2.4 Details, as they arrive - Page 5

Malan · 02/01/08, 4:38 PM

WoW Forums -> Mixing PVE and PVP
Blue pvp gear will come from the outland rep vendors. Hurray!

We want both PvE and PvP to work together and this is just one way we think will help do that for those looking to better combine the two.

• Sirloin · 02/01/08, 4:39 PM

Regarding haste for tree druids:

Although its a welcome change that Blizzard is changing haste to at least affect the instant spells trees cast, it will not actually provide any benefit when lifeblooms are rolling (most cases) because of the rotation required to keep them up.

If I want to maintain a lifebloom roll on one (or more) people, I need to refresh the bloom every 4th GCD. This cycle takes 6 sec (optimal) for a spell with a 7 sec duration. In practice, a 50ms-100ms delay between casts makes this more in the neighborhood of 6.4 sec. The only benefit I would see from spell haste is if I could speed up my casts sufficiently to get a 5-cycle. Even in a low lag situation, this would take approx 250+ haste rating, with little benefit until I reached this point. I realize other classes currently wrestle with how haste alters their spell rotations, but its even more touchy for druids than DPS classes: If a DPS class can't quite squeeze a faster cycle in, they spend time with cooldowns waiting and it lowers their DPS, on the other hand if a druid tries to squeeze in a 5-GCD-cycle and fails, he loses all his rolling blooms. So even in light of the changes, I doubt trees are going to want any spellhaste.

Nonethless, there are some benefits of the haste change:
1. Directly increases throughput in cases where blooms aren't rolling. If we are just "spamming hots all over the raid" then the faster GCD does help.
2. Even with blooms rolling, reducing the GCD and regrowth casts makes it easier to squeeze some Regrowths into a 4GCD cycle (since I usually drop 2 GCDs to cast a regrowth, even though it should optimally be possible to keep it in a 7 sec cycle without haste).

So I think its nice that they are trying to make this useful for druids, but I won't be happy if sunwell gear is filled haste on healing gear, since the 4pc T6 "GO DREAMSTATE DUDE" bonus was pretty annoying.

Lithose · 02/01/08, 4:40 PM

I wonder if this will make a few of those haste healing items worthwhile?

Most of our fights now, except gurtog, don't push mana issues (We bring 3-4 druids and 2 resto shammies and 2 SP's). But there are really a ton of fights where getting hots/Dispels out faster would mean more efficient tank healing.

Lowering the dispell/HoT GCD to 1.3x with 10% haste might not be too bad for some classes..I doubt at the end of the day if the pieces will be feasible for every class..But I can see it being very desirable for some. Its too bad the stat seems to have an insane item budget cost for healers.

Questioner · 02/01/08, 4:41 PM

Originally Posted by Illundai

I can't believe they are willing to reitemise paladin ret gear, but no word about Enhancement gear + mp5. /whine

I don't think, judging by most of the interpretations, that they are re-itemizing the just-as-terrible-as-shaman T6 ret paladin gear.

It sounded more like they are fixing the S1/S2 gear for ret paladins, which is itemized much differently than S3.

Melador · 02/01/08, 4:49 PM

If I want to maintain a lifebloom roll on one (or more) people, I need to refresh the bloom every 4th GCD. This cycle takes 6 sec (optimal) for a spell with a 7 sec duration. In practice, a 50ms-100ms delay between casts makes this more in the neighborhood of 6.4 sec. The only benefit I would see from spell haste is if I could speed up my casts sufficiently to get a 5-cycle. Even in a low lag situation, this would take approx 250+ haste rating, with little benefit until I reached this point. I realize other classes currently wrestle with how haste alters their spell rotations, but its even more touchy for druids than DPS classes: If a DPS class can't quite squeeze a faster cycle in, they spend time with cooldowns waiting and it lowers their DPS, on the other hand if a druid tries to squeeze in a 5-GCD-cycle and fails, he loses all his rolling blooms. So even in light of the changes, I doubt trees are going to want any spellhaste.

I'm going to have to disagree. As it stands now, I can almost pack in 4 rolling lifeblooms, and if I really concentrate and spam my buttons I can typically keep it rolling for at least a little while if I'm not otherwise uninterrupted. If I can put on some haste gear, enough to knock 0.1 seconds off the GCD, I'm pretty sure I can keep 4 rolling consitently. Or, I can keep 3 rolling but not have it totally consume my attention -- I'll be able to pay more attention to movement, or keeping everyone in range, or what have you. I'm definitely going to be collecting a haste gear set.

Also, if you're too slow and one of your rolling lifeblooms drops, you don't lose them all -- I just skip the next in line for a lifebloom refresh (which probably would have bloomed even if I tried for it) and keep the next one going. No matter how many you have rolling, if you realize you're falling behind, you should only ever lose the roll on one of them.

Fenwick · 02/01/08, 4:55 PM

Originally Posted by Gorb

The healing grace change is complete garbage and fixes nothing. I haven't used that talent in PvE since well, ever, because there's never been a situation where threat has mattered to me. Furthermore, dispel resistance matters for one spell only, Earth Shield. Two dispels instead of one to remove a 900 mana cast doesn't fix the issue, and now I'm required to waste 3 points that I don't want to use to get that. I just can't see taking this talent still which means that nothing has changed at all.

Hopefully there's more information to come regarding resto pvp because if this is it I'm disappointed.

Remember when they decided they wouldn't implement the cooldown change to Earth Shield until they figured out how to deal with dispelling issues? Makes me wonder if this might be their solution, sad as it would be.

Lithose · 02/01/08, 4:56 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

I have to say I hope they keep an eye on haste and instant cast spells, it might need a seperate formula due to the nature of how it works, or revising it into a flat -sec instead of -% cast time.

Meh, the way the formula works now, you would need around 50% haste to reach the 1.0..

I think its (Cast time (GCD)/1.+%). To even get your GCD down to the point that heroism brings it to 1.0 will take a really significant amount of gear (15%? haste or so).

andastra · 02/01/08, 5:00 PM

Originally Posted by Sirloin

If I want to maintain a lifebloom roll on one (or more) people, I need to refresh the bloom every 4th GCD. This cycle takes 6 sec (optimal) for a spell with a 7 sec duration. In practice, a 50ms-100ms delay between casts makes this more in the neighborhood of 6.4 sec. The only benefit I would see from spell haste is if I could speed up my casts sufficiently to get a 5-cycle. Even in a low lag situation, this would take approx 250+ haste rating, with little benefit until I reached this point. I realize other classes currently wrestle with how haste alters their spell rotations, but its even more touchy for druids than DPS classes: If a DPS class can't quite squeeze a faster cycle in, they spend time with cooldowns waiting and it lowers their DPS, on the other hand if a druid tries to squeeze in a 5-GCD-cycle and fails, he loses all his rolling blooms. So even in light of the changes, I doubt trees are going to want any spellhaste.

This is the same issue arcane mages have with spell haste right now. If you're using an AB rotation, spell haste can mess that up. Not to mention that AB is a mana hog. I saw a wws of an arcane mage spamming AB on gorefiend. On a 4 minute fight, he needed a shadow priest, an innervate, an evocation, 2 mana gems and 2 super mana pots and still had to switch to arcane missiles for the last 10-15 seconds of the fight. That's for 1800 dps, a number easily reached by fire mages and other classes. It will make arcane explosion a tad better but it still falls far short of the range, radius and mana efficiency of seed of corruption.

Fire and frost should be almost unchanged. With roughly 100 spell haste rating, I can solo stack scorch 0.5 second faster and refresh it faster by 0.1 second every 30 seconds. As frost, I can summon a water elemental 0.1 second faster every 3 minutes. As another poster said, it clearly moves it from great to really, really incredible.

edit: Oh, I know where this will be awesome. Spellstealing that haste buff in ZA and letting loose with fireball/frostbolt.

Blackpatch · 02/01/08, 5:03 PM

Originally Posted by Melador

I'm going to have to disagree. As it stands now, I can almost pack in 4 rolling lifeblooms, and if I really concentrate and spam my buttons I can typically keep it rolling for at least a little while if I'm not otherwise uninterrupted. If I can put on some haste gear, enough to knock 0.1 seconds off the GCD, I'm pretty sure I can keep 4 rolling consitently. Or, I can keep 3 rolling but not have it totally consume my attention -- I'll be able to pay more attention to movement, or keeping everyone in range, or what have you. I'm definitely going to be collecting a haste gear set.

Agreed wholeheartedly here. I'm not excited for the haste buff for 5 ultra-fragile LBs, I'm excited because if I get enough haste I can put a good cushion on 4. I'm excited because there will be fewer cases where I barely miss refreshing the Lifebloom. And I'm pissed they hadn't announced this when Brooch of Nature's Mercy dropped last night!

◊ Hanos · 02/01/08, 5:09 PM

Originally Posted by andastra

This is the same issue arcane mages have with spell haste right now. If you're using an AB rotation, spell haste can mess that up. Not to mention that AB is a mana hog. I saw a wws of an arcane mage spamming AB on gorefiend. On a 4 minute fight, he needed a shadow priest, an innervate, an evocation, 2 mana gems and 2 super mana pots and still had to switch to arcane missiles for the last 10-15 seconds of the fight. That's for 1800 dps, a number easily reached by fire mages and other classes. It will make arcane explosion a tad better but it still falls far short of the range, radius and mana efficiency of seed of corruption.

Fire and frost should be almost unchanged. With roughly 100 spell haste rating, I can solo stack scorch 0.5 second faster and refresh it faster by 0.1 second every 30 seconds. As frost, I can summon a water elemental 0.1 second faster every 3 minutes. As another poster said, it clearly moves it from great to really, really incredible.

Arcane mages have a bigger issue then how spell haste effects AB, like how to feed themselves and how to walk and chew gum at the same time, because only someone with a severe mental handicap would be trying to raid T6 Arcane Spec (where you actually see spell haste gear). Arcane has sucked for a long enough time now that even non-theorycrafters should have gone back to Fire or Frost.

Hop · 02/01/08, 5:13 PM

I have a question regarding changing drops from Kazzak and Doomwalker into BoEs. Will their ilevel drop? I'm unsure about how BoP and BoE affect iLevel. Wowwiki doesn't say anything about it, so I assume that the items won't change, even if my gut feeling was that BoP allowed for increased iLevel.

royaljester · 02/01/08, 5:15 PM

Originally Posted by Hop

I have a question regarding changing drops from Kazzak and Doomwalker into BoEs. Will their ilevel drop? I'm unsure about how BoP and BoE affect iLevel. Wowwiki doesn't say anything about it, so I assume that the items won't change, even if my gut feeling was that BoP allowed for increased iLevel.

I wonder how this will affect some ah pricing. Afaik, the caster wep from one of them is almost as good as mindblade (which, to a good population, is still not completely on farm). I would expect to see some of them go for thousands of G onthe AH.

• the KRIS · 02/01/08, 5:18 PM

I can tell you that tier 0 pieces didn't change when several pieces shuffled between BoP and BoE.

I'd be shocked if the binding type had any effect on stat distribution.

Hop · 02/01/08, 5:21 PM

Originally Posted by the KRIS

I can tell you that tier 0 pieces didn't change when several pieces shuffled between BoP and BoE.

I'd be shocked if the binding type had any effect on stat distribution.

Sounds good, I suppose I always assumed that BoE affected iLevel because of why Stormrage bracers were really that bad.

Tutanka · 02/01/08, 5:21 PM

Originally Posted by Fenwick

Remember when they decided they wouldn't implement the cooldown change to Earth Shield until they figured out how to deal with dispelling issues? Makes me wonder if this might be their solution, sad as it would be.

And further, why did we have to wait? Their "solution" could have been thought up by a little kid yet they delay the ES changes for 4-5 months?

Chirality · 02/01/08, 5:22 PM

Originally Posted by Copernicus

-pvp : stealth detection now increases damage taken by 5% instead of a DOT, duration reduced to 15 seconds (from 21 sec)

This is a terrible change for small-scale arena. Without being able to break the overpowered scattershot/freezing trap, warrior/druid will just get even more completely destroyed by heavy-cc 2v2 teams (Druid/Hunter). I wonder if nerfing warrior/druid is the intended consequence? Yes yes, Warrior/Druid is scrub express or whatever....But the fact remains that warrior/paladin or warrior/priest (defensive dispels) are simply bad make-ups given Paladin's weakness in small-scale and priest's inability to escape anything...

./sigh

Edit: I'm being too reactionary about this, I think. Nonetheless, I rather liked the situationally large strategic value of Shadowsight. The other effect this has is a buff to Rogues/Druids in 5v5...where teams just kind of stand around hiding from eachother, and hoping to get the shadowsight to find the stealth opponents. 5% more damage taken is a far larger problem than a trivial dot, and encourages people to not take Shadowsight for fear of getting bursted.

Alacrity · 02/01/08, 5:25 PM

Originally Posted by Chirality

This is a terrible change for small-scale arena. Without being able to break the overpowered scattershot/freezing trap, warrior/druid will just get even more completely destroyed by heavy-cc 2v2 teams (Druid/Hunter). I wonder if nerfing warrior/druid is the intended consequence? Yes yes, Warrior/Druid is scrub express or whatever....But the fact remains that warrior/paladin or warrior/priest (defensive dispels) are simply bad make-ups given Paladin's weakness in small-scale and priest's inability to escape anything...

./sigh

Im sure blizzard didn't intend for the stealth de-buff to be warrior and druids "get out of cc free card"
Warrior/druid makes up 50% of the 2v2 bracket's top teams, god forbid that number drops to 45% because of this change.

Vernichter · 02/01/08, 5:27 PM

In regards to the spell haste changes, I wonder if this move will also fix Moonkin issues with Nature's Grace and Wrath. That, in turn, might be a significant boost to Moonkin damage, depending on how Wrath pans out relative to Starfire. Obviously mana efficiency would be a huge problem and, more importantly, I'm almost certain that Curse of Shadows will keep Starfire as the clear winner, but it would still represent a long-overdue fix for that talent.

• Sirloin · 02/01/08, 5:27 PM

Originally Posted by Melador

I'm going to have to disagree. As it stands now, I can almost pack in 4 rolling lifeblooms, and if I really concentrate and spam my buttons I can typically keep it rolling for at least a little while if I'm not otherwise uninterrupted. If I can put on some haste gear, enough to knock 0.1 seconds off the GCD, I'm pretty sure I can keep 4 rolling consitently. Or, I can keep 3 rolling but not have it totally consume my attention -- I'll be able to pay more attention to movement, or keeping everyone in range, or what have you. I'm definitely going to be collecting a haste gear set.

How many lifeblooms you can pack in depends a lot on your computer and the mods you use. On a fast computer using Clique+Grid I feel that I can roll 4 very comfortably without going click crazy. However, I had computer problems a few months ago and had to temporarily use a an old stinker that ran about 5-8 fps in raids and rolling 4 was absolutely impossible, so I had to drop to 3. Everyone's mileage will vary, and for people "on the bubble" between 3/4 the haste change will be a nice benefit. But for me personally, I know that a 5 rotation will take a lot of haste, and as mentioned by another poster, will be "fragile" if/when I get there.

Also, about losing rolls, I find that when I miss a GCD I tend to lose two blooms. If you know are you behind and can skip the one you will miss, you only lose that one, but often times I don't notice I've lost a stack until after I cast to refresh it, meaning the next bloom is impossible to keep up also. I guess this is a good argument for staggering blooms when you are only rolling two (for Bloom, X, Bloom, X instead of Bloom,Bloom,X,X), but this is already kind of a derail, so I'll wrap it up.

Tigole · 02/01/08, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Solomir

One thing I thought about with the ability to summon into instances.
Shortly after BC was released, summoning throughout ALL of Netherstorm was disabled except via the meeting stone in front of Tempest Keep. This was to prevent cheesing of running sub-70s through the TK instances, which would normally require a level 70 and a flying mount.
With the reactivation of summoning inside instances, will they disable summoning to Tempest Keep 5-mans or will they just lift the summoning restriction over Netherstorm?

We're going to lift the summoning restriction in Netherstorm.

• Tecton · 02/01/08, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Hop

Sounds good, I suppose I always assumed that BoE affected iLevel because of why Stormrage bracers were really that bad.

Cenarion, I think you mean, but I share your pain in how crap they were.

Chirality · 02/01/08, 5:29 PM

Originally Posted by Alacrity

Im sure blizzard didn't intend for the stealth de-buff to be warrior and druids "get out of cc free card"
Warrior/druid makes up 50% of the 2v2 bracket's top teams, god forbid that number drops to 45% because of this change.

Perhaps if paladins and priests made viable partners, warrior/druid wouldn't be so common and shadowsight wouldn't be a concern.

And I actually always ASSUMED that they put in shadowsight to make late-game arenas less cc-dependent. Apparently not.

◊ Bekah · 02/01/08, 5:33 PM

To add to the thread in progress: I am very encouraged by the PvP gear changes and reevaluating haste for healing gear could be interesting- I don't think it'll make a significant difference in a priests bag of tricks though.

Edit: For priest healing. It's a nice little buff for shadow that I'm happy to see!

Talgog · 02/01/08, 5:34 PM

There is no need to drop the quality of Doomwalker or Kazzak loot. It's iLevel 120 which is slightly below the S1 gear, and will be of extermely limited supply and of arbitrary price. It also is very much PvE loot for the most part. The ring and shoulders off Kazzak are wicked damage, but if you want to give up almost 1000 HP versus a Vindicator's Ring and Arena shoulders, you're not going to be ripping anyone apart in PvP.

The amount of gold involved in selling high end epic BoE's will make attempts pretty interesting on PvP servers, but there's no way this is going to destabilize the game world or the gear balance.

-

Purchasable blue honor gear was very sorely needed. It will be interesting to see what the exact rep requirements are, but it is a way to make alts and new 70's at least have a chance in battlegrounds.

The HK change may eliminate a lot of the pain of the honor grind, but some reduction in S1 prices (or reduced prices for trading in blue gear) would still be quite welcome.

Deris · 02/01/08, 5:35 PM

Now to address the real problem : How overpowered Chain Heal with max haste gear will be!