should still come down some though, lest they be good all the way into the xpack after the next one.

DST is far far too good for any trinket, and it's even more ridiculous given where it was at. Clearly the way to fix it would be to introduce a hidden cooldown of some sort, as long as it would still be an upgrade from Hourglass of the Unraveller.

Spell haste needed to go up, as it was simply too expensive for the benefit. I don't particularly agree with the melee haste nerf though.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Hozz

Agree with you on the first part, Red Belt of Battle is now hands down much better than Seething Fury. But the DST is still overpowered, its end game, and should not be dropping from Gruul.

 

shed

Yes, I don't agree really with the passive haste nerfs while the procs end up doing way more and actually proc a lot.

But like i said, its a reality that casters have dealt with and why most of the caster spell-haste gear is average or worse than others that provide stats like crit/hit.

If anything, this recent nerf simply tries to put both in line.

 

mubbers

This is quite sad, after messing around with the spreadsheets a bit, it seems the passive haste items really do end up being sidegrades at best. What disturbs me the most about all this is that I expect DFT to get a hidden cooldown eventually, and I rue the day that happens... I wish they would have done that straight away instead of reducing the effect of passive haste. Oh well.

 

shed

I'm going to also guess that they are getting ready to add more haste gear down the road and intend to use haste as a stat. With T6, people are already getting hit capped and a huge amount of damage/crit. Haste is really the only thing T6 doesn't have and I can see them adding that to the new 25 man instance coming out pre expansion (Sunwell?) and T7 quality gear.

 

Tojara

This also nerfs haste potions for all intent and purposes which sucks.

I feel the change isn't really warranted. I myself am just beginning to have access to haste rating items in BT (hopefully this week, well not now...). I can understand some problems with items like Dragonspine Trophy and possibly the Warglaives set having stupidily high haste gains and seemingly many procs though.

Myself, I don't have a Dragonspine Trophy. The fact I still want to go get one now that im starting Hyjal/BT is a little troubling from a balance point of view. The fact that its the best trinket in the game warrants a nerf to it.

I really hope Blizzard changes they're minds before this goes live. Baby steps should be taken instead of a massive jump like this. Nerf the items that were actually legitmately overpowered like Dragonspine Trophy and the Azzinoth Haste proc. Don't nerf the haste rating items that people went outta the way to get. Its like not wanting to nerf the tailoring sets because so many people already had them, but still achknowledging they were overpowered. While on a smaller scale I bet theres a lot of people upset in Hyjal/BT who passed on a lot of stuff just to acquire this haste rating set.

 

• Playered

Lets hope they are smarter than that.

Despite the actual amount that = 1% haste, it is still a very expensive stat, and the chances they will go back over items with haste and rebalance them if needed? unlikely.

 

• Valoran

Yet at the same time, given the nature of haste - it scales very well. Projecting that haste will be a nice stat on t7 or so gear is fairly sensible, given the levels of AP/damage/crit/whatever will obviously rise too - haste just makes sense.

 

Punkrocker

The problem isn't melee haste. It's sword spec and windfury and how they interact. They realized that and addressed it. Were dagger rogues, ANY dagger rogue putting up 2.5k dps numbers like the sword rogues were? I'm asking because I don't know of any who did, but now is the opportunity to put up parses.

Melee haste won't get you to that point, but sword spec + windfury + melee haste will. Take out the static haste items and I bet you could still do well over 2k dps.

So, they have already hotfixed windfury. They are changing sword spec. They should leave it at that (and I agree with bumping up spell haste, though I don't think it's enough to make it "equal" to melee haste, even with the melee haste nerf) and then look at melee haste after those fixes go in. Doing all three at once isn't smart.

 

rochan

This is a pretty wierd change. It makes the random BT/Hyjal haste items as useless as the spell haste items (which still isn't worth using due to lag, GCD, mana consumption), while DST and Azzinoth are still overpowered.

Like previous posters mentioned, it's the combination of Sword Spec/Windfury/Haste that is overpowered when combined with top end gear. As a former rogue it's disappointing that anything other than sword spec has become a joke.

 

Zerix

I really don't get too mad about nerfs to be completely honest, but the sword spec change (AGAIN), the windfury nerf, and on top of that, the haste nerf have really made me utterly furious at this game.

I know everyone has their reasons for playing this game and my only reason is to do the most damage in raids and consistantly be #1 on damage. I do this, and I do it well, and have for 2 years now. I just feel like whenever I complete the warglaive set, I won't even be doing my current dps on bosses with all these nerfs combined and its so aggravating.

I really feel like Blizzard does not see the big picture when some of these items hit live servers and people actually start posting the results (WWS). Also what was with the haste BUFF about 3 patches ago, now they nerf it again because the top tier rogues get perfect gear and start posting wws'? It's a sad nerf since this hits already struggling fury and 2h warriors in raids too.

Also, individual haste items are HORRIBLE now, even now using all of the melee haste items together isnt a great choice, there are some clearly superior items for every slot except the belt (for rogues).

Whatever though, the proper way of doing this was to nerf dragonspine or nerf the actual haste rating on it. As much as i love my dragonspine, it is clearly overpowered especially for where it drops. Nerfing melee haste across the board is just STUPID. But don't worry Blizzard doesn't listen to the 1% of people that actually don't like this change and rightfully so i suppose, 50% of the people that play this game dont know a patch is even coming, much less READ the patch notes that are associated with it. Oh wait, this isnt even in the patch notes so it makes it even that much worse!

Edit; Also what Alacrity said, we haven't done Vashj in 2 months, I sure wish I had that belt to use now. Guess I'll settle for the Anetheron one if it ever drops .

 

Cottonface

A nerf is in order, if a particular mechanism is unbalanced. Fact is, haste is neither overpowered nor unbalanced. Haste comes at a cost, the cost of lowered hit rating and attack power, and while haste initially is superior to hit rating, it will serve its purpose around 75.

It is not the haste rating from gear (DST, S-WC, BoD and so forth) which really makes an impact. Getting OH from 1.5 to 1.46 or 1.44 really doesn't have much impact. It is what Slice and Dice, Heroism, Blade Furry, Haste Potions does that really makes an impact; but these elements are bursts.

Nerfing Haste will cause two things: Rogues drop haste gear towards hit / crit gear, and gear dropping in BT/MH will be either par or below with items from SSC/Karazhan; and THAT is the real issue. Shadow-walker's Cord is now a worse belt than Belt of Deep Shadow, Band of Devistation is now on par with Violet Band of Master Assassin, and Dragon-Spine Trophy will be on par with Tsunami, assuming DST procs twice per minute and Tsunami once.

Why make superior gear from end game instances inferior to gear from instances every lesser guild now have access to. Apart from tier6, you will not see any difference in gear from a Karazhan/SSC raiding rogue vs a rogue who has BT/MH on farm. And that really attacks the idea of progressing in gear while progressing in high end instances.

This is a half brained, rather desperate, attack on both gaming mechanisms and raiding itself; and with sword specialization nerfed to insignificance now, fist specialization is the only way to go - ohh yeah, there are no fists in BT/MH.

In the end, this is yet another demonstration from Blizzard, that they have no idea what they do, and just make band-aid adjustments, rather than fix problems and allow high end instances to provide gear which is superior to that from lesser instances.

 

Mearis

Err, that's not really a good reason to play the game. If a paladin decided to quit because after the illumination nerf he wasn't outhealing everyone else in the raid by an insane factor, or shadowpriests bitching about the double nerf of SW + weaving? We might all want to make a significant contribution but nobody has the right to claime absolute dominance as the reason for playing a game.

 

Sapp

Except rogues.

It's the classic and legitimate argument that rogues should be topping DMs on most fights because there's nothing else they do besides shred single targets and spell interrupt. No one ever really disagrees with that idea, they just skirt the issue if there is one.

 

Graul

A lot of blue gear was equal, if not superior to purple in the same slot before they did the last overhaul. This seems like a step backwards. They already upped melee haste rating because it wasn't as good, now they are nerfing it back slightly. They need to either lower the item budget value of 1 haste rating while increasing how much haste rating is required for 1% haste (like they are) or only target the main items in question. I was looking forward to something more than just hit, crit, AP, but now it doesn't seem like it will really matter. I can just go hit, crit and AP or sub in some haste for one of those stats but get the same results.

And yes, Rogues should be topping the meters, because the meters don't show the raid damage increase from buffs and debuffs. You can figure out all of that from WWS, but just looking at who is on top doesn't really show how much they contributed. What does a Rogue really do other than DPS 99% of the time? They don't buff the group and only a Hemo Rogue would be considered a raid buffer. They don't really debuff anything either (they *can* use mind numbing...rarely) and only occasionally CC in raids. Interrupts are their other main function, which isn't needed for most fights.

 

Brissa

If this was the case, how would it be a bad thing?
Wouldnt it make sense that a trinket from a T5 instance is better than a trinket from a T4 instance?

 

Gryzemuis

Most posters here, and on other forums, try to discuss whether certain items, or certain stats are overpowered or not. This is not the issue. The only issue is *scaling*. Now scaling seems to be a hard concept to understand for most people. Even for Blizzard.

It seems the dps requirement to progress through content is a linear requirement.
It seems that the dps increase of casters is linear too.
It seems that the dps increase of rogues (and warriors) is beyond linear.

Linear means: if you get twice the stats on your gear, you will do twice the damage that you used to do.

Beyond linear means: if you get twice the stats on your gear, you will do more than twice the damage that you used to do. Exponential increase is beyond linear. Rogue dps doesn't seem to be exponential. It is partially multiplicative.

There was a similar problem with dps warriors. When they did more damage, they got more rage. When they got more rage, they did more damage. This effect makes the dps of warriors scales beyond linear. Changing rage mechanisms has somehow changed this. But warrior's dps still doesn't seem to be linear. Low geared warriors do crappy dps compared to casters and rogues. High geared warriors still do better dps than a linear increase. The recent WF nerf has brought warriors in top gear down below caster dps. But as soon as the next set of gear is available, warriors will get a larger dps increase than casters again. While lower geared warriors are screwed.

We are seeing the same problem with rogues now.
When rogue's dps scales in a non-linear way beyond caster dps, Blizzard implements a linear decrease in dps. This will bring top end rogues in line with casters. But as soon as the next set of gear is available, rogues will go beyond casters again. While at the same time, all rogues below max gear will receive a nerf.

So what is this scaling problem ?

Stats like +crit and +attackpower give a near linear increase in damage. Weapon damage does so too. Double your attackpower (and weapon dps), and you will see your dps double. Double your crit-rate, and you will see a linear increase in dps.

Other stats go beyond that. 5% extra hits from Sword Specialization will give roughly a 5% increase in white dps. 20% extra hits from Windfury will give roughly a 20% increase in white dps. But there is more than that. More hits from SwordSpec and WF will cause more procs, and more hits. It will cause more mongoose procs. More trinket and meta-gem procs. This is the same effect that warriors have with rage and damage interacting. The effect goes beyond a linear increase.

Now add haste. Haste amplifies that effect. Haste gives more hits. More hits gives more procs. More procs give more haste and more hits. Which gives more procs. We scaled beyond being linear.

The current haste nerf is a linear nerf. Linear changes will *never* fix a an exponential scaling problem. Getting a cpu that is twice as fast will give you twice the framerate in a game. But it won't give you twice the solutions for problems of O(n^2).

So if nerfing haste rating in a linear way isn't good, what should have been done ?
I think there are 4 issues that needed to be fixed.

1) Different types of haste need to be brought inline
Currently there is haste rating, and there is raw haste percentage.
DST and warglaives have haste rating. So does Abacus, haste potions, mace procs.
Slice&dice, blade flurry, mongoose have fixed haste percentages.
Haste rating scaled in a linear way. Haste percentage goes beyond that.
200 haste rating (20%) + 200 haste rating (20%) is 400 haste rating = 40% more swings.
20% raw haste + 20% raw haste = 1.2*1.2 = 1.44 = 44% more swings.
All raw haste percentages should be converted to haste rating.

2) Procs off of procs.
Some procs cause extra swings. These extra swings can cause more procs. The precise rules change every patch. But the effect is that combining WF and sword spec is stronger than each effect on its own. Result: scaling beyond linear. Haste enlarges this effect. Solution: make it so that extra swings from procs can not proc more of these effects. If you want to make it simpler, then you could even make it so that extra swings can't proc poison or even proc mongoose. This nerfs rogue's dps. But at least it would keep scaling linear.

3) Limit the multiplicative effect of chance-on-hit-gives-haste effects.
More haste causes more hits. This gives a linear dps increase for things like white damage and poisons. But when haste procs can cause more haste procs, the overall effect goes beyond linear. It goes multiplicative. When haste is active, you can't see whether a hit is a regular hit, or an extra hit because of haste. Therefor you can't implement the same solution that could prevent procs off of procs. But there are other ways. Some trinkets (Hourglass) and meta-gems (TSD) have hidden internal cool-downs. An internal cool-down will make the scaling of these items more linear.

4) Nerf the few items that are overpowered.
At the moment those are DST and the warglaives. You could lower the proc-rate or lower the haste rating. That would make them less overpowered. It would still keep them scaling beyond linear. So you could introduce hidden internal cool-downs to make them (almost) linear.

Making rogue's dps scale in a linear way would fix the problem. This would probably cause an overall dps decrease, which would be unfair. This could be fixed by giving some items or abilities a linear improvement, while removing all exponential scaling effects.

Implementing a linear nerf while maintaining exponential scaling properties does not fix anything. When the next raid dungeon gets released, the exponential dps increase of rogues will make them seem stronger than casters again. And in the mean time, all rogues that do not have the best gear yet, will fall further behind other dps classes.

 

Mearis

Gryzemuis, for the record, I agree with the theme of your post, but I don't think the problem is exponential vs linear scaling, but linear scaling vs linear scaling with a greater coefficient.

 

Mearis

I agree, just because you picked an extremly needed narrow role you cannot argue that you should dominate by an obscene amount at that role. Healing is a lot more balanced than DPS in WoW, you can have a lot of different healers, and most are extremly useful and compliment each other well, but there are no cleary best healers - for DPS, this is not the case in WoW.