Patch 4.0.1 PTR - Build 13033

At the start of this, Blizz said they wanted hunters to be more interesting, and to have to work at their shot rotations to optimise output with a small focus pool rather than the old mana system, with talents there to add flavour and customisation. So far as I can tell, Huntering now seems to consist of pointing your pet at the mob, hitting attack and watching the auto shots fire. Maybe with an occasional frost/ice trap to CC. Talents are now even more boilerplate+faceroll selection.

I may be way off the mark with this, as I only have a PTR toon not beta, but I watch an unhealthy amount of beta videos, and this is how it feels to me. Before the makeover, huntering felt fine as it was. Okay, BM needed a boost, but it was still a very usable levelling spec, with SV and (especially) MM somewhere around 3rd best raid DPS, with good utility in terms of tranq, misdirect and so on. As of this week, Blizz seem to be hitting the development endgame, with bugfixes, and spec tweaks here and there for most specs. Right now, huntering feels very broken indeed. Not just at the lets-tweak-shot-damage level, but at a meta level above that.

Still, beta is beta, and it is all about working out what works and what doesn't. They can sandpaper and polish the system all they like, but I hope Blizz are brave enough to see when something is fundamentally not working and needs a total rethink.

Originally Posted by h4rr0d

What's with the new build? It's not deployed on EU realms

Apparently from the looks of it the patch has been implemented on the servers but the patch hasn't been implemented on the clients. That's why people are reporting weird behavior etc and why the servers appear as red in the server list. Somehow the client hasn't been given the trigger to patch.

Originally Posted by tyrindor

Am I missing something?

All casters i've seen are doing 14-18k on target dummies. The best i've seen a hunter do is around 11k (and it was me), other hunters i've tested with aren't even breaking 8k. Given my rotation isn't 100% solid on the PTR, these changes seem to be the opposite of what I expected.

Casters damage increased, hunter damage decrease. When casters were already doing more than hunters on the PTR. /confused

Just... no. How long do you look at those casters? Only the burst duration?

going to love hunters

Originally Posted by Vasz

"Windfury Totem now increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all party and raid members within 40 yards by 10%. (Down from 20%)"
"Improved Icy Talons now increases the melee and ranged attack speed of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 10%. (Down from 20%)"

OH MY GOD!!!

So basically this means Blizzard HAS to do something to buff rogues. They mentioned this exact situation where they were going to nerf WF and then do something with warriors/rogues.

Never mind on the Ravagespam idea. GC says: "You have 10 sec to use Ravage once, not as many Ravages as you can manage in 10 sec."

patch still not applied ?

lol druids its ok it all apart of blizz scheme to make mages so unbelievable OP everybody rolls 1...

I think its funny people are still complaining about Warrs,,,,, just be better and you wont die

Originally Posted by kcquipor

patch still not applied ?

Doesn't look like it. I logged in and it didn't make me patch, opened background downloader and it said there was no patch available.

My main is a human rogue, this is my face after today's post -> ಠ_ಠ

I was gonna try for realm first master Archealogist.

But then...

* Dwarves - Explorer *New* - Archaeology skill increased by 15 and you survey faster than normal archaeologists. (Yes, that's from the previous build, forgot to news it)

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

Originally Posted by Vook

Doesn't look like it. I logged in and it didn't make me patch, opened background downloader and it said there was no patch available.

that's odd because i just tried it a few minutes ago and it gave me patch

Originally Posted by drsjohnny

i like the warrior change that gives me a 100 chance of threat now

it's not a 100% chance of getting threat, it increases your threat generated by attacks by 100%. I heard warrior threat was a big issue in the beta so this is probably a needed change.

p.s. LETS SEE SOME NEW NIGHT ELF RACIALS! We've got sick ones for tanking, but I'm a rogue! I guess our increased agility already gives us more dps than other rogues though.

---------- Post added 2010-09-24 at 07:12 PM ----------

Originally Posted by tyrindor

Am I missing something?

All casters i've seen are doing 14-18k on target dummies. The best i've seen a hunter do is around 11k (and it was me), other hunters i've tested with aren't even breaking 8k. Given my rotation isn't 100% solid on the PTR, these changes seem to be the opposite of what I expected.

Casters damage increased, hunter damage decrease. When casters were already doing more than hunters on the PTR. /confused

don't be silly target dummies are rarely reflective of what damage will look like in raids. When rogues were doing retartedly high dps, before HfB got nerfed from 18% damage increase to 8% damage increase. Remember, when ICC was first released? They were probably one of the lowest dps classes when it came to dummy damage. It's just how shit goes, some classes get a lot more benefit from buffs than others, wait til you're in a raid to complain.

---------- Post added 2010-09-24 at 07:13 PM ----------

Originally Posted by kylex3

does blizzard love to tease rogues?
every patch goes a little like this:
empty promise to do less white damage and more yellow damage;
new skill: poisons (what? we already have poisons.);
graphic changes or small changes;
nothing, sorry

o_O

LOL

bro, how can you improve on that which is already amazing? rogues rule!

---------- Post added 2010-09-24 at 07:16 PM ----------

Plus despite not having changes this patch, I'm just happy our rotation might actually take a slight bit of skill in cataclysm. No more mut mut envenom, mut mut envenom, making bad rogues look only slightly worse than good ones that know how to watch their envenom buff.

wtb patch update.....

Originally Posted by LurkerOnly

Bottom line, polymorphing any other class doesn't leave them after the polymorph completely unable to do any moves without using a GCD on a form change. It's essentially as if Polymorph removed paladin blessings or seals.

It's as if a mage polymorphing you, in addition to everything else it does, took away 20% of your base mana, and prevented you from doing anything except moving for one GCD after you popped out of it. You'd consider that an immense, OP buff to polymorph, right?

That's what it is against druids, now.

Im sure its worse... MUCH worse for paladins than for you my friend, even if polly worked on forms (which it looks like isn't the case) it would still be less of a headache for you than for any paladin out there, prot ret or holy.

I really like how they're giving Prot a choice between Word of Glory, Inquisition, and Shield of the Righteous. Based on the situation, you'd probably only use SotR or Inquisition for your Holy Power dump since the Word of Glory talents basically made it useless for anything but dungeons (And I wouldn't expect a serious tank to be in dungeons 100% of his tanking career.). Now it gives us the ability to choose between healing and a light absorb shield, an ability that does a nice amount of damage, or a raw temporary boost to all damage you do and still get a core talent to proc on any.

Also, can anyone tell me if Protector of the Innocent procs of Word of Glory heals? I know it's currently the same value, but when they fix it, it might be decent to take as Prot to add another 3k+ self healing onto your Word of Glory, even if the extra healing doesn't carry over to the shield. Healer mana looks, comparatively, like hell currently from what I've seen so helping out might be nice.

Just want to point out that they still have not begun to balance DPS damage across different specs or classes. These changes, like most in the previous patches are merely there in order to get people to use the 'appropriate' rotation.

For instance, if a spec has a spell that is way out of whack (either high or low) than the player on the PTR will change their rotation based on the damage of that ability. What this means is the desired 'rotation' is no longer being tested.

Rogues have not seen any changes because most of their rotations are working fine. Yes, damage is low, but we are pushing the buttons we are supposed to be pushing. Other classes (hunters for example) still don't have their rotations working the way the devs want them. The drastic changes in ability damage is not to 'buff BM hunters'.. it is to buff an ability so that BM hunters actually use it in their rotations on the PTR the way the devs want.

DO NOT compare your overall DPS to that of other classes. Do NOT compare your DPS to that of other specs. Instead, work on your rotation on the PTR and make sure the abilities 'make sense' for the amount of damage they do. That is all the devs are working on right now.

Im really baffled what BLizzard is doing with Holy palas atm. We have been told that there is less need for using every GCD to heal cause ppl will have more HP pools.... Still - all that holy talent tree is offering atm is increasing haste on spells and removing GCD of some spells if some buffs are up... IF not .. they dont...

I dont see the point of removing GCDs on stuff if you have time to heal ppl up.. To me its a total waste and will lead to the spec getting OOM extra fast.

I very much know WHY they are doing this ... Because yet again the Group healing abiltes in 5 man dungeons are NOT good enough with the two new AOE spells... THey both have long cd and require certain VERY specific situations to work properly...

I think more and more holy palas are getting worried about Cataclysm. Im personally going to reroll a priest Gnome cause I really dont see the point of playing Holy palas any more. So limited tools to work with ..... Either your uber ... or you are CRAP... Just ONE single fight where a healing class is crap means Blizzard has FAILED to deliver on the new healing system. There are many reports showing HUGE issues in 5 man healing instances atm as holy. SO bad that at least two of my good friends that are holy palas are not gonna bother even going there again as holy.

Something has to be done in next few builds to correct the huge situatinal only uses of Holy pala group spells... If not then why even use them on the long cd at all if they can only be used in every other encounter in the game for them to work effectively... Thats the case atm.

Patch is downloading now!

Originally Posted by mihaitha

Yes it does. Ebon Plague can be spread to all targets in Pestilence range, so it's an AoE 8% increased magic taken debuff. No other class has that (at least none can sustain it without huge DPS lost and mana cost).

Ever heard of Jinx?

Incite - These guaranteed criticals cannot re-trigger the Incite effect. (Tooltip clarification)

wasn't that...umh...obvious?