Chul

From Changes to Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking:

Looks like TSA is going from a flat +AP to a 10% (or thereabouts) multiplier.

EDIT:

I believe that Paladin auras are raid wide, so does this also mean that FI will be too?

A few other notes from that post which affects us:

 

Disargeria

"In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
Hunter's Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
Improved Hunter's Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots. "

 

Gearknight

Well, there goes the entire concept of the spec.

So it's just dispell resistance. Yeah, that's worth talent points.

 

orinaccio

I noticed that too, Chul. Hopefully this means TSA will finally scale.

But it also looks like Hunter's Mark no longer ramps up, so does this mean HM takes the place of TSA and just be a "flat add" of a Ranged AP buff that doesnt scale?

And whats in the cards for the Imp. Hunter's Mark? Is it just a 30% dispel reduction now?

So many questions...

 

Chul

I assume it will go back to what it was originally and increase the RAP it gives by some % each rank.

 

Eurytos

I have no problem with this. Expose Weakness was overpowered and forced us to stack absurd amounts of Agility. Our damage was buffed so much, we needed a nerf somewhere. This was a big hit, but still... mechanic's wise it was a good change.

 

Anthalis

We're basically being changed from a physcal dps buffer to a mana battery...The way I see it, it took me months to prove the value of my spec and I think that many people still see survival as a gimic spec. Being a mana battery, people are actually going to want us around and we shouldn't need to have to justify the spec the way we have had to anymore. Plus, we'll be able to weight ap a little higher on our gear, so items like the necklace of the deep will have a more reasonable value and not be one of the top choices among survival hunters in tier 5/6 raiding.

Survival is changing a lot, and personally I really like the changes that are happening. We're going to be a very useful, and very desired spec in WLK. I for one can't wait for the launch.

 

Galred

These changes to raid buffs seem, at first glance, to discourage bringing 2 of anything. Turning off stacking Hunter's Mark is certainly disappointing, I liked the idea of getting more benefit out of bringing more hunters (who wouldn't, ha ha) and I was really hoping that more classes would get that kind of buff/debuff instead of taking buffs/debuffs away or breaking out the nerf bat.

I mean, I applaud the intent (make raiding less about which class someone picked 4 years ago, make it easier to build a raid group with proper buffs, raid with your buddies) but I just think Blizzard is going in the wrong direction now. If your 5 best DPS players happen to be warlocks or rogues or mages or whatever, I'd much prefer to have a system where the first one is great to have, the 2nd one is worth having, and 3 through 5 help each other slightly but a raid would potentially get more benefit out of bringing a different or 'missing' class.

 

Catalept

I get what they're trying to do. Fights that are easy mode, but only if you have 4 or more resto shammies, or 3 warlocks, etc are just plain bad. But surely that problem is a matter of encounter design, not class design.

It makes sense to set up class mechanics so that bringing more than, say, 2 of any given spec doesn't confer significant advantages (and expose weakness was a prime example of how to do that)... but trying to set it up so that there are no 'must have' specs, that seems dangerously close to making classes and specs generic, interchangable and somewhat flavorless

(BTW, I can only assume that HM no longer increments because we'll finally be getting AP boosts from Battle Shout, Unleashed Rage, etc)

 

Steelfleece

I think it more discourages bringing two of the same spec. At least in most cases.

As is I'm a bit hesitant about this, but if they do go through with the "have two specs and pick one on the fly" thing it could work out pretty well.

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Catalept

Good catch... dual-speccing is going to be required to make this whole homogenization push work. Have they said anything at all about the details?

Still... I get very attached to specs. I was a sad panda indeed when I had to ditch SV, and was looking forward to going back to it in WLK. Now it's looking like specs are just as interchangable as gear... good for raid-composition, but IMO something of a downer for personal enjoyment.

 

Galred

This is another big concern, for all classes. I WANT there to be a difference between DPS classes, not just in raw numbers but in what each brings to the table. Otherwise I feel that I might as well have a screen full of gray buttons labeled (2.5 sec cast), (AoE), (More DPS - 2 min cooldown), etc.

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

You have this exactly backward. The whole point of this is so that they don't have to introduce such a feature. If they put in dual-specs, then the old system would be fine because your buddies could just switch specs around to make optimal groups. Now it doesn't matter if they're not the perfect spec... someone else will cover the buff.

At least that's the idea. We'll see how well they pull it off.

 

Eurytos

Exactly. You can just bring 1 of each class and probably have 75% of the buffs by accident.

 

Steelfleece

In theory that could happen (and it probably would more often than not, especially in 25-mans), but it could also happen that everyone's specs overlap so you're missing some buffs and have redundancy.

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Catalept

Firstly, dual-speccing is a smart move regardless of in-raid changes, as spec-dependance imposed a barrier between PvE and PvP play. Even if raids are much less sensitive to spec and class makeups, your 3v3 arena team will still have very particular requirements.

Secondly, you have to remember that Blizzard is offering a complete progression path for 10-man raids as well. The versatility afforded by spec-toggling will be a godsend to 10-mans with limited sub-in options and/or patchy attendance. However, the fact that there's no compelling reason to bring more than one, Shadow Priest, for example, will mean that even for a 25-man, being able to switch to SV when your spriest's router gets hit by lightning will be very useful.

 

TrevvyTrev

What specifically gives rise to this concern, though? Nothing they've announced suggests that mages won't bring something entirely different than hunters do, even though both are dps. Rogues don't even overlap with fury warriors. They couldn't fit all classes and specs into raid sizes, so without overlap, some classes and specs would have to be underpowered so that you could afford to leave them out and still complete encounters. Who wants that?

If there are actual gaps in the design, now is the time to theorycraft it out and provide feedback. For example, right now, a retribution paladin brings a similar dps buff as a BM hunter (permanent, not proc-based) and serves as a mana battery, so some raids might consider pushing the hunter out in favor of the paladin. This is something we can point out if future builds don't provide compelling enough reasons for BM hunters to be wanted. But for all we know, BM dps will more than make up for the lack of raid buffs. It's possible that BM is the "TBA" spec that provides a physical damage debuff -- heck, maybe it's worth suggesting that now.

But it doesn't strike me as helpful to jump to the "all classes will be the same" mantra just yet. At least not without some actual arguments as to why *this* change could lead to that. I mean, if we don't have melee buffs in the form of expose weakness or improved hunter's mark, how exactly does that make us any less interactive? One was a proc buff and another was a passive increase -- neither would make us any less likely to have "2.5 sec cast", "AoE", etc. buttons. Obviously I don't want that either, but it just doesn't follow that every change is a step in that direction. At some point we have to connect the dots if we're going to continue with that line of argument.

 

Gonkish

WoW Forums -> Hunting Party and Replenishment questions

Just some random questions that popped into my head. It sounds like they're removing the rage/energy/runic power aspect of Hunting Party, which makes sense from a balance standpoint, even if it makes me sort of sad. (If it remained, Survival would still be the "best" battery.)

The Expose change makes me very sad, and I'm worried that it will make the spec redundant versus a Shadow Priest or Ret Pally. If it doesn't bring anything uniquely beneficial to a raid setting, why bring it? (Especially when there are "better" options? The min-max people will always shoot for the "best" option.) The only possible answer I can think of is higher DPS, but even then you can't justify making it higher DPS than BM, nor can you justify allowing a class that can POTENTIALLY have more utility than a Rogue approach their level of DPS on a single target, melee friendly fight like Brutallus (especially given the proposed spec-swapping).

I'm confused right now, and I think we need some more information on this whole change, the specifics for each class being posted on their respective beta forum. My concerns might very well be unwarranted, and the problem is really just the relative lack of information regarding the considerations that lead up to the change, and the consequences of the decision on all the classes, not just our own.

Why Hunters suffer...
Benefactor's Bar learns you some goodness quicklike...

 

Chul

They didn't mention Battle Shout being changed to cover ranged AP, but they put it in the same category as Blessing of Might, which does cover ranged AP.

They did mention Rampage will work with Ranged crit so hopefully they just forgot to mention the additional Battle Shout change.

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

That's all fine, but I think these changes are a pretty clear signal it ain't going to happen. This, along with the whole "Prot specs will do more damage now!" thing.

 

Berfert

Honestly, I see it the exact opposite way. I've always suffered by having to choose less optimal gear because it had more agility. Instead of 2X AP + X AGI, I had to take 1.7X AGI. In exchange for this, I was able to provide a nice buff to the entire raid and people were bothered when I couldn't attend (plus I have IHM, which is also getting nerfed).

Now I'd be generic mana battery #2, that doesn't stack with any of the other mana batteries, and I'll still need to take the same, less optimal gear to get the most of my talents.

I've prided myself on being the token SV hunter and providing benefit to the rest of the raid. Now I think I'll likely just spec BM or MM.

I feel like my "I'm so excited about the new things in the xpac" attitude has been completely deflated by these changes.

 

Galred

Trev:

WoW Forums -> Raid stacking in Wrath of the Lich King

Specifically, this portion:

Now unfortunately this part is ambiguous and didn't get clarified later in the thread. However, what I (and I think most readers QQ'n in that forum) take from this is that the DPS-only classes will all be doing approximately the same amount of DPS.

I don't like that.

I want there to be a hierarchy of DPS with a corresponding decision to be made about how to build a raid based on the mix of players and classes available. Mind you, the DPS-only classes come with differing amounts of raid utility, which is an important consideration, but a side consideration for me. If we're heading toward a time when, to take this to an extreme, any old 15 DPS works fine in a 25-man raid... that's bland to me. I view it as taking the easy way out from a design standpoint, and I find it just plain not as interesting.

A raid leader who can swap a hunter for a rogue for a mage for a warlock will certainly have an easier time getting the raid formed and killing stuff, but at the cost of individualized performance. I can certainly tell you that for me it's exciting to beat rogues/mages/locks on the DPS meter even though it's beating the encounter that matters, a good-natured competition on the meters is what makes an encounter like Brutallus lots of fun even when the encounter is on farm.

Homogenizing DPS devalues the decision of which class to play, because they all wind up doing the same amount of DPS in the end; you just push different buttons. I want to push different buttons and come up with a different end result than another class - whether that number is higher or lower.

EDIT: Punctuation.

 

TrevvyTrev

It doesn't have to be higher dps than BM (although it could be, for all we know BM will see utility changes so that all 3 specs can be comparable damage); it just has to be higher dps than shadow priest or ret pally, which is certainly justifiable in light of the fact that those classes can still do things like heal and cleanse and buff even if they don't want to. If the group wants a mana battery, they can't ask the BM hunter to do it, so the SV hunter gets the nod. Additionally, hunters can CC a lot better than ret pallies and shadow priests can. We're used to thinking that traps aren't useful raid CC, even where such is required, but that doesn't have to be the case.

The expose change can be a good thing. A self-only buff helps SV hunters close the dps gap with other physical dps -- before, you couldn't really count it as a dps plus for the SV hunter, because all the other physical dps would get the same benefit and it was a wash when comparing them. Now, it's a "perk" to SV dps, which helps keep it from lagging as far behind, if at all. Makes it easier to spec SV without feeling you're gimping personal dps by not going MM or BM.

 

Kaji-Boulderfist

Also, With EW being self only, you don't have to worry about stacking agility at the expense of personal DPS. You'll always be going for the items that give you the best personal DPS increase, whether it's AP, Crit rating or agility.

 

Catalept

... so why not just make EW give a flat 25% AGI back as AP?

I guess that's my objection to these changes. At first (and second) glance, it really makes things feel a little flat. For example, although Hunting Party and Vampiric Touch are implemented as 'damage to mana'/'crit to mana' effects, their homogenisation means that now, they function almost exactly the same as a raid wide mana-regen aura. When I gained agility as SV (or, for that matter, more spell damage on my shadow priest), I knew I was not only buffing myself, but the whole raid, just a little. A lot of these new effects have been smoothed out and lined up so despite the details of their implementation, they function as non-scaling, raid-wide auras...

These new low-sugar, caffeine free buffs might be more managable and well-behaved from a developer's point of view, but dammit... sometimes I like a little rampant OP raid stacking