2.4 Details, as they arrive - Page 14

◊ Kyth · 02/04/08, 3:48 AM

Ahhh, that makes sense. For lock it's the reverse of course: the more haste we have, the more frequently we have to stop dps to lifetap.

alkis · 02/04/08, 4:25 AM

Originally Posted by Divismal

It was mentioned several times, that the upcoming change of spellhaste, wouldnt have a major impact on DoT-Classes. Thats actually wrong - at least from a shadowpriest point of view.

A whole bunch of current BoS-Items(Best on slot) for shadowpriests will be replaced by spellhaste gear.

A few examples:

[Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] will overcome [S3 Mainhand] + [Orb of the Souleater].

[Bracers of Nimble Thought] will overcome [Cuffs of Devastation].

[Brooch of Nature's Mercy] overcoming [Ritssyn's Lost Pendant] will be funny as hell, if the 1 Spellhaste ~ 1 Spelldamage Calculation isnt totally off.

So finally Spellhaste is going to turn the tables for shadowpriests. The point of reaching the Gcd as a nuke class isnt possible with passive gear - so not much will change for destrolocks and mages.

Not even close. I am 4 pieces from "best" gear and I finish a lot of encounters with a lot more than half my mana left without using a shadowfiend. I am constantly all out, max use of Mind Blast and SW

eath when appropriate and I cannot run out of mana. This means if I can use that mana I could potentially do more dps. What will spell haste do for us? Make this even worse. We will be able to cast out dots faster, but they will last exactly the same duration. We will be able to cast mind blast and SW

eath faster but their cooldowns will be exactly the same. So what changes? More mind flays in, which at T6 gear levels effectively return mana you cannot really spend, just because you can't weave more dots and nukes in your cycle. Dps will increase by a bit, but don't fool yourself, haste won't be even close to spell damage.

alkis · 02/04/08, 4:31 AM

Originally Posted by panny

This doesn't result in a 1% bonus for everyone. For example, dots gain double the benefit by having the cast time reduced, as well as the duration. In PvP, there's already an issue of HoT/DoT classes overshadowing others due to the greater actions per minute they can perform. Haste would just make this situation worse.

It does 1% for most classes and for dot classes in particular it is exactly 1%. If everything is hasted, the same cycle (dots, direct damage spells, channeled spells) will just finish 1% faster. No more, no less. That's 1% more damage. Exactly.

Some classes gain more, but they do so already (destruction locks and mages).

alkis · 02/04/08, 4:37 AM

Originally Posted by Pyros

Exactly, and this is why there's so much "whine" about druids and warlocks in pvp, on top of their "expected" strength. People don't cry because warlocks have high mitigation, or because druids can escape easily, but because they can do it WHILE maintaining dps/healing. At least that's how I see it. Now one thing to note however is that haste is currently unattainable on pvp gear, so it'd be a resilience for haste tradeoff, at least unless they make S4 gear with haste. It'd make haste the pve stat, while resilience is the pvp stat. You'd probably see a lot of crying when PvPers who don't raid can't get access to all the gear tho, so don't know about it.

Another thing is, maybe I fail to undertsand the whole faster tick things, but that would reduce the duration of the dot right? While probably not bad for dots, it'd be disastrous at best for druid pve, and blizzard would have to itemize gear for druids specifically without haste. Why? Because we wouldn't be able to roll lifeblooms if haste affected their duration. Sure the GCD would go down too, but at a lower rate in absolute(unless they change it so tick reduction is proportional?). Then you'd end up with weird situations where druids use "old" gear on some encounters where 3lifeblooms are needed on tanks, or use new gear but aren't able to cast anything but these 3lifeblooms.

Well still a lot of speculation, hopefully they publish patch notes tomorrow or tuesday, since the PTR seems pretty ready for next phase currently.

If haste decreases dot duration the same as GCD then you can stack them exactly the same way as before. If you could keep 3 rolling LBs without haste, you could after it as well.

alkis · 02/04/08, 4:44 AM

Originally Posted by panny

I suspect this line of discussion will get shit heaped, but... the problem is not that stats aren't created equally. It's that haste affecting dot duration would be too much. A stat that costs the same as hit, yet is worth double to DoT classes? Expecting the stat to not make it to PvP is also not a good design practise. Perhaps having a seperate stat to reduct DoT durations would be acceptable, depending on the itemization cost.

Can you please explain how it is giving more benefit to dot classes if it decreases both the duration and cast time? In terms of overall damage over time of course.

Also if you read my post more carefully, the suggestion already included an increase in the rating to put it somewhere between hit and crit. The actual numbers were midway: from 10@60/15.8@70 go to 12@60/18.9@70.

Divismal · 02/04/08, 4:48 AM

Originally Posted by alkis

Not even close. I am 4 pieces from "best" gear and I finish a lot of encounters with a lot more than half my mana left without using a shadowfiend. I am constantly all out, max use of Mind Blast and SW

eath when appropriate and I cannot run out of mana. This means if I can use that mana I could potentially do more dps. What will spell haste do for us? Make this even worse. We will be able to cast out dots faster, but they will last exactly the same duration. We will be able to cast mind blast and SW

eath faster but their cooldowns will be exactly the same. So what changes? More mind flays in, which at T6 gear levels effectively return mana you cannot really spend, just because you can't weave more dots and nukes in your cycle. Dps will increase by a bit, but don't fool yourself, haste won't be even close to spell damage.

You currently use the same Specc as i do regarding Mb 4/5. Without Spellhaste you cant really draw any benefit from maxing mb 5/5.

The discussion of maxdamage vs 199 Spellhaste ended on par - as far as i know. So it cant be worse with 2.4.

The potential of adding additional MFs /Ticks is a pure dps gain - and it looks a lot better than the boost that spellcrit offers.

And i never really had a problem of being unable to translate my manapool - some fights offer multidotting as an option ie Council, Illidan, Akama, Anetheron, on other fights you can still switch from manapotions to Destropots.

◊ Kyth · 02/04/08, 4:49 AM

You can't perfectly balance haste just by having it affect everything and then declaring it balanced, because warlocks lose dps each time their mana/second increases, since they have to lifetap more, thus reducing the benefit they get from haste. This is a "tax" unique to the warlock active mana regen.

(In return we get to act more like a melee than like a caster, since we can go infinitely -- but this hasn't been a game-changing benefit in WoW raids for a long time. Haste is still good for us because our nukes scale well, but that doesn't mean the tax doesn't exist.)

"Perfect balance" is a myth (although getting closer is nice, so I'm happy for these haste changes and would like to see crit addressed as well.)

alkis · 02/04/08, 5:43 AM

Originally Posted by Kyth

You can't perfectly balance haste just by having it affect everything and then declaring it balanced, because warlocks lose dps each time their mana/second increases, since they have to lifetap more, thus reducing the benefit they get from haste. This is a "tax" unique to the warlock active mana regen.

(In return we get to act more like a melee than like a caster, since we can go infinitely -- but this hasn't been a game-changing benefit in WoW raids for a long time. Haste is still good for us because our nukes scale well, but that doesn't mean the tax doesn't exist.)

"Perfect balance" is a myth (although getting closer is nice, so I'm happy for these haste changes and would like to see crit addressed as well.)

No. If it affects everything, then while you are right that you are lifetapping more per time, you are going to be lifetapping exactly the same per spells casted.

Why is it so hard to imagine? If haste affects everything, and you put down all your casts/abilities on a straight line ala hunter rotations illustrated (search class forums for that post), all it would do, is shrink the whole line by a fixed %. The % loss of dps due to mana usage with 200 haste will be exactly the same as with 0.

Edden · 02/04/08, 5:54 AM

What Alkis said was true.

If the overall DoT duration is reduced by haste, you tick more and therefore do more damage.

- - -

If you still don't get it. Think about this:

Comparing damage between two people, one with pistol and another with a machine gun.

even if the bullet damage, ammo and reload time is the same, the machine gun pwns just because it shoots faster ...

- - -

Here reload is your lifetap.

◊ Kyth · 02/04/08, 6:02 AM

I'm way too tired to model this properly, but the problem is that haste doesn't affect my dpm, just my dps -- and it increases my mps. And lifetap is concerned with balancing out the mps.

I should actually write it out when I'm not working on 3 hours of sleep though.

It's not that it's "hard to understand", it's that there feels something wrong with your analogy that I can't pin down when my brain doesn't function.

Regardless it increases my hp/s loss due to lifetap, which doesn't matter in T5 but really has mattered in T6.

(edit) Shaker hit on some of it. I also want to mumble something about the relationship between how +haste affects lifetap efficiency and how +dmg affects it, but I realize (a) I don't actually know and (b) I'm rather curious, so that's something else for tomorrow.

◊ Shaker · 02/04/08, 6:02 AM

Except that mana return for warlocks is not JUST based off lifetap - your shadowpriest does not give you more mana from your haste gear - it does not reduce the cooldown on your healthstone or mana pot cooldowns, nor does it speed up the healers that are responsible for topping you off so you can tap more.

Sure, in a perfect world it works just like that, but if your healers are bored, it's probably a trivial fight, or farm content, neither of which are particularly entertaining to discuss.

alkis · 02/04/08, 6:10 AM

Originally Posted by Shaker

Except that mana return for warlocks is not JUST based off lifetap - your shadowpriest does not give you more mana from your haste gear - it does not reduce the cooldown on your healthstone or mana pot cooldowns, nor does it speed up the healers that are responsible for topping you off so you can tap more.

Sure, in a perfect world it works just like that, but if your healers are bored, it's probably a trivial fight, or farm content, neither of which are particularly entertaining to discuss.

You mana will run out faster. There is no question about this. But you are not going to be lifetapping more than you would per cast cycle. The argument is not if your mana usage will go up or down, is if the increased mana usage will actually reduce your ability to do damage. And the answer to that is simple: no it will not. Like a post than manly linked on WoW Forums: WoW Forums -> A Treatise on Scaling Mechanics think of haste as a time compression mechanic. 1% haste would mean everything for you is time compressed by 1%. Your DPM stays exactly the same no matter what class and spec you are.

Atemporal · 02/04/08, 7:59 AM

Originally Posted by alkis

So what changes? More mind flays in, which at T6 gear levels effectively return mana you cannot really spend . . .

This is incorrect for T6 haste geared shadow priests. When you begin swapping raw damage pieces for their haste counterparts, your increased relative combat time proportionally increases your mana usage. Because haste itemization also requires a loss of raw +damage, you move farther away from the point of infinite self-sustainability in a nonlinear fashion as you switch to haste gear. Couple this with appropriately timed stopcasted flays to keep MB/SWD on 100% cooldown and even prior to 2.4 it is easy to use as much mana as you have available on longer fights.

However, you are correct about 2.4's GCD change and our cooldowns. Our dots/nukes are already at 100% uptime under optimal conditions, therefore they gain zero dps. Haste affecting the GCD will simply allow us to fit additional MF ticks in as filler once we have begun casting on a single target. Take note that this does not completely eliminate the current dead time due to hasted casts; there will still be gaps between the now uneven GCD intervals and the cooldown/dot duration timers (which are all multiples of .5 seconds).

Personally, I would love to see haste reworked to reduce cooldowns/dot durations and eliminate the dead time. This would go a long way toward making spell haste a clear complementary stat to stack for shadow priests, while providing an avenue of gear advancement that would avoid the infinite mana VT interaction of pure +shadow itemization.

Anaram · 02/04/08, 9:42 AM

Originally Posted by Northerner

Yep.

It does depend on the fight of course but unless there is a very tight enrage condition, I'd rather have a single affliction warlock present for SE when learning new content if at all possible. At a raid level, one affliction warlock is not a huge rdps drop anyhow. Their personal dps hit is huge but +3% malediction for two more warlocks and 1-2 spriests recovers a bit of that. (It's a shame arcane isn't viable still as that made maledictioned CoS very viable.) The remaining question really is dps over SE and on farm content I'll take the dps any day. On new (hard) content I'll take the SE at first though.

Let's not forget that one warlock usually holds out the imp for tank, and affliction warlock goes nicely for that (unlike destruction warlocks who lose damage granted by their demonic sacrifice, I understand 0/21/40 is pretty much the standard for destrolock these days).

◊ Shalas · 02/04/08, 12:41 PM

How many lifetaps you have to cast goes up, but the time each lifetap takes goes down at the exact same rate. Suppose your +damage is such that one lifetap gives you enough mana for exactly three shadow bolts. With zero haste, you lifetap twice then cast six shadow bolts, for a total of 18 seconds. With 50% haste, you lifetap three times then cast nine shadow bolts, still in 18 seconds, for a 50% dps boost from 50% haste. The only reason that at the moment haste increases time spent lifetapping is that lifetap currently isn't sped up by haste. Of course, adding +damage actually decreases the time spent life tapping, making +damage have slightly nonlinear returns for warlocks.

◊ Cowbell · 02/04/08, 2:11 PM

WoW Forums -> Alterac Valley Improvements in 2.4

2.4 AV Changes

Alterac Valley will see a few very significant improvements in the next patch and we wanted to share the details of what we have planned.

The first change will be to move the Horde's starting tunnel back to a more equal distance from the first objectives, which will help evenly distance the starting points for each side across the terrain when the battle commences.

In addition, the General and Warmasters for each faction will receive a stacking buff from each other that boosts their health and damage. The more of them that are still in the battleground, the more dangerous they will all be. This will put a greater focus on destroying (and defending!) the towers that remove the Warmasters as players work toward defeating the appropriate General and conquering the land.

Also Balinda Stonehearth has been studying her spellbooks to become a more challenging opponent to the Horde and will do more damage with her spells. The additional health we recently added to Balinda and General Vanndar Stormpike will no longer be needed with these improvements and will be changed back to their previous amounts with the patch.

With these improvements teamwork and strategy will be more important than ever from beginning to end as the Alliance and Horde battle for victory in Alterac Valley. We'll see you on the battlefield.

Divismal · 02/04/08, 2:12 PM

Originally Posted by Trebax

I mentioned this in RogueSpot and was told by several folks to try posting it here for Tigole to see.
Since I'm new, can only post a reply (can't start a new thread like I had hoped to).

The idea I wish they'd implement concerns spammers in WoW. Anyone that repeats the same sentence three times within 60 seconds (longer than 3 words), or that has a URL in it (again, repeated within 60 seconds), automatically flags that person as PvP...excepts ANY faction can hit them. Plus they light up on the minimap for people to find them and you get honor for killing them.

Well, this would be indeed a brilliant way to make honorselling easier for them. Great Suggestion!

Malan · 02/04/08, 2:15 PM

I hope those AV changes are in concert with some other broad changes to the PvP system, otherwise I don't see that alone solving the problem of AV - namely that you're playing with 39 people who refuse to work together.

Also, from WoW -> Info -> Under Development
# New repeatable Battleground quests
# New Heroic badge rewards
#Caverns of Time - New teleportation portal to the Caverns of Time accessible through reputation with Keepers of Time

◊ Vontre · 02/04/08, 2:25 PM

Trading spell damage/crit/hit for haste reduces your mana efficiency. Spell haste costs mana efficiency relative to spell damage. Warlocks gain mana regen by having a faster lifetap, but you are fooling yourself if you think these numbers will magically even themselves out somehow.

Pixen · 02/04/08, 2:40 PM

Originally Posted by Cowbell

In addition, the General and Warmasters for each faction will receive a stacking buff from each other that boosts their health and damage. The more of them that are still in the battleground, the more dangerous they will all be. This will put a greater focus on destroying (and defending!) the towers that remove the Warmasters as players work toward defeating the appropriate General and conquering the land.

Wasn't this already supposed to be in the game? Or are they doing it to a greater extreme?

I personally think the difficulty of downing the general needs to ramp up very drastically. It should be borderline impossible to down a general with 2 or more warmasters remaining, to put more of an emphasis on defending tower caps; something alliance seems loath to do in my battlegroup.

Jebraltar · 02/04/08, 2:44 PM

#Caverns of Time - New teleportation portal to the Caverns of Time accessible through reputation with Keepers of Time

God exists, and he's American.

I wonder if this means that they've finally realized that no one can stand those twenty minute flight paths they like tying to raid instances, and we won't see any more of that in WotLK.

◊ Vectivus · 02/04/08, 2:47 PM

Updating OP to reflect AV changes and notes from the WoW Under Dev section.

zaider · 02/04/08, 2:51 PM

I think they mentioned adding it, but it wasn't included in the patch notes all they did was link them and not appear for destroying towers.

• Vykromond · 02/04/08, 2:56 PM

Item Improvements

* New Heroic badge rewards

With some trepidation at what I could be unleashing with this post, let me officially start the whinefest:

These had better not be ilvl 141 or I will be... nonplussed.

Othieus · 02/04/08, 2:57 PM

Looks like I need to start collecting badges again. I like the changes that they made that the PvP blue gear can be bought without honor now.