Honor calculations done instantaneously..... OH THANK GOD. *Ahem* well.... YES! finally its about time that change has come through. All but a few weeks ago i was pvping for my vengeful non-set boots, i was 44 goddamn honor off. No idea how annoyed i was, and now i dont have to wait till 2AM every night.
However they're from an old (~1 month) Blizzard internal mail and it's merely a roadmap of things they wanted to test on 2.4 PTRs, none of these changes will be in the first build of the 2.4 PTR Patch.
@webmeister : Nethaera said they will try to balance classes through multiple builds of PTRs, that's what they did with the 2.3.2 by slowly adding classes changes everytime they updated to a new build.
Note to Warriors : Lucky you, you're the only class getting lolnerfed in the first build of the 2.4.
I wouldn't be that surprised if there was some truth to these changes. And even if these are just things they want to try out, it gives a hint on whether a class is thought too powerful or not.
Regarding shadow priests which is what concerns me most I think Blizzard want less of them in a raid. 2-3 shadow priests plus 1-2 holy is too much for one class. They nerfed the damage 3 times I think (pain coefficient, SW:D cooldown, shadow weaving) which didn't help. We still got our raid spots.
Then last patch there was the change to help classes become less mana dependent (30% while casting, better mana gems, better mana totems etc.). Add to this the fact that many now have enough gear to not need the mana from a shadow priest.
In the end it will mean that one shadow priest per raid for misery and shadow weaving is enough, and that many shadow priests will be without a raid spot. But now is probably a good time to quit the game anyway.
About the LT change I understand that:
- the +dmg coef is nerfed
- the LT spell is buffed by 10% (+10% life, so I suppose +10% mana too ?)
I think blizzard does it to avoid so much difference in the LT spell between a poor-stuff and over-stuff people.
It would be a up for the people with bad stuff, and a nerf to people with good stuff.
About ISB, I've done some calculation based on Leulier ISB simulator:
- 12-13% nerf for shadow priest
- no real difference for 21/40 warlocks (+4% from a better isb uptime (65 to 75-85%)), but a loss from the ISB coef (20->15%). You gain ~4% from one side, and loss ~4% from the other.
- 6-8% loss for affli demo (uptime 65 to 30-45%, and coeff 20 to 15%).
This is the reason why this change is so strange, if true. It's completely counterintuitive, hurting afl. warlocks and shadowpriests, who already hurt for DPS pretty bad, and not touching Destro locks at all.
Now as a shadowpriest, i'm not completely happy with my DPS currently, but I understand that if I did the same DPS as the top tier, VT would go out of hand, and that if proper itemized gear for shadowpriests was created, it would also enable destro locks to do even crazier stuff. So ok, i'm happy with topping out (personally) at around 1200-1300 dps, on a good fight. But to nerf that even further, geez.
Based purely on the notes - not the various "oh, I know a guy who says they're totally legit!" going around...
...they look real, but they're not patch notes. What this looks likes is some notes scribbled down after an internal brainstorming session. Someone brings up a problem, some ideas get tossed around, and a couple of potential solutions that need more testing get scribbled down. A lot of ideas will end up being different ways to solve the same problem, and only one - max - will be implemented. Other ideas will be missed, or won't need testing, or will be thought of later after the results from initial testing is in... Stuff like the Nurturing Instincts or ISB entries in the notes looks very much the result of that kind of brainstorming - they solve issues I'm sure Bliz is thinking about, but nobody has thought about implementation or balancing yet. (This also agrees with the story being presented about them on the different forums they've cropped up on, although I don't think that counts for much.)
Anyhow, the notes could be completely legit, and they'd still be completely useless, because half the changes that will end up going live aren't there, and at least half the stuff that IS mentioned won't. Also much of the hyperventilating is focused on what people believe will be major reductions in the overall powerlevel of raids. While this is obviously speculation, I think any such reduction is highly unlikely given recent trends.
This is the reason why this change is so strange, if true. It's completely counterintuitive, hurting afl. warlocks and shadowpriests, who already hurt for DPS pretty bad, and not touching Destro locks at all.
Please stop repeating that it "doesn't touch" destruction locks meme. Just because it hurts affliction and spriests more doesn't mean it's only them.
The LT change hurts all warlocks, including destruction. And depending on the coefficients involved, it's definitely not trivial. And definitely would just increase the annoyance factor associated with lifetap -- I don't have iceblock. (as much as I love losing almost 2k of my health in a chunk on the various heavy-AE fights in T6 goes...)
I would give almost anything to take a direct spell nerf rather than a lifetap nerf simply because there's no reason to make lifetap a *further* drain on raid healing and have me spend more time in a raid twiddling my thumbs on the gcd, doing no dps. As much fun as lifetap may seem, it's about as happy as soulshards are.
(yes, it's dumb that they'd make a change that would nerf affliction/spriest.)
Also to the like 10 warlocks who posted in this thread saying you have "99% ISB uptime" in your raid. No you don't. Please stop posting that as well. There's copious evidence in other threads to show that you're wrong.
It's as bad as all the posts about haste acting as if warlocks never lifetap and just spam SB.
I'm also suspicious of the claims that people used Leulier's spreadsheet to "prove" that the ISB changes aren't a nerf to destruction warlock dps.
Last I heard the actual simulations showed an increase in ISB uptime (and therefore dps) when you had two warlocks (and minor increase as you added warlocks after that.) Given that, I fail to see how -5% to ISB damage plus having essentially, for ISB purposes, only one warlock in the raid, would be anything other than a nerf to all specs. You will have lower ISB uptime with only one lock, *plus* only three-quarters of the damage boost.
But it is 4:30am and perhaps I'm missing something in the logic.
If the logic is sound though, I would bank money on a full raid simulation program being more accurate than a spreadsheet for something as hard to pin down as ISB effects.
I'm also suspicious of the claims that people used Leulier's spreadsheet to "prove" that the ISB changes aren't a nerf to destruction warlock dps.
Last I heard the actual simulations showed an increase in ISB uptime (and therefore dps) when you had two warlocks (and minor increase as you added warlocks after that.) Given that, I fail to see how -5% to ISB damage plus having essentially, for ISB purposes, only one warlock in the raid, would be anything other than a nerf to all specs. You will have lower ISB uptime with only one lock, *plus* only three-quarters of the damage boost.
But it is 4:30am and perhaps I'm missing something in the logic.
If the logic is sound though, I would bank money on a full raid simulation program being more accurate than a spreadsheet for something as hard to pin down as ISB effects.
You'll be the only one using up the ISB charges as opposed to all SP's and affliction locks in the raid.
You'll be the only one using up the ISB charges as opposed to all SP's and affliction locks in the raid.
Right. It's unclear whether this is a personal dps buff or nerf for destro locks, and to be honest it probably depends on your raid composition before and after the change, assuming it's not fake as a nine-bob note.
Right. It's unclear whether this is a personal dps buff or nerf for destro locks, and to be honest it probably depends on your raid composition before and after the change, assuming it's not fake as a nine-bob note.
Raid DPS >>>>> Personal DPS. I don't care if you've only got 50 DPS personally if you're contributing 1k to other people.
Before you start to drift, and your soul begins to scream.
I just wanted to tell you, that you're listening to a dream.
Druids are almost never used at MT's because they take considerably more damage due to crushings then warriors and as gear scales up warriors gain considerably more avoidance then druids. As ridiculous as a 1000-1500+ to every healing spell that lands on a druid MT might sound, it would have a similar effect to allowing druids to remove crushings somehow or giving them more then a single piece of tanking loot in all of t6 content.
At least it's an interesting way to take a stab at balancing tanking classes. It also gives a rather huge buff to feral in pvp.
While I admit that shadow priests do not need any dps nerfs at all, way, way too many guilds have a high representation of raiding priests compared to other classes. I try to only bring a single shadow priest and no holy priests to every raid, but very few guilds emphasize dps like mine does and prefer to stack healers and priests to outlast everything.
Every noob guild who is full of members who don't wear pve gear or maximize their mana regen or refuse to drink pots gain a ton from shadow priests, while top end guilds gain relatively little. This isn't really going to fix priest over-representation in 25 man raids.
While I admit that shadow priests do not need any dps nerfs at all, way, way too many guilds have a high representation of raiding priests compared to other classes. I try to only bring a single shadow priest and no holy priests to every raid, but very few guilds emphasize dps like mine does and prefer to stack healers and priests to outlast everything.
Every noob guild who is full of members who don't wear pve gear or maximize their mana regen or refuse to drink pots gain a ton from shadow priests, while top end guilds gain relatively little. This isn't really going to fix priest over-representation in 25 man raids.
Haha, this is because when everything is on farm and you know all content like the back of your hand you can skimp on healing and just afford to stack 3 melee groups. That's hardly an intelligent raiding tactic though if you are trying to tackle new content instead of just setting new WWS records with completely artificial raid make ups.
You could argue arms warriors and enhance shaman bring a similar amount of utility and raid buffs but their damage is still on par with 'primary' dps classes. The same can be said for elemental shaman although their overall raid utility isn't as high. Meanwhile shadow priest damage has slowly but surely sunk into the gutter.
The only reason shadow priests were topping damage meters in Gruul and early Tier 5 was because of the huge blunder in itemization they made with tailoring sets and school specific damage. And, rather than having the foresight to realize shadow priests basically don't scale at all with more +hit, +crit, and +haste they brought out the nerf hammers to a (sub) class that only improved about +300-400 damage from crafted to full Tier 6.
If those notes are indeed true, and I always remain skeptical until they are posted officially by Blizzard, it is a horribly hamfisted attempt to reign in warlock damage.
I would argue that Shadowpriest raid utility is MUCH higher than any other support class just for the mana return. Notwithstanding the nerf seems a bit odd. If they wanted to nerf VT gains why not just nerf VT (and VE if that was an issue which I doubt it was).
I must stay that alot of these 'leaked' changes seem very likely to happen. I am no warlock expert so I won't touch that subject, but I really think things like mana burns/drains need a nerf since it hurts too much for many classes (paladins in particular). A cyclone nerf will also very likely happen, one way or another. The turn undead changes will grant us Paladins more of a chance against a 'lock
Druids are almost never used at MT's because they take considerably more damage due to crushings then warriors and as gear scales up warriors gain considerably more avoidance then druids. As ridiculous as a 1000-1500+ to every healing spell that lands on a druid MT might sound, it would have a similar effect to allowing druids to remove crushings somehow or giving them more then a single piece of tanking loot in all of t6 content.
At least it's an interesting way to take a stab at balancing tanking classes. It also gives a rather huge buff to feral in pvp.
Curious, why do you think that? I see this posted a lot and I think a lot of people are just ignorant of how much a crushing blow will do to a druid COMPARED to a warrior. In T6 gear, a crushing blow on a druid will be ~10% more than a regular hit on a warrior. If your healers can handle a string of regular hits on a warrior(which is much more likely to happen), then they can easily handle a string of crushing blows on a druid. Especially since the rest of the hits the druid takes will be much lower than the warrior.
I don't understand you comment about gear scaling and avoidance. Druids have the best conversion of stats to avoidance, being a bit better per point than defense. Now if you mean the lack of gear allows warriors to obtain better avoidance, that's different. But again, i don't think that applies either. Druids can start substituting in pvp gear and even rogue gear when they reach the armor cap. Once a druid is crit immune and at the armor cap, all they really need is agi and sta(from a pure defensive standpoint). It doesn't have to be a stereotypical tanking piece of gear for it to be a good tanking gear on a druid.
The turn undead changes will grant us Paladins more of a chance against a 'lock
Not really. I imagine that like every single other paladin ability it will be a holy school ability. The cast time limits its usefulness against felhunters if the intention is to use the spell to allow you to heal a target without worrying about being spell locked.
It will be nice in small bracket arenas if you need to fear a voidwalker off you to create a drinking opportunity, but considering paladins pretty much require a warrior or paladin to be competitive in 2v2, it's often times easier to kill the pet with jor/exorcism/hshock + s3 weapon or banish it. I'll put the new fear demon on my bars now, but it's not going to change very much for anybody.
People who justify a loss in raid DPS because some of their DPS turned from synergies to personal are just being selfish. I don't care if your own personal numbers don't go down, or somehow go up. Raid DPS is lower.
Before you start to drift, and your soul begins to scream.
I just wanted to tell you, that you're listening to a dream.
People who justify a loss in raid DPS because some of their DPS turned from synergies to personal are just being selfish. I don't care if your own personal numbers don't go down, or somehow go up. Raid DPS is lower.
That's nice. Do you think you could show me where I did that?
I think you need to read my posts more carefully. I've been discussing the impacts of the ISB change. In about five other posts I've pointed out that this will be a DPS loss for shadow priests and affliction locks. In that post, I was discussing what it would do for destro locks. I'm not saying "YAY MORE DPS FOR ME FUCK YOU GUYS" and I'd have thought that was pretty clear from what I've written.
Curious, why do you think that? I see this posted a lot and I think a lot of people are just ignorant of how much a crushing blow will do to a druid COMPARED to a warrior. In T6 gear, a crushing blow on a druid will be ~10% more than a regular hit on a warrior. If your healers can handle a string of regular hits on a warrior(which is much more likely to happen), then they can easily handle a string of crushing blows on a druid. Especially since the rest of the hits the druid takes will be much lower than the warrior.
I don't understand you comment about gear scaling and avoidance. Druids have the best conversion of stats to avoidance, being a bit better per point than defense. Now if you mean the lack of gear allows warriors to obtain better avoidance, that's different. But again, i don't think that applies either. Druids can start substituting in pvp gear and even rogue gear when they reach the armor cap. Once a druid is crit immune and at the armor cap, all they really need is agi and sta(from a pure defensive standpoint). It doesn't have to be a stereotypical tanking piece of gear for it to be a good tanking gear on a druid.
I agree. The "new" nurturing instinct is not really needed, and totally overpowered. If you think it's a real patch-note, or even "something that the dev feel the need to test on PTR", give me your e-mail, I known somebody in Kenya who wants to give you a million.
I agree. The "new" nurturing instinct is not really needed, and totally overpowered. If you think it's a real patch-note, or even "something that the dev feel the need to test on PTR", give me your e-mail, I known somebody in Kenya who wants to give you a million.
I agree, probably not needed in the overall picture. But within the microscope, the current version of Nurturing Instinct is terrible. I think a properly adjust number(I don't know, 5%/10%?) would be much more appropriate. I think the true benefit would come from people saying "Oh, maybe a bear really can tank T5/T6" after giving it a try due to the healing changes. Think of it akin to raid spots shadow priests got before and after TBC release.
I agree. The "new" nurturing instinct is not really needed, and totally overpowered. If you think it's a real patch-note, or even "something that the dev feel the need to test on PTR", give me your e-mail, I known somebody in Kenya who wants to give you a million.
Yea, 50% is a bit off the hook. 10% would be more inline with 2 talent points. The switch from 50% of strength to 100% of agi would be a welcome change for PVP, though (especially since they took +healing off feral sets).
Actually the only thing Paladins/Druid lack for tanking t6 content is Thunderclap/LS/SW/Reflect, other than that there's nothing that prevents them from being as good MTs as the warriors. And they even bring some nice benefits to the table.
02/07/08, 5:31 AM
Similar Threads
