PSGarak

I think there should be four categories, not three: buff, nerf, bug fix, and redesign. Redesign is often viewed as a solid buff or nerf by the community, and very often with good reason (instant attack normalization!) but at least comes with some sort of silver lining that makes them in some way not directly comparable (for this example, allowing broader itemization). Just my thought anyways. Thanks for the work you put into this, and I hope I didn't just give you too much more =P.

 

Ichal

For paladins I'd call this one a bugfix:

1.10:

Judgement of Justice - This judgement will now always hit.

As 1.09 had (correctly a buff):

Judgements - Judgements that place a debuff on their victim will now all have their duration refreshed when the judging paladin strikes the victim with his or her melee swings. All these debuffs have had their duration decreased to 10 seconds. In addition, Judgements that place debuffs can no longer be resisted.

 

• nilme

Warlocks:
Soul Link - Percentage of damage split with pet has been reduced.

This is listed a as nerf(technically it is) but at the same time they did that, they changed soul link so it became an aura that didn't need to be recast, wasn't dispelable and also increased the damage you(and your pet) did. It went from a high mana cost dispelable spell that lasted for 30 seconds to a low mana cost permanent damage mitigation spell

Soul Link - This spell can no longer be partially dispelled off the warlock. In addition, Soul Link can no longer be used on non-demon pets.
MCing someone with engineering helmet and using SL on them was so funny


Rogues:
Eviscerate: Manual of Eviscerate (Rank 9) now drops off Blackhand Assassins in Black Rock Spire. In addition, Eviscerate now increases in potency with greater attack power.
I would say this was a buff. The important part of that change was the AP scaling, and it is listed as a buff on rupture and garrote.

 

Groat

If you take a look at my categories, I actually have six, not three.
Bugfix, Nerf, Buff, Change (for the stuff that is just different), New, and Overhaul (for any time they did something like "ALL NEW TALENTS" or other crazy things).

 

aleyro

First off, excellent work.

Would it be at all possible to add the date to each patch, and perhaps a link to the patch notes?

 

Zupal

I don't see the old angst-ridden mind soothe nerf. I think occurred maybe 3 months into the game. It was around the time that Maraudon was released since it was there that mind soothe was most effective for skipping pulls.

Mind soothe used to be instant cast and affected I think humanoids and beasts (maybe all?).

It was then heavily nerfed to have a cast time, affected only humanoids and could be resisted.

It was slightly buffed to be instant cast later but still was usuable only on humanoids and could be resisted.

 

◊ Vectivus

All this does is remind me that I rolled a Priest on the first day of live WoW under the misguided impression that Priests were still going to be a crowd-control class with Sleep.

 

• Chicken

As far as I can recall Hamstring was either changed in that patch, or shortly after that patch, to basically always have the "talented" amount of movement speed reduction.

 

Lookit

To add a quick bit of pedantic minutiae, software version numbers are not based on the decimal system but instead are commonly identified by the structure major.minor.revision. This means that patch 1.9 precedes patch 1.10, even though this is obviously not the case in the decimal system. WoW has never had a patch 1.01, but rather had 1.1.

 

Loeff

A major thank you for putting this together. While we can all debate what is, or is not, a nerf/buff, we can't debate that these changes definitely happened. Also, it confirms something I have been saying for quite some time, that, at release, hunters were the least player-tested class. Which helps explain the more dramatic changes that class has undertaken.

One thing I did not see, that I remember happening, was an adjustment to "melee range" dropping it down to its current 5m. I guess that doesn't fall into a class change though as an overall game mechanic. Just to be certain, I am not remembering it wrong though, that did happen, yes?

Thanks again!

This space for rent.

 

Groat

Heh, yeah, there were also a few changes that were massively substantial like when they redid the calculation for spells against targets that were +3 levels higher or more (back in release and for the first couple of patches there was a horrible hit rate against them - 2 levels higher and you could slaughter anything; three levels higher was miserable and four was suicide) - it completely revamped effectiveness in raids but was an overall game mechanics part.

And yeah, I can add a general section on when major patches released (I consolidated the minor patches into the major patches for the purpose of this) along with other info. We've been going quite a while now since the last major patch.

 

Kewangeder

It makes sense that hunters were the least playtested, if my memory is correct in that developers cited hunters as a sort of 11th-hour addition to the class set.

 

• the KRIS

Indeed. I get the impression rogues were initially intented to be the hybrid ranger class, and ended up becoming pure melee. With Night Elves in the game and no Ranger class, they had to act quickly to get one put into the game. Paladins and Hunters did not have talent trees a month before launch, so they literally squeaked those things in with no player testing. No wonder Pally and Hunter talents were the biggest mess at launch.

It's clear from the bizarre survival tree and the inclusion of abilities like Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite that Hunters were meant to be a hybrid ranged/melee class. Mail was supposed to allow the hunter to be somewhat of a tank if they chose Survival, hence the inclusion of distracting shot and pet cower. It didn't work out so well, but a lot of those very bizarre talents are still in the survival tree. I genuinely wonder if anyone would even glance beyond the fourth tier of Survival if expose armor didn't exist.

 

Ele'

I may have to read it again, but I think your list is missing some warlocks nerfs. To be more specific, I'm thinking about the diminution of the pet spellpower scaling, and the modification of Imp. Firebolt (whose efficiency was halved).

A blue post about that, I cannot remember the exact date of those nerfs but it could help.


(Well, some might think of it as "fixes", or even argue that Imp. Firebolt was bugged for a long time, but I'm sick of those kind of debates so I'll let you choose how you classify it)


Pretty interresting list, by the way

 

• LodeRunner

Yeah, this is as I remember it. Originally Hamstring, untalented, did not slow as much as Wingclip. Only if you put talent points into it would it match Wingclip. In that patch described, they made Hamstring do the full previously talented slow amount and added the wingclip "rooted in place" effect to it.
Previously for any sort of pvp you HAD to have imp Hamstring. This patch made it an optional talent. I'd say buff.

 

ildon

I can't agree with this. Although I think the new imp hamstring is pretty weak, I would consider the change overall a buff, because it greatly increased the effectiveness of hamstring for ALL warriors, and freed up some talent points for arms warriors so they didn't have to decide between 5/5 two handed weapons or weapon specialization, and imp hamstring. Plus right now in the game, I think hamstring is only beat out by crippling poison, frost trap, and maybe cone of cold for % snare.

Basically, I remember that before this change, if you didn't have imp hamstring, and you cast it on someone riding an epic mount, they could escape, but now they can't. Sounds like a buff to me.

Edit: Doh, guess I'm not the only one.

 

GhostRogue

/Heartache

/Mourn death of Swirly Ball

 

◊ Tanilin

Interesting blog post, with an overall chart and some charts of individual class changes by patch (based on this data): We Can Fix That with Data / Charting WoW Balance Changes

I suppose Ms. Jensen must read here, so I'm a tiny bit surprised she didn't post this herself. The charts make the data much more interesting to me.

 

radikal

The link with the charts is very interesting and really helps makes the data more comprehensible. It's a bit of an impossible task categorizing exactly what's a nerf and what's just a change, but despite that the results are not out of line with expectations.

Then again, there is only the notion of frequency and not severity, which can be a very dangerous way of thinking about things...

 

Groat

Yeah - of course there are limitations to the presentation, but even still - I'm very impressed with that - I've got a few evil plans for things I can do with the data myself:
You can use 1px images to create your own charts with javascript and I can parse blocks to pull those out (weight it with that) - that was a very neat way of taking the data and presenting it that they did and I'm tempted to do something similar myself now.

I approve!